Part 5

Bishop Wilberforce, in one of his instructions upon preaching, gave descriptions of what were _not_ sermons, before proceeding to describe what _was_ a sermon. One of his sentences was this: "A few texts floating here and there in the feeble waste of your own turbid fancies--_that's_ not a sermon."

The same bishop, after preaching a very eloquent charity sermon, was going from the pulpit to the altar when an enthusiastic lady, too much moved to wait for the offertory plate, put a half-sovereign into his hand, saying, "I _must_ give my mite," to which he replied, looking at the coin, "I thought there were two of them."

A great friend of Bishop Wilberforce told me of a little bit of cleverness of his which is worth recording. He was telling a story of an Italian Marchesa, in which she made a clever repartee in French. The bishop was known not to be very perfect in French, and my informant said he awaited his enunciation of the French remark with some anxiety. But he need not have been anxious, for the bishop discounted any shortcomings by saying, "Then the Marchesa said--(you know her French was not very perfect)----" and so made the quotation.

Of Archbishop Magee the following stories are recorded by the Bishop:

I was with Bishop Magee in a railway carriage once, and he had the _Church Times_ and the _Rock_ on his knees. Before the train started a newspaper boy held up a copy of _Church Bells_ to him, and he looked up and said, "What's that? Oh, _Church Bells_. That's moderate, isn't it? No, thank you; I like to read the extremes and do the moderation for myself."

The same bishop at a dinner party had some soup spilt over his coat by a clumsy servant, and exclaimed, "Is there any layman who would kindly express my feelings in suitable language?"

Bishop Magee at a City dinner was sitting next to some one who had to propose the health of Alderman Pigeon, of whom he knew very little. He asked the bishop what he could say about him: "Oh," was the reply, "say you hope he will some day find himself in a mayor's nest."

Here is a story which is frequently quoted, and is inserted here for the sake of the guarantee of authenticity:

The Bishop of Peterborough (Magee), being plagued to go and open all sorts of things--churches, schools, bazaars, &c.--exclaimed one day, "I do believe very soon there will not be a young curate in the diocese who has bought a new umbrella, who will not apply to the bishop to come and open it." (Said to the Bishop of Leicester, who told me.)

Bishop Magee, walking one day with the Bishop of Hereford by the Wye, said to him, "If you will give me your river I will give you my see."

The Bishop of Peterborough, being pressed to give a certain man a living, said, "If it rained livings I would offer Mr. ---- (after a pause) an umbrella." (This was said by the bishop in the Athenæum to a friend of mine, who told me.)

A lady who was a great admirer of a certain preacher took Bishop Magee with her to hear him, and asked him afterwards what he thought of the sermon. "It was very long," the bishop said. "Yes," said the lady, "but there was a saint in the pulpit." "And a martyr in the pew," rejoined the bishop.

Lastly, there is a touching little story of his self-estimation:

The Bishop of Peterborough (Magee), speaking of Bishop Harold Browne, said he owed him a grudge, "for he's got all my sweetness of disposition as well as his own."

The remaining stories about bishops fall under two heads--first, those which are told definitely of some particular bishop; secondly, those which are told of "a bishop," and to which too much credit need not necessarily be given.

Under the first heading come the following:

A certain bishop [the name is given] on his marriage determined to go abroad, and he and his bride spent the first night at Folkestone, meaning to cross next day to Boulogne. There was a great crowd on the platform in the morning, and the bishop asked his wife to wait in a certain spot while he went and saw to the luggage. He made some mistake and could not find her, and, supposing she had gone on board, went to look for her, when the vessel started and he was carried off to Boulogne. His wife had to return ignominiously to the hotel, where she received great commiseration from the landlady. The lady was quite sure some accident had happened to her husband, and a messenger was sent to see, and when he returned the landlady came in with a very grave face, and said, "I am sorry to say, ma'am, there's been _no_ accident. But he didn't look like a gentleman to do such a thing." Of course he returned by the next steamer.

Bishop Selwyn of Lichfield was once asked how he came to give his theological college men such an ugly hood--black and yellow like a wasp. "Oh," he said, "I wanted to distinguish them from St. Bees' men."

It was said of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth of Lincoln that one half of him was in heaven and the other half in the seventeenth century.

When Dr. Moberly, Bishop of Salisbury, was old and infirm, he went with a friend to visit Old Sarum, and, as he was toiling up with the help of his friend, the latter remarked, "It's hard work getting up Old Sarum," to which the bishop replied, "It's harder work getting old Sarum up!"

A certain suffragan bishop was mobbed one day in a low part of London by costers, who told him they couldn't have him wear such a hat and dress. He told them he was a poor orphan with neither father nor mother to look after him and see to his clothes; so they let him go, saying, "We can't chaff you, governor."

A witty bishop of the present day, being pressed to go to many parishes for Confirmation, said that the final clause of the Baptismal Service wanted altering, and should be worded, "Ye are to take care that the bishop be brought to this child to confirm him," &c.

When Bishop Stanley first went to Norwich he went up the tower of the Cathedral, and, hearing some jackdaws twittering in a hole in the wall, and being very fond of birds, he put his hand in and drew out three young jackdaws, which he took down in his pocket and put in the garden. The next morning he could not find them, and, while looking round the garden, heard, just outside, some boys making a noise. One was crying, "Who stole Jim Crow's cadges?" (This is the local name for jackdaws.) So he ran out and caught the boys, and found out the culprit, whom he had up before the magistrates, and was going to have punished, when the boy's father asked if he might ask a question, and, leave being given, asked, "Can you tell me, sir, who the Cathedral belongs to?" "To the dean," was the answer. "Then," said the man, "who stole the dean's cadges?" This ended the matter, and the boy was dismissed.

Bishop Short (of St. Asaph) was much annoyed by his clergy seeking promotion. One day he visited a certain parish with Archdeacon Wickham, where the clergyman, as he knew, thought he ought to be promoted to a better living. This clergyman pointed to his house and school, which he had rebuilt, and said, "I think, my Lord, I have done pretty well in this parish in building the parsonage and school." "Yes," said the bishop, "indeed you have, and may you long live to enjoy the sight of your labours."

When preparations were being made for the funeral of a former bishop of Lichfield, a newly made archdeacon, who had held preferment in the Black Country, was giving directions to the secretary in the cathedral. The senior verger was standing by with some others. The archdeacon said to the secretary, "You had better send post cards to the prebendaries stating the exact hour," whereupon the verger turned to a gentleman standing by and said, "Post cards to prebendaries! Well, if them's his Black Country manners the sooner he goes back there the better!"

Bishop Pepys (of Worcester), who was a stout old man, was walking near Hartlebury one day when the omnibus for Worcester passed, and the driver was beating the horses most unmercifully. The bishop called out to him that if he went on in that way he would have him up. The man told him to hold his noise or he would give him the same. The bishop followed the omnibus into the village and found it standing at the inn door, so he called out the landlady and asked the name of the driver. She said she did not know as he was a stranger, the regular driver being ill. So the bishop walked on, and entered the drive up to the castle. Meantime the landlady went to the driver and asked him what he had been doing, as the bishop had been asking his name. "What," he said, "was that the bishop? Why, I said I would lay into him next! Which way did he go?" So off he ran, whip in hand, to beg the bishop's pardon. In a short time the bishop heard steps following, looked round, saw the driver running after him, and, remembering the man's threat, took to his heels and ran as hard as he could towards the house. At last to his relief he heard the man panting and puffing behind him cry out, "Oh, my Lord! I hope you'll forgive me, my Lord!" So he pulled up and recovered his breath and his dignity as best he could.

When the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act (Shortened Services Act) was passed, a very short service was held in Westminster Abbey at 7.45 A.M. to last only fifteen minutes, partly for the sake of the masters at the school. Lord Hatherly always attended this service, but, although perhaps the busiest man in England, did not like the abbreviations. The new lectionary had lately come into use, and Lord Hatherly told the Bishop of Lichfield (Selwyn) as they came out of the Abbey one morning that he had discovered the true merits of the new lectionary. He said that, the lessons beginning so often in the middle of a chapter, he found that it took the reader so long to find his place that he (Lord H.) had time to finish the Psalms (of which only a portion was used) to himself. [In connection with the above story it may be noted that Bishop Walsham How was at one time examining chaplain to Bishop Selwyn, and may probably have been told it by him.]

I happened to be in London just at the time when the Diocese of St. Alban's was created, and when Bishop Claughton, then Bishop of Rochester, had his choice between Rochester and St. Alban's, but had not decided which to be. I went to dine with Canon Erskine Clarke and met there old Mr. Philip Cazenove, who took me in his carriage to a reception at Bishop Woodford's. Mr. Cazenove knew both his Bible and his Horace thoroughly. Almost the first person we met at the reception was Bishop Claughton, and Mr. Cazenove shook him by the hand saying, "How do you do, my Lord, sive tu mavis Rochester vocari sive St. Alban's." The bishop, a First in Classics, was delighted. [It may be noted that Bishop Walsham How had been curate to Bishop Claughton at Kidderminster, and a close friend all his life.]

Miss Jacobson told me that her father, the Bishop of Chester, was once talking with a foreign ecclesiastic who had a great admiration for Dr. Pusey, whom he spoke of as _ce cher Pussy_.

A gushing young lady was visiting Bishop Philpotts at Torquay, and, standing at a window at Bishop's Court, she exclaimed, "How beautiful! It's just like Switzerland!" "Yes," said the bishop, "just like Switzerland, except that here there are no mountains, and there no sea."

The Bishop of Bangor (Campbell) told me that when a former dean was quite in his dotage he had got it into his head that the bishop was dead. So he went and called upon him. The old dean was very courteous, asking after his health and his daughter's, seeming to have quite forgotten his delusion, when suddenly he seemed struck with the thought that he was losing an opportunity and exclaimed, "Oh, by the way, you are sure to be able to tell me who your successor is."

The late Bishop Hills one Monday morning was standing talking to Mr. Pearson, the Vicar of Darlington, when a Mr. Maughan (pronounced Morn) came up and handed the bishop some sovereigns, saying, "There, my Lord, is our yesterday's collection for your fund." At once Mr. Pearson bowed and said, "Hail, smiling morn, that tips the hills with gold!"

A former bishop of Nottingham was a large, fine man with a good deal of dignity of manner. He one night found a burglar in his house, seized him, threw him down, and, having managed to ring the bell, sat upon him till help came. While so doing he asked the man if he knew who was sitting upon him. The burglar said "No." "I am the Bishop of Nottingham," said the bishop, whereupon (as the bishop told it) the burglar used an expression not complimentary to bishops.

Bishop Temple of London is a very powerful man, and when he first preached in Spitalfields Church some of the policemen came to hear him. The rector, Mr. Billing, afterwards asked one of them what he thought of the new bishop. "Well, sir," said the man, "I think it would take two of us to run him in."

A former bishop of Exeter in old days was noted for saying severe and sarcastic things in the blandest tones. Once when sitting with a friend in an arbour in his garden he saw a party of strangers coolly walking round his garden. He mentioned to his friend that he was frequently annoyed by these unwarrantable intrusions, saying he would speak very sharply to these people when they came past. As they reached the place the bishop to their great dismay stepped out and confronted them. They were profuse in their apologies, saying they knew his kindness and hoped they were not intruding, "Oh, no," said his Lordship, "pray make it your own: I will only ask one little favour: I should be greatly obliged if you would not go through the house to-day, as a lady is seriously ill there."

Apropos of this story it is worth recording that when Bishop Walsham How moved into the new house which was built for him at Wakefield a footpath which ran straight through the middle of the garden had to be diverted. The legal time for closing the old footpath had not arrived when the bishop first went to live in the house, and he was much beset by inquisitive people wandering about the whole place. There is a flower border round the house, edged with a raised stone edging. This stonework was kept thoroughly worn and dirty opposite to each sitting-room window, owing to it being used by the unobtrusive Yorkshireman as a standing place from which he could look into the rooms. The edging was not more than a few feet from the windows, so the nuisance became very great.

A bishop of Sodor and Man travelling on the continent found himself entered in the book of a French hotel as _l'évèque du siphon et de l'homme_.

A story about suffragan bishops. Archbishop Tait's coachman, Wyatt, was driving a gentleman one day when the latter asked about the horses, the coachman saying, "We had a hard time of it some years ago knocking about to Confirmations and Consecrations all over the country, but since we've taken Mr. Parry into the business we've done better." (Mr. Parry was the suffragan bishop of Dover.)

The Bishop of Bedford (Billing) when rector of Spitalfields was once visiting a pickpocket who had been very ill, and on whom he thought he had made some impression. One day Mr. Billing saw he was getting better and said he hoped he would soon be able to get to work. "Oh, yes, sir," said the man, "it's a good time of year coming on, just when one meets so many old gents coming home from dinner at night."

Finally, here are two or three stories to which no name is attached:

An ambitious young curate once complained to his bishop that he had not sufficient scope for his energies, and would like a larger sphere of work. The bishop quietly remarked, "Would a hemisphere do?"

A bishop once stayed at a house where they put out for him a set of silver-mounted brushes. When he left, the brushes disappeared, and the master of the house waited some days thinking he should receive them back, but, not doing so, he wrote and inquired if they had got packed up by mistake with the bishop's things. He received a telegram next day saying, "Poor but honest; look in table-drawer."

A young lady sitting by a bishop-suffragan who was also an archdeacon, asked him if it was true that he was an archdeacon as well as a bishop, and when he said, "Yes," she said, "Is not that what they call pleurisy?"

A certain bishop of the old school had a well-known and invariable Confirmation charge, which began, "My dear young friends, we have been engaged in a very interesting, and (as I hold it to be) a perfectly unobjectionable ceremony."

A certain clergyman about to be married is said to have written to his bishop to ask if he could marry himself, as he wished the wedding to be very quiet, and did not want to trouble any other clergyman. The bishop is said to have replied that he could not give him permission to marry himself, but he thought he might allow him to bury himself if he wished and felt able.

STORIES OF THE BISHOP'S OWN EXPERIENCES DURING HIS EPISCOPACY.

These are not very numerous, and occupy a comparatively small portion of the note-book. Some of them have already appeared in the "Life of Bishop Walsham How."

I once visited the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and was going on afterwards for a week's fishing in Dorsetshire. It so happened that my portmanteau, in which were my dress-clothes, was locked, but a carpet-bag containing all my fishing things was not locked. When I went up to dress for dinner at the Palace I found that the butler had put out all my fishing clothes with wading stockings and wading boots for me to dress in for dinner.

I received the following letter during the time that I was Bishop of Wakefield:

May it please your Lordship,

To inform me, my Lord, wether I have a legal right to a grave, or not, supposing my granfather of my mother's side, my Lordship, and the said granfather had no son, and my mother was the eldest daughter, and I am my mother's eldest child and only son, my Lordship, who would become in possession, of the said grave, my Lordship, supposing my father, loeses my mother, my Lordship, has he a legal right to bury my mother, in the said grave, if it is not left, in the aforesaid,--granfather's Will, my Lordship, hasn't the aforesaid granfather granson the Legal Right of the said Grave, my Lordship, has a Son-in-law, a Legal Right before a Granson, to the said Grave, my Lordship, has my sister a Legal Right, to have my Father, buryed in the said Grave, my Lordship, without the concent of her Brother, my Lordship, is that Grave invested with Vicar's Right's, so that no one can interfear with the said Grave, my Lordship, the said Grave has a Head Stone to it and there was a certain amount of Fee's to be paid, before, the said Vicar allows the said Stone to be put over the Grave, my Lordship, would not that Grave devolve and become Freehold Property, my Lordship, may it please your Grace to send me a reply

from yours truly ----

This letter is perfect sense, and was "translated" by the Bishop's legal secretary. Entire repunctuation will be found a great assistance to any one whose curiosity leads them to attempt to gather the meaning.

I have had a complaint from a layman to say that his rector in a sermon recently preached explained the repetition of the Lord's Prayer in the Church service by saying as follows: "The prayer occurs three times in the morning service; one is for those who get to church in good time, the second one is for the late, the third one is for the very late." My correspondent did not think this profitable teaching.

A working man in East London being shown some photographs came to one of the Bishop of Bedford (myself), and the clergyman who was showing the photographs said, "That is the Bishop of Bedford, he is a total abstainer you know." The man paused a moment and then said, "Ah, there's reformed in all classes, no doubt."

A little girl at Eastbourne was at a church where I was preaching, and in a whisper in the middle of the sermon begged her mother to let her have a pair of sleeves like the bishop's.

An old woman, whom I confirmed lately in a Yorkshire parish, said to the clergyman's wife at the end of the service, "A turned sick three times, but a banged thro'."

I sent a curate to look at a church I wanted him to take charge of, and he found a choirboy in the church who told him the Bishop had been there the Sunday before. "And what did you think of him?" said the curate. The boy replied, "A thought he'd a been a bigger mon."

I have received a letter from a man complaining that, having been recommended to study "Daniel on the Book of Common Prayer," he had read the book of Daniel all through, and could find no mention of the Prayer-book in it.

Our forefathers seem to have had occasion for a curious instrument called a scratchback, which consisted of a small ivory hand screwed on to a long light handle. One of these is preserved as a curiosity at a country house in this diocese. My domestic chaplain, when he first called there, finding himself alone in the drawing-room, took up the instrument, and never having enjoyed the experience proceeded to put it down his back. At that moment the lady of the house entered, and my chaplain hastily withdrawing the machine found the handle had separated from the hand, which was left behind. He had to apologise, and ask permission to retire that he might recover the missing hand.

CONCERNING LUNATICS.

In common with most people whose names are well known, Bishop Walsham How received many letters from lunatics. He also met with a few and has recorded one or two of his experiences. One of these dates from somewhat early days, as will be seen from the reference to Dr. Christopher Wordsworth. It runs as follows: