" Place by the bed of this once strong man a table and on
this table a roast turkey, stuffed with oysters. On the floor place a
coffin and say to the patient: "You see that turkey and that coffin.
If you eat the turkey today, you'll be in the coffin tomorrow." Go out
and leave the man alone with the turkey. Will he eat it? I don't care
if he's a preacher or a doctor he will, regardless of the advice of
doctor or terror of the waiting coffin. Why will he eat when he knows
it means death? Because his will has gone down to twenty and his
appetite up to one hundred.
My father had typhoid fever and when the time of convalescing came my
mother left him alone while she was in the yard with her flowers. I
went into the house and found father had left his bed, crawled to the
cupboard and had hold of what was left of a chicken. I called to
mother; she came running, and taking the chicken from him said: "Don't
you know to eat solid food will kill you?" Father replied: "I know if
you hadn't come in I would have had one square meal."
Did I say too much when I said the preacher would eat the turkey?
Years ago Saint John's pulpit in Louisville, Kentucky, was filled by a
preacher so gifted that strangers in the city were attracted by his
fame as an orator. He had an invalid mother, who in her wheel chair
would attend every service, and was made happy in her affliction by
the sermons of her eloquent son.
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