Sermons on Gilt-Edged Paper

Exerpt from a sermon delievered by BH Carroll entitled Sermons to Preachers.

Let me tell you of a case: In a city once, I went to hear a sermon. Preachers get hungry to hear others preach. I was oppressed in spirit and gravely solicitous about a great matter. I wanted my faith strengthened. Quietly taking my seat I listened. The rendition of the music, confined exclusively to the choir, was very artistic, I suppose. I held myself in reserve for the sermon. That, I took it for granted, would have body to it. The preacher rose, at last, with his sermon in his hand. I looked at it. It was a neat essay, on note paper, gilt-edged, and perfumed, I verily believe. I know it was tied with a delicatly shaded ribbon, and he gracefully read the dainty document through in just fifteen minutes; and that seemed to me too much for it. My sensations were never paralleled except once when, on a moonlight night, I stepped confidently upon what I supposed was a plank, and found it a sluice of muddy water fully knee deep. Some one asked me what I thought about the sermon. Perhaps my disappointment made me say: "Well, I've figured it out, and if there is no mistake in my calculation it would take 879,316 years for 579,314 such sermons to reach one could, and then they would make no more impression on it than a cloud of thistledown blown by human breath against the granite face of Mont Blanc. I think it mighty safely pass through Texas from Sabine Pass to El Paso, and no Baptist, if all the General Convention were out hunting for a sermon, would fire a shot at it."