PUSSY IN CHURCH.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 9, 12 May 1880, Page 4

PUSSY IN CHURCH.

A rather good story is told of how the congregation of a Scotch Church, within a hundred miles of Wellington, was on a certain occasion involed in real and not figurative darkness. The learned divine who occupied the pulpit (says the Post) was warmly engaged in the delivery of a forcible sermon to his flock, and had reached one of the most thrilling points, wherein he painted the woeful fate of the benighted.ones of earth, when suddenly the gas went out ; the minister and congregation were wrapped in utter gloom, and " in an instant all was dai'k, and chaos reigned." All was confusion, and divers .voices in anything but congregational unison were heai-d, demanding and receiving no explanation of the cause of the mischance. A general but cautious movement was made to the door, and the preacher abdicated the pulpit, whilst others procured candles, several elderly ladies, of a superstitious frame of mind, in the meantime imputing the visitation to the machinations of the "evil one." On a search for the delinquent, it was found in the corporeal shape of an old torn cat, that had in its endeavors to reach a higher position, jumped on the turncock of the meter, and cut off: the gas in an effectual manner. This discovery was a source of considerable amusement, and ■some of the jnnior members of the congregation, with rather a profane fondness for "Pinafore," were heard humming, as they "went liorne — " Goodness me I Wliy, what was that ? It was the eafc ?" So en&e& what a wag suggested to have been " a congregational cat-as-trophe."