Omniana/Volume 2/The Ass at the Meeting

by Robert Southey

188. The Ass at the Meeting.

"An odd circumstance occured at Rotherham," says Wesley, (Journal, xiii. p. 62) "during the morning preaching. It was well only serious people were present. An Ass walked gravely in at the gate, came up to the door of the house, lifted up his head, and stood stock still in a posture of deep attention. Might not the dumb beast reprove many, who have far less decency, and not much more understanding?" This "application" of the story is what in Methodist language would be called improving the Ass. When any distinguished member of the Connection dies, the event is improved in the next sermon, and this kind of improvement has been carried so far that a dissenting minister in Moorfields improved the Battle of Trafalgar. A sailor perhaps may entertain doubts of this,. . here then is the advertisement faithfully copied from the newspaper, and he may satisfy himself concerning the nature of the improvement by sending for the work. "The Destruction of the Combined Fleets of France and Spain illustrated and improved from a passage in the Revelations. A sermon preached at Worship Street, Moorfields, Dec, 5, 1805, by John Evans, A. M. 'And the third part of the ships were destroyed.' Rev. viii. 9.

"Bella horrida Bella."

St. Francis, who was accustomed to all sorts of congregations, would have preached to the Rotherham Ass and the Ass would have understood him, or there is no truth in Seraphic historians. Wesley perhaps was not aware that this animal is a lover of eloquence,{...|2}} if we may reason, like Darwin, upon a single case. Ammonianus the Grammarian, Origen's master, had an ass who attended his lectures,. . asinum habuit sapientiæ auditorem, in the words of old Johannes Ravisius Textor. This is but a brief and unsatisfactory account of so remarkable a beast, and luckily Lardner (ix. 80) has found a few more particulars concerning him in Photius. It seems that John the Egyptian was more especially attracted by lectures upon poetry; and would at any time, however hungry, leave his oats to attend them. The Asses of our days are less modest; instead of listening with a proper sense of ignorance to the opinion of others, they take upon them to deliver their own, constitute themselves critics, and bray ex Cathedrâ so loudly, that they are heard from Edinburgh to the Land's End.