Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1876-06-09
SECTARIAN HASH.

We have received a postal circular from
Rev. EDWIN M. LONG, clergyman in
Philadelphia. who announces that he has
preached his illustrated sermons in over
one hundred different churches' in that
city, and further offers to secure us board
and lodging in many 'Christian families"
at the reasonable rate Of from SIS to $14
per week. We are not insensible to the
interest the Rev. Mr.. LONG takes in our
welfare, but we would be very ungrateful,
indeed, if we did not give him the result of
our experience in a long life Of tenting on
the arid plains of Christian families. To
tell the truth, in the matter of keeping a
clearinghouse, the most pious Christian
does not. as far as we have been able to
perceive, excel the most hardened sinner,
nor are they more merciful to the in
1rmities of appetite which beset us. In
that standard article known as hash, we
have known those foreordaned to condem-
nation to equal, if not surpass the most
saint-like, and in the pecuniary charges
therefor we have known the sinner to be
more moderate. In fact, we have found
more buttons and capillary adornments in
the compound manufactured by the Saint
than the same article made by the sinner.
Not that there is anything in the Ten
Commandments against accidental hair in
hash, but then it shows that piety is no
safeguard against it,, We have partaken
of as strong butter after rising from family
devotion as we have after joining our host
in an immoral tansey appetizer, and we
have never noticed that the strength of
the hostess orthodoxy ever gave addi-
tional vigor to the coffee. We have heard
from the same sanity lips that responded
"From all these things Good Lord deliver
us' the most vehement denunciations of
"Marier-r-r!" who is the maid on the first
floor, and we have had no reason to be-
lieve that the beautiful hands that knocked
that agile little servants head against the
wall were not the same that we saw depos-
iting a slight donation for the heather at
the morning service. Nor of the younger
branches of the family have we had much
more favorable Impressions. We have
known the child Of pious mother to take
boarder's hat out and fill it with marks
of his regard to the amount of a cake of
blue soap, a bundle of lamp-wicks and a
retired mustard plaster, and to make such
fiendish efforts to hold on when his
saint-like mother would attempt to rescue
it, that he would bear off the streaming
hat band and foot or so of the lining as a
trophy. Indeed, we have known the souls
of boarders lost from profanity occasioned
by such occurrences as these in Christian
family. A child fed on the catechism can
get hat to pieces in just half the time
that child Of Belial can. We are willing
to swear to that Other certificates can
be obtained from sufferers, if necessary.
We do not allude, by way of reproach, to
the fearfully early Sunday breakfasts to
meet church time, nor the painfully early
and thin Sunday suppers to meet the same
emergency, nor the frigid Sunday din
ners to meet the exactions of the Fourth
Commandment: Heaven forbid that the
convenience of sinner should be put on
level with the inconvenience of a saint!
MI. LONG says the advantage OF cores
ponding with him will be to secure admis-
sion to many Christian families who "are
unwilling to open their doors to promis-
cuous public.' 1t is an advantage we
hardly hope to be able to avail ourselves
of. We are dreadfully afraid that we are
already promiscuous. A hardened jour-
nalist, who has been living lifetime in
boarding houses, has become so horribly
promiscuous that we are afraid the atten-
tions of even the kindest of Christian
families could not save him, and he is only
fitted, as Mr.. LONG remarks, ''to be asso-
ciated with the great variety OF characters
brought together in hotels and public
boarding houses" a truly to be condemned
class. But nevertheless, we are grateful to
to the Rev. E. M. LONG, who has assured
us on the faith of an author who has
preached his illustrated sermons in over
one hundred different churches" that, on
receiving our paper containing notice of
his card, Especial favors in the price of
board in Christian families" will be grant
d US. We hope he will like our notice!