Do you wish to speak about Christianity's teaching contempt for titles and decorations and all the follies of fame--and should you happen to be neither a person of rank nor anything of the kind: Why, my dear sir! You ought not to undertake to speak on this subject. Why, your congregation might think you were in earnest, or feel insulted by such a lack of tact in forcing your personality on their notice. No, indeed, you ought to wait till you have a lot of decorations, the more the merrier; you ought to wait till you drag along with a rigmarole of titles, so many that you hardly know yourself what you are called: then is your time come to stand before your congregation to preach and "bear witness"--and you will undoubtedly satisfy them; for your life will then furnish the guarantee that it is but a dramatic divertissement, an interesting forenoon entertainment. Is it your intention to preach Christianity in poverty, and insist that only thus it is taught in truth--and you happen to be very literally a poor devil: Why, my dear sir! You ought not to venture to speak on this subject. Why, your congregation might think you were in earnest, they might become afraid and lose their good humor, and they might be very unpleasantly affected by thus having poverty-thrust in on them. No indeed, first get yourself some fat living, and when you have had it so long that your promotion to one still fatter is to be expected: then is your time come to stand before your congregation and to preach and "bear witness"--and you will satisfy them; for your life then furnishes the guarantee that it is just a joke, such as serious men like to indulge in, now and then, in theatre or in church, as a sort of recreation to gather new strength--for making money. And that is the way they honor God in the churches! And then these silk and velvet orators weep, they sob, their voice is drowned in tears! Ah, if it be true (and it is, since God Himself has said so), if it be true that He counts the tears of the afflicted and puts them into His bottle,[7] then woe to these orators, if God has counted also their Sunday tears and put them into His bottle! And woe to us all if God really heeds these Sunday tears--especially those of the speakers, but also those of the listeners! For a Sunday preacher would indeed be right if he said--and, oratorically, this would have a splendid effect, especially if accompanied by his own tears and suppressed sobs--he would be right if he said to his audience: I shall count all the futile tears you have shed in church, and with them I shall step accusingly before you on the Day of Judgment--indeed, he is right; only please not to forget that, after all, the speaker's own dramatic tears are by far more dreadful than the thoughtless tears of his listeners. WHAT SAYS THE FIRE-MARSHAL (No. VI, 5)