THE DEACON AND A CHICAGO PREACHER.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1862, 11 February 1880, Page 3

THE DEACON AND A CHICAGO PREACHER.

f“ Detroit Free Press.”]

One was a Chicago preacher, and the other Deacon Richard Smith, of the “ Cincinnati •Gazette.” There was a chasm between the two five minutes after the first meeting.

Three of us sat on a pile of slabs at Bast Bay, waiting for the boat to go. I think we had it all planned to play a game of threehanded euchre, and I think the Deacon was trying to deal himself all the bowers in the pack, when along came the preacher, His appearance was hailed with joy. “ Come, old fellow—come and take a hand in,” called the Deacon, as he threw me a ten spot of spades. The preacher looked horrified. “ No three-card monte about us,” continued the Deacon as he shuffled away. "Come on let’s you and I warm these chaps out of their boots 1 ”

“ Sir I ” thundered the preacher. “ Oh, well, we’ll say poker if you don’t like euchre,” said the Deacon. " I want you to understand that I— ! ” "Well, we’ll take old sledge then—anything to please you, though I should judge by your looks that you can play most anything and win. Come —squat down here.” “I'm a preacher, sir—a preacher from Chicago, air I ” almost screamed the stranger s he fell back. "Well, I'll be blowed 1 ” whistled the Deacon, “If that’s the case, I won’t play a game with you unless you tie up your coatsleeves 1 ”

That started the chasm. It grew a little day by day, though an outsider could not have seen it, and finally, when we took the boat to go up the lake, the Deacon came up to me and said

“That Chicago preacher is in the ladies’ -cabin telling the women and children that my example should be held up as an awful warning to the world at large. Now, then, I am going to get even with him if I have to swallow a crowbar to do it, and yon are no friend of mine it you don’t help me 1 ” May the recording angel forgive me, but I then and there entered into a fiendish conspiracy with Richard Smith to wallop and humiliate the Chicago preacher. Nothing occurred until we reached Northport. The preacher held aloof from ns, and we had no chance to throw him overboard or cast him down to the coal-heavers. The Indiana had been holding a camp meeting at Northport, and about ■fifty of them came aboard the boat with meekness in their eyes and their gospelhymnbooka in their hands. The preacher came out to welcome them, the boat had scarcely left the dock when he got half a dozen of them together, and started them singing. If you have no Indians handy, draw a file across a saw, add some rusty gate hinges, and get some one to blow a fife, and the medley will be just as sweet, and sad, and lonely, and lingering as if twenty red-skins sat in a circle around you. After a few moments, the preacher wanted to quit. He believed in congregation singing, but be conldn’t go an Indian massacre of Sankey’s choicest hymns. It was at this time that Deacon Smith came to me and asked for a private interview. In two minutes we had a great big six-foot Indian downstairs. He was the worst singer in the lot. He’d sing against a firsh-bom all day long, and then beat a horse-fiddle after sundown. He sung bass, alto, tenor, and four other sorts of singing all at once, and he depended on his nose to do half of it. A pint bottle of liquid was put into this Indian’s keeping, and he was told to go ahead and sing as if a drove of wolves were after him. He wat to sing for and at the preacher, and he wasn’t to stop until the machinery in his larynx gave out, or the preacher died. " Me understand,” he replied, as he halfemptied the bottle, " and don’t you forget her I ”

We went upstairs and sat on the gangway to cnt off escape ; and just as the preacher was trying to bring the singing to a close our Indian shied his castor into the ring. He had removed coat, hat, and vest, tightened his strap, and as he bounded over two chairs and came down before the preacher he yelled out: “ Ton wait a little I Me knock out of all that singing I ” Then he began. He waltzed, jumped, kicked, danced, and cracked his heels. His hymn was: “We’re Going Home To morrow,” and he meant every word ot it. Some of the words were shrieked, some screamed, and others were spouted forth in a guttural sounding like the roll of a pumpkin over a sheet iron floor. The preacher seemed to be highly pleased at first, but after a minute his smile died away, and in another he had his bands over his ears.

“ How I do love choir-singing! ” remarked Deacon Smith aa the fun went on, and that remark encouraged two more Indiana to rise up, throw off their coats, and join the sad refrain. One of them sang “ I Would not Live Away,” and the other got his work in on “ Happy Day.” We thus had three hymns going at once, and I solemnly warn the public that they went for all they were worth. They surrounded the preacher, danced before and behind him, sung him into corners and oat, and every moment a fresh Indian joined in with a new hymn. When the concert was at its height, I counted thirteen different hymns, four war songs, and “ Nancy Lee,” and Deacon Smith reverentially folded his hands, and solemnly said: “ Sing, brothers—sing I If I am ever converted, it will be by just such soulstirring music as this ! ” They sang the preacher down stairs, up again, into the ladies’ cabin, and finally to his state cabin, and the last few sad notes of “I’m But a Pilgrim Here” were accompanied by two hand springs and a war-wooop as big as a barrel. When it was all over, and the members of the choir were picking up their lost boot heels and hymn books, the Deacon softly rubbed his hands, and gently remarked:

“ Nobody knows how much good it would do me to have a daily Indian camp meeting in sin-stricken Cincinnati ! ”