Lighting as well as heating gave trouble in those days. Candles guttered, or went out, and kept the attentive sextons busy tiptoeing about, snuffing or relighting them. Sexton Currier—pronounced in country speech “Kiah”—of Parson Milton’s church in the same old town, once neglected this duty during an evening service.
Parson Milton, from his tremendous, booming voice nicknamed “Thundering Milton,” was an excellent pastor, but very singular and abrupt in his ways. Observing the condition of the lights, he quite upset the congregation by proclaiming at the top of his voice, without the slightest break between the sentences:
“The Lord said unto Moses, Kiah, snuff the candles.”
He it was, too, who, when a worthy parishioner whose Christian name was Mark once dropped off into a doze in his pew, recalled him to his duty in a marvelous fashion. Leaning forward in the middle of the sermon, and apparently addressing himself directly to the offender, he exclaimed in quick, sharp tones, “Mark!”
At the sound of his name, the man opened his eyes and sat hastily erect, while the preacher, resuming his normal voice, concluded the sentence—“the perfect man, and behold the upright.”
On a very cold day, when the church was inadequately warmed, another minister preached from a very hot text. At the conclusion of the service he leaned over the pulpit and said, in a tone audible to all the congregation:
“Deacon Craig, do, I pray you, see to it that this church is properly warmed this afternoon. What’s the use of my preaching to a parcel of sinners about the danger of hell-fire when the church is as cold as a barn?”
TECHNIQUE
They were both musical, and of course became engaged. One evening the young man was late in paying his visit. The young lady was anxious and getting nervous. The whole family sympathized with the poor girl as she waited for the bell to ring. Suddenly the bell rang, and the calm blue sky of peace reappeared in the young girl’s eyes as she exclaimed rapturously even if ungrammatically, “That’s him! How exquisite his technique is on the bell-pull, and oh! the breadth and compass of his ring!”