The Scoffer Silenced

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 31, 1863

The Scoffer Silenced.

An infidel from Louisiana saw, in a steam-boat on the Mississippi, a minister whom he heard deliver a discourse on infidelity. Gathering his associates to the table, he began to tell hard things about religion and religious people, the Bible and its ministers. The minister said nothing.

At length the infidel came up, and suddenly slapping him on the shoulder, said,—

"Old fellow, what do you think of these things?"

"Do you see that beautiful landscape?"

"Yes."

"If you were to send out a dove he would pass over it, see and delight in all that is beautiful and lovely; but if you were to send out a buzzard, he would see nothing to fix his attention, unless he could find some rotten carcass, loathsome to all other animals; on it he would light and gloat with exquisite pleasure."

"Do you mean to compare me to a buzzard?"

"I made no allusion to you."

The disciple of Tom Paine walked off in confusion, and was called Buzzard the rest of the passage.—Sel.