“CHAPLAIN, BUTLER, BRATS AND ALL.”

Is there no mistake about the following advertisement, which appeared a day or two ago in the Times:

Butler wanted, an experienced middle-aged man, without encumbrance, for a large family, decided in his religious view (Evangelical). No nominal Christian need apply. Address A.B., 5, Soho Square, by letter, paid.

Surely, there is some misprint. The Soho Square personage is made to ask for a Butler, but surely he means Chaplain. What is the connection between decided Evangelical views and the duties of the butler’s pantry? Can only a Calvinist detect a corked bottle, and is an Arminian’s nose dead to the aroma of Burgundy? Must one despise good works before one can appreciate good port, and is a belief that ninetenths of one’s acquaintances will be eternally unhappy necessary to keeping the cellar-book straight and airing the claret before dinner? Evidently there must be some mistake. A.B. cannot be such a fool as the advertisement would make him. We are the more inclined to think that he wants, or at least needs , a chaplain, to teach him a little of what is fitting, inasmuch as real Christians do not usually speak of Heaven’s gift of little children as an “encumbrance.” They remember something of a Book where children are mentioned in another way. Evidently A.B. has a right to have his advertisement corrected. By the way, what does he mean by saying he will have “no Nominal Christian?” Is the chaplain or butler, or whatever he may be, to represent himself as something else than a Christian? It may be so, for his proposed master A.B. certainly does the same in his advertisement. We don’t know what sort of a cellar of wine A.B. may keep, but it strikes us that as Mr. Compton said in a play, “his bottle of brains has suddenly come to the thicks.”

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