And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake, but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
—Mark 13:13
2149 Bitter Brigitte
“I hate humanity. I am allergic to it. I see no one. I don’t go out. I am disgusted with everything. Men are beasts, and even beasts don’t behave like them.”
Those are the words of actress Brigitte Bardot, sex symbol of the 1950’s and 1960’s. In those years she made the headlines with her three marriages, a series of lovers, and “a sun-kissed life on the French Riviera.” She plans to quit the movie world and retire to a farm.
2150 Hatred In America
John J. Harrington, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police and a 27-year veteran of the Philadelphia police force, says, “There is hatred today in this country that’s growing and growing. Near where I live a man was walking to church, and two men came up behind him and cut his throat.
“Another man was just standing on a street corner when a bunch of kids came along. They said. “Let’s give it to him,” and they killed him. And a little girl was walking up the street from where I live, and a boy just came along and stabbed her. All these things seem to happen for no reason at all—just hatred.”
—Homer Duncan
2151 The Spite House
Joseph Richardson, a New York millionaire lived and died in a house only five feet wide. It was called the “Spite House,” and it deserved its name. Owning the narrow lot of land on which it was built, Mr. Richardson wished to sell it to the neighboring property owners. They would not pay him what he asked, and so he put up this house, which disfigured the block—and then condemned himself to a life of discomfort in it.
—Golden Rule
2152 The Devil’s Lane
Two of our neighbors had a falling-out over the boundary line fence between their farms. Feelings became so intense that each built his own fence. These fences were built about four feet apart. Not only were they added expenses, but neither of the neighbors had the use of the four-foot strip of land—it rightfully belonged to neither of them. For lack of a better name, this four-foot strip was called “The Devil’s Lane.” I guess it was rightly named because Old Beelzebub did take control of it. At least he controlled the men involved.
—Carl C. Williams
2153 Most Loved And Hated
After studying replies to 3,500 questionnaires issued to visitors in the early 1970’s, Madame Tussaud’s (London’s famed waxworks) has listed the loved and the hated. Leading the field of favorite figures was Sir Winston Churchill, voted also the hero of all time, ahead of Jesus Christ, John Kennedy, Admiral Nelson and Joan of Arc. The most hated figure was Hitler, who outranked Mao Tse-tung, Enoch Powell and President Nixon. Level in fifth place were prime minister Edward Heath, Spiro Agnew, and Dracula.
—Christianity Today
2154 National Name-Calling
The Japanese phrase for foreigners means “stinking of foreign hair.” What is called “the French Pox” in England is called “the English Pox” in France. In Czechoslovakia, drinking too much is “to drink like a Dutchman,” but in Holland it is “to drink like a Pole.” In Hungary and Austria, the cockroach is known as a “Swabian,” in Poland as a “Prussian” and in Germany as a “Frenchman.”
“Each nation,” reports Noah Jacobs, “associates a host of miscellaneous vulgarities, vices, diseases and disagreeable traits with foreign countries.”
2155 Insult Dictionary
The last word in foreign-language phrase books is for jet-setters who want the natives to know how they really feel. A five-language Insult Dictionary published in England, is the first handy guide designed expressly for tourists who must cope with lost baggage, mixed-up reservations, cold breakfasts, terrible service and padded bills.
—Ladies’ Home Journal
2156 Bernini’s Fountain
In the city of Rome stands Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s marvelous Fountain of Rivers. History tells us however, that Bernini despised Francisco Borromini, the designer of the Church of St. Agnes, which is opposite the fountain. “As a deliberate insult to Borromini, sculptor Bernini made one of the statues in the fountain group to cover his eyes with a hand so as not to have to look at the church. Then, adding injury to this snub, Bernini carved another figure with hands up in alarm, to make it appear he was afraid the church would fall down upon him.”
2157 Making Faces At Little Basle
A feud long existed between the towns of Great Basle and Little Basle in Switzerland. The inhabitants of Great Basle showed their contempt for their neighbors by attaching the figure of a black face to the town-clock, out of whose mouth protruded a long red tongue every time the bell struck, making faces at Little Basle. This relic of barbarism now makes one of the curiosities of Basle.
—Foster
2158 He Was 200% American
An Englishman, on a tour of the Western United States, came to a desert filling station. Above the door was a sign: “Joe Bevins, 200% American.”
After the scowling and surly proprietor had filled the gas tank, the visitor ventured a question: “Would you mind, Mr. Bevins,” he said, “telling me just what is a 200% American?”
“Well,” said the filling-station man belligerently, “You heard o’ 100% Americans, I reckon—they hate all other nationalities. Me—well, I’m 200%—I hate everybody!
—Maxwell Droke
2159 Stepping Aside For Scoundrel
Due to a quarrel in the Senate at Washington, John Randolph and Henry Clay refused to speak to each other for several weeks. It wasn’t until they met on a narrow sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue that words were forced out of them.
Neither one would step aside for the other at first until Randolph, looking his opponent straight in the eye, declared:
“I never step aside for scoundrels!”
“I always do,” promptly replied Clay as he stepped out into the muddy street and let Randolph have the sidewalk.
2160 Jew-Samaritan Hatred
There is a tradition that 300 priests with their trumpets and 300 rabbis with their scholars once gathered in the Temple court to curse the Samaritans with all the curses in the Law of Moses. Nor were the Samaritans less eager in hating and annoying. At the Passover it was the Jew’s custom to light bonfires on Mount of Olives, a signal for other fires till the Euphrates was reached, to send the messages to exiled Jews. The Samaritans lighted rival bonfires on other days to confuse the watchers.
—Albert Mygatt
2161 $1 Will
A Philadelphia woman in her will instructed her executor to take one dollar from her estate, invest it and pay the interest on this investment to her husband, “as evidence of my estimate of his worth.” Another woman—also from Philadelphia—bequeathed her divorced husband one dollar to buy a rope to hang himself.
2162 Those Scenic Checks
Banks have long printed checks in a wide spectrum of colors, some have offered checks with floral or scenic backgrounds. The modest-sized Bank of Marin in Marin Country, Calif., has gone one step further. Its customers can simply bring in their own photograph or drawing and have them printed onto a standard check form.
Undeterred by the higher cost, more than 500 customers signed up for the illustrated checks. But perhaps the most imaginative—and vindictive—customer is the one who ordered special checks to be used solely for making his alimony payments. They show him beautifully kissing his new wife.
2163 Church Of Reconciliation Splits
In a northern section of Berlin lies a Protestant church whose front yard now straddles the Communist wall. Its ironic name: the Church of the Reconciliation.
The Church of the Reconciliation appears to have been abandoned. The building itself, with a statue of Christ at the entrance, is in East Berlin, while the front sidewalk is in the West. A 10-foot brick wall stands between.
—Christianity Today
2164 Epigram On Hatred
• Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick
• Booker T. Washington once said, “I am determined to permit no man to narrow or degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
—The Teacher
• Who punishes one threatens a hundred.
—French Proverb
See also: Anger ; Persecution ; Matt. 24:9, 10; Luke 6:22; 21:17; John 15:18.