A MAN PREACHING HIS OWN FUNERAL SERMON.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2516, 25 August 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

A MAN PREACHING HIS OWN FUNERAL SERMON.

Three thousand persons assemble 1 recently at a little church near Athens (U. S. A.) where the minister, the Kev. Nathaniel Pridgeou, who is eighty-four years old, was to prcaeh his funeral sermon. His reason for doing so was this : —" Eighty-four years'' he said to aleporter, " have passed over my head. I have heard sermons preached over people that were not true. I have heard bad men praised and good men half prai.-ed. I preaehed the Gospel for fifty years. I know my own faults and my own good points. I have detet mined not to have men talking over my dead body about things they do not know. I have made up my mind to preach my own funeral smnion, and to-day I will whip the carnal Pridgeon, and I will extol the spiritual Pridgeou. When at last my eyes are closed in death, I want my body to he put away quickly under the blessing which I will prnouuee over myself today " A collin had been ordered, and this was placed in the church ; Mr Pridgeon rising early on Sunday and examining it critically and testing it by placiug himself in it. At noon he ascended to his pulpit; the members of the family being in mourning. In his sermon lie denounced the custom of holding funeral observances; but since custom had forced them he proposed, be said, to attend to his own funeral himself. "Thesermon." a reporter says, " was a curious medley of foolish sayings and good sense, many observations causing laughter. Hymns were sung frequently, aucl altogether the affair was as ludicrous as it was novel. Before he got through with his discourse many begau to leave the church. Mr Pridgeon, after the sermon was over, gave a sketch of his life. He was born in North Carolina, but has been living in Georgia seventy years. He has preached in eleven States, to all of which the Lord called him, except Alabama, and he stoutly declares that only the devil could draw a man to that State. He has been twice married, and declares that no mail ought to live single for a single moment when so many good women are anxious to get husbands."