Page:Curiosities of Olden Times.djvu/135

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"Flagellum Salutis"

"not having heard." In such cases the employment of corporal punishment cannot be too highly estimated. The doctor tells the story of a boy destined for the ministry who ran away from school and apprenticed himself to a tailor, and who was cured of deafness and tailoring propensities by the application of a large pair of drumsticks to a sensitive part of his person, and who eventually became a Lutheran pastor, and was, to the end of his days, able to mend his own clothes.

This story furnishes the author of Flagellum Salutis with matter for a digression on clerical education. He quotes with approval the sentiments of his old patron, Dr. Schupp, expressed thus: "Nowadays that every bumpkin makes his son study for the ministry, we have them scrambling about the country begging for promotion, and grumbling because it does not come as fast as they expect. The learned son is a poor curate, with no benefice. Such a to-do about this—complaints, murmurs, and what not! Why did he not learn a trade in addition to his theology? Luke the Evangelist was a theologus and medicus as well, and a painter to boot. Paul in his youth studied divinity at the feet of Gamaliel, but he was a carpet manufacturer besides. Was the Kaiser Rudolph a worse Emperor for being as well a clever craftsman? 'If I could recall my past years and begin life again,' said Dr. Schupp, 'I would not become a student only, but learn a trade besides. Then, if the thankless world kicked me, I would

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