A Clown’s Sermon

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 18, 1877

A Clown’s Sermon.

THE Virginia papers report that during the exhibition of a traveling menagerie and circus in a town in that State, where there was at the time some religious convocation in session, the painted jester of the equestrian ring illustrated his own serious capacity, and greatly affected an audience in which many church members were present, by delivering the following homily:

“My friends: We have taken in $600.00 here to-day, more money, I venture to say, than any minister of the gospel in this community would receive for a whole year’s services. A large portion of this money was given by church members, and a large portion of this audience is made up of members of the church. And yet when your preacher asks you to aid in supporting the gospel, you are too poor to give anything. Yet you come here and pay dollars to hear me talk nonsense. I am a fool because I am paid for it; I make my living by it. You profess to be wise and yet you support me in my folly. But perhaps you say you did not come to see the circus, but the animals. Why did you not simply look at them and leave? Is not this a pretty place for Christians to be in? Do you not feel ashamed of yourselves? You ought to blush in such a place as this.”

The sensation following a speech like this, in such a place, from such a speaker, may be imagined. The local clergy availed themselves of the spirit thus produced; a religious revival was attempted, and a collection for foreign missions resulted in the sum of $4.50!