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A Greenwood Farmer Lives a Hymn
Out in a western township live two very excellent citizens whom we shall call Jones and Smith, just because those two neighbors got into a difficulty, sometime since, which culminated in a law suit in this city. Jones, who is a comparatively poor man, bargained some hay to Smith, which hay Smith gathered, but failed to satisfy Jones with the proper remuneration. The latter brought suit, and was to his own sense of justice inexplicably beaten. At any rate he claims that he never got paid for the hay. This fact has been a gnawing canker in his bosom ever since. Recently a certain eloquent minister of the gospel has been holding a series of protracted meetings in that vicinity, and one night not long ago, our friend Smith felt the workings of redeeming power and arose for prayers. He even did more; he confessed conviction, asked the intercession of the brothers in his behalf, and finally joyfully exclaimed that he believed that he had been pardoned. The good clergyman, in the exuberance of his joy at this marked example of the good result of ministrations, at the conclusion of the convert's remarks sprang to his feet and called upon the congregation to sing that joyous old gospel song: "Oh how happy are they, Who their Savior ---" "Hold on! Hold on!" shouted Jones, who was present and had been an interested listener to his old enemy's recantation of former practices, rising as he shouted, "don't sing it that way, let me line it," and as the assembled people listened in amazement he continued: "Sing it this way:"Oh how happy are they, Who make hay and never pay." The sensation that followed may be imagined. |
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