curst—no, not one inch! It is a bishop's duty to bless, and the moment you begin to curse you cease to be fit for your high position." (Text.)
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CURVES OF TEMPTATION
An efficient baseball player tries to get at
the secret of the pitcher's curves; and the
player in the game of life will look well to
the curves of the world. This is a good
world, and the men and women in it are of
royal lineage—we are of God; but the
glorious gift of liberty makes possible
temptation and sin.
Because you ought to do right it is possible that you may yield to temptation, and failing to overcome a world curve be compelled to give up your place at the home-*plate.—T. E. Potterton.
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CUSTOM
Whether in architecture, or in education,
or in dress, or in other affairs of life, custom
rules in Korea. Custom explains everything.
"What about this absurdity?" "Oh, it's custom." "Yes, but see here, why are the dead propt up on sticks and not buried?" "Oh, it's custom." "Do you sometimes marry off children as early as nine years of age?" "Yes, that's custom."
The reader must learn this word if he would understand old Korea, and if he would read into much of the life of the East still The forefather may have been an imbecile, or may have walked in his sleep, but what he did has come down, down to the present, and custom maintains that it is the sane and right thing to do.
"Why do you feed all these idle tramps, who come calling at your door, and you a poor man?" I once asked of my host.
He replied, "It's custom, and for my life I can't get out of it." "What about these dolmens set up all through these valleys here like tables of the gods; what do they mean?" "They were set up by the Chinese invader, thousands of years ago, to crush out the ground influence that brought forth Korean warriors."
"You mean that they have stifled out the life of the nation for all these centuries?" "Yes." "Then why don't you roll them off and get back your lost vigor?" "Oh, that's no use now, never do." "As it was, is now, and ever shall be," is the only reply.—James S. Gale, "Korea in Transition."
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Custom, Disregarded—See Pilot, Need of.
CUSTOM, FORCE OF
Dr. Harlan P. Beach says:
In China there are customs which are
more important than etiquette. I met a man
who had been shaking from head to feet
"You have had chills and fever, haven't
you?" I said sympathizingly. He came very
near taking my head off, because there is a
special god who runs chills and fever, and
if he hears a man has chills and fever and
is getting over it, he will give him another
shake. I had gone against their deadly custom.
Another incident of the same sort
happened one day when a doctor of divinity
saw a cheap sedan chair and bought it. A
millionaire globe-trotter used it that day for
sight-seeing, and when he reached the missionary
compound, he exclaimed, "I have
been outrageously treated by the heathen.
The whole city was out laughing at me. As
soon as I appeared, every man rushed out of
his shop, and the streets were in an uproar."
The doctor of divinity asked his native
teacher for an explanation. Now, a teacher
is never supposed to smile from one day's
end to another, but that dignified teacher,
glass, goggles, and all, doubled up with
laughter when he saw the chair. "You
really must excuse me," he said, "but that
kind of a chair is used only in funeral processions
for the spirit of the dead to ride
in." It was as tho a man should ride through
our city sitting up in a hearse.
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Custom Upheld—See Experience a Hard Teacher.
Customs, Oriental—See Gestures and
Use of the Hands in the East.
Customs, Value of—See Experience a
Hard Teacher.
Cycles in Nature—See Invisible, The,
Made Visible.
CYNIC REBUKED
The late A. T. Gordon, D.D., told this incident:
A certain infidel, a blacksmith, was in the
habit when any one came into his shop of
telling what some Christian brother or
deacon or minister had done, and say, "That
