BEDTIME STORY

Taupo Times, Volume II, Issue 94, 6 November 1953, Page 4

BEDTIME STORY

SIMON'S WIFE'S MOTHER Among the intimate friends of my younger days was a member of the Presbyterian Church ministry. Over many pipes smoked in his study I had some amusing glimpses of the lighter side of what is popularly regarded as a serious and somewhat solemn profession. I liked best of all the story he told me about Simon's wife's mother. One of his clerical brethren had reached a stage in his ministry when he was becoming uneasily conscious that he was "preaching himself dry." Something, he decided, had to be done about it. He went through the manuscripts of the sermons he had written and accumulated over the years and skimmed the cream— enough to provide discourses ready to hand for the next twelve months. These he arranged in some kind of logical sequence, and placed the pile, face upwards, on the right side of the shelf under the reading desk of the pulpit. As each sermon was dealt with,| it was placed face-downwards on the left-hand side of the shelf. Thus when the right-hand pile was exhausted all he had to do was to turn the heap on the left upside-down, transfer it to the right, and repeat the performance. Xt was a good scheme. As he argued to himself, it was quite fair to his congregation, few, if any of which were at all likely to remember a sermon deiivered twelve months before. In any case, his flock would, incidentally, have the benefit of the cream of his best efforts. In due course he had to make plans for his annual summer holiday with his family at the seaside. Substitutes — professionally known as "supply" — had to be found, not easy at that time of the year. Eventually he was able to enlist the servic.es of two students who had just completed their qualifying examinations and were awaiting ordination. Each agreed to take one of the two Sundays that had to be provided for.

"Two days only," he said to them "Saturday to study the sermon, and Sunday to deliver it. The sermons are there all ready for you," he added, and explained the system. "You take the sermon from the top of the heap on the righthand side of the shelf under the pulpit, and when you've finished with it, put it face-down on the heap on the left-hand side — all clear ?" They said it was all clear. His last sermon before he left on the Monday for the seaside was on the text from the New Testament beginning : "But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever."

Student No. i arrived at the week-end, feeling somewhat nervous at the prospect before him, and proceeded to carry out his instructions. Unfortunately, he reversed the process, with the result that from the pulpit on Sunday he announced his text: "But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever." And deiivered, word for word, the same sermon his astonished and mystified congregation had heard the Sunday before. That sixth sense which tells experienced public speakers whether or not they have touched the

hearts and minds of their audiences had not been sufficiently matured in this particular young man in the pulpit to be of any use to him. Moreover, the traditional decorum which invests church congregations on their devotional assemblies effectively masked the thoughts and feelings of his hearers, leaving him completely unaware of their state of mind. But there was worse to come. I The following week-end Student No. 2 arrived on the scene and followed the procedure laid down for him with faithful attention to detail. Facing the congregation on Sunday, he announced his text: "But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of fever." And a completely fiabbergasted congregation squirmed, fidgetted, drowsed for nearly forty minutes as it heard for the third time running a discourse on the miraculous recuperation of "Simon's wife's mother."

Some got red in the face, others had fits of coughing, while others again simply stared with stupefaction at the earnest young man who, faithful to his trust, was doing his best to justify it. Nobody after the service had the heart to tell him what the matter was. But there were plenty ready and armed to twit their Minister on his return from his holiday the I following week. Observing on his arrival a funeral procession on the way to the cemetery, he asked one of his elders whom he met in the I street, "Who has died?" "1 don't know," said that gentleman. "But it wouldn't surprise me if it was Simon's wife's mother."— "D."