Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1885 — A BISHOP ON ROLLER-SKATES. [ARTICLE]

A BISHOP ON ROLLER-SKATES.

“ Bishop Huntington on rollerskates !” Mrs. Dewsnap laid the paper on her lap like a wonp>n suddenly overpowered. She was shocked. She removed her spectacles, rubbed them, put them on, looked at the paper in a helpless Way, and, finding no language suitable to the occasion, shook her head. * “ Bishop—Huntington—on—rollerskates! Shocking! I never would have believed it! Why, it seems just as bad as if they’d advertise the apostles at the museum! It wouldn’t be worse, to my mind—not a bit more ridiculous if they’d put St. Paul on a trick-mule in a circus. How can he?— how can any man who has any dignity to support even lend his presence to these expectations? But to get on skate's himself! “Well, well! You may say what you please about my old-fogy ideas when I talk of the depravity of the times, one thing I do know, the world—the religious world— no worltf is growing wiser or better that tolerates or puts confidence in a Bishop on rollerskates “What’s that, John Andrew? You think the woi;ld is growing wiser ! Your faith in Bishop Huntington ain’t shaken by a paragraph in a newspaper! Very well—but when your Bishop gets on roller-skates —I can’t express myself. If the Bishop can go on roller-skates, so can the doctors, and the curates, and the vestrymen, and the choir. A pretty sight that would be—a bishop sailing away head, the curates, vestrymen, congregation, and chorus all following pell mell —rolling, wobbling, old, young, big, little, fat, and lean, some of them tumbling —all to the sound of those horrible bands that split one’s ears ! . - “You think it would, in a manner, illustrate the airy movements of angels ? John Andrew, I am shocked. You can’t be serious. But just think of a man of Bishop Huntington’s presence; a man as refined, as intellectual-looking, with that air of perfect self-command, that elegance —and all that on roller-skates —it’s just too awful to think of. “I can remember the Bishop when he was a young man.. We all predicted wonderful things of him, but nothing more than was fulfilled. He was a handsome young man. When he undertook a thing it was sure to go through—and now to think here he is leading his people right on to rollerskates! Oh*, I see it! You needn’t try to soften it. Isn’t it here before my very eyes—‘Bishop Huntingtori on Boiler-Skates’ ? Now, I’d like to know just what put him on? What new freak is it ? Some of your novel ways of begging money for- missions, instead of honestly paying to the Lord what you can afford to spare. No, but you must get up ice-cream festivals, and fairs, and spend a lot of money on trumpery, and dressing yourself for your bazars! That’s bad enough! You do everything almost but tell fortunes. Now you've gone a step further, and got the Bishop on roller-skates. Don’t speak to me, John Andrew. I’ve never been so shocked in all my life. I’ll never see the Bishop again without fancying him puffing and blowing, and falling, trying to learn roller-skating. A man at his years, too. It’s ridiculous! It’s shameful! It’s sinful! Who can speak of religion, let alone venerate 'a religious teacher, in the same breath with the subject of roller-skating ? Well, well. All the Huntington blood is faded out now. The last speck of it has disappeared. You can’t talk of family and roller-skates in the same hour—you can’t mention promotion in the church. I don’t care if a nfan was made a pope, you -couldn’t talk of it and roller-skating the same day or week. “What is the world coming to, J ohm Andrew? There! see for yourself. Now—read slowly—let me know the worst at pnce— then burn the paper! I nevrir want to see it again. “What! A paper oh the subject. Bead before a meeting. He terms it a dangerous experiment, taking; one class from the streets, and drawing another from safety to dissipation. That’s just for all the world the way I’d expect to hear him talk. To be sure that is the way he’d look at it. It’s absurd to think he would say anything else.; Bishop Huntington is a man who knows the world and its wickedness; a man of’ wonderful discrimination; a man not easily misled, and one that may be trusted to say the proper thing at all times is Bishop Huntington, and any one who would attribute any nonsense or shortcomings to the Bishop doesn’t know him. There —lay the paper on the table—l’ll read it at my leisure, John Andrew.”— Chicago Ledger.