TEXTS

In the Tennessee mountains a mountaineer preacher, who had declared

colleges "the works of the devil," was preaching without previous

meditation an inspirational sermon from the text, "The voice of the

turtle shall be heard in the land." Not noting that the margin read

"turtle-dove," he proceeded in this manner:



"This text, my hearers, strikes me as one of the most peculiar texts in

the whole book, becaus we all know that a turtle ain't got no voice.

But by the inward enlightenment I begin to see the meaning and will

expose it to you. Down in the hollers by the streams and ponds you have

gone in the springtime, my brethren, and observed the little turtles,

a-sleeping on the logs. But at the sound of the approach of a human

being, they went _kerflop-kerplunk_, down into the water. This I say,

then, is the meaning of the prophet: he, speakinging figgeratively,

referred to the _kerflop_ of the turtle as the _voice_ of the turtle,

and hence we see that in those early times the prophet, looking down at

the ages to come, clearly taught and prophesied the doctrine I have

always preached to this congregation--_that immersion is the only form

of baptism."_





John D. Rockefeller, Jr., once asked a clergyman to give him an

appropriate Bible verse on which to base an address which he was to make

at the latter's church.



"I was thinking," said young Rockefeller, "that I would take the verse

from the Twenty-third Psalm: 'The Lord is my shepherd.' Would that seem

appropriate?"



"Quite," said the clergyman; "but do you really want an appropriate

verse?"



"I certainly do," was the reply.



"Well, then," said the clergyman, with a twinkle in his eye, "I would

select the verse in the same Psalm: 'Thou anointest my head with oil; my

cup runneth over.'"