Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

LONDON, November 25.

A celebrated preacher, a few weeks ago, at Lille in Flanders, took upon himself to preach upon frugality in the convent of the nuns of the Ave Maria, one of the most rigorous orders, who are obliged to abstain from meat the whole year, and live only on roots boiled in salt and water. The vassals thought their spiritual director could have chosen a more proper subject. It is customary in convents to prepare a luncheon for the preacher, and that repast is mostly got up with care and cost; but these nuns, desirous previously to revenge themselves on their lecturer, only laid before him a crust of bread, not of the newest, and a small decanter of water; the priest, astonished, asked one of the sisters (they are so called) what they meant? To which she devoutly answered, "Sir, we had prepared a much better luncheon for you, but your sermon operated so powerfully on our consciences, that we thought it would be doing wrong to offer it to you."--The preacher felt his fault, and went away resolving not to boast the punishment it drew upon him.