That dog spends about half his elegant leisure in devouring the cold
victuals of compassion, and the other half in running after the bricks
of which he is the provocation and we are the target. Within the last
six years we employed as editors upon the unhappy journal which it was
intended that this article should redeem, no less than sixteen
pickpockets, hoping they would steal him; but with an acute
intelligence of which their writing conveyed but an imperfect idea,
they shunned the glittering bait, as one walks to windward of the
deadly upas tree. We have given him away to friends until we haven’t a
friend left; we have offered him at auction-sales, and been ourselves
knocked down; we have decoyed him into strange places and abandoned
him, until we are poor from the payment of unpromised rewards. In the
character of a charitable donation he has been driven from the door of
every orphan asylum, foundling hospital, and reform school in the
State. Not a week passes but we forfeit exemplary damages for inciting
him to fall foul of passing gentlemen, in the vain hope of getting him
slain.
If any one would wish to purchase a cheap dog, we would sell this
beast.
.... A religious journal published in the Far West says that Brothers
Dong, Gong, and Tong are Chinese converts to its church. There is a
fine religious nasality about these names that is strongly suggestive
of the pulpit in the palmy days of the Puritans.
By the way, we should dearly love to know how to baptize a Chinaman. We
have a shrewd suspicion that it is done as the Mongolian laundryman
dampens our linen: by taking the mouth full of water and spouting it
over the convert’s head in a fine spray. If so, it follows that the
pastor having most “cheek” is best qualified for cleansing the pagan
soul.
An important question arises here. Suppose Dong, Gong, and Tong to have
been baptized in this way, who pronounced that efficacious formula, “I
baptize thee in the name,” etc.? Clearly the parson, with his mouth
full of water, could not have done so at the instant of baptism, and if
the sentence was spoken by any other person it was a falsehood. It must
therefore have been spoken either before the minister distended his
cheeks, or after he had exhausted them. In either case, according to
the learned Dr. Sicklewit, the ceremony is utterly null and void of
effect. (_Study of Baptism_, vol. ix., ch. cxix. § vi. p. 627, line 13
from bottom.)
Possibly, however, D., G. and T. were not baptized in this way. Then
how the devil were they baptized?—and why?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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