A year later, he came again to confess. The priest asked him at once whether he believed now in a trinity. “No,” said the farmer, “I only believe in the first two, the Father and the Son, in those two I believe firmly. In the Holy Ghost I don’t believe at all; for everything that the Father and the Son gain by hard, heavy labor, the Holy Ghost squanders and spends.” The priest had to give up trying to enlighten the good farmer. He absolved him and let him depart.
The Monk’s Trick
A nobleman was walking across the country with a barefooted monk. They came to a brook and found the bridge had disappeared. The nobleman asked the monk, as he was without shoes, to carry him across. The monk did so, but when they were in the middle of the brook he asked the nobleman if he had any money with him. He answered: “Yes.”—“Oh,” said the monk, “we are forbidden to carry money,” and dropped the nobleman into the brook.
A Brief Sermon
A priest who had not studied much, came into the pulpit and said: “I will briefly speak of three things to-day. The first I know, and you do not. The second you know, and I do not. The third none of us knows. That my trousers are torn, I know. Whether you are going to give me a new pair, you know. Our sexton had a fresh barrel of beer put in; but whether that beer is good, none of us knows; so come along and let us taste it.”
A Bright Reply
Three young noblemen were riding by a field in which a farmer was working among his cabbages. They rode up to him, and one said: “My good man, what will you give us, if we prove to you that you are a cabbage?” The farmer answered: “Nothing, for I can do those tricks as well as you. Now I can prove to you, that your saddles are mules.” At this the young sparks shouted with laughter and said: “Well, tell us all about it.” The farmer answered: “Why, all my life, I have known that anything between a horse and an ass has been called a mule.”
A Large Recipe
A good but stupid countryman stopped with his farm wagon before a drug-store in the town, and began to unload a big, heavy door. The druggist, much surprised, said: “What do you want with that here? The carpenter lives over there.” Said the farmer: “It is all right. My wife is ill, the doctor has been to see her and wrote the prescription with chalk on this door, as we had no pen and ink. Now, sir, please make it up. I am in a great hurry.”