Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 121, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1911 — Kept on Knocking. [ARTICLE]

Kept on Knocking.

“Congregations are getting more superstitious in little things,” said the minister. “At every sermon I have preached in the last six months I have been annoyed by somebody in the congregation knocking wood. Sometimes I can hear a little chorus of taps coming from different parts of the church, again I can only see the motion of their hands, but I know they are knocking on wood just the same. Every time I give thanks for any good fortune that has attended us superstitious parishioners knock on the back of the pew for it to continue. Two weeks ago I preached a scathing sermon on the foolish superstitions of the age, but I guess it didn’t hit the bullseye, for when I thanked Heaven that after all our church had been spared some of the superstitions that had rent other congregations asunder half the people in the house knocked wood.”