Page:Everybody's Book of English wit and humour (1880).djvu/34

 the devotional and solemn effect of the organ in public worship, and to solicit a contribution from the congregation to procure one. On coming out of church a gentleman observed to a friend, "I will give nothing towards the organ. I mean to present the table of commandments."

"I advise you," replied the friend, "to keep the commandments, and give something else to the church."

The Bishop of Oxford having sent round to the churchwardens in his diocese a circular of inquiries, among which was: "Does your officiating clergyman preach the gospel, and is his conversation and carriage consistent therewith?" the churchwarden of Wallingford replied: "He preaches the gospel, but does not keep a carriage." [11]

Theodore Hook said to some man with whom a bibliopolist dined the other day, and got extremely drunk, "Why, you appear to me to have emptied your wine-cellar into your book-seller." [33]

Judge Burnet, son of the famous bishop of Salisbury, when young is said to have been of a wild and dissipated turn. Being one day found by his father in a very serious humour, "What is the matter with you, Tom?" says the bishop; '"'what are you ruminating on?"

"A greater work than your lordship's 'History of the Reformation,'" answered the son.

"Ay! what is that?" asked the father.

"The reformation of myself, my lord," replied the son.

John Gladstone, the father of the ex-premier of Great Britain, trained his children to give a reason for "every opinion they offered. It was in this way that William E. Gladstone was early trained to debate.

On one occasion, William and his sister Mary disputed as to where a certain picture ought to be hung. An old Scotch servant came in with a ladder, and stood irresolute while the argument