Fungi of Martin Top

I have developed something of a liking for mushrooms. As a child I would walk about the fields of Bailrigg Farm collecting them, with Mrs Parker, the farmer's wife, using them in her delicious cooking. Yet I never cared to eat them. I now find them a pleasant filler in stews and better suited to a mature palate.

Growing in the grounds of our chapel is a number of autumnal fungi. No one, I hope, would be so foolish as to pick any old toadstool and consume it to see if it was edible. Growing in the ‘sacred’ grounds of a chapel does not render a poisonous fungus any less lethal. Indeed, the devil’s lies are often touted from church and chapel pulpits - do not assume doctrines are sound just because you hear them preached.

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Acts 17:11