What Spirit?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 28, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 47.

—The Christian Advocate gives the following from an interview with Dr. Vanner, a Baptist pastor of New York City, who has recently been to Germany:—

“I found a pastor in the Hartz Mountains who prepared for his Sunday’s work as follows: He ate an early supper on Saturday night, consisting of sour milk and grated cheese, blood sausages, and black bread, and, lastly, the stoutest kind of German cheese. He then lighted his huge pipe, filled with strong tobacco, and at 9 o’clock in the evening, with a bottle of black beer under either arm, entered his study. By 4 o’clock on Sunday morning his sermon would be written and committed to memory, and he would then retire for two or three hours of sleep. This man preached good sermons, and could discuss ably any question relating to philosophy or science.”

Quite lengthy comment is made on this, but no condemnation for such a course except from a health standpoint. The spirit infused through such sermons is that distilled from the tobacco and beer. Imagine Christ or Paul or Wesley thus preparing a sermon!