The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
A young man abandons the family farm and goes looking for happiness in the pleasures of the city.
Many Jews in first-century Judaea compromised with Roman ways, and even collaborated with the invading power. Those who came to regret their choices found in Jesus a firm yet gentle mentor, but others grumbled at the welcome he gave. “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God” Jesus reminded them “over one sinner that repenteth”, and he told them this tale.
Goliath, a giant of a man from Philistia, has challenged Israel’s warrior-heroes to meet him in single combat, but only a shepherd boy is brave enough to step up.
When Goliath, a mountain of a man from Philistia, challenged Israel’s warrior-heroes to mortal combat only David, a shepherd boy, stepped up. King Saul felt shame that only this brave but hopeless boy was ready to fight for the nation. On the other hand, the prophet Samuel had foretold that a man ‘better than thou’ would take Saul’s crown, and it was a relief to know that there was no such man in all his kingdom.
Sir Kay has left his sword at home, and his young brother Arthur is determined to find him a worthy blade for the New Year’s Day joust.
Sir Kay has no sword for the New Year’s Day joust, but his younger brother Arthur knows that on Christmas Day, within the Great Church of London, a marvellous sword was found struck deep through an anvil into the stone beneath. He decides Kay must have it, unaware of the prophecy written in gold about the sword: Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.
When columnist ‘Alpha of the Plough’ was asked to select his most memorable moment of the Great War, he told the story of HMS Formidable.
Asked which event of the Great War had made the deepest impression on him, columnist ‘Alpha of the Plough’ recalled the fate of HMS Formidable, twice torpedoed by a German U-Boat during night-time exercises off the Devon coast on January 1st, 1915. The Captain, 34 officers and 512 crew died; 157 men were picked up from the water or made it ashore in two boats.
To Napoleon, the way that politicians in Paris had forced metric measurements on the public was a lesson in bad government.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s frustration at the way that metres and kilos were forced on the people of France following the Revolution of 1789 has often been quoted with grim amusement by those who lament the passing of yards and ounces. And yet the lesson he was teaching us has rarely been taken to heart, either by his critics or his admirers, though it applies in so many areas of our common life.
The modern match is ignited by friction, a simple idea but one which had not occurred to anyone until 1826, when a Stockton pharmacist dropped a stick.
Until 1826, lighting a fire, a candle or a pipe was not an easy business. Matches as we know them were in their infancy, a toilsome affair requiring a man to juggle little bottles of noxious chemicals and perhaps a pair of pliers. But that year, a merry pharmacist from Stockton-on-Tees called John Walker (1781-1859) liberated us from all this, and quite by accident.