Bad Cold by Shel Silverstein

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  This cold is too much for my shortsleeve. Go get me a Kleenex--and fast. I sniffle and wheeze And I'm ready to sneeze And I don't know how long I can last.... Atchoo--it's to wet for a kleenex, So bring me handkerchief, quick. It's--atchoo--no joke, Now the handkerchief's soaked. Hey, a dish towel just might do the trick. Atchoo--it's too much for bath towel. There never has been such a cold. I'll be better off With that big tablecloth, No--bring me the flag off the pole. Atchoo--bring the clothes from the closet, Atchaa--get the sheets from the bed, The drapes off the window, The rugs off the floor To soak up this cold in my head. Atchoo-- hurry down to the circus And ask if they'll lend you the tent. You say they said yes? Here it comes--Lord be blessed-- Here it is--Ah-kachoooo--there it went.

O, My Bible!

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A great Puritan evangelist, John Rogers, warned his congregation against neglecting Scripture by telling them what God might say: “I have trusted you so long with my Bible … it lies in [some] houses all covered with dust and cobwebs, you care not to listen to it. Do you use my Bible so? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer.”

Rogers then picked up his Bible and started walking away from the pulpit. Then he stopped, fell on his knees, and took on the voice of the people, who pleaded, “Lord, whatever Thou dost to us, take not Thy Bible from us; kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us Thy Bible, take not away Thy Bible.”

“Say you so?” the minister replied, impersonating God. “Well, I will try you a while longer; and here is my Bible for you. I will see how you use it, whether you will search it more, love it more, observe it more, and live more according to it.”

Thomas Goodwin was so moved by Rogers’s dramatic presentation that when he left church he wept upon his horse’s neck for fifteen minutes before he felt strong enough to mount it.

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