THE WORLD OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS ANECDOTE. Illustrations and Incidents GATHERED FROM THE WORDS, THOUGHTS, AND deeds BY EDWIN PAXTON HOOD, AUTHOR OF THE WORLD OF ANECDOTE," ETC. PREFACE. WHEN the notorious John Wilkes, on one occasion, had to listen to the stories of some person, who had the virtue of prolixity in telling them, without the power of giving to them any pith or point, and some mutual friend excused the story-teller, saying, he had got to his dotage, Wilkes replied, “ Dotage, sir! I tell you he is past dotage, he has got to anecdotage!" A similar expression of contempt for this kind of literary workmanship has reached the compiler of this volume. But the favourable reception of a previous volume," The World of Anecdote," has led to the compilation and publication of this, "The World of Religious Anecdote." Several persons, and some high in the religious world, have told me that being professedly religious the collection must be of a more doubtful authenticity, as well as of dimi nished interest. What the reader may think I do not know, but this at least may be said, considering what religion is, and what its history in the world, religious incident ought not to be less interesting than any other department and field of anecdote; neither can I see why religious folks should be deemed less trustworthy; certain it is, the field of religious anecdote is a very large one, whether we regard it as historical or biographical, or as simply,-to use the word in contradistinction to either of the other denominations, and to apply it to the floating ana of every-day life and experience, incidental. be The history of the Church of Christ in all ages might very well told in anecdote, and I am indeed surprised, considering the long, broad stream of illustration, that this has never been done; I am certain that a better idea of Church life in any epoch might be obtained from an incident than from a dissertation; indeed, this is always so anecdote is the only history. Even Neander, whose literary tastes were altogether of another description, shows us this in his two charming little volumes, "The Memorials of Christian Life in the Early and Middle Ages,” and "Light in Dark Places." With less of commentary than we find in those two volumes, how admirably might the idea be expanded, and a concise succession of incident or anecdote be made the vehicle for the representation of the whole history of the Church. What a very entertaining book is the, quite unambitious, but scholarly work of Jortin,—his "Remarks on Ecclesiastical History." It is full of scholarly reading, but it is especially full of anecdotal incident. The author relied so entirely on the interest of the material he had gathered, that he seems to have been entirely careless as to the manner in which he presented it to the reader. Scarcely any work of its kind more illustrates the strange material of which Church history is composed its masses of legends, its strange triumphs, its lofty spiritual dreams; its noble self-denials and martyrdoms; its even queer stories, like that in the council held at Rome by John XXIII. when a slight event occurred which quite disturbed the council, namely, the adventure of the owl. The mass of the Holy Ghost had just been performed; John the Pope was seated on his throne, when, suddenly, a frightful owl came screaming out of his hole, and placed himself just before the Pope, staring him full in the face, and intently and immovably gazing upon him. In a superstitious age, an adventure like this, of the apparition of the nocturnal bird in the full brightness of day, led to many speculations; some took it for an ill omen, others smiled, and whispered that the Holy Ghost had chosen a strange form in which to appear after the mass. The records say that the Pope himself blushed, and was in a great sweat. He instantly arose and broke up the assembly. But when they met in session again, again appeared the owl in the same place; thence he continued to fix his eyes imperturbably upon, and to outstare the Pope. John was more disturbed than ever, and loudly called on the council to drive away the bird. A pleasant sight it must have been, says Jortin, to behold all the prelates hunting him, for he would not decamp; at last he was killed as an incorrigible heretic by the assembly throwing their canes at him. And let historical sceptics say what they will, to part with religious anecdote would be to part with some of the most precious portions of the regalia and crown jewels of the Church. What a pleasant instance of the effect of the Gospel when first preached to a wild and savage sovereign, the exclamation of Clovis, after the battle of Zulpich, against the Alemanni, in the year 486, when he had called to his own gods in vain, and then crying to the God of the Christians, it seemed to him, as victory crowned his arms, a proof of the invincibility of their God,—even as the greater Constantine was convinced in the same manner in his conflict with, and victory over, Maxentius;-then, when Remigius, Archbishop of Rheims, found easy access to Clovis, and recited to him the story of the crucifixion, the heart of the savage but well-meaning king, alternately melted and fired beneath the story, as he sprang up exclaiming, “I wish I had been there with my Franks, I would have taught those Jews!" The early history of the Church is full of charming incident. How interesting thus is it to read the whole story of the Arian and Athanasian controversy. The lives of the two great leaders of the orthodoxy and heresy of their times come out especially in anecdote. It may perhaps be said we know nothing of any man of whom we have not |