Ginx's Baby: His Birth and Other Misfortunes; a SatireJenkins, Edward
General
Ginx's Baby: His Birth and Other Misfortunes; a Satire
Jenkins, Edward
Christian sects -- Fiction; Education -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction; Satire, English
What was the matter? Why the proposal to hand over the baby to an
Anglican refuge stirred up the blood of every Dissenter present. It was
lifting the infant out of the frying-pan and dexterously dropping him
into the fire. But the chairman was accustomed to these scenes.
He stayed the tumult by proposing that a representative from each
denomination should give his opinion to the audience. “Whom would they
have first?”
The loudest cries were for Mr. Cutwater, who stood forth--a weak,
stooping, half-halting, little man, with a limp necktie, and trousers
puffy at the knees--but with honest use of them, let me say. It is quite
credible that if Dr. Watts's assertion be true that--
“Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees,”
that arch-enemy was unusually perturbed when Ezekiel Cutwater was upon
his. On these he had borne manly contests with evil. Two things--yea,
three--were rigid in Ezekiel's creed; fire would never have burned
them out of him: hatred of Popery, contempt of Anglican priestcraft and
apostolic succession, and adhesion to the dogma of adult baptism and
total immersion. Whoso should not join with him in these let him be
Anathema Maranatha.
His eye kindled as he looked at the seething audience. “Sir,” said he,
“I beg to move an amendment to the motion of the noble lord. (Cheers.)
That motion proposes to transfer to the care of the Established Church
this tender and unconscious infant (bending over Ginx's baby), just
snatched from the toils of a kindred superstition. (Oh, oh, hisses and
cheers.) I withdraw the expression; I did not mean to be offensive.
(Hear.) This is a grand representative meeting--not of the English
Church, not of the Baptist Church, not of the Wesleyan Church--but of
Protestantism. (Cheers and Kentish fire.) In such an assembly is it
right to propose any singular disposition of a representative infant?
This is now the adopted child, not of one, but of all denominations.
(Cheers.) Around his, or her--I am not sure which--cherubic head
circle the white-winged angels of various Churches, and on her or him,
whichever it may be----”
The Chairman said that he might as well say that he had authentic
information that it was HIM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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