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Clergymen of the Area (original title unknown)
The high price charged for water by the water company renders it impossible to immerse any but wealthy converts. For this and other reasons the pastor of the church informs me that he will be compelled to resign. His salary is small, only $24 a month. But the irregularity with which it is paid, or, to speak more accurately, the regularity with which it is not paid, is very distressing to him. He keeps bachelor's quarters and is in debt to his butcher, and when the preacher calls for a beefsteak the butcher, in a sort of absent-minded way cuts him off a piece of liver. His congregation has dwindled to nine regular attendants, eight of whom are women, and his collection last Sabbath amounted to only twenty cents. On the whole it may be said that the condition of the cause of Christ in Gold Hill leaves very much to be desired.
The Methodist Church, in Virginia City, presents different conditions. The
congregation is large and contributions are liberal. The pastor is a broad man
-- as broad as he is long. He measures 62 inches around the waist and 62 inches
from keel to main yard.
The Episcopal clergyman is a charming little gentleman just out from the effete East. He is as unlearned in sporting nomenclature as sporting men are unlearned in the technicalities of orthodoxy.
Last week, on the day before Andy Brown died, his brother Steve went to the Episcopal clergyman and said: "My brother is about to pass in his checks and he wants you to come down to the joint and start him off square before he becomes a stiff."
"I am not a banker," said the clergyman, "and I can not aid your brother in passing checks."
"You don't tumble," said Andy. "My brother is going to die, and he wants you to do some praying over him before he goes. He doesn't feel sure as to where he will land, and he thinks that your prayers might keep him out of a hot climate."
"I see," said the divine. "Is your brother a professor?' "He was," said Andy, "but since Baldy Thompson licked him in their last fight he has given up the profession of pugilism."
"Do you think," said the clergyman, "that your brother would like the Eucharist administered?"
"Well, partner," said Andy, dubiously, "it looks to me like a queer time for that sort of thing. But you know best, and you can take your deck along or I'll get you a pack of cards at the saloon."
[reprinted in the San Francisco Call and Post, April 1, 1921; Roughing It, University of Cal. Press, 1993]
