I know what an annex to some of the churches without or with cook stove means. It seems nowadays, as the prophecies are being filled, some churches deem it necessary to feed the stomach before the soul, realizing, I presume, a full stomach is a twin brother to a big heart. They beg the food and the utensils to serve it in from uncheerful givers and then dispense it cautiously and sparingly, the more sparingly the more money for the Lord. When the ice cream is served they forget all about scriptural measure of “Heaped up and running over” and run it under. If one dish of scriptural measure can be stretched into four dishes of worldly measure, there is forty cents instead of ten. High finance, you see! I’ve often thought a society of this kind that would squeeze down the measure on ice cream procured at a minimum cost, would bear watching if they were running a milk wagon with a pump near. If any one else gets money in this way they call it an unearned increment. What would Jesus call it? I really would be afraid to express my thoughts at that kind of a meeting for fear they’d request the parcel post. In a few days the brother dropped in and hoisted from his inside pocket the subscription list and handed it to me. I glanced over it casually, as is natural in such cases made and provided, to see who were the cheerful givers. After concluding what I thought was a liberal donation and really beyond what a man of my means should give I put down forty dollars and handed the paper back to him. The ungentlemanly gentleman took it and looked at it and said, “Well, we expected much better than this from you.” You know what feelings ebb and flow within you when you get a snub like this. I could feel the Irish blood chasing the English blood at a hazardous speed, but I said nothing and was glad again of the early use of that harrow. JUST POEMS. The Dog. Of all the beasts beneath the sun There is no other, not a one, That clings to man in sweet and bitter As faithful as the canine critter. When fortune smiles upon its crest And all your toil is richly blest The loyal dog is near at hand For slightest duty or command. When poverty comes stalking in And you have lost your precious tin, The good old dog is just the same In dire distress or glittering fame. In tattered rags or spick and span He has a truer heart than man, And when you meet most keen defeat His sympathy is there to greet. When you are old and had your day, With feeble limbs and head of gray, And angels come to take you home, The good old dog is last to roam.