A schoolboy one day picked up a piece of poetry at school and carried it
home and gave it to his grandmother to read. When she had read it she
said:
"Kit, you ought never repeat that, because that is just the same as
telling people to go to the bad place." The poetry was as follows:
"When I asked my girl to marry me, she said,
'Go to father.'
She knew that I knew her father was dead;
She knew that I knew what a life he had led;
She knew that I knew what she meant when she said,
'Go to father.'"
* * * * *
The chaplain of a large private asylum asked a brother clergyman to
preach to the inmates on a Sunday during his absence. Before going away,
he said: "Preach your best, for, though insane on some points, they are
very intelligent." So he talked to them of India, and of heathen mothers
who threw their dear little babies into the sacred river Ganges as
offerings to their false gods. Tears streamed down the face of one
listener, evidently deeply affected. When asked by the preacher
afterward what part of the sermon had touched his heart with grief, the
lunatic replied: "I was thinking it was a pity your mother didn't throw
you into the Ganges."