POETEY.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 146, 20 November 1874, Page 3

POETEY.

DEACON JONES’S EXPERIENCE. [Arkansas Conference, 1874.] By Bret Haute. Ye r right when you lays it down, Parson, Thet the tiesh is weak and a snare ; And to keep yer plow in the furrow When yer cattle begins to rare—Ain’t no sure thing. And between us, The same may be said of prayer ! Why, I stood the jokes, on the river, Of the boys, when the critters found Thet I’d jiued the Church, and the snicker Thet, may be ye mind, went round, The day I sat down with the mourners, In the old camp-meetin’ ground ! I stood all that, and I reckon J might, at a pinch, stood more— For the hoys, they represents Baal, And i stands as the Rock of the Law, And it seemed like a moral scrimmage, In boldin’ agin their jaw. But thar’s crosses a Christian suffers, As hezn’t got that pretence— Things with no moral purpose, Things ez hez got no sense, Things ez, somehow, no profit Will cover their first expense. Ez how ! 1 was jest last evening Addressiu’ the Throne of Grace, And mother knelt in the corner, And each of the hoys in his place— When that sneaking pup of Keziah’s To Jonathan’s cat giv chase ! I never let on to mind ’em, I never let on to hear, But drove that prayer down the furrow, AVith the cat hidin’ under my cheer, And Keziah a whisperin’, “ Sic her !” And mother a savin’, “ You dare !” 1 asked fer a light fer the heathen, To guide on hisnarer track, With that dog and that cat jest waltzin, ’ And Jonathan’s face jest black, When tlic pup made a rush, and the kitten— Dropped down on the small of ray back. Yet, I think, with the End’s assistance, I might have contiuered then, If, gettin’ her holt, that kitten Hedn’t dropped her claws in me—when It somehow reached the “ Old Adam,” And 1 jumped to my feet with “Amen.” So, ye’r right when you says it, Parson, That the flesh is weak and a snare, And to keep yer plow in the furrow When yer cattle begins to rare Ain’t no sure thing. And between us, I say it’s jist so with prayer.