Sterne
: Miscellaneous.Sterne used to relate a circumstance which happened to him at
York. After preaching at the cathedral, an old woman whom he observed
sitting on the pulpit stairs, stopped him as he came down, and begged to
know where she should have the honour of hearing him preach the following
Sunday. On leaving the pulpit the next Sunday he found her placed as
before, when she put the same question to him. The following Sunday he was
to preach four miles out of York, which he told her; and to his great
surprise, he found her there too, and the same question was put to him as
he descended from the pulpit. "On which," added he "I took for my text
these words, expecting to find my old woman as before: 'I will grant the
request of this poor widow, lest by her often coming, she weary me,'" One
of the company immediately replied, "Why, Sterne, you omitted the most
applicable part of the passage, which is, 'Though I neither fear God nor
regard man.'"
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reasons, you would ascribe it to a better motive
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