Part 6

Once when I was staying at St. John's Wood I took an early omnibus to Westminster, and as it was fine I got up outside and had for a companion a very gentlemanly looking man of military appearance. He soon began to talk about prophecy and the revelation, showing an intimate acquaintance with the Bible, and at last he asked me if I did not think the time had arrived for the Messiah to be again revealed in the flesh. I of course deprecated all attempts to fix the date of the Second Advent, but he persisted in his attempts to prove that the Messiah would again be incarnate. I saw he was full of wild notions, but I was rather startled when he asked me if I could name any one on earth who seemed to me to answer to all the requirements I should look for in the Messiah, and when I said, "Certainly not," he startled me still more by saying, "Now I should be disposed to say Dr. Christopher Wordsworth" (then Dean of Westminster) "answered most nearly, if it were not for his extraordinary hallucination with regard to the millenium." Of course by this time I saw the man was mad. However, I asked him if he could name any one more perfectly answering to his expectation. He then asked me if I understood the meaning of the Frogs in the book of Revelation, and, on my answering in the negative, he said. "I ask myself what can you predicate of frogs? Only two things, they croak and they jump. So when I hear any one clear his throat, suddenly putting his hand up to his mouth, I say to myself, 'That is the sign of the frogs. The time is come'." He then said, "You will allow, I presume, that the Messiah must appear from a mountain?" To which I of course assented, as I did to everything else now. "And that mountain must bear a name equivalent to Armageddon?" "Yes." "Do you know what Armageddon means?" "No." "It is a name of the devil." "Oh!" "Well, such a mountain exists." "Where?" "In the county of Tipperary, and at the foot of that mountain I was born." He then went on with a long rhapsody, saying, "Yes, I am the Messiah, though men won't believe it. It's a most curious fact that, while the interests of humanity centre in me, each man believes that they centre in himself. Yes, I am the scape-goat. You know that goat was sent into the wilderness by the priest. Ah! that event happened on" (here he mentioned very rapidly some date which I forget). "I was the goat: moral wilderness, you know--commission in lunacy. My brother was the priest--sent me into the wilderness, &c. &c." He was now talking very rapidly and excitedly, and I was glad our journey came to an end.

The other incident recorded in the note-book occurred more recently, when on the Monday before Ash Wednesday the Bishop had been preaching in a London church, and a young man came to the vestry after the service to speak to him. The Bishop having asked him how he could help him, the young man laid one hand on the Bishop's knee, looked him earnestly in the face, and said in a loud impressive whisper, "To-morrow's pancake day, and the next day's salt-fish!"

DREAMS.

Few people remember dreams to the same extent as Bishop Walsham How. It was a very usual thing at breakfast for him to tell some absurd dream that he had had, the remembrance of which often amused him so much as to greatly hinder its recital. In his note-book he has recorded two, one of his own, and one of Bishop Jackson's (of London).

A Dream of Red Tape.--A clergyman is often rather beset with forms to fill up. Probably in consequence of this I dreamt one night that I was walking through a street with a lady, and, it having been raining, there were many puddles. I stopped and said I had got some new forms in my pocket which would be most useful. I then pulled out a large roll of forms, printed as follows: "Madam, allow me to have the honour of assisting you to----over this----." There was a line below for a signature. I explained that you had only to fill up the first space with "step" or "jump," and the second with "puddle" or "pool," according to size, sign your name at the bottom and the thing was done.

This is a comparatively recent entry in the note-book, but the dream occurred many years ago. Those who remember the Bishop telling it in old days will not have forgotten that he used to say that he dreamt it after spending a long day signing his name at the Oswestry Savings' Bank of which he was a trustee.

Bishop Jackson's dream was as follows:

The Bishop of London, at the time of one of the great gatherings of Sunday school children in St. Paul's Cathedral, dreamt that he was there, and heard them singing a hymn, one verse of which was as follows:

To our Churchwardens we will tell The wonders of this day, And eke to them will take the bill Of what they have to pay.

YORKSHIRE STORIES.

A Yorkshire clergyman the other day, visiting a poor man who had just lost his little boy, endeavoured to console him. The poor man burst into tears, and in the midst of his sobs exclaimed: "If 'twarna agin t' law a should ha' liked to have t' little beggar stoofed."

A leading layman in the Wakefield diocese went to see a poor old woman whose husband had just died after a long illness. In talking of him she remarked, "Eh, but John's tabernacle tuk a deal o' riving to bits."

The Vicar of Sowerby Bridge met with a woman in his parish who said she could not agree with the Church. On being pressed for particulars she said she could not hold with renouncing the devil and all his works.

The Vicar of one of the large towns in the diocese of Wakefield was having a pipe in his kitchen late at night when, about 11 P.M., there was a knock at the door, and when he opened it he found two Salvation lassies who said they had called to see if he would give them something for their work. He said he was sorry he could not do so, though he wished them well, and he asked if they found much drunkenness in that town. "Yes," said one of them, "and also of its twin child of the devil, smoking."

A Yorkshireman (the story is told of Birstall) who had a scolding wife met a mate one morning who looked rather sad, and asked him what was the matter. The other said, "I've lost my old missus." To this the former replied, "I'll swop my wick un for your dead un, and pay t' funeral expenses too!"

Another Birstall story:

When the present incumbent was appointed to Birstall, a man there said, "We've had no Harvest Festival this time, as there was no vicar, but now a new one is appointed I dare say we shall have a lot of them!"

A very wealthy manufacturer whose works were in the Wakefield diocese was asked for a donation to a charitable object, and said they might put down his name for two guineas. It was pointed out to him that his son had already given twice that amount, and he might not like his name to appear for less than his son's. "Oh, it's all right," he said; "you see he has got a well-to-do father, and I haven't."

Two men went round a parish in Yorkshire, house to house, collecting a fund for the repair of the churchyard wall. Presently they came to a house where the man had just come in from work and was washing himself in the back kitchen. Hearing the men in the front room he called out, "What dost a want? Dost a want some o' ma brass? Nay, thee'll noan get ma brass for yon job." One of the men replied, "Why, t' wall wants mending badly." "Nay, man," answered the man in the back room, "them as is in t' churchyard weant get out, and them as isn't in doant want to get in. Tha, man, let it bide."

A clergyman in Yorkshire, visiting a dying man, observed him putting his hand out of the bed and eating something from time to time, so he said he was glad to see he could eat a little, when the man with a funny look said, "They're my funeral biscuits. The missis went to the town and bought them, and she's out to-day, and I'm eating them."

A poor woman at Halifax talking of her husband, said he had tried everything--he had been a churchman, then a Wesleyan, then a Baptist, and now he was a Yarmouth bloater. (She meant Plymouth brother, but had got her seaports mixed.)

A girl in Hebden Bridge came to the vicar to put up her banns of marriage. When all was done she lingered at the door and the vicar said, "Well, Mary, is there anything more?" To this she replied rather shyly, "Please, sir, will t' same spurrings do for another chap?" (_Spurrings_ is a Yorkshire word for banns, and is really _speerings_ or _inquirings_.)

At Thornhill an old woman lost her brother and went continually to talk to him at his grave. One day she was overheard saying, "Eh, William, t' pigs turned out well. We'd a bit o' spar rib yesterday, and a wish thee could ha' tasted it. And a've sold t' hams, William."

A former vicar of Dewsbury at a funeral in a cemetery, where the grave was under the wall of the chapel, remarked to the widow, "It's a nice sheltered spot." "Ah, yes," she answered, "my poor husband never could bear a draught."

MISCELLANEOUS STORIES

The remainder of the stories in the note-book are concerning such varied matters that it is impossible to classify them, and they are given here--such of them as it is deemed right to publish--as a concluding chapter of this little volume:

A friend of mine met with a timber-merchant one day, who said he thought the Old Testament was not very historical, and contained things no one could believe. He said, for instance, that he had made rather accurate calculations of the size and weight of the Ark, and it was simply absurd to think that the Israelites could carry such a huge thing about with them in the wilderness for forty years, even without the animals.

At a funeral of a wife the undertaker put the bereaved husband in the first carriage with his mother-in-law. When the widower heard of the arrangement he remonstrated with the undertaker, and asked if he could not go in one of the other carriages. Being told that this would be remarked upon, as the nearest relatives always went in the first carriage, he yielded, saying, "Ah, well, if it must be so, it must; but you've quite spoilt my day for me."

A clergyman of very unclerical habits was salmon-fishing in Scotland in 1872, and made use of strong expressions which very much disgusted the ghillie who accompanied him. At last the clergyman, on losing a fish he had hooked, made use of a very improper word when the ghillie could stand it no longer, but broke out with, "I'm thinking there maun ha' been a sair lack o' timber when they made thee a prop o' the Tabernacle."

The Rev. R. Bonner, our late Government School Inspector, hired a gig from Shrewsbury to drive to inspect a school. The driver in the course of conversation informed him that they had got a new clergyman in his parish who did all sorts of strange things. On Mr. Bonner asking him what, he said, "Why, sir, he makes them sing the Psalms all through." Mr. B. answered, "Don't you think the Psalms were meant to be sung?" To which he replied, "I never heard that before, sir." Mr. B. then said, "Surely David wrote them for music." "Who did you say, sir?" the man answered. "David," said Mr. B., "You know they are called the Psalms of David." Whereupon the driver said, "Oh, yes, sir, I was forgetting. Didn't a gentleman of the name of Hopkins help him?"

A former curate of mine, the Rev. G. E. Sheppard, left to go to All Saints, Shrewsbury, where I went to see him. On the wall of his room was a picture with these words underneath:

The Queen was asked upon one day Where the greatness of Old England lay, And very soon she was heard to say, It lays within the Bible.

A sceptical working man told a curate who was talking to him about our Lord's life that he had a curious old book at home by a writer called Herodotus, but, though it was very old it did not even mention any of the miracles recorded in the New Testament.

A young clergyman was accused by his vicar of using too long words in preaching, "felicity" being given as an example. He was sure every one understood the word, so the vicar called up an old woman and asked her if she knew what "felicity" meant. She said, "Beant it summut in the inside of a pig?"

An organising secretary of the Additional Curates' Society told me of a wonderful experience of another secretary of the same society. He was asked to stay at a gentleman's house in Worcestershire, and, when shown in, his host said he was sorry he could not shake hands with him, as he made it a rule to shake hands alternately with the right hand and the left, and he could not remember which he had used last. Then, as they went in to dinner, he told him it was the rule of the house always to make the sign of the cross with the foot on the floor at the dining-room door. After he had gone up to bed his host came in many times to offer him a night-shirt, a razor, &c. At last he thought he had got rid of him and went to sleep. But at midnight his host came and told him it was the rule of the house that at twelve o'clock all should change beds, and he actually had to turn out and go into another bed.

A woman wishing good-bye to a clergyman's wife when they were going to another parish, said to her, "We shall all miss Mr. ----'s sermons very much, for, you know, intellect is not what we want in this parish."

A certain rector, who was not a lively preacher, always closed his eyes when saying the Prayers. His curate wrote the following epigram:

I never see my rector's eyes; He hides their light divine: For, when he prays, he shuts his own, And, when he preaches, mine.

A man who had been a great drunkard was persuaded to take the pledge, and some time afterwards a lady went to see the wife, and asked her how they were getting on, to which she replied, "Oh, ma'am, we're getting on right well. He never beats me now, and never swears at me. I say he's more like a friend than a husband now."

A gentleman was invited to a Church function, and wrote and excused himself as he was going to the races, "but," he added, "I shall be with you in spirit."

An old verger whom I knew lost his wife, and a clergyman went in the evening after the funeral to condole with him. As he reached the door he heard very lively voices inside, and on opening it the first words he heard were from the old verger himself who was exclaiming, "What's trumps?" The room was full of tobacco smoke, and as soon as the verger, to his horror, saw his vicar standing at the door he said very humbly, "Oh, sir, I beg pardon; it's only a few friends as helped to put my poor wife underground."

A former Archdeacon of Gloucester had on his paper of inquiries addressed to the churchwardens this question: "Is your clergyman of sober life and conversation?" One churchwarden answered, "He is sober, but I have had no conversation with him for many years."

An enthusiastic total abstainer had a bit of blue ribbon sewn on his nightshirts, for, he said, if the house was on fire and he had to escape in his night-dress, he would like people to see that he was a member of the blue ribbon society.

A Mr. Manning was curate of my old parish of Whittington at the time the present form of marriage registers came into use, and, not understanding the heading "Condition," he filled up that column in the first entry, "Man lean, woman rather fat."

An Act of Parliament against making false entries in registers, or mutilating them, is bound up with many Registers. The penalty is transportation for ten years. Towards the end of the Act is a short clause (with the word "penalties" in the margin) saying, "Half the penalties under this Act are to go to the informer, and the other half to the poor of the parish."

At a charity sermon a certain nobleman was in a seat with a rich man whom he did not know, but who knew him, the nobleman being furthest from the door. At the close of the sermon the nobleman took out a shilling and placed it on the book-board. The rich parvenu was very indignant, and as a rebuke took out a sovereign and placed it on the book-board. The nobleman looked for a moment and then quietly put down another shilling, the other putting down at once a second sovereign. And so they went on till the nobleman had five shillings and the other five pounds before him. When the alms-bag came the rich man ostentatiously put the five sovereigns in. The nobleman put one shilling into the bag, and the other four into his pocket.

Some Americans managed to get an interview with Mr. Keble at Hursley. He walked with them through the garden, when one of them picked a branch of a climbing rose, and said, "Now, if you will have the goodness to hand that to me I can get five dollars for it in New York."

The vicar of an East London parish was one of the first London clergymen to grow his beard. The then Bishop of London wished to stop the practice, and, as he was going to confirm in that church, sent his chaplain to the vicar to ask him to shave it off, saying he should otherwise select another church for the Confirmation. The vicar replied that he was quite willing to take his candidates to another church, and would give out next Sunday the reason for the change. Of course, the bishop retracted.

The old Mitre Hymn-book had in it a hymn describing the just man, and, among the noble Christian graces ascribed to him, is the following couplet:

And what his charity impairs He saves by prudence in affairs.

A Professional View of a Church Congress.--At the Bath Church Congress a friend of mine went to have his hair cut, and, finding that the barber had been to a session of the Congress the evening before, he asked him what he thought of it. He replied, "I was greatly struck, sir, with the number of bald heads."

A clergyman travelling in the North of England got into conversation with a fellow traveller, and told him about St. Cuthbert, and then was beginning to tell him about the Venerable Bede, when the other remarked, "I think, sir, you are mistaken. You will find that Cuthbert and Bede were the same person." He was doubtless thinking of "Cuthbert Bede," the _nom de plume_ of Edward Bradley, the author of "Mr. Verdant Green."

Jowett of Balliol was once asked by a friend if he thought a really good man could be happy on the rack. He said, "Perhaps, if he were a _very_ good man, and it was a _very_ bad rack."

One of the speakers at the meeting of the Catholic Truth Society at Bristol (Sept. 1895) told a story of a pious Catholic visiting Westminster Abbey, and kneeling in a quiet corner for private devotion, when he was summoned in stentorian tones to come and view the royal tombs and chapels. "But I have seen them," said the stranger, "and I only wish to say my prayers." "Prayers is over," said the verger. "Still, I suppose," said the stranger, "there can be no objection to my saying my prayers quietly here?" "No objection, sir!" said the irate verger. "Why, it would be an insult to the Dean and Chapter."

In Doylestown, United States of America, cemetery is a square enclosure with four tombstones at the four corners recording the deaths of the four wives of one man. In the centre stands a large monument, with name and dates of birth and death, and the touching words,

"Our Husband."

A certain well-known preacher of somewhat exciting sermons was invited by the Vicar of Willenhall to preach in his church. One of the parishioners afterwards describing the effect of the sermon upon him to his vicar said, "It was a main fine sarment, sir, but he first speak in a whisper like, and then he shouted that loud as made me hop clean off my seat. So the next time I watched him, and when I heerd him a-whisperin' I see it a-comin', and I ketch right tight howd of the seat a this'n" (suiting the action to the word), "and then it didna do me no harm."

Mr. Edward Haycock, jun., the architect, of Shrewsbury, in speaking to a builder about the restoration of a church, was fairly puzzled by the man recommending that a certain addition should be made with a le-anto roof. Mr. Haycock did not like to acknowledge his ignorance of this sort of roof, and he asked the man to describe how he would manage it, when he soon saw that the man was talking of a lean-to roof.

An old lady in Shrewsbury once complained to my father about Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, and said that it never was so in her younger days, and she supposed it was the Radicals that had done it. On my father saying that it had been so sometimes before, she said, "Well, perhaps I'm wrong, for my memory is getting very bad, and I have a distinct recollection of Good Friday once happening on a Sunday."

The Vicar of Highclere once took duty in a church where he thought he had only morning and afternoon sermons to provide. Finding there was also an evening service, and not being prepared with a third sermon, he gave out in the morning that there would be no sermon in the evening, and then immediately gave out the hymn, "O day of rest and gladness," which caused some smiles.

A friend of mine was taking a mission for the vicar of a parish in Bolton. As they were walking together down the street they met an old woman, and the vicar asked her after her husband, who was very ill, saying, "I am afraid he is very ill." "Yes, sir," she answered, "but I do my best for him: I read the Burial Service to him every day to get him used to it."

A certain clergyman was said to be invisible for six days of the week, and incomprehensible on the seventh.

An old gardener, whose master was dead, and who was engaged to continue with his successor, was seen by his new master one day measuring some young trees in the garden. When asked what he was doing, he replied, "Well, sir, I don't think I'm long for this world, and when I go up there the first thing the old master will ask me will be, 'How are the young trees getting on?'"

A Coincidence.--I was once reading the lessons in Kidderminster Church when the organ ciphered, and one note went piping on all the time I was reading. It happened that the lesson was Job xxi., and I quite broke down at verse 12. ("They ... rejoice at the sound of the organ.")

When the new vicar went to Cantrip he found Church matters in a very primitive state. After a short time he introduced "Hymns Ancient and Modern." One day one of the farmers met him, and said, "What is this new hymn-book, sir? I don't like it." The vicar, thinking he was in for a theological discussion, said, "What don't you like?" "Why," said the farmer, "I don't like them words." "What words?" "Why, them words as they sing now; I am not used to them." Being pressed as to the particular words, he at last confessed that he never had sung _any_ words at all before, but only "one, two, three, four," and he thought having any words at all a very dangerous innovation.

A Cornish rector had a tickling cough, and was recommended by his doctor to go to Exeter and have his uvula cut, which he did. Some time afterwards another patient, suffering in the same way, applied to the same doctor, who wrote a little note to the rector, asking him who had shortened his uvula, and how it had succeeded. The doctor wrote a very bad hand, and the clergyman read "roller" for "uvula." It happened that he had lately had a stone roller shortened that it might pass through a garden gate, so he wrote back, "Dear sir, it was done by a stonemason in the village. He cut off eighteen inches, and it is now six feet long, and answers thoroughly."

Mr. Burgon had a class of young ladies at Oxford, and had occasion to mention the Targums, when he stopped and said, "By the way, do any of you young ladies know what a Targum is?" One of them replied, "It's a bird with white wings, rather larger than a partridge."