Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/244

234 and gratitude, going down to take possession of his parish, and furnished with a few led sermons, whereof as it is to be supposed the number was very small, having never served a cure in the church, he stopped at Cork to attend on his bishop; and going to church on the Sunday following, was, according to the usual civility of country clergymen, invited by the minister of the parish to supply the pulpit. It happened to be the first of August; and the first of August happened that year to light upon a Sunday: and it happened that the doctor's text was in these words; Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof ; and lastly, it happened that some one person of the congregation, whose loyalty made him watchful upon every appearance of danger to his majesty's person and government, when service was over, gave the alarm. Notice was immediately sent up to town; and by the zeal of one man of no large dimensions of body or mind, such a clamour was raised, that we in Dublin could apprehend no less than an invasion by the pretender, who must be landed in the south. The result was, that the doctor must be struck out of the chaplains list, and appear no more at the castle; yet whether he were then, or be at this day, a whig or a tory, I think is a secret; only it is manifest, that he is a zealous Hanoverian at least in poetry, and a great admirer of the present royal family through all its branches. His friends likewise assert, that he had preached this sermon often under the same text; that not having observed the words, till he was in the pulpit, and had opened his notes, as he is a person a little abstracted, he wanted sence