The preacher's evening discourse was dry and long, and the congregation gradually melted away. The sexton tiptoed up to the pulpit and slipped a note under one corner of the Bible. It read:
"When you are through, will you please turn off the lights, lock the door, and put the key under the mat?"
The new minister's first sermon was very touching and created much favorable comment among the members of the church. One morning, a few days later, his nine-year-old son happened to be alone in the pastor's study and with childish curiosity started to read through some papers on the desk. They happened to be this identical sermon, but he was most interested in the marginal notes. In one place in the margin were written the words, "Cry a little." Further on in the discourse appeared another marginal remark, "Cry a little more." On the next to the last sheet the boy found his good father had penned another remark, "Cry like thunder."
A young preacher, who was staying at a clergy-house, was in the habit of retiring to his room for an hour or more each day to practice pulpit oratory. At such times he filled the house with sounds of fervor and pathos, and emptied it of almost everything else. Phillips Brooks chanced to be visiting a friend in this house one day when the budding orator was holding forth.
"Gracious me!" exclaimed the Bishop, starting up in assumed terror, "pray, what might that be?"
"Sit down, Bishop," his friend replied. "That's only young D—— practising what he preaches."
A distinguished theologian was invited to make an address before a Sunday-school. The divine spoke for over an hour and his remarks were of too deep a character for the average juvenile mind to comprehend. At the conclusion, the superintendent, according to custom, requested some one in the school to name an appropriate hymn to be sung.