Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 February 1895 — DEPLORED HIS OWN WEAKNESS. [ARTICLE]

DEPLORED HIS OWN WEAKNESS.

Uncle Josiah's Habit of Exaggeration Too Deeply Hooted for Eradication.. .■ : \ There lived down in Cambridge, Ind., a well-known old gentleman by the name of Josiah Nixon who in early boyhood had acquired the habit of gross exaggeration, says the Indianapolis Sentinel. The habit had grown upon him so that he believed that everything he said was the truth, no matter how great the exaggeration. After he had reached the ripe old age of three score and ten some of the deacons in the church thought his peculiarity was too much like lying to pass unnoticed, and it was . decided, after a great deal of consideration, that the old gentleman must be churched. One evening, while he was seated in front of his door telling a small circle of neighbors about the way pioneers had to live, the gate opened and the delegation of deacons filed in. “Yes,” the old gentleman was saying, “we had hard times then. I lived two years on grass and hickory bark on Sundays, We used to call Sundays 'bark days’ on that account," and that's the only way we could tell when Sunday come. Bears! I see twelve hundred great big varmints onc’t around our camp, and I killed —” “Uncle Josiah,” broke in one of the deacons, “we have come to see you about this habit of yours. You have the unpleasant habit of forgetting. the truth when talking, and we Save come to remonstrate with you.” “I know it, deacon,” replied the old man, as he looked around. “I know it, and I want to tell you that I have grieved over that failin’ of nine five hundred thousand times a lay for the past two hundred years.”