THE COMMON ROUND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21363, 17 June 1931, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND.

By Wayfarer,

All honour to the coloured preacher of Mount Zion, who preached a sermon lasting over twelve hours, nobly sustained by spiritual exaltation, four lamb chops, a leg of chicken and a glass of milk.

His first subject, gambling, occupied three hours, and companionate marriage carried him along until dark. Prohibition and the evil of dancing occupied the early evening, and the subject of famine carried him along till 10 o’clock, when he finished the chicken. He then resumed strongly until midnight.

All honour, too, to the congregation of Mount Zion, whose patience was, we take it, equal to the perseverance of the preacher, and may not have been fortified, for all we know, by anything more substantial than a round of slumber, a round of roast beef, and a round or so of other refreshments. But in praising the unconquerables of the present, let us not forget the indefatigables of the past. Let us, as we did last week, turn to the early records of our own city and mark that Dunedin church-goers also have proven their docility, Dunedin preachers their volubility, by no mean acts. Stated a resident here 90,,years agone:—

We have but one sermon per day, commencing at 12 o’clock, finish about 2—this is quite enough—all in free kirk style, condemning infants and talking of death and eternity, mending our lives. living holily, dying happily, etc. But now a congregation is afflicted with whooping-cough, itches and sleeping sickness if the preacher cannot give it salvation in a half-hour dose.

But because we prefer our sermons to be brief and our Sunday hours of leisure long, it does not follow that our morals necessarily suffer. f It is unhappily on record that, in the days when Dr Burns hold his congregations pewbound for two hours of a Sunday, the morality of Dunedin was “ about on a par with the other colonies—precious little attention paid even to outward observance,” though it has to be admitted that this observation is of partisan origin and that of the same year Dr Burns later wrote:— Those peaceful Sabbaths of our infant colony, our still and noiseless streets — nobody to be seen, for all were in church—everything betokened such perfect. unbroken repose that a Dunedin Sabbath might have stood a favourable comparison with the most attractive rural village Sabbath in all broad Scotland.

In his life of Burns, Dr Herrington quotes other references showing that the early Dunediners were a church-going people, and, if we are to choose between the two prophets, these testimonies should, perhaps, receive preference, for the ungodly must admit that the First Church remains to this day, whereas even the newspaper which broached some criticism of its preacher has long since died and been forgotten.

Dr Johnson, for one, while he passed certain strictures upon Presbyterianism, commended it for the “ homely manner ” of its preachers, though it is to be doubted whether he, who enjoyed so greatly to hear his own voice raised in condemnation of the weaknesses of the common; flesh, would have cared for sermons by others of more than presentday duration. In fact, what the sermon to-day lacks in length, if we allow the angular exception of that preached by the coloured pastor of Mount Zion, it probably gains in impressiveness, for it could probably be said of many an old-time tirade that, in the words of Gilbert,

This particularly rapid unintelligible patter Isn’t generally heard, and i£ It Is It doesn't matter!

When a man is advised that in going to the races he has been improvidentlyguided, he may take notice, whereas if he is told that by putting ten shillings in the “ tote ” he has committed all the sins of the decalogue he is like to become sceptical, particularly if the inveighing against his sinfulness continues into his dinner hour. While Mount Zion’s endurance preacher can be praised for his staying powers, it is permissible to express a doubt whether his example should be held as an encouragement to our local shepherds. “ Preaching,” wrote Sidney Smith in 1801, “ has become a by-word for long and dull conversation .... and whoever wishes to

imply, in any piece of writing, the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, calls it a sermon.” The most agreeable and inviting thing about the Rev. George Brown’s sermon was apparently a leg of chicken, and wo shall not complain if Dunedin preachers leave Off in time to eat their Sunday chicken in the comfort of their homes, not consume it in the pulpit as they rake mankind’s frailties with a heavy fire of texts and moralisms.

Au estimable columnist, who peddles his wares in a different street from “ Wayfarer,” has recalled, apropos of the after dinner incident wherein Mr Theodore Dreiser slapped the face of Mr Sinclair Lewis, that this is not the only case on record of a dispute between literary men culminating in blows, Mr Swinburne once resorting to fisticuff assault upon Mr Meredith, and narrowly escaping being kicked .downstairs. He neglects, however, to mention a quarrel of literary flavour which, though hazy now in its details, has had conferred upon it the immortality of Boswell’s painstaking inquisitiveness. Soon after Dr Johnson came to Grub street lie was employed by Thomas Osborne, the bookseller, in cataloguing the library of the Earl of !> Oxford, which Osborne had recently purchased. Says Boswell: It has been confidently related with many embellishments that Johnson one day knocked Osborne down in his shop, with a folio, and put his foot upon his neck. The simple truth I had from Johnson himself: “Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his shop; it was in my own chamber.” Not so simple as it sounds, however. We do not know what Osborne’s fighting weight may have been, but the bulk of Dr Johnson assuredly was greater than that even of the bulky Mr Dreiser, and one can imagine the encounter as a very literary heavy-weight championship indeed.

Almost contemporary with this bookish dispute was that which engaged Oliver Goldsmith after “ She Stoops to Conquer" had been successfully presented. In the Loudon Packet, an evening newspaper, appeared a scurrilous attack (such as was frequent then) upon the playwright. That, Goldsmith might have ignored but for an indiscreet reference to his sweet feeling for Mary Horncck, the Jessamy Bride. “Your poetic vanity is as unpardonable as your personal," said the Packet. “ Could man believe it, and would woman bear it, to bo tool that for hours the great Goldsmith would stand surveying his grotesque Oranhotan figure in a pier glass? Was bul the lovely II k as much enamoured you would not sigh my gentle swain in vain.” Goldsmith, accompanied by a military officer, went to the office of the London Packet, and there saw Thomas Evans, the publisher of the paper. ... He struck Evans across the back with, a cane, but Evans, who was a strong, sturdy man, struck back, and in the scuffle a lamp suspended overhead was broken, and the combatants were drenched with oil. This brought the encounter to an abrupt close. Evans subsequently instituted legal proceedings against Goldsmith for assault, but these were withdrawn on Goldsmith agreeing to pay £SO to a charity.

A sorry ending to a swashbuckling comedy, but one suggesting that the prudent author—Mr Dreiser would, of course, scorn the title—were better advised to

wield in retort the pen than the clenched fist.

To-day, in some degree, all of us can leave our impress on the sands of time, remarked a speaker at a recent ceremony; some in a national way and others in a smaller way, he said, can help the lame dog over the stile. Longfellow, we are assured, will continue to supply the style for weary orators.

Signor Mussolini believes that women are not spinsters by choice. As a matter of fact they are, but it is the men who make the choice.

“ L.B.W. Epidemic New Zealand Loses Nine Wickets by That Route.” It was very nearly in that rout.