The Sermon Interrupted
A fed-up Seattle preacher pauses his Sunday service to address a young congregant who tried to liven up the room with a well-aimed projectile.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A clergyman paused in the sermon he was delivering some Sundays ago, and remarked with a smile upon his countenance and loud enough to be heard outdoors: 'If the boy who flung the brick through the window will remain until the service is over I will show him what a Christian minister can do to a demonstration of his soul.'
“If the boy who flung the brick through the window will remain until the service is over I will show him what a Christian minister can do to a demonstration of his soul.”
While Seattle’s 1870s newspapers were packed with advertisements for saloons and industrial suppliers, this brief anecdote highlights the enduring tension between the city's rough-and-tumble character and the formal institutions trying to establish order. It serves as a reminder that even in the 'frontier' days, local ministers were battling the same restless, occasionally rowdy energy that remains a hallmark of urban life today.
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