• Author: Ex
• Editor:
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume V
• Page Number:
• Date: 12 18 1918
• Tags:
• advice

HALF A POINT WRONG A gentleman crossing the English Channel stood near the helmsman. It was a calm and pleasant evening and no one dreamed of a possible danger to their good ship, but the sudden flapping of a sail as if the wind shifted, caught the ear of the officer on watch, and he sprang at once to the wheel examining closely the compass. "You are a half a point off your course!" he said sharply to the man at the wheel: the deviation was corrected and the officer returned to his post. "You must steer very accurately," said the looker-on, "when only half a point is so much thought of." "Oh! half a point in many places might bring us directly on a rock," he said. So it is in life. Half a point from strict truthfulness stands us upon the rocks of falsehood. Half a point from perfect honesty and we are steering for the rocks of crime. And so of kindred vices. The beginnings are always small.—Ex.