ASTONISHING! by A. O.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, April 21, 1885

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 16

ASTONISHING!

By A. O.

The Chicago Inter Ocean, together with quite a number of the papers of eastern Illinois, are authority for the statement that “A Presbyterian elder of Kankakee, Ill., who is quite a domino player, closed the benediction to his discourse not with ‘amen’ but ‘domino.’”

About thirty miles distant from the above place there is a small congregation of United Brethren. One of the number, a class leader, becoming cold and careless about religious matters, was visited by the minister, who desired to pray with him. While they were praying, a son, about thirteen years of age, came in from the field to inquire of his father about a piece of work; and seeing the rest of the family all on their knees, and hearing the minister praying quite loudly, the boy, not being accustomed to such scenes, and mistaking the minister’s prayer for cursing, supposed him to be a burglar about to murder all the family, and that they were on their knees with their heads on chairs (a position children often take to cry) crying. Whereupon the boy dashed across the prairie at the top of his speed to the nearest neighbor, half a mile away, and almost breathless with fear and exhaustion related his story. Two men from this house mounted horses and rode as rapidly as possible to what they supposed would be a scene of murder, only to find the family just arisen from a season of prayer.

Are not these facts astounding?—a professor of the gospel so absorbed with gaming even carries it into the pulpit, and in the solemn moment of the benediction says “domino”—should say “amen;” also a class leader having a son thirteen years of age so unacquainted with prayer as to mistake devotion around the family altar for the work of the assassin. Let those who think they are about to be converted, meditate on the above. A. O.