Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1886 — Soothing a Horse by Song. [ARTICLE]

Soothing a Horse by Song.

A minister named M. C , who has since passed into “innocuous desuetude” by falling from grace, had a circuit in Southern Indiana. The horse he rode was a spirited animal and would not let a blacksmith shoe him. The preacher was a great revivalist, and singer of revival songs—noted for his “power of song,” in fact. A smith in the county seat, the center of the circuit, learning .that the preacher’s horse would not be shod, meeting the divine one day, said: “If you’ll bring that horse to my shop on to-morrow, and follow my instructions, I’ll shoe him ‘all round,’ and it won’t cost you a cent. ” Accordingly the preacher was on time at the smithshop with his refractory steed, and after the animal had been divested of saddle, blankets, and all but the bridle, the smith said: “Now, hold your horse by the rein, close to the bridle-bit, and sing one of your liveliest camp-meeting songs, and when that is ended, strike up another, and keep on singing until I finish shoeing the horse.” The preacher obeyed, and to the astonishment of all, the animal was passive until the work was completed. As the blacksmith clinched the last nail he dropped the animal’s foot, exclaiming : „ “There, I knew you could sing religion into that horse.”— Detroit Free Press.