Is the world as funny as it used to be? Funnier, my son; a great deal funnier. It grows “funnier” as you grow older. But it doesn’t know it, because it is apt to be “funniest” when it thinks it is wisest. Laughter grows more serious as it contemplates the funny old world. The tragedies of the years temper the jests. Yes; I understand. I read a paragraph about myself in a critical editorial the other day, saying that “ten years of the ministry had taken much of the ginger out of old Bob’s fun.” It was written by a young man, of course. The things that are funny to him were uproariously funny to me fifty years ago. I used to write funny sketches about sudden death and funerals. But during ten years of the ministry I have sat beside many deathbeds, and have stood beside many caskets trying to speak words of consolation for breaking hearts. Today, I can’t laugh over “Buck Fanshaw’s Funeral”--the funniest mortuary narrative ever written. Misfortunes used to be my principal stock in trade for mirthful sketches. Ten years in the ministry have made the sorrows of thousands of people my own. What a rollick there used to be in a good poker story, told in rattling phrase. I have seen too many homes broken up and too many lives wrecked by the gamblers to appreciate the humor of the cards. Twice I have seen men murdered at the gaming table--and each murder was followed by a hanging. Hard to write funny poker stories with those grisly phantoms of blood and strangling leering up into your face from the white sheet under your pen. Eh? And when there was nothing else to write about on a dull day, the drunkard was always an unfailing figure for comedy. What could be funnier than a drunken man? Well, now I can no more appreciate the drunken man, even on the comic stage, than the wife whose face he bruised with his clenched fist could appreciate the antics of her drunken husband. I have seen the brute too often at close range, with all the old manhood gone, and not a thing but the brute and the devil left. Oh, I enjoy life better than ever I did. I can assure my critic that “ginger is still hot i’ the mouth.” The world is just as funny as ever. But the fun has changed with the point of view. Don’t you understand, son? It’s the old story of the frogs and the boys. Humor is a matter of personal taste, to a great extent. What sends your neighbor into convulsions of mirth may disgust you to the very soul.