Two officers were sent to arrest a Quaker; his wife met them at the door and said, “Walk in, gentlemen; my husband will see thee.”
After waiting some time they got impatient and called the woman, saying, “You said we should see your husband presently.”
“No, friend,” she replied; “I said he would see thee—he did see thee, did not like thy looks, and went out by the back door.”
William Penn was once urging a man he knew to stop drinking to excess, when the man suddenly asked:
“Can you tell me of an easy way to do it?”
“Yes,” Penn replied readily, “it is just as easy as to open thy hand, friend.”
“Convince me of that,” the man exclaimed, “and I will promise upon my honor to do as you tell me.”
“Well, my friend,” Penn answered, “whenever thee finds a glass of liquor in thy hand, open that hand before the glass touches thy lips, and thee will never drink to excess again.”
The man was so struck by the simplicity of the great Quaker’s advice that he followed it and reformed.
A rural school has a pretty girl as its teacher, but she was much troubled because many of her pupils were late every morning. At last she made the announcement that she would kiss the first pupil to arrive at the schoolhouse the next morning. At sunrise the largest three boys of her class were sitting on the doorstep of the schoolhouse, and by six o’clock every boy in the school and four of the directors were waiting for her to arrive.
An English statesman on one occasion, when engaged in canvassing, visited a working-man’s house, in the principal room of which a pictorial representation of the Pope faced an illustration of King William, of pious and immortal memory, in the act of crossing the Boyne.
The worthy man stared in amazement, and seeing his surprise the voter’s wife exclaimed;
“Shure, my husband’s an Orangeman and I’m a Catholic.”
“How do you get on together?” asked the astonished politician.
“Very well, indade, barring the twelfth of July, when my husband goes out with the Orange procession and comes home feelin’ extry pathriotic.”
“Well, he always takes the Pope down and jumps on him and then goes straight to bed. The next morning I get up early, before he is awake, and take down King William and pawn him and buy a new Pope with the money. Then I give the old man the ticket to get King William out.”