[TO THE EDITOR OF TIIE SIR, — Some of us in these
northern parts think we are some- thing of sermon-tasters, and certainly it was with a sense of quiet amusement that we read Sir William Forwood's communi- cation to your last issue that "an economy of labour can be, and no doubt is, effected by repeating the same sermon, ani more might be done in this direction." The value of the advice is at least questionable if there be kept in mind the warning example afforded by a clergyman in the North of Scotland, whose one claim to notice in history, is provided by a half-dozen doggerel lines written solely because he had followed the practice that Sir William Forwood. commends. The story is told of a minister who went up and down West Aberdeenshire always preaching on the same text, that of Elijah being sent to the widow of Zarephath, when he told her that her barrel of meal would not waste nor her cruse of oil fail, &c. Some wit immortalized the fact in verse. It ran something like this :—
"Up throu' Tough an' doon throu' Towie He preached the wifie an' her bowie, in Forbes, Keig, and Tullynessle 'Twas still the wifie an' her vessel, By Rhynie, Cabrach, and Strathdon, An' aye he preached the wifie on."
Some similar jocular experience may befall the clergyman, despite his eloquence and distinction, who, in Scotland at all events, makes three sermons suffice for seven harvest festival
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