Quaint Ideas about R
that the public does 19¢ question. Are “Know thyself, ? and “Cleanliness is next to 20d
erroneous ideas corrected. + . + . +. *
NDER the heading of “Quaint Ideas that
7| the Public Doesn't Question,” a popular
¢| weekly magazine published a page calling
i attention to various everyday beliefs,
is a sign of will power.— Policemen are
never around when you want them. —Winters were
longer twenty-five years ago. —Drowning people
always rise several times before sinking finally.—
Panama hats are made in Panama.— Red hair de-
notes a quick temper.— Shaving makes the hair
grow faster.— Lindbergh was the first man to fly
across the ocean.
The average man usually believes all these state-
ments. He hears them handed from tongue to
tongue without challenge until he generally accepts
these ideas as unquestioned truths.
As a matter of fact, these ideas are wrong. But
they are believed until men come face-to-face with
definite proof to the contrary, such as that Panama
hats are woven in Colombia — not Panama.
QUAINT IDEAS ABOUT THE BIBLE
HERE are many quaint ideas also in the reli-
gious field which, although nearly universally ac-
cepted as true, are entirely wrong. These ideas are
also handed from mouth to mouth, and from genera-
tion to generation, and have been followed so many
centuries that the average person accepts them as
true without ever thinking to verify them.
In many instances these populer although erro-
neous religious ideas are based on the idea that the
Bible says thus and so, when no such statement is
found from Genesis to Revelation. For example, I
once heard a man say to a crowd, “The Bible says
in ten different places, ‘You shall know your lives
by the lines in your hands.””” But the Bible contains
nothing of this sort, and more than that, it con-
demns in the strongest possible manner fortune-
telling, magic, soothsaying, astrology, sorcery, and
all such practices.
You often hear people say, ‘Well, the Bible says
that the time will come when you can’t tell winter
from summer except by the falling of the leaves.”
But the Bible contains no such statement. On the
contrary the Bible plainly declares: ‘ While the earth
remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat,
and summer and winter, and day and night shall
not cease.” Genesis 8: 22,
In the same category of ‘“‘old wives’ fables” we
must place that oft-repeated assertion about the
Bible saying ‘‘Men shall get weaker and wiser.”
PAGE EIGHT
among which were listed: A square jaw
International Newsreel
It is a queer tradition that says that this is the
pillar of salt into which Lot’s wife was turned when
she looked back on the destruction of Sodom
We need to be on our guard against bogus Scrip-
ture, the same as we are against bogus money. And
we especially need to be on our guard against a
wrong application of Scripture teaching, ever re-
membering that the devil can always cite Scripture
for his purpose. (Matthew 5: 5-7.)
Most people think that the Bible is such a large
book and contains so many verses that it is really
impossible for one to know whether or not a supposed
quotation is found in the Bible, unless one is a great
Biblical scholar. But such is not the case. Any one
who can read can take a concordance, such as Cru-
den’s, and quickly find out if the supposed quotation
is really found in the Holy Scriptures. A complete
concordance gives a list of the occurrences of all the
various words from A to Z used in the Bible. One can
take any of the principal words of a quotation, and
quickly locate the book, chapter, and verse of a genuine
quotation, or by noting all the various connections
under which that given word is used, speedily de-
tect if the supposed quotation is bogus, or outside
the Bible.
The situation today with most people regarding
many religious ideas and observances is just as it
was with the Sadducees regarding the doctrine of
the future life. Jesus told them, ‘‘Ye do err, not
knowing the Scriptures.” Men today are following
THE WATCHMAN MAGAZINE