ave a
lunge for the dog, not looking to my feet, and fell over a rocker; but
there were sympathetic hands to help me up, and I kept on until by the back
of the neck I grasped the grizzly-headed pup, as he commenced kicking,
scratching, barking, yelping, howling, and carried him to the door in
triumph, and, without any care as to where he landed, hurled him out into
the darkness.
Give my love to the sexton, and tell him never to chase a dog in religious
service. Better let it alone, though it should, like my friend's
poll-parrot, during prayer time, break out with the song, "I would not live
alway!" But the fidgety sexton is ever on the chase; his boots are apt to
be noisy and say as he goes up the aisle, "Creakety-crack! Here I come.
Creakety-crack!" Why should he come in to call the doctor out of his pew
when the case is not urgent? Cannot the patient wait twenty minutes, or is
this the cheap way the doctor has of advertising? Dr. Camomile had but
three cases in three months, and, strange coincidence, they all came to him
at half-past eleven o'clock Sunday morning, while he was in church. If
windows are to be lowered, or blinds closed, or register to be shut off,
let it be before the sermon.
THE LAZY SEXTON.
He does not lead the stranger to the pew, but goes a little way on the
aisle, and points, saying, "Out yonder!" You leave the photograph of your
back in the dust of the seat you occupy; the air is in an atmospheric hash
of what was left over last Sunday. Lack of oxygen will dull the best
sermon, and clip the wings of gladdest song, and stupefy an audience.
People go out from the poisoned air of our churches to die of pneumonia.
What a sin, when there is so much fresh air, to let people perish for lack
of it! The churches are the worst ventilated buildings on the continent. No
amount of grace can make stale air sacred. "The prince of the power of the
air" wants nothing but poisoned air for the churches. After audiences have
assembled, and their cheeks are flushed, and their respiration has become
painful, it is too late to change it. Open a window or door now, and you
ventilate only the top of that man's bald head, and the back of the neck of
that delicate woman, and you send off hundreds of people coughing and
sneezing. One reason why the Sabbaths are so wide apart is that every
church building may have six days of atmospheric purification. The best
man's breath once ejected is not worth keeping. Our congreg
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