me you may preach; but I may tell
you that there is a tradition here that the most souls are saved during
the first twenty-five minutes."

One Sunday morning a certain young pastor in his first charge announced
nervously:

"I will take for my text the words, 'And they fed five men with five
thousand loaves of bread and two thousand fishes.'"

At this misquotation an old parishioner from his seat in the amen corner
said audibly:

"That's no miracle--I could do it myself."

The young preacher said nothing at the time, but the next Sunday he
announced the same text again. This time he got it right:

"And they fed five thousand men on five loaves of bread and two
fishes."

He waited a moment, and then, leaning over the pulpit and looking at the
amen corner, he said:

"And could you do that, too, Mr. Smith?"

"Of course I could," Mr. Smith replied.

"And how would you do it?" said the preacher.

"With what was left over from last Sunday," said Mr. Smith.

The late Bishop Foss once visited a Philadelphia physician for some
trifling ailment. "Do you, sir," the doctor asked, in the course of his
examination, "talk in your sleep?"

"No sir," answered the bishop. "I talk in other people's. Aren't you
aware that I am a divine?"

"Yes, sir," said the irate man, "I got even with that clergyman. I
slurred him. Why, I hired one hundred people to attend his church and go
to sleep before he had preached five minutes."

A noted eastern Judge when visiting in the west went to church on
Sunday; which isn't so remarkable as the fact that he knew beforehand
that the preacher was exceedingly tedious and long winded to the last
degree. After the service the preacher met the Judge in the vestibule
and said: "Well, your Honor, how did you like the sermon?"

"Oh, most wonderfully," replied the Judge. "It was like the peace of
God; for it passed all understanding, and, like His mercy, I thought it
would have endured forever."

The preacher's evening discourse was dry and long, and the congregation
gradually melted away. The sexton tiptoed up to the pulpit and slipped a
note under one corner of the Bible. It read:

"When you are through, will you please turn off the lights, lock the
door, and put the key under the mat?"

The new minister's first sermon was very touching and created much
favorable comment among the members of the church. One morning, a few
days later, his nine-year-old son happened to be alone in