Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1904 — HUMOR IN TEXT OF CLERGY. [ARTICLE]

HUMOR IN TEXT OF CLERGY.

Amusing Remarks Which Were Most Seriously Intended. Part of the humor which one occasionally meets with, even in the sedate incloeure of the pulpit, is due to the queer texts which are sometimes —often unconsciously—chosen by the preachers. No doubt there are many stories told under this head which owe their origin not to actual fact so much as to the invention of the wag. For example, a minister on the Sunday before his marriage is said to have chosen as his text, "And he went on his way rejoicing.” and on the Sunday after his honeymoon to have eloquently discoursed on the words, “Hlemember my bonds.” These instances are probably, apocryphal. but the following are true and have all come within the experience of the writer. It was in the north of England that the first incident happened. It was a country church where oil lamps were used instead of gas. One night in the I&te summer when the lam.>s had not yet been resumed after ’he long days, it got suddenly overcast and before the sermon it was deemed necessary to light the pulpit lamp. During the hymn the old sexton repaired to the pulpit, and, haring cleaned the glass

chimney with a duster lit It up, but only a feeble light struggled through. And then the clergyman took hla text, which was this: "And now we see through a glass darkly.” A few years ago a well-known blßhop married his second wife, and, returning home after his honeymoon, announced a series of sermons, the title of the series being “The Penitent’s Return." ThAs was obviously unintentional. There is a church In one of our large cities which boasts of a very high pulpit. A Bho**t time ago a strange preacher who was of a nervous temperament “occupied” this pulpit, hut, as the sequel will show, only for a short time, for having taken his text and said about a dozen words, he startled the congregation by saying: “I am not used to pulpits as high as this; you will pardon me, I know. If I come down and .■preach my sermon from the lectern. And this was his strangely appropriate text: “He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that hurableth himself shall be exalted.” One more instance: Not many months ago a clergyman preached one Sunday evening from the text. "My ■words shall not pass away." Exactly a fortnight later the Btune clergyman preached the same sermon from the same text in the same church, to the wonderment of practically the same congregation. Evidently It was his determination that at any rate < nr* lEir.iiffTMiiil