Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1905-01-24
A FRESH LOT OF ANECDOTES.
Told by Rev. c. n. Grundy, an AnsIi-
can Minister.


England has said that II clergyman
played penny whistle well in public,
and was also magnificent preacher,
he would be known everywhere as the
clergyman who played the whistle,
and not as the orator; because men
seize on the amusing side Of Life and
welcome whatever breaks the mono
tony Of experiences. It Is the same I'm
the case OF a clergyman who has the
power to tell brightly and crisply good
stories after dinner, or to make q wit
ty platform speech, or to produce @
brilliant impromptu repartee. Names
like Sidney Smith, wilberforce, Magee
and that Of the lamented dean OF
whom all classes Of society
are mourning, are associated with
sparkling retorts, flashes Of genius,
clever playing upon words, quaint sug-
gestions. racy anecdotes, quick banter,
clever whimsicalities and smart witt
rather than dogma, theology,
treatises, evidences, controversy, or
even pulpit oratory. The true and no.
Bile work Of their lives is discounted
in the minds Of dull people by what is
thought to be irreverent, out Of place.
and showing q lack o..
spirituality and a want Of true devout-
ness. Thirty or 40 years ago it war
taken for granted that real child or
God would be always solemn, and thai
a sincere divine would not provoke
even in moments Of sociabil-
ity.
Yet saving sense Of humor Is ar
gift for a clergyman. IT,
enables him to avoid many things
which render the dullard ridiculous.
BY 1t he gets the right proportion Of
things in the parish, and at many Q.
meeting by judicious wit avoids q
storm. Men with no sense OF humor
others get furiouG
about trifes, and In the language Of
the late Dean Iiddell, Of Christ Church
Oxford, bring out the garden roller to
kill a snail with" The fact IL that
the graver side Of the clergyman's life
Is so very grave that, unless he can
SEE also the ludierous side Of things.
he is not unlikely to become sane
timonious bore, or q melancholy man
whose mind is always parochially on
duty.
No man In modern times has lived
nearer to God than Bishop Walsham
How, yet some of the stories he re-
lates, and which have been printed.
would have shocked the Mrs. Grundy
Of the evangelical world when was
a boy. Soon after my ordination to g.
curacy In Oxford made a very mild
in a sermon between the
Christian life and the Oxford boat
race. DIR. Sewell Of New College, who
was In church In st. Peters-in-the-
East, Oxford, that morning. was great
ly scandalized, and spoke Of the ref
erence as quite out Of place in a sa-
cred buIrdmgs while on another occa-
sion my vicar wrote me -H~AeEg letter
Of expostulation for quoting Byron In
the pulpit, fearing lest 1t might lead
some Of the young people to read his
works. Archbishop Benson, Of saint
ly memory, struck the true note Of
life when he said, There Is nothing
secular except SIM" nor am ! aware
Of any act allowable in a Christian
layman forbidden to a minister in the
New Testament.
The silly prudery Of the pulpit In
olden days caused sermons to be un-
real, but the sermon Of today some
times errs on the other side. No cler-
gyman has a right to be vulgar, or
to use slang, without introducing 1t
with an apology and as being quo
tation, and hardly ever even then. An
uncle Of mine told me that in the days
of the great famine In Ireland no cler-
gyman dared to say the word potato
in the pulpit; 1t was considered to IA
miliar, some ingenious paraphrase
was used. It was spoken Of as that
root on which so many inhabitants
in the sister island depend for their
daily support, but which now, owing
to the mysterious wisdom Of Provi-
dence, has for time ceased to -four
ish." One preacher called 1t that
"esculent succulent, now denied to the
Emerald Isle by the Creator whose
ways are not our ways" but no one
said potato"
Yet the Saviour talked Of corn. and
oil and flowers, and sparrows, and
pressed everyday things into His SER
vice to illustrate spiritual truths. DR..
Gadesby, the well-known preacher In
Lancashire, once at Oldham, took for
his text that verse about every man
dwelling in safety under his vine and
under his fig tree" and then he said:
I'VE have no vines or fig trees in Old
ham. 1t is just as II the Lord had said
to you, You shall sit by your own
fireside and toast your own cheese. y
Yet no one in that congregation
thought him irreverent, but every one
clearly saw the meaning Of the verse.
DR.. Griffiths, a quaint and powerful
preacher in Wales years ago, caused
smile at Merthyr-Tydvil one Sunday
evening by homely illustration which
struck me as apt and forcible. He said:
"I have been in. London. I have been
to the Crystal Palace There I saw
strange performance between two jap
anese. One stood with arms and legs
outstretched against a screen. The
other, IL PAGES of, hurled darts con-
tinually into the screen-darts close to
the mans ears, darts by his neck, darts
under his arms, darts between his legs,
It was a terrible sight. At length the
man moved from the screen, leaving
his outline on the canvas, marked out
by the darts; but not one Of them hac
touched the man himself. That" said
he, "is the preaching you like. You
don't care how closely the preachers
words come to you provided he does
not hit you"
1t is very easy, when preaching ex-
tempore, to make a slip which causes
a sentence to be absurd. Once, when