Year: 1879

PRINTED FOR THE BENEFIT OF EVAN


GELISTS AND THE YOUNGER CLERGY.


From the Birmingham Dart.


The following hits off pretty fairly
the way in which some discourses are
constructed:


Brethren, the words of my text are
old Mother Hubbard she went to the cupboard,


To get her poor dog bone;


But when she got there the cupboard was bare,


And so the poor dog had none


These beautiful words, dear friends,
carry with them a solemn lesson. l
propose this evening to analyze their
meaning and to attempt to apply it,
lofty as it may be, to our everyday life !:
Old Mother Hubbard she went to the cupboard


To get her poor dog bone.


Mother Hubbard, you see, was old !;
there being no mention of Others, we
may presume she was alone /; a widow
friendless, old, solitary widow. Yet
did she despair I? Did she sit down and
weep, or read novel, or wiring her
hands? No she went to the cupboard.
And here observe that she went to the
cupboard. She did not hop, or skip, oi
run, OF jump, or use any other peripa-
tetic artifice; she solely and merely
went to the cupboard.


We have seen that she was old and
lonely, and we further see that she was
poor. For, mark, the words are the
cupboard Not 'One of the cupboards,'
or the right hand cupboard,' or 'the
left hand Cupboard or the one above,
or the one below, or the one under the
floor, but just the cupboard. The one
humble little cupboard the poor widow
And univ 1i1 che o,o 70 fho
cupboard? Was it to bring forth gold
en- goblets or glittering precious stones,
or costly apparel, or feasts, or any 9th
er attribute of wealth. 1t was to get
her poor dog bone Not only was the
widow poor, but her dog, the sole prop
of her age, was poor too. We can i'm
agine the scene. The poor dog crouch
ing in the corner, looking wistfully at
the solitary cupboard, and the widow
going to that cupboard-in hope, in ex-
pectation may be-to open it, although
we are not distinctly told that it was
not half open or ajar, to open it for that
poor dog:


But when she got there the cupboard was bare,


And so the poor dog had none.


When she got there You see, dear
brethren, what perseverance is. You
see the beauty of persistence in doing
right. She got there. There were no
turnings and twstings, no slippings and
slidings, no leaning to the right or fall
terings to the left. With glorious sim
plicity we are told she got there.


And how was her noble effort re-
warded


"The cupboard was barern 1t was
bare There were to be found neither
oranges, nor cheese-cakes, nor penny
buns, nor gingerbread, nor crackers,
nor nuts, nor luciter matches. The
cupboard was bare There was but one,
only one solitary cupboard in the whole
of that cottage, and that one the sole
hope of the widow, and the glorious
loadstar of the poor dog was bare Had
there been leg of mutton, a loin of
lamb, fillet of veal, even an ice from
Gunter's, the case would have been diff
ferent, the incident would have been
otherwise. But it was bare, my breth-
ren, bare as bald head, bare as an in
fant born without caul.


Many of you will probably say, with
all the pride of worldly sophistry-'The
widow, no doubt, went out aud bought
her dog biscuit All, no! Far removed
from earthly ideas, these mundane de-
sires, poor Mother Hubbard, the widow
whom thoughtless worldlings would
despise, in that she only owned cup
board, perceived, or | might even say
saw-at once the relentless logic of the
situation, and yielded to it with all the
herOism OF that nature which had en-
abled her without deviation to reach
the barren cupboard. She did not at
tempt, like the stiff necked scoffers of
this generation, to war against the in
evitable; she did not try, like the So
called men of science, to explain what
she did not understand. She did moth
ing. The poor dog had noner And
then at this point our information
ceases. But we do not know sufficient
Are we not cOgniZant of enough?


Who would dare to pierce the veil
that shrouds the ulteliOr fate of old
Mother Hubbard-the poor dog-the
cupboard-or the bone that was not
there Must we imagine her still
standing at the open cupboard door.
depict to ourselves the dog still drOop-
ing his disappointed tail upon the floor.
the sought for bone still remaining
somewhere else2 All! no, my dear
brethren, we are not so permitted to
dtlOiupI W Icdu bDc luluI0. ounce IL
for us to CLEAN from this beautiful story
its many lessons; suffice it for us to
apply them, to study them as far as in
us lies, and bearing in mind the natural
frailty of our nature, to avoid being
widows; to shun the patronymic of
Hubbard; to have, if our means afford
it, more than one cupboard in the
house; and to keep stores in them all.
And, oh dear friends, keeping in rec
objection what we have learned this
day. let us avoid keeping dogs that are
fond of bones. But, brethren, if we do
if fate has ordained that we should do
any of these things, let us then 90, as
Mother Hubbard did, straight, without
curveting or prancing, to our cupboard.
empty though it be-let us like her.
accept the inevitable with calm stead
fastness; and should we, like her. ever
be left with hungry dog and an empty
cupboard, may future chrOniclers be able
to write also of us, in the beautiful
words of our text:


"And so the poor dog had none"