Lighter Moments from the Notebook of Bishop Walsham How

Bishop Walsham How's love of botany took him frequently into the wilder and more mountainous parts of the neighbourhood, and in the course of these expeditions he made friends with the gentleman, since dead, of whom he tells the following story:

The Vicar of the little parish of Criggion, under the Breidden hills, asked me once to come there for a certain All Saints' Day, when he was going to have a meeting of choirs. I could not go, but seeing him a little while afterwards, I asked him how the choral festival had gone off. "Oh! very well," he said. "And how many choirs had you?" I asked "Oh, well, only two," he said; "L – 's from over the hill and my own." "And how many voices had you?" I next asked. "You should not be so inquisitive," he said, "but to tell the truth, there were only his Buttons and my own little maid!"

Before he went to Whittington, he had some experience of another quaint character among Shropshire clergymen, as is related in the following passage taken from the notebook:

Mr. C – was curate of a parish near Shrewsbury when I was curate of Holy Cross and St. Giles' in that town. He was very eccentric in all his ways. Among other peculiarities he, though very High Church in views, adopted a very secular style of dress. Archdeacon Allen undertook on one occasion to speak to him on the subject, and at a Visitation very kindly and pleasantly remarked that his dress was not quite what was usual on such occasions. Whereupon Mr. C – , taking hold of the Archdeacon's coat, said, "Well, Mr. Archdeacon, you know this is not quite the correct thing: I believe it is an old coat made to do!" The Archdeacon could not resist a good laugh, and acknowledged that he was quite right in his supposition.

One day my good fellow curate, the Rev. F. P. Johnson, was walking along the road when he saw Mr. C – approaching, a gaunt figure with long strides, in a striped waistcoat and blue muffetees, intoning at the top of his voice the prayer for the Queen's most excellent Majesty. He slackened pace, finished the prayer, duly sang the Amen, and then shook hands with a hearty "How do you do, old fellow?" On Johnson expressing astonishment at the performance, he said he was only saying Matins as in duty bound, and, since his rector would not have it in church and he had no time in his lodgings in Shrewsbury, he always said it as he came back from visiting the school in the morning. "If you had been a minute or two sooner," he added, "you would just have come in for the anthem. You know 'in choirs and places where they sing, here followeth the anthem.'" "And what anthem did you have to-day?" asked Johnson. "Oh," he replied, "I always have the same, for I only know one. When I come to that place I always sing 'God save the Queen.'"

Another time Mr. C – was spending a day with Mr. Peake, then curate of Ellesmere. At noon he went up to his room, and Mr. Peake heard him whistling very strangely on one note. He went up, knocked at his door, and asked him what he was doing. "Oh nothing," said Mr. C – . "But what are you whistling in that queer way for?" said Mr. Peake. "Oh, well, if you must know," he answered, "I was saying my prayers." "Saying your prayers!" said Mr. Peake, "why, you were whistling!" "Yes, I know," said Mr. C – ; "the fact is your maid was cleaning your room next to mine, and I thought she would think it odd perhaps if I intoned my sexts, as I generally do, so I thought I would whistle them to-day."

Several stories occur in connection with Oswestry, which was the market town for Whittington.

Extract from a sermon preached by a curate of Oswestry upon the scene between St. Paul and St. Peter at Antioch. The words were taken down at the time [N.B. —Hibernice legendum]: "So Paul seized the banner of the Gospel out of the hands of poor, weak, compromising Peter, and waved it in a flood of light and liberty over the head of the Galatian Church."

Again:

A certain Calvinistic curate of Oswestry met a neighbour who had unhappily seceded to Rome, and thus described the interview to his vicar. "I met – yesterday, and said to him, 'Not a day of my life passes that I do not pray for you.' And what do you think he said? Why, 'And not a day of my life passes that I do not pray for you.' The impudence of the fellow!"

Here is another:

A certain clergyman of this diocese, risen from the ranks, was preaching at Trinity Church, Oswestry, and found in the course of the service that he had forgotten his pocket-handkerchief. As he felt he should require one during the sermon, the weather being very warm, he asked a lady in a pew close to the pulpit, as he went up, to lend him hers, which he duly returned as he went down again!

Whittington being on the borders of Wales, Dissent was extremely prevalent, and the Church's action towards Dissenters was a burning subject. Hence the following story:

At a clerical meeting soon after I came into these parts the subject discussed was, "How to treat Dissenters." After most of those present had spoken, a neighbouring rector said, "I make it a principle never to speak to Dissenters about religious matters. But I have a very good garden with a southern slope, and I send them baskets of early vegetables, and by this means I have brought several over to the Church."

Next come two stories from the same neighbourhood of Oswestry, but of a more unclerical nature:

A relation of Sir Watkin Wynn was one day hunting with those hounds when his horse stumbled in a lane and fell with him. Whereupon Simpson, at that time Sir Watkin's second horseman, jumped off to help him, and thinking him dangerously hurt tried to comfort him with a text of Scripture, saying, "Ah, sir! naked we came out of our mother's womb and naked we shall return thither!"

Dr. B – , of Oswestry, has three horses which he has named "High Church," "Low Church," and "Broad Church." The reason he gives is that the first is always on his knees, the second never, and as for the third you never know what he will do next.

This last story leads on naturally to a number of good things on the subject of Ritualism. A High Churchman was practically an unknown quantity in those parts when Bishop Walsham How first went to be Rector of Whittington in 1851. The smallest innovation or improvement in a service, such as are generally accepted nowadays in Evangelical Churches, raised a storm of protest, and the ignorance displayed by newspapers as well as by private individuals is almost past belief in these days when we have been satiated with articles and correspondence on "advanced practices." For instance:

A Wellington paper, commenting severely on the supposed ritualistic practices at Welsh Hampton, spoke of the Vicar as "practising the most unblushing celibacy."

The same paper describing an evening service at St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, spoke of the vicar as walking in procession with his curate from the vestry and then entering the desk and beginning the evening service, "or, as, borrowing the language of these gentlemen, we ought more correctly to say, evening matins."

A short time ago the Reverend James Hook, Vicar of Morton, was coming to see me by train. There were several women in the carriage, and one of them began to talk to the others about Whittington, asking them if they knew what shocking things were done in the church there. She then said she once went into Whittington Church and saw the host on the altar. There were great exclamations of horror, when Mr. Hook quietly looked up from his paper and said, "I beg your pardon, what did you see?" "The host on the altar, sir," she said. "Oh, and what was it like?" She hesitated and said she could not exactly describe it. He told her not to mind about being very exact, but would she tell him what sort of a thing it was? She then said she did not notice very carefully. So he then said he would tell her what it meant, and having done so, he told her how wicked it was to invent such stories. She was then frightened, and said with some alarm, "Well, sir, I am certain I saw two rows of candlesticks down the two sides of the church."

An advertisement copied from the Liverpool Courier, January 1874. [N.B.– This refers to a prosecution of Mr. Parnell, of St. Margaret's, for ritualistic practices.] "Parnell Prosecution. – A gentleman who intends subscribing £10 to the St. Margaret's Defence Fund is desirous to pair with gentleman about to subscribe the same sum towards the prosecution, in order to save the pockets of both. Address C. I., Courier Office."

A clergyman going into a very advanced church could not make out what they were doing, and said he tried various parts of the Prayer-book in vain, and at last bethought him of "Prayers for those at sea." But this, too, failed, so he gave up trying.

A clergyman going to see a parish offered him, was shown it by a farmer churchwarden, who in the course of conversation said, "Are there many Puseyites, sir, where you come from?" He answered, "Not many; are there many here?" Farmer: "There used to be, but they are getting scarce now." "How do you account for that?" Farmer: "Well, sir, the boys have taken the eggs." This curious reason was explained when it turned out that the farmer meant "peewits."

A lady friend of mine the other day wrote to say that their clergyman was accused of ritualistic tendencies. She could not herself discover them, but she said he certainly had something on the back of his neck which to her looked like a button, but which she was credibly informed was really the thin end of the wedge.

As may be supposed a large number of the stories in Bishop Walsham How's note-book refer to curious incidents and awkward situations during divine service. The following are a selection of anecdotes of this class, and are in almost every case authentic.

 

My grandfather, the Reverend Peter How, was Rector of Workington, in Cumberland, where there was (and is untouched to this day, 1878!) a large "three-decker" clerk's desk, reading-desk, and pulpit, one on top of the other, blocking up the centre of the church and, of course, all facing west. My grandfather was reading the prayers one Sunday, when his large black dog came into church and found him out, so he opened the door, to which is attached a small flight of steps, and the dog came in and lay down under the seat, unseen by the congregation, who were deeply ensconced in the high square pews, and at last was forgotten by his master. In due time the latter went to the vestry, put on his black gown, and ascended the pulpit, when, soon after beginning his sermon, he became aware that the people were all convulsed with laughter, and looking down over the pulpit cushion he saw his dog with its hind legs on the seat and its forefeet on the cushion of the reading-desk gravely regarding the congregation.

Another story of the Bishop's grandfather follows:

My grandfather was once baptizing a small collier boy of three or four years old at Workington. Other children having been first baptized, he proceeded to baptize this boy also, but when he put the water on his forehead the boy turned upon him fiercely, saying, "What did you do that for, ye great black dog? I did nothing to you!"

Workington was also the scene of an awkward situation in which, when a very young man, the Bishop found himself.

When I was a deacon, and naturally shy, I was visiting my aunts in Workington, where my grandfather had been Rector, and was asked to preach on Sunday evening in St. John's, a wretched modern church – a plain oblong with galleries, and a pulpit like a very tall wineglass, with a very narrow little straight staircase leading up to it, in the middle of the east part of the church. When the hymn before the sermon was given out I went as usual to the vestry to put on the black gown. Not knowing that the clergyman generally stayed there till the end of the hymn, I emerged as soon as I had thus vested myself and walked to the pulpit and ascended the stairs. When nearly at the summit, to my horror I discovered a very fat beadle in the pulpit lighting the candles. We could not possibly pass on the stairs, and the eyes of the whole congregation were upon me. It would be ignominious to retreat. So after a few minutes' reflection I saw my way out of the difficulty, which I overcame by a very simple mechanical contrivance. I entered the pulpit, which exactly fitted the beadle and myself, and then face to face we executed a rotatory movement to the extent of a semi-circle, when the beadle finding himself next the door of the pulpit was enabled to descend, and I remained master of the situation.

When curate at Kidderminster, I had on one occasion to baptize nine children at once. The ninth was a boy of nearly two years of age, and was taken up and put into my arms. This he stoutly resisted, beginning immediately to kick with all his might. His clothes being very loose and very short, he very soon kicked himself all but out of them, but I had got him fast by his clothes and his head, and was repeating the words of reception into the Church with as much gravity as I could command, when his mother, possessing a strong maternal appreciation of the fair proportions of her lively offspring and a relatively weak appreciation of the solemnity of the occasion, remarked aloud to me, with a gratified smile, "He's a nice little lump, sir, isn't he?"

The Earl of Powis, among his many acts of generous kindness, has given substantial aid to the Rev. C. F. Lowder's very poor district of St. Peter's, London Docks. He went to the laying of the stone of the church there, and just as the ceremony was about to begin a bottle was handed by some one to Mr. Lowder. He could not make it out, and consulted Lord Powis, who at last ingeniously suggested that, as it looked like oil, it was probably intended for the anointing of the stone. So they agreed to pour it quietly on the stone then and there. The smell that arose was dreadful, but the service began, and very few had noticed the bottle. In the evening an old woman, a former parishioner, came up to Mr. Lowder, and asked after his rheumatism, and said she hoped he got the bottle. On his saying, "Oh, yes, it reached me quite safely," she explained that it was a wonderful cure for rheumatism, which she had manufactured herself.

If an ingenious way was on this occasion found out of a difficulty, what about the next?

When Archbishop Longley was Bishop of Durham, he was one day obliged to absent himself from the prayers in his chapel, and asked an old clergyman who happened to be there to read the prayers. It happened that the first lesson was Judges V., and in reading verse 17 the poor old clergyman, mindful of the presence of Mrs. and the Miss Longleys, modestly altered the last word and read, "Asher continued on the sea-shore, and abode in his garments." This was told me by a daughter of Archbishop Longley.

A former vicar of Newbiggin received a message one Sunday morning from a neighbouring clergyman, who had been taken ill, to ask if he could provide for his duty. So he sent to his curate (my brother-in-law) to tell him he should not be at church that morning, ordered his carriage, and put an old sermon, which he had no time to look at, in his pocket. When he began to preach he soon found out that the sermon was one which he had preached on bidding farewell to his first curacy. For a page or two he tried to omit the more pointed allusions to the occasion of its previous use (which must have been many years before), but, to quote his own account, "I soon found that wouldn't do, as it was all about it, so I spoke boldly of the close of my twelve years' ministry among them, and I do assure you, sir, I left many of the congregation in tears."

A somewhat similar story comes a little later in the book, but must be placed here:

A shy, nervous clergyman near Bradford was about to help a friend by reading the prayers when a message came to say that a neighbouring incumbent was taken ill and to ask for help. The rector could not go, so the friend had to be sent, but, having no sermon with him, he borrowed one from the rector, who wrote a clear good hand. He selected one well written, of which the subject was "the value of time," and meant to read it over on the way, but eventually did not like to do so as he sat beside a servant who drove him over. So it happened that he had to read it for the first time in the pulpit. He got on very well till he came to a sentence saying that, as the parish possessed no church clock, it was his intention to present one. He was too nervous to omit the sentence, and (I was assured at Bradford) did actually present the promised clock, which cost £70.

Here is another authentic sermon story:

While an undergraduate at Oxford I went with some friends to hear a somewhat noted Evangelical preacher preach for the Church Missionary Society at St. Peter's Church. He was exceedingly affected and bombastic, and, having tickled us undergraduates a good deal by his manner, at last produced a complete explosion by involving himself in a hopeless difficulty by a metaphor after this fashion: "When I contemplate the great human family I am often reminded of some mighty river. See how it draws its tribute of many waters from many a distant land, many a mountain range, and many a wide moor-land, sending their ever-growing streams to swell the noble river as it pursues its way down the valley, till all these various tributaries converging into one great volume, it pours its glorious flood into the bosom of the boundless ocean! Such, my brethren, is the race of man." Here the preacher paused, and it was quite obvious to every one that he saw that his metaphor was just the wrong way up! So he coughed and hemmed, and changed the subject.

At Uffington, near Shrewsbury, during the incumbency of the Rev. J. Hopkins, the choir and organist, having been dissatisfied with some arrangement, determined not to take part in the service. So when the clerk, according to the usual custom of those days, gave out the hymn, there was dead silence. This lasted a little while, and then the clerk, unable to bear it, rose up and appealed to the congregation, saying most imploringly, "Them as can sing do ye sing: it's misery to be a this'n" (Shropshire for "in this way").

Canon B – was on a voyage to Egypt in a Cunard steamer, and on Sunday, in the Bay of Biscay, he undertook to hold a service. He read one of the sentences, and said "Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places," when he had to bolt and collapse. He told me he thought this a record service for brevity.

At St. Saviour's, Hoxton, the daily prayer is held in the south chancel aisle. The Vicar, the Rev. John Oakley, having to go out, left the evening service at 8.30 to a curate, but, returning home at 8.50, thought he would step in to the west end of the church and be in time for the end of the service. When he went in, to his dismay he saw a few women kneeling in the accustomed place but no clergyman. Concluding that the curate had forgotten, he rapidly passed up the north aisle to the vestry, slipped on a surplice, went across to the south side and read the service. He afterwards found that the curate had already done so, but, being in a hurry, had somewhat shortened it, and had left the church a minute before he (Mr. O.) arrived. The good women who always knelt some time at the close of the service thus did double duty that evening.

At Kensington parish church one of the curates asked for the prayers of the congregation for "a family crossing the Atlantic, and other sick persons."

At Wolstanton in the Potteries there was a somewhat fussy verger called Oakes. On one occasion just at the time of year when it was doubtful whether lights would be wanted or no, and when they had not yet been lighted for evening service, a stranger, who was a very smart young clergyman, was reading the lessons and had some difficulty in seeing. He had on a pair of delicate lavender kid gloves. The verger, perceiving his difficulty, went to the vestry, got two candles, lighted them, and walked to the lectern, before which he stood solemnly holding the candles (without candlesticks) in his hands. This was sufficiently trying to the congregation, but suddenly some one rattled the latch of the west door, when Oakes, feeling that it was absolutely necessary to go and see what was the matter, thrust the two candles into the poor young clergyman's delicately gloved hands, and left him!

A clergyman in a church in Lancashire gave out as his text, "The devil as a roaring lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour," and then added, "The Bishop of Manchester has announced his intention of visiting all the parishes in the diocese, and hopes to visit this parish on such a date."

A former young curate of Stoke being very anxious to do things rubrically, insisted on the ring being put on the "fourth finger" at a wedding he took. The woman resisted and said, "I would rather die than be married on my little finger." The curate said, "But the rubric says so," whereupon the deus ex machinâ appeared in the shape of the parish clerk, who stepped forward and said, "In these cases, sir, the thoomb counts as a digit."

The rector of Thornhill near Dewsbury, on one occasion could not get the woman to say, "obey," in the marriage service, and he repeated the word with a strong stress on each syllable, saying, "You must say, O-bey." Whereupon the man interfered and said, "Never mind; go on, parson. I'll mak' her say 'O' by-and-by."

At the church of Strathfieldsaye, where the Duke of Wellington was a regular attendant, a stranger was preaching, and the verger when he ended came up the stairs, opened the pulpit door a little way, slammed it to, and then opened it wide for the preacher to go out. He asked in the vestry why he had shut the door again while opening it, and the verger said, "We always do that sir, to wake the duke."

Mr. Ibbetson, of St. Michael's, Walthamstow, was marrying a couple when the ring was found to be too tight. A voice from behind exclaimed, "Suck your finger, you fool."

Two or three stories about vergers naturally find a place here. Possibly some of them are well known, but, even so, they will bear repetition.

A gentleman going to see a ritualistic church in London was walking into the chancel when an official stepped forward and said, "You mustn't go in there." "Why not?" said the gentleman. "I'm put here to stop you," said the man. "Oh! I see," said the gentleman, "you're what they call the rude screen, aren't you?"

A clergyman in the diocese of Wakefield told me that when he first came to the parish he found things in a very neglected state, and among other changes he introduced an early celebration of the Holy Communion. An old clerk collected the offertory, and when he brought it up to the clergyman he said, "There's eight on 'em, but two 'asn't paid."

A verger was showing a lady over a church when she asked him if the vicar was a married man. "No, ma'am," he answered, "he's a chalybeate."

A verger showing a large church to a stranger, pointed out another man and said, "That is the other verger." The gentleman said, "I did not know there were two of you," and the verger replied, "Oh yes, sir, he werges up one side of the church and I werges up the other."

Two little stories connected with Bishop Walsham How's episcopal life may well conclude the anecdotes about vergers. The Bishop's dislike of ostentation was well known. He caused much amusement on one occasion when living in London, by frustrating the designs of a pompous verger. It had been this man's custom to meet the Bishop at the door of the church, and precede him up the centre aisle en route for the vestry, thus making a little extra procession of his own. One day the Bishop, after handing this verger his bag, let him go on his way up the centre of the church, and himself slipped off up a side aisle, and gained the vestry unobserved, while the verger marched up in a solemn procession of one!

The other story occurs in the note-book, and runs as follows:

On my first visit to Almondbury to preach, the verger came to me in the vestry, and said, "A've put a platform in t' pulpit for ye; you'll excuse me, but a little man looks as if he was in a toob." (N.B. To prevent undue inferences I am five feet nine inches in height.)

Bishop Walsham How's love of children was well known, and it is not surprising to find a large number of stories about them in his note-book. These stories are mainly of two kinds, those relating to answers made in Sunday school, &c., and those of a more general nature.

Some examples of the latter follow, but it must be borne in mind that these stories have, many of them, become well known owing to the Bishop's fondness of telling them. If he was not able to enjoy children's society, the next best thing was to talk about them.

A very little girl, when taken to church, always knelt down reverently to say a short prayer when she went in. Her mother, not having taught her any prayer to say at that time, asked her to tell her what she said. The child answered that she always prayed that there might be no Litany.

A little boy had a German nursery governess, and told her he thought she ought to learn Hebrew. On her saying she didn't see the use of that, he explained that it was that she might say her prayers properly, for he was sure God knew Hebrew, but he didn't think He could be expected to understand German.