THE WORST SMALL BOY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5450, 14 September 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE WORST SMALL BOY.

(From the New York Times.) For a long time it has been the boast of the First Congregational Society of Birchvillo, Ohio, that they possessed a minister who, in point of lungs and legs, was fully equal, aud in'respects superior, to Mr. Talmage. There ia no doubt that this boast is to a certain extent justifiable. While the Rev. Mr. Sunbright i-i admittedly inferior to Mr. Talmage in the management of his left leg, and never attempts the eloquent feat of throwing both legs simultaneously over the front of the pulpit, ho can pound the desk or stamp his right foot with a violence which the Brooklyn athlete has never yet approached. His voice is simply unequalled in power, and on calm Sundays has more than once reached tho next village, distant nearly three miles from the meetinghouse, and created a temporary alarm of fire. Of course these great qualities have made him exceedingly popular with the thoughtful members of his congregation, but they have not secured for him the respect and adnriration of tho small boys. His invariable habit of rumpling a small boy's hair the wrong way while pointing out to him the general sinfulness of his ways is unquestionably adapted to awaken the baser passions of fallen juvenile human nature. To this objectionable habit he also adds the practice of insisting upon an unusual amount of catechism, and a total prohibition of, circus, and the result is that he is hated by the sm dl boys of his congregation with great unanimity and bitterness. Among tho small boys iu question Is one of exceptionally studious habits and mechanical ingenuity. When, one early day in the whiter, this small boy approached his pastor and begged for tho loan of a book that would fully explain to him the elementary principles of natural philosophy, including the mechanical powers and the strength of materials, Mr. Sunbright rumpled bis hair with real enthusiasm, and, remarking that he loved to see a boy with a mind above marbles and circuses, promptly lent him the desired book. For some weeks that ingenious small boy devoted his whole time to study and to experiments with carpenters’ tools and heavy weights in the woolahed, and his father and Mr. Sunbright congratulated one another upon tho extraordinary goodness and intelligence of the studious youth. It was on the Saturday forenoon preceding tho fifth Sunday ia January that t)a& ingenious bnaall boy, together, with several qf his

juvenile companions, gained secret access | to the Congregational meeting-house. The pulpit was an old-fashioned affair placed upon a high platform. Underneath this platform was a dark apace to which access was gained by a movable panel, and in which the sexton was accustomed to store broken benches and other ecclesiastical rubbish. The boys first carefully cut an opening iu the floor of the pulpit about four feet square, and then entering into the lumber-room below worked for hours in comparative silence, and with the aid of a lantern. The ingenious student of the mechanical powers arranged a weight and a lever in such a way as to support the improvised trap-door in the pulpit floor until a pressure of 180 lb. should be brought to bear upon it. Without the application of this pressure the trap-door would retain it* position, and would he invisible to any but the closest scrutiny. With such pressure it would promptly give way, but would resume its position as soon as the pressure should be removed. Thfc Rev. Mr. Sunbright weighed precisely 1721 b., and it was calculated by the ingenious juvenile miscreant—as it will shortly be necessary to call him—that the momentum of the average stamp of the pastor’s foot would infallibly be equivalent to an increased pressure of 15lb. As the result showed, this calculation was correct, and the arrangement of the lever aud weight was made with admirable skill. It was about the middle of the next, Sunday morning’s sermon, when tho Rev. Mr. Sunbright was eloquently denouncing the corruption of the Church of Rome, that he executed one of his ablest and most convincing stamps, and disappeared from view with startling celerity. The audience looked upon his disappearance as a new rhetorical figure, and were filled with admiration. One young man, who had visited New York, whispered quite audibly that he had seen both T. Be Witt Talmage and George L. Fox, and that neither of them had ever executed so neat and agile a trick. The minutes came and went, but the pastor did not reappear. Doubtless, so thought his people, he was waiting to give full effect to his eloquence ; but after a time they became somewhat surprised at the unusual pause iu the services. Presently an elder arose and remarked that their beloved pastor evidently intended his hearers to spend a little season in meditation, thereupon every one meditated with great assiduity for five minutes longer. At the expiration of this time it was feared that Mr. Sunbright might have fallen down in a fit, and three gentlemen simultaneously went into the pulpit, and, amid general consternation, reported that he had vanished. The excitement that ensued was tremendous, and the meeting broke up in dls-. order. No one ventured to explain the mysterious disappearance except au elderly single lady, who suggested a sudden raid on the part of envious angels. This theory rapidly gained adherents, in the absence of any opposite theory, aud might have beeu generally accepted had not a faint knocking beneath the pulpit been heard. An examination was instituted, and Mr. Sunbright was discovered, much abraded as to his surface, and inwardly filled with righteous indignation. Fortunately, he had sustained no serious injury, and he was conveyed into the adjoining lecture-room, and subjected to a variety of soothing processes by the local medical man. There probably never was a worse small boy than the ingenious contriver of the trap. To a certain extent he has since expiated his offence ; but Mi*. Sunbright is firmly convinced that there ia no punishment that will do justice to the culprit, in which opinion all respectable persons will agree. At present the small boy studies as well as recites on his feet; but that circumstance, with all that it implies, gives but transient comfort to the injured minister. The pulpit floor, as well as Mr. Sunbright, has since been thoroughly repaired ; but the painful incident deserves to be noted, partly as a warning to Mr. Talmage, and partly as a melancholy evidence that Birchville possesses positively the worst of all existing small boys.