LUDICROUS SCENE IN A PULPIT.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1498, 28 November 1874, Page 6 (Supplement)

LUDICROUS SCENE IN A PULPIT.

A South German paper relates the following : In a Bavarian town of the most pronounced Catholic orthordoxy the priest preached against the Old Catholics and -related such horubie things about them that his pious hearers were liberally horrov-scriokeu at Old Catholic impieties. At last the preacher cried : "The Old Catholics are so vile that they will all be cast into the pit, and if wh it I tell you is not true may the devil take me now on this spot.''' His excitement was terrible, and he so struck the cushion that the book fell from it. Not far from the pulpit theve sat an American, who had a coloured servant with him, to whom lie beckoned to take the book up to the priest, who perhaps, hud never •seen one of those .sous of Ham in bin life. The man at once obayed, and as; he mounted the lowest of the pulpit steps the clergyman repeated the wish. Although the servant went softly the preacher heiu'd his footsteps, ;\u(l turning- round, saw a blade object solemnly, steadily and surely approaching him. lie lookud at him with terror, and believing that he would be the next instant collared by his Satanic Majesty he cried out, with trembling voice : "; It ia, after nil, possible there May be good people among the; Old Catho.ka." '1 urn ing then round to see if th« object hud disappeared, he saw it still steadily approaching. The parfipiration burst out on his brow, and full of despair he called out : " J here are even many good people among the Old [Catholica '," Thinking lhat this w.Miid sufilee, he turned round, but wLiit was his horror to iind that the object was close at hand, and imagining himself in the very grasp of Beelzebub, turning partly to the supposed fiend, partly to the congregation, lie cried out : "May the devil coir.c and take me if all the Old Catholics are not better than we are !" The tenified priest fainted from the flight, and it was only after aome time that he recovered.