A church in Middleville burned down in July, and the church leaders were determined
to get it rebuilt before Christmas.
With the help of many volunteers, it was completed a week before Christmas, much to the
delight of the parishioners. A committee was formed to determine what else might be
needed.
One of the suggestions was to buy some Christmas song books for the service on Christmas
Day, and many ideas were bandied about. The meeting being held at the Pastor’s home, was
interrupted by a door bell ringing.
One of the members answered the door to find a salesman for Beechman Pills. “We’re
having a church meeting right now,” said the lady who answered the door. “We’re trying to figure out where to get some Christmas Carol books for Christmas, and where we could possibly get some at this late date. So, obviously, we’re not interested in your pills.”
“Well,” said the salesman, “I’m giving away a book of Christmas songs. Would that help?”
“Well, not really, since we’ll need at least 50 of them,” said the responder.
“I think I could handle 50 of them, and at this time of the year I’d be glad to donate them
to your church.”
“Well, then, let me tell the committee about your generous offer.”
Returning to the committee meeting, the messenger reported about the offer. One member said,
“It’s probably full of advertising.”
Another member suggested, “Well, maybe we could just tear out the pages with advertising.”
And the all agreed it would do well to take the song books, and modify where it found the
ads.
Returning to the door, the courier from the committee said, “Ok, we’ll accept your donation
with great thanks.” The Salesman went to his car and brought in the 50 books, and when the
committee members began looking through them, lo and behold there was no advertising to be
found.
At the Christmas service, the minister had the books passed out, and at the proper moment for
singing said, “Will you all turn to page 9 in our new songbooks and we’ll sing, “Hark the
Herald Angels Sing.”
It went on like this:
“Hark the herald angels sing,
Beechman Pills are just the thing.
Peace on earth, the mercy mild,
Two for adults and one for a child.”
I used to know the rest of this, but I’ve forgotten. So, dear reader, if you know the rest of
the words, please enter them in comments.