San Andreas independent., 1858-01-02
Another Harp Sermon.

My beloved brethrin-I am an onlarnt
Hardshell Baptist preacher, of whom
you've no doubt hern before, and [ now
appear here to expound the Scripturs and
pint out the narrow way which leads from
a vain world to the streets of the New
Jerusalem; and my text, which | shall
choose for the occasion, is in the lids of
the Bible, somewhere between Second
Chronicles and the last chapter of limo
thy Titus, and when you find it, it will be
in these words
"And they shall knaw file and fee
unto the mountains of Hepzidam, whar
the lion roareth and the whang doodle
mourneth for its first BORN
Now, my brethrin, as | have before
told you, | am an unedicated man, and
know nothing about grammar-talk and
collidge hightalootin, but I'm plain, un-
larnt preacher of the gospel, what's been
foreordained and called to expound the
Scriptures to dyin' world, and save this
pervarse generation from the day of rath
and Contamination; for " they shall
knaw file and fee unto the mountains of
Hepzidam, where the lion roareth and the
whang doodle mourneth for her first
born"
My beloved brethren, the tex says
They shall knaw file 1t don say they
may but shall; and now there's more
than one kind of file: there's the hand
saw file, the rat tail file, single file, double
file and profile; but the kind of file spo-
ken of here ism tone of them kind neither,
because it's a figure of speech, my dear
brethering, and means goin' it alone and
kinder gettin' ukered for "they shall
knaw file and flee unto the mountains
of Hepzidam, where the lion roareth and
the whang doodle mourneth for his first
born.
And now there be some here with fine
clos on their backs, brass rings on their
fingers, and lard on their hair, what goes
it while they're young; and there be
brethrin here what, as long as their con-
stitution and forty-cent whisky last, goes
it blind; and there be sisters here what,
when they get sixteen years old, cut their
tiller ropes and 90 it with rush ; but |
say, my brethering, take care you don't
find, when Gabriel plays the last trump,
that you've all went it alone and kinder
got ukered for "they shall knaw a file
and flee unto the mountains of Hepzidam,
where the lion roareth and the whang
doodle mourneth for its first born"
And there's more dams besides Hepzi-
dam. There is Rotterdam, Adam, Ans
terdam, mill-dam and don 't-care-a- dam
the last of which, my dear brethering, is
the worst of all, and which reminds me at
this minute of acircumstanceI once knew
in Illinois. There was a man built him
mill on the east fork of Agur Greek, and
it was good mill and ground sight of
grain, but the man what built it was
miserable sinner, and he never gave any
thing to the church and, my brethering,
one night there came dreadful storm of
wind and rain, and the fountains of the
great deep was broken up, and 10 and be-
hold, in the morning when he got up he
found that it WASH worth damn. Now,
my dear brethering, when storms and
tribulations overtake ye, take care that
you dom fall from grace and become like
that man. S mill-not worth dam; for
+" they shall knaw file and flee unto the
mountains of Hepzidam, where the lion
roareth and the whang- doodle mourneth
for its first born"
"Wher' the lion roareth and the whang-
doodle mourneth for its first-born." This
part of the tex, breetheren, is another
figger of speech, and isn't to be taken as
it says. 1t doesn't mean the howling
wilderness where John the Hardshell
Baptist fed on locusts and wild asses, but
it means, my dear breethering, the city
of New Yoreans, the mother Of harlots
and hard lots-where corn is worth six
bits bushel one day and nary red the
next-whar honest men are skeercern n
hens teeth, and a strange woman once
tuck in your lovely preacher and bam-
boozled him out of two hundred and
twenty-seven dollars in the twinkling of
a sleeps tail, but she can't do it again,
halleluga. for "they shall knaw file"
etc. My breethering, I'm capting of
that fat-boat you seed tied up thar, and
I've got aboard of her, -four and bacon
and oats and potatoes and apples, and as
good Monongehala whisky as you ever
drank, and I'm mighty apt to git a big
price for it all but what oh, my breeth-
ering, would it all be worth to me if |
hadn't religion? Thar's nothing like re-
ligion, my breethering! It's better nor
silver and gold and jim-cracks, and you
can no more get to heaven without it than
Jay bird can fly without tail. Thank
the Lord I'm an unedicated man, my
breethering, but I've sarched the scrip
ters from Dan to Barshebee and found old
Zion right side up, and the hard shelled
religion the best of all religions. And it
is not like the Methodists what expects
to git into heaven by hollering, nor the
Universalist what gifts upon the broad
gage, and goes the whole hog, nor the
United breethering what takes each by
the seats of thar trowsers, and tries to lift
theyselves into heaven, nor the Gather
liks what buuc throurh tickotc from, tbo;r