CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS
Dorothy, who is six, has a playmate younger than herself whose parents are Christian Scientists. One day she said:
"Mother, do you know that it is better to be a Christian Scientist than anything else?"
Mother asked "Why?" and Dorothy said:
"Well, Julia has "splained it to me. If you get cross with another little girl, and you knock her down, if you are a Christian Scientist you won"t have to apologize to her, because it won"t hurt her any."
_A Mental Error_
The tram-car was hopelessly overcrowded, and several people, who had achieved the upper deck, were transgressing all regulations by standing.
"Now, then," called out the girl conductor, with emphasis, "you can"t stand on top."
"Well," said one literalist, smiling blandly as he peered down the steps, "we are standing, whether we can or not."
The girl answered nothing, but promptly pressed a b.u.t.ton. The car jumped forward, and the literalist involuntarily took a seat on the floor.
"There," said the girl apparently in complete good humor, quoting the barrister in a famous play, "you think you can, but you can"t."
A Christian Scientist while walking about the plant met a man doubled up with pain.
"My man," he said, "What is the matter?"
"I was out to a banquet last night," moaned the man, "And oh, how I ache!"
"You don"t ache," answered the apostle of Mrs. Eddy. "Your pain is imagination. It is all in your mind."
The man looked up in grave astonishment at such a statement and then replied in a most positive manner:
"That"s all right; you may think so, but I"ve got inside information."
CHRISTMAS GIFTS
"Isn"t this too absurd?" said the hostess, as she read a letter the maid had handed to her. "I sent Marie Burns the loveliest of bags for Christmas. It had been given to me, I knew, and I had so many I saved it to give away. I suppose we all do those things."
The guest nodded.
"Well, here"s her letter of thanks, and listen to what she says:
""Dear Grace: When I gave you that bag three years ago on Christmas I was so fond of it I could hardly bear to part with it. So I thank you most heartily for remembering me this Christmas with my own gift, which I parted with so unselfishly. Cordially yours, Marie Burns.""
BILL--"I hear that Jones always saves the Christmas presents people give him and gives them back the following year."
PHIL--"I hope he does that to me. I gave him a quart of brandy in 1918."
Instead of the usual just-before-Christmas letter to Santa Claus, Robbie wrote a prayer letter to G.o.d. After enumerating the many and varied presents he wanted very much, he concluded with: "Remember, G.o.d, the Lord loveth a cheerful giver."
CHURCH
SCOTT--"What is your notion of an ideal church?"
JACKSON--"One that meddles with neither politics nor religion."
He had been around from church to church trying to find a congenial congregation, and finally he stopped in a little church just as the congregation read with the minister:
"We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done."
The man dropped into a pew with a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness," he said, "I"ve found my crowd at last."
HIX--"I understand your Church has sent the minister to Michigan for a month."
DIX--"Yes, that"s right."
HIX--"For a vacation, I suppose?"
DIX--"Yes; the congregation decided that we were ent.i.tled to one."
CHURCH ATTENDANCE
"What"s the idea of free pews?"
"Well, it gives everyone a chance to stay away from church at a minimum expense."
_Why They Went to Church_