A Bible-class teacher was telling of the various translations of the Bible and their different excellences. The class was much interested, and one of the young men that evening was talking to a friend about it.
"I think I prefer the King James version for my part," he said, "tho, of course, the Revised is more scholarly."
His friend smiled. "I prefer my mother's translation of the Bible myself to any other version," he said.
"Your mother's?" cried the first young man, thinking his companion had suddenly gone crazy. "What do you mean, Fred?"
"I mean that my mother has translated the Bible into the language of daily life for me ever since I was old enough to understand it. She translates it straight, too, and gives its full meaning. There has never been any obscurity about her version. Whatever printed version of the Bible I may study, my mother's is always the one that clears up my difficulties."
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Vessels—See Condemned, The. VIBRATION The jar and discord of life may often be modified by balancing one discord against another or by changing the rate of effort. Sometimes to go faster in one direction or slower in another brings harmony and peace. It is rather interesting to call attention to the recent improvement in the running conditions of the steamship Mauretania, which, it will be remembered, is driven by four steam turbines, and which recently damaged one of her propellers. While repairing the latter, advantage was taken of the opportunity to change the propeller-blades a little, and it is said the change reduced very appreciably the vibration of the vessel. It seems that there was more or less resonance between the vibration caused by the propeller-blades and the speed at which they were driven; so by throwing the two out of harmony, the effect is damped out. Doubtless similar conditions exist elsewhere and frequently are the cause of the entire trouble due to vibration, and by some slight change, throwing the apparatus or its support out of tune, the effect is removed.—The Electrical Review.
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See Communication, Psychical.
VICARIOUS SACRIFICE
Dr. Turner, in his book on the Samoan Islands, tells the following incident:
The people were cannibals, the King,
Mahetoa, leading in the horrible practise.
His young son, Polu, hated the heathenish
and brutal custom, and one day, when he
saw a poor boy waiting to be killed and
served as a tender morsel for the King's
dinner, he was touched with pity and said,
"Don't cry; I will try and save you." So he
drest himself in coconut leaves and had himself
served just as tho he had been killed
and roasted whole. The King came to the
table, and looked down at the cannibal dish,
saw two bright eyes looking up at him. He
recognized his son, and the thought flashed
through his heathen mind, "What if it were,
indeed, my dear son, whose body had been
cooked for my meal!" He was touched,
too, by the magnanimity of his boy, taking
the other lad's place, and he abolished cannibalism
by law from his kingdom from that
day. (Text.)
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VICARIOUS SALVATION IMPOSSIBLE
There was a man who dreamed that he
died and, seeking admission to paradise, was
refused. He attempted to excuse his lack of
religious faith and fidelity by the old pretext
that, while he looked after worldly affairs,
his wife went to church for both.
"Well," said the gatekeeper, "she has gone
in for both!"
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Vicarious Sight—See Fraternity.
VICARIOUSNESS
There are men who reap consequences
without having the advantages of the causes
that brought them about. For instance, it
takes the gout a good long time to grow in
a family, but it does grow, and it often
grows from a good cellar of port in the possession
of an ancestor. Now, what I think
hard is that a man should have the port
without having the gout; and what I think
more tragic still, is that another man should
have the gout without having had the port.
But still that is one of the great laws of
life. We can not avoid it, and we dare not
impugn its wisdom. Did we, we should be
like the great civic functionary who determined
to have a south wall built all
around his garden.—George Dawson.
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