“That you mayn't preach it again by accident; well, that is business.”
“If you look into the left pile near the top, you will find the one I preached against profane discourse, with the date at which it was first composed.”
“Here it is, sir—Little-Stoke, May 15, 1847.”
“Well, Mr. Hawes, now was that written against you?—come!”
“No! I confess it could not; but look here, if a man sends a bullet into me, it doesn't matter to me whether he made the gun on purpose or shot me out of an old one that he had got by him.”
“But I tell you that I took the sermon out in its turn, and knew no more what it was about until I opened it in the pulpit, than I knew what this one is about which I am going to preach next Sunday morning—it was all chance.”
“It was my bad luck, I suppose,” said Hawes a little sulkily.
“And mine, too. Could I anticipate that a discourse composed for and preached to a rural congregation would be deemed to have a personal application here?”
“Well, no!”
“I have now only to add that I extremely regret the circumstance.”