The Devil's Dictionaryby Ambrose Bierce

HOMICIDE

HONORABLE

HOMILETICS

—n.

The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

  So skilled the parson was in homiletics
  That all his normal purges and emetics
  To medicine the spirit were compounded
  With a most just discrimination founded
  Upon a rigorous examination
  Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.
  Then, having diagnosed each one's condition,
  His scriptural specifics this physician
  Administered — his pills so efficacious
  And pukes of disposition so vivacious
  That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam
  Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.
  But Slander's tongue — itself all coated — uttered
  Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered
  That in the case of patients having money
  The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.

Biography of Bishop Potter

Contents

HOMICIDE

HONORABLE