The kindly clergyman, newly come to the parish, was at great pains to teach an illiterate old man, crippled with rheumatism, his letters so that he could read the Bible. On the clergyman's return after a short absence from the parish, he met the old man's wife.
"And how is Thomas making out with reading his Bible?"
"Bless you, sir," the wife declared proudly, "he's out of the Bible and into the newspaper long ago."
