of Damascus; or, "Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, etc.," applied to the present, when the pastor was expecting the tailor to try on the new suit of broadcloth his reverence had been measured for in the preceding week. Then we had Hezekiah spreading the letter of Sennacherib before the Lord—which needed no comment at all. Of course the preacher annually sawed away on that naughty Jehoiakim with his penknife cutting the roll; and on Felix trembling, and so on. Oh, the tediousness of those dull sermons on topics the very refuge of commonplace minds, vulgarizing what is beautiful in its original simplicity!
How I did get in time to dread those Sunday chapters, and shudder as I entered the church doors, knowing so well that I would encounter the same stuff, droned out in dispassionate tones, relative to Gehazi, Jehoiakim and that impudent Felix.
I have told the story elsewhere, but it will bear repetition, how that once, some years later, I was visiting my uncle, Edward Bond, at Filleigh, where at the time he was curate, when our conversation turned upon sermons. I said to him: "For goodness' sake on Sunday do not give us Felix trembling. We had him trembling in Hurst Chapel a few Sundays ago, next Sunday he was trembling till his teeth chattered in a church at Brighton. Then when I went to Teignmouth, who should turn up, like Jack-in-the-Box, but that old shivering rascal, Felix again."
A year later, whilst staying at Belmont, near Exeter, with my grand-aunts, we went on Sunday to S. David's Church. As the preacher passed the Belmont pew, I recognized my uncle, and, what is more, he recognized me, and gave a slight start.
When the service was over, I went into the vestry to shake hands with him, whereupon he gripped me by the shoulder, and said: "You rascal, you nearly put me in a quandary. I was going to preach on Felix trembling, but I saw your face peering out of the Belmont pew, and recalled what you had said last year at Filleigh. I had Felix trembling in one pocket. Happily I had Blind Bartimæus couched snugly in the other. So I pulled him out and shot him off; as to Felix, he must wait for a more convenient season."
What man, woman or child has ever got any good out of these sermons other than their having superinduced a doze? How
