It is
peculiarly active on bright spring days, when people rise early and look
forward to being at their desks half an hour before their usual time. On
such occasions they invariably come upon a clock which points to a
quarter of ten, and sends them scurrying breathless up four flights of
stairs, to find the janitor engaged in cleaning out the baskets.
Church clocks are not so bad as jewellers' clocks; but they are bad
enough, and, in the nature of things, we have a right to expect more
from a church clock than from any other kind. For the same reason the
weathercock on a church steeple is to be judged by a higher standard
than the one over a carpenter's shop or the ordinary dwelling. I cannot,
for instance, imagine a more dangerous moral _ensemble_ than a church
with a clergyman preaching bad doctrine in the pulpit, a clock
indicating the wrong time on the tower, and, over all, a clogged weather
vane pointing to the south when the wind blows from the east.
With reference to denominations I have observed that Presbyterian clocks
are apt to be more reliable than any other kind, although the truest
clock I have ever come across is on a little Dutch Reformed Church in
Orange County.
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