A pastor I knew had this unique ability to fell asleep in church regardless of the occasion. At one time during a revival meeting at his church he introduced the evangelist, sat down and promptly did what he did best. He fell fast asleep and slept through the sermon.
The evangelist finished his message and sat down beside the sleeper. This roused the sleeper. He rose to his feet and announced, "Brother P. will now bring us the message."
This good brother is long gone from the scene. Too late the thought came to me that he should have been given some special recognition. "Sleeping Beauty" is out. How about "The Composed Man" or should that be reposed?
It is easy, in fact it is quite common, for public speakers, even preachers, to make great errors in their addresses. A certain preacher was preaching the funeral of an elderly lady. This happened in the church where I was pastor. He had know this lady and her extended family for many years. Her son was a board member of one of the city's schools. The school superintended and other public figures were present.
Among other things of complementary nature, the preacher stated, "If anyone deserves a good funeral, this lady does." It seemed to us that he meant, "And I'm going to see that she gets it!" As he waxed eloquent in his remarks, he said, "By this time she is sipping Neptune."
He knew quite a lot about Roman and Greek mythology and certainly the difference between nectar and the god of the sea, but this slip of the tongue had "gone public". For all time thereafter, we employed a new term whenever something for drink or even for food was really good. We would say, "This really sips neptune" or "is like sipping neptune."
It is strange how far some people will go in capitalizing on someone else's mistakes.
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