Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1884 — The Wrong Man Baptized. [ARTICLE]

The Wrong Man Baptized.

| Stammering or stuttering is one of j the most unpleasant things at times j that a man can be afflicted with. A I man may be troubled with almost any other malady and be cured or helped, but a man who stutters, though he may at times be free from the habit, never has confidence in his talking utensils. They may run all right for a time, but just as he expects the most from hiß vocal organs, and wants to do his beet, they go back on him, and he flounders around, and can’t express his thoughts to save himself. A stutterer is usually the best-natured man in the world. It seems as though nature joicked out the jolliest fellow as a watch "case to put poor vocal works into, so there won’t be any kicking. There is a gentleman living in this State who stutters just when he don’t want to, but who can talk right along all right when there is nothing particular to be said. If he gets excited or interested and wants to orate, he gets stuck and lias time to walk around the block before he can get things to working again. He was out in lowa recently, and at a hotel where he was stopping, the traveling men were getting up a party one Sunday to go to a town a few miles distant, where a camp-meeting was in progress, and where there were to be a number of converts baptized, and they invited our friend, the stutterer, to go along. “Not m-m-much,” said he, as he worked at untangling a fish line, while a boy brought in a tomato can full of angle-worms, “If I know m-m-my own heart, I don’t go to no k-k-k-eamp-meeting where they b-b-b-baptize. I at-t-t-tended a baptizing scrape once, and my k-k-k-clothes have not got d-d-d-dry yet. ” “What was the matter?” said a drummer for a Chicago grocery-house. “Didn’t fall in the water did you?” “N-n-n-o,” said the stutterer, as he stuffed a wad of paper down on top of the angle-worms to keep them from crawling out, “I didn’t f-f-f-fall in, but I got in all the s-s-s-s-same. I was sna-sna-snatched in. If you won’t tell any one, I will t-t-t-tell you about it.” The boys swore they would never give it away: and the stutterer went on. “Well, about twenty years ago I was editing a p-p-p-paper in Wis-k-k-oonsin, and there was a revival at the town all winter, and in the spring they advertised to b-b-b-baptize all of the k-k-k----converts. Everybody went, and I w-w----w-went down to the k-k-k-creek to see them s-s-s-soak. They had a presiding elder, a stranger to me, to d-d-d-do the baptizing, and when they had dipped a f-f-f-few, I noticed the elder looked s-s----s-sort of tired when he pushed the last woman ashore, and I th-th-thought he wanted to come out of the w-w-water, so I reached out my h-h hand to help him up the b-b-bank. Do you know, he thought I was a k-k-k-candidate for baptism, and he took hold of nay hand and was p-p-pulling me in, when I said, ‘elder, don’t p-p-p— ’ and before I could say any m-m-more he said, ‘Have no f-f-fear, my young k-k-christian friend,’ and he pnt his arm around me and was pulling me right in. I wasn’t as st-st-strong as I am now, and he had a g-g-grip like a prize fighter, and before I knew what he was abont he was saying, ‘I b-b-baptize thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy G-g----ghost,’ and I was as weak as a k-k-cat. I tried to get away from him, and tried to explain that I w-w-wasn’t the feller, and that I had n-n-never been converted, but the naturally pious look on my face betrayed me, and I stuttered so I couldn’t get in a word in time, and he put me under. As I went down I could see the crowd on the b-b-bank laughing, because they all knew I was b-b----bad, and that it was a mistake of the strange preacher. I came up strangling, and the first thing I said was, ‘Elder, you have made the d-d-darndest mistake of your life,’ and went out on the bank and shook myself. You may talk about m-m-ministers not joking, but by gracious, I shall a-a-always think that Presiding Elder knew I was no k-k-christian. It was a picnic for the crowd, and they laugh at me to this day. No, gentlemen, I k-k-can’t go to the camp-meeting, for I shouldn’t feel s-s-safe there,” and the stuttering man took his fish-pole and angle-worms and went down toward the pond, while the traveling men went to the camp-meet-ing.—Peck’s Sun.