Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1885 — An Anecdote of the Elder Beecher. [ARTICLE]

An Anecdote of the Elder Beecher.

He preached in the First Presbyterian Church, the aristocratic, rich church of Cincinnati. Tie was always doing some odd thing. One came in late; the house Was packed; he walked rapidly up the aisle with a piece of blotted manuscript in his hand, ascended the pulpit, opened the Bible, spread his manuscript out, v took the text, and was about to begin' his sermon without any preliminary exercises. One of the elders rose from his pew and stood. The elder looked at the dpctor, the doctor looked at the elder. The elder c. me out of his pew, the doctor came down the Btairs, and they met. The elder whispered a few words ih the doctor's ear, thei doctor reascended, closed his Bible, and said: “Let

us pray.” This was a specimen of many such performances. I don’t know of any better way of accounting for it than to tell what the doctor once said to us at the seminary when giving a lecture in oratory. “Young gentlemen,” said he, “don’t stand before a looking-glass and mak,e,gestures. Never* mind your gestures.: Pump yourself brimful of your subject, till you can’t hold another drop, and then knock out the bung and let nature caper. ” In the instance of the sermon the doctor had pumped himself full on the subject of his study, and when he reached the churcji was too eager to knock out the bung. —Chicago News.