THERE is a practice which is fearfully common even among the professors of religion, and from which, alas! ministers of the Gospel are not always free, which cannot be too severely condemned, as offensive to God, and injurious to the best interests of man. We allude to the practice of connecting ludicrous anecdotes with passages of Scripture. We know by sad experience, and we appeal to the experience of others for the confirmation of the remark, that so lively is the impression which is often produced on the mind by the association of something grotesque with certain texts of the Bible, that such passages can hardly be read in the most serious moments without bringing up to the mind some idea which it requires a strong effort to prevent from producing a smile. This is one abuse of sacred things not less displeasing to God than under the Old Testament it would have been to desecrate from a holy to a common use, the sacred implements of the temple, the holy anointing oil, or the hallowed fire of the altar. If to put new wine into old bottles, or to sew a new patch on an old garment be unwise, incongruous, how much more so to prostitute the sacred words of inspiration to point a jest for the amusement of the social circle! To do so, in the presence of the young is peculiarly injudicious. Here the maxim of the Roman satirist is especially applicable; Maxima debetur puero reverentia. Jeremy Taylor forcibly remarks on this subject: “Some men used to read Scripture on their knees and many with their heads uncovered, and all good men with fear and trembling, with reverence and grave attention. For all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is fit for instruction, for reproof, for exhortation for doctrine, not for jesting; but he that makes that use of it had better part with his eyes in jest, and give his heart to make a tennis-ball; and that I may speak the worst thing in the world of it, it is as like the material part of the sin against the Holy Ghost, as jeering of a man is to abusing him; and no man can use it but he that wants wit and manners as much as he wants of religion.”—Sel.