Sunday, March 31, 2013

The Fifth Commandment

An old school master said one day to a minister who had come to examine the school:

“I believe the children know the Catechism word for word.”

“But do they understand it?  That is the question,” said the minister.

The school master only bowed respectively and the examination began.

A little boy had repeated the fifth commandment, “Honor they father and they mother,” and he was desired to explain it.

Instead of trying to do so, the little boy, with his face covered with blushes, said almost in a whisper:

“Yesterday I showed some strange gentlemen over the hill.  The sharp stones cut my feet, and the gentlemen saw that they were bleeding and they gave me money to buy me shoes.  I gave the money to my mother, for she had no shoes either, and I thought I could go barefoot better than she could.”

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 1

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