One morning in 1888 Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, awoke to read his own obituary. The obituary was printed as a result of a simple journalistic error. It was actually Alfred’s brother that had died, and the reporter mistakenly reported the death of the wrong brother. Of course Alfred was disturbed under the circumstances, but […]

Toward the end of his life, when he was suffering from the accumulated effects of a lifetime of drinking, W.C. Fields was discovered reading the Bible by one of his friends. The astonished friend asked: “What are you – an atheist – doing reading the Bible?” Fields replied, “I’m looking for loopholes.” Well, the good […]

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect himself from the elements, and to store […]

A Wall Street Journal article six years ago reported a story of a defunct Roman Catholic Church in Scituate, Massachusetts (St. Frances Xavier Cabrini) where some faithful remnant of parishioners had been staging a twenty-four hour vigil in the empty church building since it was closed by the Archdiocese in 2004. That’s a long time […]