One of the characters in Lanterns on the Levee, a popular novel that was once on the best-seller lists, asks a minister why so many good church members are rascals six days a week. The minister's reply is that it is because they have been born again! They are sure of salvation, so they can do anything they want to do. Such doctrine, needless to say, is far from the Biblical truth. Paul answered that same charge, for it was being made as long ago as his time. "What then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid!" (Rom. 6:1), and he answers, "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?"
A magazine article, in discussing the techniques of making moving pictures, pointed out that sorrow, misfortune, or difficulty must be shown in black and white, never in color. If coolies laboring in China are shown in color, the background is so beautiful that the viewer gets the idea that their life is one of romance and prosperity. Only when the scene is shot in black and white are the squalor and misery seen for what they really are.
Martin Luther was a zestful man, and at the table often spoke words that he would have revised carefully before putting into writing. Friends and acquaintances recorded many of these utterances, some of which have been greatly misunderstood. One day he flung out a sentence which may seem absurd on the surface but which will stand close examination. "The curse of a godless man," he said, "can sound more pleasant in God's ears than the hallelujah of the pious." On the surface the remark seems blasphemous; illustrate it and it becomes plausible, possible, and even certain.
A young man came to George Goodman of England one day and said, "Mr. Goodman, I wish you would pray for me that I might have patience." Mr. Goodman answered, "Yes, I will pray for you that you have tribulation." "Oh, no, sir," the young man replied, "it is patience that I want." "I understand," said the Bible teacher, "and I will pray for you that you may have tribulation.”
A literary review in the London Times Literary Supplement complained that American writers of detective stories do not keep to the proper rules of the game. "In the traditional English story the author - unless without a sense of craftsmanship - does not have the murder done by a clergyman; he does not extract skeletons from the cupboards of those who are to live happily ever after; within the limits of the genre his characters observe the conventions of their social position to the point that where they disregard them they are marked down as suspects. But in the American story, spotting the culprit is more difficult because anybody may have done anything."
