And now the grave lecture and prayers at an end, He brings along with him a neighbouring friend, To be a partaker of Sunday’s good cheer, And taste the delightful October brew’d beer.
The dinner was ready, the things were laid snug, “Here, wife,” says the parson, “go fetch us a mug,” But a mug of what?—he had scarce time to tell her, When, “yonder,” says she, “are the hogs in the cellar.
To be sure they got in when we’re at prayers,” “To be sure you’re a fool,” said he, “get you down stairs, And bring what I bid you, and see what’s the matter. For now I myself hear a grunting and clatter.”
She went, and returned with sorrowful face, In suitable phrases related the case, He rav’d like a madman about in the room, And then beat his wife and the hogs with the broom.
“Lord, husband,” said she, “what a coil you keep here, About a poor beggarly barrel of beer. You should, ‘in your troubles, mischances, and crosses, Remember the patience of Job in his losses.’”
“A plague upon Job,” cried the priest in his rage, “That beer, I dare say, was near ten years of age; But you’re a poor ignorant jade like his wife; For Job never had such a cask in his life.”
A curious tale is related of one Mr. Dod, who had a country living near Cambridge. Being impressed by the intemperance then prevalent in the University, he on one occasion preached a very vigorous condemnatory sermon on the vice of drunkenness. Soon after, several of the {289} undergraduates, who were disporting themselves at some little distance from the town, perceived Mr. Dod jogging along towards them on his old horse. Annoyed at the sermon on drinking, which had probably seemed to them as directed specially against themselves, the undergraduates rapidly consulted together, and determined in revenge to make the old man preach a sermon from a text of their own choosing. At first he declined, but his persecutors were inexorable, and he was forced to submit with the best grace he could. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “as you are thus urgent for my compliance, pray what is the subject I am to handle?” They answered, “Sir, the word malt; and, for want of a better, here, Sir, is your pulpit,” pointing to the stump of a hollow tree that stood by. Whereupon the venerable man mounted the rostrum, and spoke as follows:—
“Beloved,
“I am a little man, come at a short warning,—to deliver a brief discourse,—upon a small subject,—to a thin congregation, and from an unworthly pulpit.
“Beloved, my text is—