" With
astonishing inconsistency this Master Jack objected to the village
blacksmith's wearing his leathern apron into the church, and he assailed
the offender again and again with words and hints from his pulpit. He was
at last worsted by the grimaces of the victorious smith (where was the
Duxbury tithingman?), and indignantly left the pulpit, ejaculating, "I'll
not preach while that man sits before me." A remonstrating parishioner
said afterward to Master Jack, "I'd not have left if the Devil sat there."
"Neither would I", was the quick answer.
Another singular article of attire was worn in the pulpit by Father Mills,
of Torrington, though neither in irreverence nor indifference. When his
dearly loved wife died he pondered how he, who always wore black, could
express to the world that he was wearing mourning; and his simple heart hit
upon this grotesque device: he left off his full-flowing wig, and tied
up his head in a black silk handkerchief, which he wore thereafter as a
trapping of woe.
Parson Judson, of Taunton, was so lazy that he used to preach while sitting
down in the pulpit; and was so contemptibly fond of comfort that he would
on summer Sundays give out to the sweltering members of his congregation
the longest psalm in the psalm-book, and then desert them--piously
perspiring and fuguing--and lie under a tree enjoying the cool outdoor
breezes until the long psalm was ended, escaping thus not only the heat but
the singing; and when we consider the quantity and quality of both, and
that he condemned his good people to an extra amount of each, it seems
a piece of clerical inhumanity that would be hard to equal.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280