The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-02-04
A PURITAN COUNTRY CHURCH.
Sister Sudden, the Rev. Mr.. Hallelujah
and the Rev. Mr.. Manpragora.

anu Inc Rev. Mr.. ManpraSOr6,
From the Congreqdtionalist.
We have always noticed that Sister Sud
! den is great favorite for a little while
with new members of our church. She has
rather good face, with dark hair and kim
ding eyes, and an impetuous nature and
manner, and she always goes in for all the
new things; although she doesn't always
stay in a great while. Our city missionary
every now and then comes into the church
meeting with piteous tale of want or woe
or whatever, requiring immediate help, and
| often asks for one or more volunteers for
aid in pushing on his difficult, and not uni
formly thankful work. Sister Sudden al
ways volunteers, but after week or two of
toll something is apt to happen in her fam
lily or somewhere, or she will be sick, or
have to go out of town with scarcely any
| warning, so that, in one way or another,
! with infinite reluctance, it becomes needful
| for her to surrender her task to other
| hands,
Our new pastors habitually like Sister
Sudden. We speak of those beloved and
honored men in the plural number, hut we
do not thereby mean to suggest that we en-
| JOY collegiate ministrations; while we wish
it to be distinctly understood that we are
| church which is thoroughly convinced of
the wisdom of a settled ministry, as COM
| pared with the unscriptural and unreason-
| able ltineracy of some of our evangelical
brethren. Yet in some way it has curiously
happened that during the last fourteen
! years we have been called upon to invite
and entertain seven ordaining councils and
| six diSmiSSing ones, while the Methodist
| church on the other side of the common
| in the same period has had but live
preachers, the last of whom has a year
longer to stay. 1t cannot be denied that
an average of two years instead of
three is not a brilliant illustration
of that permanent ministry" on
| which we pride ourselves; but there is no
rules without exceptions, and we have been
for some time in an exceptional state. The
Rev Mr.. Ha!lelujah, who began this series,
had an extremely taking way with him,
and his zeal and elegant oratory might have
built us up tremendously, only that before
| the second year was out a summer boarder
at the hotel next door to our sanctuary
| through open windows overheard his fervid
voice in what seemed familiar strain and
opening a volume of Melville's sermons
which happened to be lying on the table,
followed him through one of the same leaf
by leaf, with scarcely the omission of a
sentence, to the final ''Amen" OF course we
couldn't pay person, though parson, for
preaching stolen sermons, and that ended
him.
The next man came highly recommended
| by one of our most prominent city divineS,
and appeared WELL though rather pale and
CHASTITY individual; until some one found on
| the table of his room in his boarding house
an enormous chunk of opium with peculiarly
| irregular teeth marks around the edges
The teeth were obviously his; and his fare
well sermon soon followed. But, as we were
on the subject of Sister Sudden, we will not
go further in this biographical pastoral
| h. o,,,%I ri, hot G1I1 ar,
was always the first to appreciate i'll his
turn the peculiar excellence of each new
conner Her heart went out to him. One
| of the most timid of the lot and the one who
stayed longest, confessed that, in
| his case, her impetuous recep-
| ton was what turned the scale
between us and the church irfCloverville,
which, indeed, was offering $50 less salary
| than we were 1t ought, in fairness to all
parties, perhaps, to be added here that if
Sister Sudden be invariably the first to well
| come the coming ministerial guest, she has
also ne\ er been behind hand in speeding the
| parting one. She it was who recognized the
| tell tale teeth marks of MIR. Mandragora,
and who felt at once that his usefulness was
at an end-and made no secret of that feel
| ing.
| Sister Sudden has not been happy in her
so to speak-domestic relations. Con
greves couplet:
| Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleas
| ure;
Married in haste we may repent at leisure
| fails in exactness of application to her case
mainly because she remains single still; but
| she is known to have been engaged" a
| good many times-with no results that
amounted to much. The trouble probably
| has been that those contracts, as Juliet said
to Romeo, were
| too rash. too unadvised, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be,
| Ere one can say-it ightens.
Sister Sudden is great at picnic-fancy
q whole nation, like the French people,
spelling that word ptQue-ntque; no wonder
they have trouble with their Presidents or
a fair, or Sunday school excursion, or a
sociable, or a candy scrape, or any of those
| delightful SeculariteS with which our
churches now and then come down from
their habitual altitude of goodness toward
the level of the world, as the little steamer
on a Swiss lake fillips round in the most ex-
taordinary and zigZag manner among the
towns on the banks to take in passengers.
She-that is, Sister Sudden-is full of energy
and usefulness on such occasions ready tC
do and be anything to insure success and
her flashing style has proved itself admirable
and effective in charge of weighing ma
chine, Mrs. Jarley's wax works, OF an
Aunt Sally"
We have the Apostle Paul for it-and he
was speaking of the church-that those
members which seem to be more feeble
are necessary" and any wise man will say
that our Sudden sisters have an important
sphere" i'll our churches The hard-coal
fire whose glowing urgency raises the steam
to drive the massive engines which do our
great works, has to be started by blaze OF
kindlings. And the kindlings have to be
brought to a flame by the preliminary com
bustion of wIsp of straw or roll Of
paper.
BELIEVE IN MAN.