I Don't Mean Him by W. H. Milburn

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 3, 1878

"I Don't Mean Him."

By W. H. Milburn

THE following anecdote of Rev. James Axley, a renowned preacher of East Tennessee, was related by Hugh L. White, for many years a distinguished judge in that State, and afterwards a member of the Senate :—

It was noised through the town of Jonesborough that Mr. Axley would hold forth on the ensuing Sabbath. The famous divine was a great favorite—with none more so than with Judge White. At the appointed hour, the judge in company with a large congregation, was in attendance at the house of prayer. All was hushed in expectation. Mr. Axley entered, and with him a clerical brother, who he invited to preach. The congregation was disappointed.—This was not the man they had come to hear; consequently there was a good deal of misbehavior. The discourse was ended and Mr. Axley rose.

It is a custom in the new country where two or more preachers are present, for each of them to have something to say.

Mr. Axley stood silently surveying the congregation, until every eye was riveted. He then began :—

“It may be a very painful duty, but it is a solemn one, for a minister of the gospel to report vice, misconduct and sin, whenever and wherever he sees it. But especially is this his duty at church. That is a duty I am now about to attend to.

“And now,” continued the reverend speaker, pointing with his long finger in the direction indicated, “that man sitting out yonder, behind the door, who got up and went out while the brother was preaching, stayed out as long as he wanted to, got his boots full of mud, came back and stamped the mud off at the door, making all the noise he could, on purpose to disturb the attention of the congregation, and then took his seat; that man thinks I mean him. No wonder he does. It doesn’t look as if he had been raised in the white settlements, does it, to behave that way at meeting! Now, my friend, I’d advise you to learn better manners before you come to church next time. But I don’t mean him.

“And now,” again pointing at his mark, “that little girl sitting there, about half way of the house—I should judge her to be about sixteen years old—that’s her with the artificial flowers on the outside of her bonnet, and the inside of her bonnet; she has a breastpin on too (they were very severe on any superfluities of dress,) she that was giggling and chattering all the time the brother was preaching, so that even the old sisters in the neighborhood couldn’t hear what he was saying, though they tried. She thinks I mean her. I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart for any parents who have raised a girl to her time of day and haven’t taught her how to behave when she comes to church. Little girl, you have disgraced your parents as well as yourself. Behave better next time, won’t you? But I don’t mean her.”

Directing his finger to another aim, he said: “That man sitting there, that looks as bright and pert as if he never was asleep in his life, and never expected to be but that just as soon as the brother took his text, laid his head down on the back of the seat in front of him, went sound asleep, and slept the whole time and snored; that man thinks I mean him. My friend, don’t you know the church isn’t the place to sleep? If you needed rest, why didn’t you stay at home, take off your clothes and go to bed? That’s the place to sleep, not at church. The next time you have a chance to hear a sermon, I advise you to keep awake.”

Thus did he proceed, pointing out every man, woman and child, who had in the slightest deviated from a befitting line of conduct, characterizing the misdemeanor, and reading sharp lessons of rebuke.

Judge White was all this time sitting at the end of the front seat, just under the speaker, enjoying the old gentleman’s disquisition to the last degree; twisting his neck around to see if the audience relished the “down comings” as much as he did; rubbing his hands’ smiling, chuckling inwardly. Between his teeth and cheek was a monstrous quid of tobacco, which the better he was pleased, the more he chewed; and the more he chewed the more he spit, and behold, the floor bore witness to the results. At length the old gentleman, straightening himself up to his full height, continued with great gravity :—

“And now, I reckon, you want to know who I do mean. I mean that dirty, nasty, filthy tobacco chewer, sitting on the end of that front seat,” his finger, meanwhile, pointing, true as the needle to the pole—“see what he has been about!—Look at those puddles on the floor; a frog wouldn’t get into them. Think of the sisters’ dresses being dragged through that muck!” The crestfallen judge averred that he never chewed any more tobacco in church.—Rev. W. H. Milburn.