10 Jun 2009
Rowland Hill was always annoyed …
when there happened to be any noise in the chapel, or when anything happened to divert the attention of his hearers from what he was saying. On one occasion, a few days before his death, he was preaching to one of the most crowded congregations that ever assembled to hear him. In the middle of his discourse he observed a commotion in the gallery. For some time he took no notice of it, but finding it increasing, he paused in his sermon, and looking in the direction in which the confusion prevailed, he exclaimed—
“What’s the matter there? The devil seems to have got among you.”
A plain country-looking man immediately started to his feet, and addressing Hill in reply, said—
” No, sir, it arn’t the devil as is doing it; it’s a fat lady wot’s fainted, and she is a very fat ‘un, sir, as don’t seem likely to come to again in a hurry.”
” Oh, that’s it, is it?” observed Mr. Hill, drawing his hand across his chin, “then I beg the lady’s pardon—and the devil’s too.”
