that if only
the Church followed the crowd, instead of, metaphorically speaking,
banging the big drum outside their churches and begging them to come
inside, they would "get hold" of their flock far more effectively. After
all, why should religion be so divorced from the joy of life? Death is
important, but life is far more so. If the clergy entered into the _real
life_ of the people they would benefit themselves through a greater
understanding, and the people would benefit by this living example of
Christianity in their midst. But so many of the clergy seem to forget
the fact that the leisured classes possess, by their wealth alone, the
opportunity to create their own happiness. The poor have not this
advantage. Their work is, for the most part, deadening. The
surroundings in which they live offer them so little joy. They have only
the amusements which they can snatch from their hours of freedom to make
life worth living at all. And these amusements are the all-important
things, it seems to me. If you can enter into the hours of happiness of
men and women, they will be willing to follow you along those pathways
which lead to a greater appreciation of the Christ ideal. I always think
that if the Church devoted itself to the happiness of its "flock" it
would do far more real good than merely devoting itself to their
reformation. Reformation can only come when a certain amount or inner
happiness has been attained.

_Book-borrowing Nearly Always Means Book-stealing_

Whenever I lend a book--and, in parenthesis, I never lend a book of which
I am particularly fond--I always say "good-bye" to it under my breath. I
have found that, whereas the majority of people are perfectly honest when
dealing with thousands, their sense of uprightness suddenly leaves them
when it is only a question of a thr'penny-bit. As for books and
umbrellas, people seem to possess literally no conscience in regard to
them. Umbrellas you _may_, perhaps, get back--if you were born under the
"lucky star" with a "golden spoon" in your mouth, and had an octogenarian
millionaire, with no children, standing--or peradventure _propped up_--as
god-parent at your christening. Few people have qualms about asking for
the return of an umbrella, whereas a book always gets either
"Not-quite-finished-been-so-busy" for an answer, or else the borrower has
been so entranced by it that he has "taken the liberty" to lend it to a
friend because he knew