Father Prout's Charity Sermon.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3654, 11 September 1880, Page 1

Father Prout's Charity Sermon.

My dear .brithrin,—l intend this morn- ''' ing to spake to ye about Charity, and : shall take for my tixt—" He that gireth to the poor lindeth to the Lord." Yearn. not skilled in logic, nor indade in anything else, except playing early in the fields, skaming at cards in the public houses for half gallons o' porter an defrauding yer clargy o* their lawful dues. What is more, there is no use in thrying to drive logic into yer heads, for indade that would be the fulfilment of another tixt, which spalres o' throwing pearls to pigs. But if ye did know lofcic ye would perceive at wanee that the passage 1 hare just quoted naturally divides itself into two branches. Tie first-involve the giver— that is, rationally and syllogislically considher'd, what ye ought to do ; and the second involves the poor—that is, the recaivers o' the gift s, or the persons for whom ye ought to do ifc. First, then, as (o the giver. Now, it stands to reason that, as the fccriptursajs in some other place, the blind can't lead the blind, because maybe they would fall into the bogholes, poor things, and get dhrowned, and so although there's a : wonderful kindness to each other among thim, its not to be expected that the poor can give to the poor. No; the givers must be the people who have something to give, which the poor have not. Some o' ye will thry and get off on this head an' say, 'tis glad ye'd 1 give, but that ye really can't afford it. Can't ye? If ye make np yer minds, any one o f ye, to give up only a single glass o' spirrits every day o' yer lives in 'the course of a year,, and devote that to the church, that is to the clargy, an' it will be more than some o' the we l-lo do farmers whom I have in my eye this blhssed minit, hare had the heart to give, bud luck to thim, during the last t»elvc months. Why as little as a Denny a day comes to more than thirty shillings a year, and even that iusignificant thrift's I haVn't had from some o' ye that have the manes and. ought to know better. I don't want to minlion.names, but Tom Murpliy, o 1 the Glen, I'm afraid I'll be compelled to name ye.before* the whole congregation some .day before long if ye don't pay up,your lawful dues. I won't say more upon the subject now, as St. Augustine says :—" A. nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse." Now, the moral of the first part being clearly shown the noxt branch is—Whom shall it be - given to? The blissed text essentially, states and declares— the poori; Then fol--lows the enquiry—TV ho, are thfe poor P The whole matter depends on that. I . daresay, ignorant as ye are,''some o' ye'"*. will think its the beggars, ah' the cripples, "

and the: blind travellers who contrive to git through the lingth an' brith o' the counthry guided by Providence and a -little dog tied to their fingers by a bit o' athring. No! I don't want to say one word about that sort of cattle, or to injure thim in their honest callin'. God help thim, its their thrade, their estate, their occupation, their bisness to beg as much as its Pat McCarthy's bisness to tailor, or I Jerry Smith's to make carts, or Tom j Shivey's to shoe borses, or Dan Collhers to make potheen, or my bisness to praich sermons an' save yer souls, ye haythen. But these ar'n't the poor mint in the tixt. They're used to beggin', an' I for one wouldn't be the man to disturb thim i' the practice o 1 their prpfesshun, and long may it be a provishun for thim an' their heirs for iver. Maybe, ye mane spirritted crathurs, some o' ye will say its ourselves are tbe poor. Indade thin it isn't. Poor enough, and niggardly enough ye are, but ye are not the poor contemplated in the tixfc: khiire its yer nature it is to toil and to.sluvc.. Shure its what ye're used to. Therefore if anyone were to give to yo, he wouldn't be linding to the Lord in the slightest degree, .. but throwin' away money as completely as if he lint it upon the security of the land that's kivered by the Lakes o' Killarney. Don't flatther yerselves, any o' ye, that ye are the poor, I can tell ye ye're nothing o'the sort. Now thin ye've found out who should be the givers. There's no^ mistake about that. Bason an* logic unite in declaring that ivery one o' ye, man, woman, an' child should give, an' strain a point to do it liberally. Nixt, we have ascertained that it's the poor who should recaive what ye give. Thirdly, we have ascertained who are not the poor. Lastly, we must diskiver who are the: poor. Let - aieh o' ye put on his consitherin' cap an' think well. I have paused that ye might do it. Dan Cotther is a knowledgable man compared with the bulk o' ye; I wonder whether he has diskivered who are the poor; he shakes his head, but there is not much.in that. Well, thin, ye give it up; ye leave me to enlighten ye all. Lam thin, to yer shame, its the Clergy that are the poor. Oh! ye perceive it now, do ye ? The light comes through yer thick heads, does it. Yes, its I and my brethern are the poor. We gets our bread (course enough and dry enough it usually is) by filling ye with spirritual food, and judgin' by the congregation nowbefore ma;itsugty mouths: ye have to recaive it. We toil not, neither do we spin, but if Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed better than we are,instead of his bein' clothed in purple and fine linen, its many a time he'd be wearing a threadbare black coat, white o' the sames and out o' the elbows. Its the opinion o' the most lamed o' scholars and docthors o' divinity, as laid down by the Council o' Trint, that the translation is not sufficiently exact in regard to this tixt, and they recommend for the word "poor" we should read the word "clargy." Thus, corricted, thin, the translation o' the tixt w"ould run- thus:— "He that gives to the clargy linds to the Lord," which is no doubt the pure an' undiluted scriptur'. The words o' the tixt being thus settled, and ye having heard the explariashion of it all, now for the application; Last Thursday was a weeb since was Barthemy Fair, an' I , went to buy a horse, for this is a large . parish an' mortification an' frettin' have puffed me up so that, God help me, its little able I am to answer all the sick calls, to say nothing o' stations, weddins, an' christenins. Well, I bought the horse, an' it cost me more than I expicted, an' so there I stood without a penny in my pocket after I had paid the dealer. It rained dogs 'an cats, and as I'm so poor I can't afford a great coat, I got vet through in »p time. There ye were, scores 'o ye, i' the public houses wi' the windows up, that all the world might see ye atein'an' drinkin' as if it were for a wager, an' there wasn't one of ye had the grace to ask Father Trout "ha' ye got a mouth in in yer. face ?" An' there I might ha' stood i' the rain until this blessed hour (that is, supposin' it had continued rainin' till now) if I hadn't beenpick'd up by Mr Boche, 'o Kildinan, an hospitable man,; I . musti, say, though he is a Protestant'; he took me home with him, an' there, to yer x etarnal disgrace, ye villians, I got as full as a. tick, an' Mr Boche had to send me home; in bis own carriage, which is an everlasting shame to ye all that belong to the thrue Church. Now, I ask, which has carried out this tixt: ye who, did not even give me "a tumbler of punch at Bartlemy, or Mr Boche, who took me home an' filled me with the best atin' and dhrinkin', aDd sint me to my own house after that in his own iligant carnage? Who beskjulfilled the Scriptur' ? Who lint to the Lord by givin' to the poor clargy ? Bemember, the time will come whin I must give an account o' ye! What can I say thin P Won't I have'tohang down ray head in shame on yer account? 'Ppn my conscience, it wouldn't much surprise me, ~ unless ye greatly mind your ways, if Mr Jtoche an' ye wont have to change places oh that occasion—he to sit alongside o^me as a friend who trated the poor Clargy well i' this world, an' ye in a certain place which I won't particularly mintion now, except to hint that its precious little frost- and snow yell have in it, but quite the revarse. However, its never too late to mend ; an' I hope by this day week its quite another tale I'll have to tell o'ye all,