Dean Ramsay, in his faithful Reminiscences, tells of a clergyman who, observing one of his flock asleep during his sermon, paused, and called him to order, thus—“Jeems Robson, ye are sleepin’. I insist on your wauking when God’s word is preached to ye.”
“Look at your ain seat and ye’ll see a sleeper forby me,” answered Jeems, pointing to the clergyman’s lady in the minister’s pew.
“Then, Jeems,” said the minister, “when ye see my wife asleep again haud up your hand.”
By and by the arm was stretched out, and sure enough the fair lady was caught in the act. Her husband solemnly called upon her to stand up and receive the censure due to her offence, and thus addressed her—“Mrs. B., a’body kens that when I got ye for my wife I got nae beauty; yer freens ken I got nae siller; and, if I didna get God’s grace, I hae gotten a puir bargain indeed.”
It is fortunate for some folks, both you and I know, my reader, that Church discipline is not so rigorously enforced nowadays.
Mr. Shirra, of Kirkcaldy, distinguished for his homely and remarkable sayings, both in the pulpit and abroad, was greatly given to personal reproof in the course of divine service, and had a happy knack of sometimes killing two birds with one stone. One day, observing a young girl with a large and rather gaudy new bonnet, with which she herself seemed immoderately pleased, and also noticing or suspecting that his wife was indulging in a quiet nap, he paused in the middle of his sermon and said—“Look ony o’ ye there if my wife be sleepin’, for I canna see her for thae fine falderals on Jenny Bain’s new bonnet.” One day a weaver entered Shirra’s kirk dressed in the new uniform then procured for the volunteers, just raised. He kept walking about for a time as if looking for a seat, but really to show off his finery, which he perceived was attracting the attention of some of the less grave members of the congregation. He came to his place, however, rather quickly on Shirra quietly remarking, “Just sit down there, my man, and we’ll a’ see your new breeks when the kirk skails.”
This same Shirra was addicted to parenthetical remarks when reading the Scriptures, and one day, when reading from the 116th Psalm, “I said in my haste, all men are liars,” he quietly remarked—“Indeed, Dauvid, gin ye had lived in this parish ye might hae said it at your leisure.”
This, good as it is, was almost equalled by the remarks of an Edinburgh minister. The Rev. Mr. Scott, of the Cowgate, was a man of some popularity, but was seldom on good terms with his flock. One day, as he was preaching on Job, he said—“My brethren, Job, in the first place, was a sairly tried man; Job, in the second place, was an uncommonly patient man; Job, in the third place, never preached in the Cowgate; fourthly, and lastly, if Job had preached here, gude help his patience.”
The Rev. James Oliphant, of Dumbarton, was especially quaint in the pulpit. In reading the Scriptures, his habit was to make parenthetical comments in undertones. On this account the seats in nearest proximity to the pulpit were always best filled. Reading, one day, the passage which describes the possessed swine running into the deep and being there choked, he was heard to mutter, “Oh, that the deevil had been chockit too.” Again, in the passage as to Peter exclaiming, “We have left all and followed Thee,” the remark was, “Aye boasting, Peter, aye bragging; what had ye to leave but an auld, crazy boat, and maybe twa or three rotten nets?” There was considerable ingenuity in the mode by which Mr. Oliphant sought to establish the absolute wickedness of the devil. “From the word devil,” said Mr. Oliphant, “which means an enemy, take the d and you have evil; remove the e and you have vil (vile); take away the v and it is ill; and so you see, my brethren, he’s just an ill, vile, evil devil!”