Broadside entitled 'Yankee Sermon'

Transcription

A   YANKEE   SERMON.

My Beloved Brethering?I'm an unlarnt Hardshell
Baptist Preacher, of whom you've hearn afore, and
I now appear here to expound the Scripters, and
pint out the Narrer Way which leads from a vain
world to the streets of New Jaroozalum; and my tecks
which I shall choose for the occasion is in the leds of the
Bible, somewar between the Second Chronikills and the
last chapter of Timothytitus ; and when you find it, you'll
find in it these words : " And they shall gnaw a file, and
flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, where the lion roar-
eth and the wang-doodle mourneth for his first-born."

Now, my brethering, as I have before told you, I am an
oneddicated man, and know nothing about grammar talk
and college highfalutin but I am a plane unlarnt preacher of
the Gospel, what's been foreordained, and called to prepare
a pervarse generashun for the day of wrath?ah ! " For they
shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam,
whar the lion roareth and the wang doodle mourneth for his
first-born."?ah!                                                                     

My beloved brethering, the text says they shall gnaw a
file. It does not say they may, but shall. Now, there's
more than one kind of file. There's the hand saw file, the
rat-tail file, the single file, the double file and profile, but
the kind spoken of here isn't one of them kind naythen
bekase it's a figger of speech, and means going it alone and
getting ukered ; "for they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto
the mountains of Hepsidam whar the lion roareth and the
wang-doodle mourneth for his first-born."?ah !

And now, there be some here with fine clothes on thar
backs, brass rings on thar fingers, and lard on thar har, and
what goes it while they're young ; and there be others here
what, as long as their constitooshins and forty-cent whisky
last, goes it blind. Thar be sisters here what, when they
gets sixteen years old, cut thar tiller-ropes and goes it with
a rush. But I say, my dear brethering, take care you don't
find, when Gabriel blows his last trump, your hand's played
out and you've got ukered?ah ! " For they shall gnaw a
file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion
roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth for his first-born."

Now, my brethering, " they shall flee unto the mountains
of Hepsidam," but there's more dams than Hepsidam.
There's Rotter-dam, Had-dam, Amster-dam, and " Don't
care-a-dam," the last of which, my brethering, is the worst
of all, and reminds me of a sirkumstans I once knowed in
the State of Illenoy. There was a man what built him a
mill on the north fork of Ager Crick, and it was a good mill
and ground a sight of grain ; but the man what built it was
a mirerable sinner and never gave anything to the church,
and, my dear brethering, one night there came a dreadful
storm of wind and rain, and the mountains of the great deep

was broke up, and the waters rushed down and swept that
man's mill dam to kingdom cum, and when he woke up he
found he wasn't worth a dam?ah ! For they shall gnaw a
file and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam whar the lion
roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth for his first-born."
?ah!

I hope I don't hear anybody larfin ; do I?

Now, "whar the lion roareth and the wang-doodle
mourneth for his first-born "?ah ! This part of my tex, my
beseeching brethering, is not to be taken as it says. It
don't mean the howling wilderness whar John, the Hard"
shell Baptist fed on "locusts and wild asses, but it means, my
brethering, the city of New Y. Orleans, the spot for hard
bargains, where corn is wuth six bits a bushel one day. and
nary red the next, whar niggers are as thick as black hugs
in spiled bacon ham, and gamblers, thieves. and pick-
pockets goes skiting about the streets like weasels in a barn-
yard, whar honest men are scarcer than hen's teeth. and
whar a fellow once took in your beloved teacher, and bam-
boozled him out of two hundred and twenty-seven dollars
in the twinkling of a sheep's tail. but he can't do it again.
Halle'ujah?no ! " For they shall gnaw a file and flee into
the mountains of Hepsidam whar the lion roareth and the
wang-doodle mourneth for his first-born"?ah.

My brethering, I am the captain of that flat-boat you see
tied up thar. and I've got aboard of her flour, bacon, taters,
and as good Mononganela whisky as ever was drunk, and
I'm mighty apt to get a big price for them all; but what,
my   dear   bretbering,   would it   all be wuth if I han't got
religion ?    There's nothing like religion, my baetbring ; it's
better nor gold or silver "simcracks ; and you ran no more
get to heaven without it. than a jaybird can fly without a
tail?ah ! Thank the Lord !      I'm an oneddicated man, my
brethering,   but I've searched the Scripters from Dan to
Beersheba, and found Zion right side up, and hard-shell
religion the best kind of religion?ah!    'Tis not like the
Methodists, what spects to get to heaven by hollerin' hell-
fire ; nor the Universalists that get on the broad guage and
goes the hull hog?ah ! nor like the Yewnited Brethering,
that takes each other by the slack of thar breeches and hists
themselves   in ;   nor like the   Katherliks   that buys threw
tickets from thar priests; but may be likened unto a man
who had to cross a river?ah !?and the ferry-boat was gone
so he tucked up his breeches and waded across?ah ! " For
they shall gnaw a file and flee unto the mountains of Hep-
sidam whar the lion roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth
for his first-born."

Pass   the hat,   Brother Flint, and let every   Hard-shell
Baptist shell out.

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