"Now, children," said the visiting minister who had been asked to
question the Sunday-school, "with what did Samson arm himself to fight
against the Philistines?"
None of the children could tell him.
"Oh, yes, you know!" he said, and to help them he tapped his jaw with
one finger. "What is this?" he asked.
This jogged their memories, and the class cried in chorus: "The jawbone
of an ass."
All work and no plagiarism makes a dull parson.
Bishop Doane of Albany was at one time rector of an Episcopal church in
Hartford, and Mark Twain, who occasionally attended his services, played
a joke upon him, one Sunday.
"Dr. Doane," he said at the end of the service, "I enjoyed your sermon
this morning. I welcomed it like on old friend. I have, you know, a book
at home containing every word of it."
"You have not," said Dr. Doane.
"I have so."
"Well, send that book to me. I'd like to see it."
"I'll send it," the humorist replied. Next morning he sent an unabridged
dictionary to the rector.
The four-year-old daughter of a clergyman was ailing one night and was
put to bed early. As her mother was about to leave her she called her
back.
"Mamma," she said, "I want to see my papa."
"No, dear," her mother replied, "your papa is busy and must not be
disturbed."
"But, mamma," the child persisted, "I want to see my papa."