Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1901 — UNCONSCIOUS HUMOR. [ARTICLE]

UNCONSCIOUS HUMOR.

lasgka at th# Expense of Certain Va> named Irish Clergymen. In a remote country village, fat from the madding crowd, German speculative theories, with which ha waa more familiar than geography* Vould have seemed about the lasi thing likely to influence his flock, but he was ever haunted by an awful fear of the havoc that might ba wrought among them by such pernicious doctrines if they were not duly warned. “My britheren,” ha said on one occasion, “there are soma German philosophers that say there is no resurrection, and, me britheren, it would be better for thim German philosophers if, like Judas Iscariot, they had never been born.” And this recalls to my mind, says a writer in the Comhill Magazine, another discourse, where the. preacher wound up with the comforting assurance that il we paid due attention to the instruction we had just received from him we would “all return to our several homes like babes refreshed with newmade wine.” It was on another occasion that the same speaker, having ascended the pulpit, gave out his text with all due solemnity as follows: “My text is taken from the thirty-sixth chaptev of Genesis and the second verse: ‘And Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan’—or, rather, I should say, the twenty-seventh chapter and the thirty-eighth verse: ‘Bless me, even me, also, oh, my father.’ ” And then, as one of his hearers aptly remarked, he proceeded to preach a sermon which h|ad nothing to say to either of them. :

Absent-mindedness and a weakness for metaphor are no doubt responsible for much. To the former I credit a discourse in which the reverend preacher alluded to “Goliath fighting on behalf of the Israelites, while King Solomon sat by moodily in his tent,” and to the latter a striking simile, which deeply impressed the feminine portion of the congregation, who were told that “the grave was the great wardrobe of the world, where we are folded up and put by, to be taken out new at the resurrection.” But both of these are eclipsed by an eloquent speaker who in the course of an exi tempore address had wandered into medieval history. “And that haythen, Soliman,” he said, “whin he was lyin’ dead upqn the ground, sat up an’ said to his friends: ‘Behold, you now see the end of Soliman.’ ” I do not deny that there may occasionally be a want of comprehension on the part of the audience. “What was the sermon about to-day, Mary?” I inquired a mistress of her domestic. | “Please, m’m,” said Mary, twisting | the corner of her apron, “I’ve forgotI ten the text, but it was about young | men.” “Oh, really,” said the lady; | “and what else was it about?” ! “Please, m’m, it was about young women, too.” “But can you tell me ; anything Mr. B— : — said?” “I ! couldn’t repeat it exactly, in’m, for | it was a mixed up kind of sermon; j but it was very interesting,” added ■ the maiden.

But any attempt to fathom thn mind of a congregation is usually fraught with danger. A priest who had delivered what seemed to him a striking sermon was anxious to ascerj tain ifk effect on his flock. “Was tha | sermon to-day to y’r likin’, Pat?” h* inquired of one of them. “Tliroth, y’r riverence, it was a grand sermon intirely,” said Pat, with such genuino admiration that his reverence felt moved to investigate further. “Was there any part of it more than another that seemed to take hold of ye?” he inquired. “Well, now, as ye are fo* 1 gxinf me, begorra, I’ll tell ye. What tuk hoult of me most was y’r riverence’s perseverance—the way ye wint over the same thing agin and agin and agin. Sich parseverance I niver did see in anny man, before nor since.” One sample more and I have finished, for I cannot do better than bring my article to an end with th# | concluding words of a sermon on grace: “And, me britheren, if ya have in y’r hearts wan spark of heavenly grace, wather it, wather it continually.”