CHRISTIANITY AND SWINE by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 20, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 16.

CHRISTIANITY AND SWINE.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

I do not intend to connect Christianity with swine in any manner, or to any degree. I only wish to present somebody's idea of it.

A friend in Ohio related to me the following: A Methodist minister made a visit to his family. The time being soon after "killing season," newly-made, highly-seasoned sausages were on the table, of which the minister ate largely, and praised the savory viands with as much zeal as Belshazzar showed in praising the gods of gold and silver, and remarked, "I do not wonder that a Jew laid his hand on the back of a hog and said, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'"

There you have a Methodist minister's view of the persuasive powers of a hog in favor of Christianity; and the appeal is to that which is most easily reached and has the controlling influence with many of the ministers of the present age,—their perverted appetites. That a swine, in the shape of sausage or any other shape, appeals to the intellect, the convictions, the conscience, will not be affirmed even by a modern ministerial epicure. But in the above case it proved, as it often does, that the stomach cannot be quieted as easily as the higher sensibilities. Soon after dinner the preacher called for a dose of potash in the form of cooking soda, to turn the swine's grease into soap, thus to compel his stomach to retain the disgusting mass. I should have preferred lobelia to soda, and an allopathic dose.

There is a sad moral to all this. Such a minister loses the respect of the family which he visits; and this is all right so far as he is concerned—he deserves no respect. But the name of Christianity is disgraced by such

ministers. It is a well-known truth that the ministry is largely accountable for the prevailing custom of gormandizing, and for the use of indigestible food. An extra dinner "for the minister" is a matter of course, and many of them would feel insulted if they were invited to sit down to a good, plain dinner of digestible food. It is a shame to the ministerial office that their appetite for rich dinners, and suppers also, is proverbial. And he who would, even for a moment, associate a fat hog with inducements to profess Christianity, would not hesitate to accept "a call" to the ministry in view of the rich dinners that the minister is pretty sure to get. "Verily, they have their reward."—J. H. Waggoner.