A HORSEY CLERGYMAN.

Evening Star, Issue 3498, 9 May 1874, Page 2 (Supplement)

A HORSEY CLERGYMAN.

He made a capital clergyman; his ing experience had taught him how to “ come at the finish,” and consequently his sermons led up to a point of interest towards the end : unlike some divines I have endured, who after exhausting all their real subject matter in the first ten minutes, instead of sending you home with something to chew on, dragged their slow length along, and used the second half of the discourse as a sponge wherewith to erase the impression made by the first. To be sure the ruling passion would crop out at times ; as for instance, when he summed up the fiercely irapetuouj character of the son of Nimshi thus :—“ln short, my friends, Jehu was a man who never could bring his horses in coolor when he chose that text about “ many running a race,” and descanting on the difficulty of attaining perfection, feared that we should find “ some only second in the race for righteousness, many a bad third,” and (with great emphasis) “ the rest nowhere. ” One recorded act of his equals the enthusiasm of the patriarch of Alexandra/ who left the performance of mass to attend the accouchement of a favorite mare. One day in the midst of his sermon he suddenly exclaimed, “ Good heavens; he’ll stake himself!” and rushed out to the assistance of his black cob, whom he had observed through the window to have got into difficulties (and a ditch) by attempting to jump a hedge out , of his paddock, lo do him justice, he returned the moment the cob was extricated, and resuming with great decorum, “Thirdly” (as I was about to say when I was called away), concluded his discourse, with great fervor. It is said that he

once desired the prayers of the congregation for a sick person dangerously ill * which “ person ” proved, on inquiry, to be the cob aforesaid, who at the time was suffering from inflammation of the lungs, and who was to him as the apple of his eye. But this Ido not believe.— From “Tom Treherne’s Tandem,” in Temple Bar.