A woman risked her life and that of her family on a page from the National Geographic Magazine, when her husband brought some strange-looking things in from the fields. The family was undecided whether they were mushrooms or toadstools, until someone dug up a Geographic that showed plates of edible varieties. Their harvest was pictured, under the name of "Shaggy-mane," definitely "edible." With this as the basis of their faith, they prepared and ate the mushrooms. Nobody suffered.

To the participants in one of the Olympic games, loss of the four-hundred-meter relay race for women was a tragic incident. The Germans were far in the lead when the next-to-the-last girl came to pass the baton to the last runner. With a clear five-yard lead and the race as good as won, the baton was dropped. Pictures showed the despair on the face of the last runner as she realized what had happened. We sat one evening in Berlin looking at an illustrated magazine that showed pictures of the Olympics. The magazine had texts under the pictures in several languages. The English read: "They muffed the baton"; the French read: "le temoin," the French word for "witness." The idea was that the runner who reached the tape had to have the baton as a "witness" that the full distance had been covered by each of the runners.

Near the Kingsport Press in Tennessee a southbound bus makes a scheduled midday stop of twenty minutes so that passengers may freshen up and get a bite to eat. One driver said, as he brought his bus to a stop: "Folks, we'll be stopping here for twenty minutes. This line makes it a strict policy never to recommend an eating place by name, but if anybody wants me while we're here, I'll be eating a wonderful T-bone steak with french fries at Tony's first-class, spotlessly clean diner directly across the street."

Not many people who use the word "posthaste" realize that the word goes back to the time of Henry VIII. During the reign of "bluff King Hal," postmasters and relays of horses for carrying messages were established at the principal towns in England. The postmasters endorsed each letter with the exact time each missive was delivered to them. The messengers were sometimes rather irresponsible people who delayed to play games with acquaintances in inns or to waste time in some other way. On this account a very drastic law was put into effect - every dispatch carrier should "ride for his life"; this had a literal meaning, for the penalty for delaying en route was hanging.

A disease known as elephantiasis is a terrible scourge in tropical countries. The skin of the diseased becomes very thick, very hard, and fissured like an elephant's hide; the part affected is enormously enlarged. I have seen unfortunate people whose lower legs - running from above the knee down to the foot - were from twelve to fifteen inches in diameter. One poor sufferer from this disease heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and was transformed. He became a radiant Christian and did nothing but tell people of the grace of God, which He had showed in sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for them.