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When I was a boy I was engaged in the building trade. I didn't know much about it, and I was set to do any odd jobs, any work in a dark corner that could not be much seen. I worked by the side of a man who on one occasion made a sarcastic remark that I shall never forget. It made me so angry, nearly as angry as you are when you are hit hard from the pulpit. He said, "Tom, when I go home I will call at the saddler's and order a leather plumb rod for you." He meant that my work was so crooked that I wanted a bending and not a straight plumb rod. Builders use a wooden plumb that will not bend at all. The Bible is not a leather plumb rod to be accommodated to us, but is like a wooden one, inflexible in its requirements, and to which we must accommodate ourselves.

(T. Champness.)

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KJV: For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;

WEB: For the overseer must be blameless, as God's steward; not self-pleasing, not easily angered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain;