Where Children Are Pawned For Drink: A Titillating Moment with Five Missionary Minutes

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:41:00 -0400

Josh found this little book on the curb down the street from the Live Arts office. It's called Five Missionary Minutes—no it's not what you think. These time-worn pages, first published in 1912 by George H. Trull, contain invaluable "Brief Missionary Material for Platform Use in the Sunday School for 52 Sundays in the Year." There's a lot to be learned . . .

Like what we were warned of at Live Arts Sunday school this week, the enormity of the sin of liquor trafficking:

"The vices of Western life seem to work with much more deadliness among men of the more simple civilizations. The great instance is the increase in the liquor traffic which is traced directly to the West. It would be difficult to mention a part of the non-Christian world where the liquor traffic is not increasing . . . It is significant that liquor is often used for currency. Drunkenness is very prevalent in different parts of the colony, especially those most exposed to the European influence. Not only the men, but also the women and the children are addicted to it, and it is said that in many places possibly the women drink more than the men. Bishop Johnson recently told of having visited a school of seventy-five children between the ages of eight and sixteen, where, on inquiry, he found that only fifteen of them had not been drinking gin. The desire for drink is becoming so dominant that cases are not infrequent of parents pawning their children to get money to spend for liquor." (p. 66)

We—hiccup!—don't know what they're talking about. Stay tuned for more Titillating Moments with Five Missionary Minutes.

Christmas in July: A Titillating Moment with Five Missionary Minutes

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:40:00 -0400

Like what we discovered at Live Arts Sunday School this week, the fact that Santa Claus in Korea and Santa Claus in America are two very different beings:

"In Korea he is called Angwangi, and he is supposed to be an old man who lives in the upper air. . . There is not a girl or boy, man or woman, in Korea who is glad when Angwangi comes around. Everybody fears him, for he is a villainous old fiend, whose gifts are typhus fever, cholera, leprosy, and other diseases . . . Now nobody wants any of Angwangi's gifts, so one plan after another way tried to prevent his leaving any. This is the one that the Koreans believe is most successful. A common flour sieve is left beside the shoe mat on New-year's eve. As Angwangi has a mania for counting the meshes in these sieves, his attention is at once drawn to them the moment he sees one outside the house. He begins counting, and soon forgets everything else. Before he is aware, daylight has come, and with it Angwangi's opportunity to scatter disease and pestilence." (p. 118)

Better dig out your old flour sieve and stay tuned for more Titillating Moments with Five Missionary Minutes.

Live Arts & Fringe Festival Blog - Five Missionary Minutes

Where Children Are Pawned For Drink: A Titillating Moment with Five Missionary Minutes

Christmas in July: A Titillating Moment with Five Missionary Minutes