Alexandria Gazette

A CLERICAL ANECDOTE.-The Rev. Dr. T. who resided within ten miles of Boston, was distinguished for his many excellent qualities and his learning-but his manner was deficient in energy, which made his discourses uninteresting, and by many they were regarded as prosy. He occasionally "exchanged" with a relation in Boston, and on such occasions, although the house was crowded in the morning, the congregation would be wondrous thin in the afternoon.

At length the Doctor resolved to resort to a ruse, a justifiable one, perhaps, for the purpose of securing an audience in the afternoon. In the course of his morning prayer, he pleaded earnestly that blessings might rest on the head of the servant of the Lord who would address the congregation in the afternoon. When the congregation dispersed, each one would ask his neighbor who was going to preach in the afternoon. "I don't know," "but it evidently is not Dr. T."

In the afternoon the church was well filled, and, after the bell had been tolling a long time, and every member of the congregation was seated, awaiting with curiosity the arrival of the clergyman, the Rev. Dr. T. entered the door, and with becoming gravity, marched up the broad aisle! Some of the congregation were quite indignant at "the trick," as they called it, which had been put upon them, and a few suffered their anger to overcome their sense of propriety, and rose up abruptly, threw open the doors of their pews, and left the house!

After the services were concluded, as the Doctor was retiring from church, he quietly remarked to a friend, that he found himself gifted with a power which he thought had only belonged to the Apostles-that of being able to cast out devils.-Boston Journal.