Off-Hand Sketches, a Little Dashed with Humor Part 12

In about ten minutes, the Dutchman and his friend arrived.

"Well, have you made up your mind yet?" asked the Yankee.

"De one who goes out ish not to begin de same business?"

"No, certainly not; it wouldn't be fair."

"No, I 'spose not."

"Suppose we draw up a paper, and sign it to that effect, before we go any farther."

"Vell."

The paper was drawn, signed, and witnessed by the friends of both parties.

"You are prepared to give or take?" said Jonathan, with same eagerness in his manner.

"Yes."

"Well, which will you do?"

"I vill give," coolly replied the Dutchman.

"Give!" echoed the Yankee, taken entirely by surprise at so unexpected a reply. "Give! You mean, take."

"I no means dake, I means give. Here ish de monish;" and he drew forth a large roll of bank-bills. "You say give or dake--I say give."

With the best face it was possible to put upon the matter, Jonathan, who could not back out, took the three thousand dollars, and, for that sum, signed away, on the spot, all right, t.i.tle, and claim to benefit in the business, from that day henceforth and for ever.

With his three thousand dollars in his pocket, the Yankee started off farther South, vowing that, if he lived to be as old as Methuselah, he'd never have any thing to do with a Dutchman again.

A TIPSY PARSON.

IN a village not a hundred miles from Philadelphia, resided the Rev.

Mr. Manlius, who had the pastoral charge of a very respectable congregation, and was highly esteemed by them; but there was one thing in which he did not give general satisfaction, and in consequence of which many excellent members of his church felt seriously scandalized. He would neither join a temperance society, nor omit his gla.s.s of wine when he felt inclined to take it. It is only fair to say, however, that such spirituous indulgences were not of frequent occurrence. It was more the principle of the thing, as he said, that he stood upon, than any thing else, that prevented his signing a temperance pledge.

Sundry were the attacks, both open and secret, to which the Reverend Mr. Manlius was subjected, and many were the discussions into which he was drawn by the advocates of total abstinence. His mode of argument was very summary.

"I would no more sign a pledge not to drink brandy than I would sign a pledge not to steal," was the position he took. "I wish to be free to choose good or evil, and to act right because it is wrong to do otherwise. I do not find fault with others for signing a pledge, nor for abstaining from wine. If they think it right, it is right for them. But as for myself, I would cut off my right hand before I would bind myself by mere external restraint. My bonds are internal principles. I am temperate because intemperance is sin. For men who have abused their freedom, and so far lost all rational control over themselves that they cannot resist the insane spirit of intemperance, the pledge is all important. Sign it, I say, in the name of Heaven; but do not sign it because this, that, or the other temperate man has signed it, but because you feel it to be your only hope. Do it for yourself, and do it if you are the only man in the world who acts thus. To sign because another man, whom you think more respectable, has signed, will give you little or no strength.

You must do it for yourself, and because it is right."

The parson was pretty ready with the tongue, and rarely came off second best when his opponents dragged him into a controversy, although his arguments were called by them, when he was not present, "mere fustian."

"His love for wine and brandy is at the bottom of all this hostility to the temperance cause," was boldly said of him by individuals in and out of his church. But especially were the members of other churches severe upon him.

"He'll turn out a drunkard," said one.

"I shouldn't be surprised to see him staggering in the streets before two years," said another.

"He does more harm to the temperance cause than ten drunkards,"

alleged a third.

While others said--"Isn't it scandalous!"

"He's a disgrace to his profession!"

"_He_ pretend to have religion!"

"A minister indeed!"

And so the changes rang.

All this time, Mr. Manlius firmly maintained his ground, taking his gla.s.s of wine whenever it suited him. At last, after the occurrence of a dinner-party given by a family of some note in the place, and at which the minister was present, and at which wine was circulated freely, a rather scandalous report got abroad, and soon went buzzing all over the village. A young man, who made no secret of being fond of his gla.s.s, and who was at the dinner-party, met, on the day after, a very warm advocate of temperance, and a member of a different denomination from that in which Mr. Manlius was a minister, and said to him, with mock gravity--"We had a _rara avis_ at our dinner-party yesterday, Perkins."

"Indeed. What wonderful thing was that?"

"A tipsy parson."

"A what?"

The man's eyes became instantly almost as big as saucers.

"A tipsy parson."

"Who? Mr. Manlius?" was eagerly inquired.

"I didn't say so. I call no names."

"He was present, I know; and drank wine, I am told, like a fish."

"I wasn't aware before that fishes drank wine," said the man gravely.

"It was Manlius, wasn't it?" urged the other.

"I call no names," was repeated. "All I said was, that we had a tipsy parson--and so we had. I'll prove it before a jury of a thousand, if necessary."

"It's no more than I expected," said the temperance man. "He's a mere winebibber at best. He pretend to preach the gospel! I wonder he isn't struck dead in the pulpit."

The moment his informant had left him, Perkins started forth to communicate the astounding intelligence that Mr. Manlius had been drunk on the day before, at Mr. Reeside's dinner-party. From lip to lip the scandal flew, with little less than electric quickness. It was all over the village by the next day. Some doubted, some denied, but the majority believed the story--it was so likely to be true.

This occurred near the close of the week, and Sunday arrived before the powers that be in the church were able to confer upon the subject, and cite the minister to appear and answer for himself on the scandalous charge of drunkenness. There was an unusual number of vacant pews during service, both morning and afternoon.

Monday came, and, early in the day, a committee of two deacons waited upon Mr. Manlius, and informed him of the report in circulation, and of their wish that he would appear before them on the next afternoon, to give an account of himself, as the church deemed the matter far too serious to be pa.s.sed lightly over. The minister was evidently a good deal surprised and startled at this, but he neither denied the charge nor attempted any palliation, merely saying that he would attend, of course.