Rutland herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1823-1847, 1842-09-20
An Edifying sermon

In the course Of MT earthly pilgrimage I have
become acquainted with a number of oueer oe
muses., but with none queerer perhaps' than Inc
person referred to in the subioined extract from
letter written to the (Pdsburg) Washington Ban
ner, by It's editor now in New England The man
alluded to in 1t, is thriving farmer, in neiph-
borhood where | once lived He is one who has
cultivated his acres with much more care than his
Emind, and of course is richer in dollars. lands and
plentiful haryesls. than in intellectual wealth YET
he somehow "runs ola notion" as brother Rorers
would say that he has been called to preach the
gospel so he gathers the people, from time TO time
at large school house in his neighborhood. or at
some other convenient place. and holds forth for
their edfication, in such style as is given below
mention these facts to show that the sketch is no
fiction, and from my personal acquaintance with
the man, can easily believe the assertion tbat is
no caricature.-[ Voice of Freedom
In recent discourse, he commenced as follows
MY dear hearers, in the fust place I'll show that
man is an ondone crittcr; secondly, that Savior
has been provided; and thirdly how he is to Git
out OF this pickle" Having thus, in the most ap
proved manner, laid out his work, he continued in
the following strain:
"ti recorded somewhere in the GOOD Scrinter.
think it is ither in the Psalms or the book of St
Acts that man was at fast created upandicular
but he has found out great many sorts of con-
trlvances. Now, my friends, | hold that about the
biggest OF these contrivances are sin Sin, nv
hearers, are seedian-and seeditIan is the old
Adam-the evil seed-the tares and the wheat
don't you see Sin, my friends has cost the world
a great de al. 1t costs man more than it would
to keep cow-yes, even If she sot her foot IN a
pail of new milk every other night, and would
hook down rail fence like tanal sarpent. Don't
you see how foolish it is then? Why, YOU can't
computate what a nation hurt it has done TO the
airth and all that's in it. fit hadn't been for
sin, there never would have been any airthouakes
nor thunder, nor rain; and snow-storms and cav
ems, and the catracks and precpices, wouldn't
never a happened-but the world would have all
been as level an smoothaS dish There wouldn't
have been no uphill nor no down-hill, nor moth
ing to hurt and destroy and dcstractify the poor.
weak ancestors offallen Adam Oh, my friends
feel to put it into you, the rael gospel licks-
You're all a pack of sinners, so you are-you've
gone astray-you wander in forbidden paths
the spert amt with you-in the words of the
apostle, We hatch the cockturkey's eggs and weave
the spiders web and bring forth young vipers-
don't you see ?"-and so on rattIe-ie-baag, like
locomotive turned loose under high pressure of
steam, hardly pausiny to take breath for two NOR
tai hours, pouring forth such confused tumble of
mangled Scripture, murdered English, and until
gated nonsense, that bis "firsty" osecondly." and
"thirdly were soon Snothered to death, and no
farther intelligence was heard of them during the
discourse. This is no caricaturc; for it would in.
deed, be impossible to caricature this "Son of
Thunder" for dashng at once into unmixcd alb
surdity, there nothing left for the imagination of
the charicaturiS to supply