your own account you have come to Church regularly once every Sunday, yet I doubt if ever you have been within the walls till after I had begun reading the Lessons."
"Yes, Sir, I have," he said, "you are mistaken there."
"Come now," I said, "if I have been here five years and a half, I have been here 286 Sundays, and I think I may venture to say, that during all that time you have not been in Church time enough to hear all the first Lesson more than twenty times."
"Perhaps not," he said, "twenty is a good many."
"Well," I replied, "I will venture to say not more than ten times."
"I am not sure of that," he answered.
"But I am sure of it," I said, "sure that you have not been in by the time I mention, even five Sundays."
"I can remember at least three times," he answered, "once when I mistook the clock, and once when old Thomas Pout brought his new bassoon, and on the Fast-day I was in at the Psalms, I am confident. But I don't wish to make an argument about the matter; I will tell you, Sir, plainly, that I have a great deal to do on a Sunday morning, more than you think of, and that instead of finding fault with me for being so late, you should thank me for coming at all. Think, Sir, how many don't come at all, and there am I in the pew as regular, pretty near, as old Job the clerk, only half an hour later."
"Yes," I said, "you are very regular, in your irregularity. But, Mr. Yawn, let me ask you this one question,—do you come to Church to do any good to Almighty God, or to me, or to yourself? Is it any profit to the Almighty that you serve Him, if such an imperfect attendance as yours can be called service; or to me is it any profit of advantage in the way of worldly interest? You know full well, my friend, that yours is the danger, yours will be the loss, if you persist in thus dishonouring the holy, jealous God."
To this his only reply was, that he had been used to do it for a good way in forty years, and it was not to be expected he should alter now; and with this observation he walked slowly away with the bucket over his arm. But thinking, I suppose,
