Volume 102 — A LAY SERMON.
Reading edition
(Suggested by certain recent manifestations of the Nonconformist conscience.)
Thou shalt not steal! That's a command Which grips us with an iron hand; And "he who prigs what isn't his'n, When he is cotched shall go to prison!" So runs the Cockney doggerel, clear If ungrammatical, austere, With not a saving clause to qualify Its rigid Spartan rule, or mollify Theft's Nemesis. Thou shalt not steal! At least,—ahem!—well, all must feel That property in thoughts and phrases, The verbal filagree that raises Flat fustian into "oratory," And makes the pulpit place of glory, Such property is not so easy To settle, and a conscience queasy O'er picking pockets, oft remains Quite unperturbed while—picking brains! A Sermon is not minted coin; It you may borrow, buy, purloin, In part or wholly, and yet preach it As your own work. Who'll dare impeach it, This innocent transaction? Not Your "brethren," save, perchance, some hot And ultra-honest (which means "rancorous") Parsonic rival. "How cantankerous!" The reverend Assembly shouts. It mocks at scruples, flames at doubts, Hints at the stern objector's animus, In the prig's praises is unanimous. Oh, Happy Cleric Land, where unity Breeds such unquestioning community Of property—in Sermons! True it Strikes some as queer; but they all do it, If one may trust advertisement, And an Assembly's calm content At what to the Lay mind seems robbery. Steal? Nay! But do not raise a bobbery, If hard-up preachers glean their shelves And take the credit to themselves. How wise, how good, how kind, how just! And how the poor Lay mind must trust Those who so skilfully reveal The meaning of "Thou shalt not Steal!"
"REGRETS AND GREAVES."—But for a recent trial, who of the outside public would even have guessed that the unromantic and quite Bozzian name of "Mr. and Mrs. TILKINS" meant the clever musician, Mr. IVAN CARTEL and the charming and accomplished actress and soprano, Miss GERALDINE ULMAR? The TILKINSES are to be congratulated on their winning the recent action of Tilkins v. Greaves with the award of one thousand pounds damage, which is the price the transmitter of scandal to the New York World has had to pay for his industry.
THE OTHER "WESTMINSTER STABLE."
POLITE STRANGER. "I BEG YOUR PARDON, SIR: WOULD YOU KINDLY INFORM ME IF HE'S BEEN—'GOT AT'?"
NOBLE OWNER. "H'M!—AH!—WOULDN'T THE BACKERS OF DISSOLUTION LIKE TO KNOW!"