Signor Guiseppe Bartolo flew in to the New York airport and took the bus into Manhattan. He loaded his baggage into a taxi and said, "Montgomery Street." The taximan took him to such a street and Bartolo pulled out a picture of a house and tried to find it - it wasn't there. He left the cab and started to walk. An hour later the cabby took the baggage to the police. That evening the police brought Bartolo in, still insisting that the house was gone. There was the picture of his son's house - on Montgomery Street, San Francisco! The father wouldn't believe the "New York" on the policemen's badges, until they got his son on the telephone. Only then was he convinced, only then did he consent to start on his way west.
Legend has it that Prince William, son of Henry I of England was aboard a ship that was lost at sea; only one or two survived the catastrophe. The story says that the nobleman in charge of the young prince was a very proud man. He went into the captain's room and discussed the course with him. The captain said he was sailing his ship in a certain direction because, on his last voyage, he had discovered a rock at a certain point. The nobleman pointed to the chart and insisted that there was no rock because it was not charted and ordered the captain to go straight on, under pain of death. The captain was forced to obey, but the ship went aground on the rock and was lost.
The newspapers carried the story of a hunter who got lost simply because he was stubborn. The man had a compass with him, but he was so confident that he was woodsman enough to find his way without consulting it, that he neglected to look at it until it was too dark to see. He had no matches and was forced to bed down in some leaves in the shelter of a rock. In the morning he decided again to trust his own gift of woodsmanship. The day wore on and he made little progress.
If we had no more knowledge of God than as Creator, we should be possessed by terrible fear, like the savages in the heart of Africa and along the banks of the Amazon. Their whole existence is one of great fear. An Indian told a missionary that his people never know a moment without fear. "We are afraid when we rise in the morning, and when we go to sleep at night," he said.
At Fremicourt, near Baupaume, France, two farm workers found a World War I artillery shell in a field. One of them began hammering on it with the hope of salvaging the copper. Suddenly it exploded, killing one man and injuring the other. How terrible to think of a man hammering away on something that will destroy him.
