Read "A Cheating Preacher" by Ambrose Bierce online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Munhall, to save my soul you bravely try, / Although, to save my soul, I can't say why. / 'Tis naught to you, to me however much -- / Why, bless it! you might save a million such / Yet lose your own; for still the "means of grace" / That you employ to turn us from the place / By the arch-enemy of souls frequented / Are those which to ensnare us he invented! / I do not say you utter falsehoods -- I / Would scorn to give to ministers the lie: / They cannot fight -- their calling has estopped it.
True, I did not persuade them to adopt it.