Clerical Wit

Father Taylor, pastor of the Seamen’s Bethel in Boston, once preached a sermon on “social amusements.” Unbeknownst to him, Jenny Lind—the touring sensation of the moment—was sitting in the congregation.

Taylor thundered against card‑playing, dancing, and the theatre. But when he turned to music, his tone flipped: music, he said, had real power in worship. He even praised the generosity of great singers—especially “the greatest and sweetest of them all, now landed on our shores.”

Right then a loud heckler, sitting on the pulpit steps, interrupted with a crude question: if someone died at a Jenny Lind concert, would they go to heaven?

Taylor didn’t miss a beat. “A Christian will go to heaven wherever he dies,” he shot back, “but a fool will be a fool wherever he is—even if he’s sitting on the steps of a pulpit.”