A Pleasant Odour

M.A. Screech, Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (1997; rpt. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), p. 237:

In the West Country when I was a child, a boy who had hoped to have broken wind so discreetly that no one noticed it might be twitted (if his fellows were olfactorily alerted) for 'spreading abroad a pleasant odour'. Our religion was Bible-centred. We would not have laughed if we had not known that we were misapplying a mystical text from the Book which we venerated above all others.⁶

6. Ecclesiasticus, 24:15 (Wisdom is speaking): 'And as choice myrrh I spread abroad a pleasant odour.'