The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-01-29

4 CHANGE or
OCCUPATION
By a Pulpit Founder.

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fact in symptoms well known to clergy
men and more especially to clergy
mems wives. At home I was nervous
and decidedly cross, particularly to the
children. In my parish I maintained
the conventional smile and inquired
solicitousIy otter peoples healths, but
inwardly I cared little about any of
them.
Then, too, after my most earnest eff
forts at preaching, some good sister
would amble up, and when I had my
hand ready extended to accept her con-
CALCULATIONS with fitting humility, she
would say, "My pastor looks tired, -
or some equally reassuring remark. One
of my deacons casually asked me if it
wouldn It be easier for me to write out
my sermons in full. These and other
intimations made me realize that /
needed a rest. I had completely for
gotten funeral, and had incurred
the lasting hostility of the family; and
on another occasion, as / was baptiZing
a boy, and almost in the act of adorn-
ing him with the name of Ella, -
l was barely saved (likewise the boy)
by the quickness of my everalert wife,
who whispered in stage distincfness
" Frederick as the parents, too en-
barrassed and frightened to speak,
seemed about to collapse.
The climax came when I forgot to
make special mention in prayer of
the bereavement of a prominent family
at their first appearance at church
after the death of a dissipated son,
who had died at a sanitarium of 50 ner-
vous prostratiOn.'
The chairman of the board Of trus-
tees said to us as we were leaving the
church, Well, I guess we have lost
the Mathews all right; they gave up
their pew this morning / did not
stop to tell the brother of the many
visits I had made on the Mathews and
of two trips to the sanitarium, but
hurried to my home.
''Take a vacation" said my doctor.
- You need an absolute change. You
ministers don't know how to take a
rest. What you need is not stagna-
ton to make you more nervous still,
Why, man. said he, "Fget a job on
a grip car, or go on the farm and run
a moving machine. Do something,
but make a pleasure of it.. He laugh
ed and I tried to; but his joke be-
came a fact, and that is how I became
a conductor on a grip car. I needed
my home. A man with my kind of
nervous prostration must not be too
far away from his family. With my
beard and mustache gone, my own
children did not know me.
Then, through an influential friend
who was in the secret, [ was indicted
into office I had thought it did not
require much study to know what was
necessary, for | had watched the con-
ductors and grip men for years.
Yet it was mighty confusing at first.
To collect a fare, give a transfer, re-
member street and call it, pull the
cash register and the signal to stop
and go ahead, and know when all were
aboard while standing in the middle
of the car. was more of an undertaking
than I had ever dreamed. Talk about
mental alertness in preparing a sermon
there is nothing to it compared to this.
The man in the corner said "Appleby
Street, and when I was mentally fig
uring on where it was, an elderly
woman waved her umbrella at me. I
stopped the car, and three people got
on. When I went in to collect their
fare only one responded, and for my
life, [ couldn It tell who the others
were.
Meantime the man in the corner had
risen, and was roaring, "Have we come
to Appleby Street," I was conscious
that we had and something over, and {
rang the bell. ''I told you to let me {
off at Appleby. What are you going
to do about it2' demanded the indi- y
vidual whom I now recognized as the s
teacher of our men g Bible class. Fear I
ing he might recognize my voice, I s
something while he stood /
md glared alternately at me and the
and the grip man changed g
lis gong for the signal to start. fEI'n 7
'eport you, sir, was the parting '
shaft. And ] heard a murmur of APP
,roval from several, and one old lady
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