As the newspaper man put it: "A late invoice from Boston to Africa
included three missionaries and eighty-three casks of rum--salvation in
the cabin, damnation in the hold, and Old Glory floating over both."
This fine bit of ecclesiastical sarcasm is further illustrated by a fact
concerning a church in the city of Edinburgh, which city is noted for
its Scottish brand of "religion and whiskey," and of which wits have
spoken as being "the most spiritually minded city in the Kingdom."
Well--there is said to be a church there, so built as to include a
spacious basement adapted for storage purposes, which the pious elders,
with a business eye to revenue, did not scruple to rent for the storage
of casks of wine and other spirits in considerable bulk. Well--along
comes some clever wit with a facile pen and writes on the door of the
basement of that Edinburgh church the following lines. The authorship is
unknown, but Macready is suspected:
"There's a spirit above
And a spirit below,
The spirit of love
And the spirit of woe.
"The spirit above
Is the spirit of love,
And the spirit below
Is the spirit of woe.
"The spirit above
Is a spirit divine,
And the spirit below
Is the spirit of wine."