SLEEPY CHURCH AND SLEEPY CLERKS
There was a time when the Church of England seemed to be asleep. Perhaps
it may have been that "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," was
only preparing her exhausted energies for the unwonted activities of the
last half-century; or was it the sleep that presaged death? Her enemies
told her so in plain and unvarnished language. Her friends, too, said
that she was folding her robes to die with what dignity she could.
Lethargy, sloth, sleep--a dead, dull, dreary sleep--fell like a leaden
pall upon her spiritual life, darkening the light that shone but vaguely
through the storied panes of her mediæval windows, while a paralysing
numbness crippled her limbs and quenched her activity.
Such scenes as Archbishop Benson describes as his early recollection of
Upton, near Droitwich, were not uncommon. The church was aisleless, and
the middle passage, with high pews on each side, led up to the
chancel-arch, in which was a "three-decker," fifteen feet high. The
clerk wore a wig and immense horn spectacles. He was a shoemaker,
dressed in black, with a white tie. In the gallery sat "the music"--a
clarionet, flute, violin, and 'cello. The clerk gave out the "Twentieth
Psalm of David," and the fiddlers tuned for a moment and then played at
once. Then they struck up, and the clerk, absolutely alone, in a
majestic voice which swayed up and down without regard to time or tune,
sang it through like the braying of an ass; not a soul else joined in;
the farmers amused and smiling at each other. Such scenes were
quite usual.
In Cornwall affairs were worse. In one church the curate-in-charge had
to be chained to the altar rails while he read the service, as he had a
harmless mania, which made him suddenly flee from the church if his own
activities were for an instant suspended, as, for example, by a
response. The churchwarden, a farmer, kept the padlock-key in his pocket
till the service was safely over, and then released the imprisoned
cleric. At another Cornish church the vicar's sister used to read the
lessons in a deep bass voice.
Congregations were often very sparse. Few people attended, and perhaps
none on weekdays, unless the clerk was in his place. On such occasions
the parson was tempted to emulate the humour of Dean Swift, who at the
first weekday service that he held after his appointment to the living
of Laracor, in the diocese of Meath, after waiting for some time in vain
for a congregation, began the service, addressing his clerk, "Dearly
beloved Roger, the scripture moveth you and me in sundry places," etc.
When the Psalms were read, you heard the first verse read in a
mellifluous and cultured voice. Perhaps it was the evening of the
twenty-eighth day of the month, and you listened to the sacred words of
Psalm cxxxvii., "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we
remembered thee, O Sion." Then followed a bellow from a raucous throat:
"Has fur ur 'arp, we 'anged 'em hup hupon the trees that hare thurin."
And then at the end of the Lord's Prayer, after every one had finished,
the same voice came drowsily cantering in: "For hever and hever,
Haymen." Sometimes we heard, "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God
the 'undred and sixtieth Psalm--_'Ymn 'ooever."_ The numbers of the
hymns or Psalms were scored on the two sides of a slate. Sometimes the
functionary in the gallery forgot to turn the slate after the first
hymn. "Let us sing," began the clerk--(pause)--"Turn the slate, will
you, if you please, Master Scroomes?" he continued, addressing the
neglectful person.
The singing was no mechanical affair of official routine--it was a
drama. "As the moment of psalmody approached a slate appeared in front
of the gallery, advertising in bold characters the Psalm about to be
sung. The clerk gave out the Psalm, and then migrated to the gallery,
where in company with a bassoon and two key-bugles, a carpenter
understood to have an amazing power of singing 'counter,' and two lesser
musical stars, formed the choir. Hymns were not known. The New Version
was regarded with melancholy tolerance. 'Sternhold and Hopkins' formed
the main source of musical tastes. On great occasions the choir sang an
anthem, in which the key-bugles always ran away at a great pace, while
the bassoon every now and then boomed a flying shot after them." It was
all very curious, very quaint, very primitive. The Church was asleep,
and cared not to disturb the relics of old crumbling inefficiency. The
Church was asleep, the congregation slept, and the clerk often
slept too.
Hogarth's engraving of _The Sleeping Congregation_ is a parable of the
state of the Church of England in his day. It is a striking picture
truly. The parson is delivering a long and drowsy discourse on the text:
"Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and I will give you rest." The
congregation is certainly resting, and the pulpit bears the appropriate
verse: "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in
vain." The clerk is attired in his cassock and bands, contrives to keep
one eye awake during the sermon, and this wakeful eye rests upon a
comely fat matron, who is fast asleep, and has evidently been meditating
"on matrimony," as her open book declares. A sleepy church, sleepy
congregation, sleepy times!
Many stories are told of dull and sleepy clerks.
A canon of a northern cathedral tells me of one such clerk, whose duty
it was, when the rector finished his sermon, to say "Amen." On a summer
afternoon, this aged official was overtaken with drowsiness, and as soon
as the clergyman had given out his text, slept the sleep of the just.
Sermons in former years were remarkable for their length and many
divisions.
After the "firstly" was concluded, the preacher paused. The clerk,
suddenly awaking, thought that the discourse was concluded, and
pronounced his usual "Arummen." The congregation rose, and the service
came to a close. As the gathering dispersed, the squire slipped half a
crown into the clerk's hand, and whispered: "Thomas, you managed that
very well, and deserve a little present. I will give you the same
next time."
[Illustration: THE SLEEPING CONGREGATION BY HOGARTH]
At Eccleshall, near Sheffield, the clerk, named Thompson, had been, in
the days of his youth, a good cricketer, and always acted as umpire for
the village team. One hot Sunday morning, the sermon being very long,
old Thompson fell asleep. His dream was of his favourite game; for when
the parson finished his discourse and waited for the clerk's "Amen," old
Thompson awoke, and, to the amazement of the congregation, shouted out
"Over!" After all, he was no worse than the cricketing curate who, after
reading the first lesson, announced: "Here endeth the first innings."
Every one has heard of that Irish clerk who used to snore so loudly
during the sermon that he drowned the parson's voice. The old vicar,
being of a good-natured as well as a somewhat humorous turn of mind,
devised a plan for arousing his lethargic clerk. He provided himself
with a box of hard peas, and when the well-known snore echoed through
the church, he quietly dropped one of the peas on the head of the
offender, who was at once aroused to the sense of his duties, and
uttered a loud "Amen."
This plan acted admirably for a time, but unfortunately the parson was
one day carried away by his eloquence, gesticulated wildly, and dropped
the whole box of peas on the head of the unfortunate clerk. The result
was such a strenuous chorus of "Amens," that the laughter of the
congregation could not be restrained, and the peas were abolished and
consigned to the limbo of impractical inventions. Possibly the story may
be an invention too.
One of the causes which tended to the unpopularity of the Church was the
accession of George IV to the throne of England. "Church and King" were
so closely connected in the mind of the people that the sins of the
monarch were visited on the former, and deemed to have brought some
discredit on it. Moreover, the King by his first act placed the loyal
members of the Church in some difficulty, and that was the order to
expunge the name of the ill-used, if erring, Queen Caroline from the
Prayers for the Royal Family in the Book of Common Prayer.
One good clergyman, Dr. Parr, vicar of Hatton, placed an interesting
record in his Prayer Book after the required erasure: "It is my duty as
a subject and as an ecclesiastic to read what is prescribed by my
Sovereign as head of the Church, but it is not my duty to express my
approbation." The sympathy of the people was with the injured Queen, and
they knew not how much the clergy agreed with them. During the trial
popular excitement ran high. In a Berkshire village the parish clerk
"improved the occasion" by giving out in church "the first, fourth,
eleventh, and twelfth verses of the thirty-fifth Psalm" in Tate and
Brady's New Version:
"False witnesses with forged complaints
Against my truth combined,
And to my charge such things they laid
As I had ne'er designed."
These words he sang most lustily.
Cowper mentions a similar application of psalmody to political affairs
in his _Task_:
"So in the chapel of old Ely House
When wandering Charles who meant to be the third,
Had fled from William, and the news was fresh,
The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce,
And eke did rear right merrily, two staves
Sung to the praise and glory of King George."
It was not an unusual thing for a parish clerk to select a psalm suited
to the occasion when any special excitement gave him an opportunity.
Branston, the satirist, in his _Art of Politicks_ published in 1729,
alluded to this misapplication of psalmody occasionally made by parish
clerks in the lines:
"Not long since parish clerks with saucy airs
Apply'd King David's psalms to State affairs."
In order to avoid this unfortunate habit, a country rector in Devonshire
compiled in 1725 "Twenty-six Psalms of Thanksgiving, Praise, Love, and
Glory, for the use of a parish church, with the omission of all the
imprecatory psalms, lest a parish clerk or any other should be whetting
his spleen, or obliging his spite, when he should be entertaining his
devotion."
Sometimes the clerks ventured to apply the verses of the Psalms to their
own private needs and requirements, so as to convey gentle hints and
suggestions to the ears of those who could supply their needs. Canon
Ridgeway tells of the old clerk of the Church of King Charles the Martyr
at Tunbridge Wells. His name was Jenner. He was a well-known character;
he used to have a pipe and pitch the tune, and also select the hymns. It
was commonly said that the congregation always knew when the lodgings in
his house on Mount Sion were unlet; for when this was the case he was
wont to give out the Psalm:
"Mount Sion is a pleasant place to dwell."
At Great Yarmouth, until about the year 1850, the parish clerk was
always invited to the banquets or "feasts" given by the corporation of
the borough; and he was honoured annually with a card of invitation to
the "mayor's feast" on Michaelmas Day. On one occasion the mayor-elect
had omitted to send a card to the clerk, Mr. David Absolon, who was
clerk from 1811 to 1831, and had been a member of the corporation and
common councillor previous to his appointment to his ecclesiastical
office. On the following Sunday, Master David Absolon reminded his
worship of his remissness by giving out the following verse, directing
his voice at the same time to the mayor-elect:
Let David his accustomed place
In thy remembrance find."
The words in Tate and Brady's metrical version of Psalm cxxxii. run
thus:
"Let David, Lord, a constant place
In Thy remembrance find[73]."
[Footnote 73: _History of St. Nicholas' Church, Great Yarmouth_, by the
present Clerk, Mr. Edward J. Lupson, p. 24.]
In the same town great excitement used to attend the election of the
mayor on 29 August in each year. Before the election the corporation
attended service in the parish church, and the clerk on these occasions
gave out for singing "the first two staves of the fifteenth Psalm:
"Lord, who's the happy man," etc.
The passing of the Municipal Act changed the manner and time of the
election, but it did not take away the interest felt in the event. As
long as Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms was used in the church,
that is until the year 1840, these "two staves" were annually sung on
the Sunday preceding the election[74].
[Footnote 74: _Ibid._, p. 23.]
In these days of reverent worship it seems hardly possible that the
beautiful expressions in the psalms of praise to Almighty God should
ever have been prostituted to the baser purposes of private gain or
municipal elections.
Sleepy times and sleepy clerks--and yet these were not always sleepy; in
fact, far too lively, riotous, and unruly. At least, so the poor rector
of Hayes found them in the middle of the eighteenth century. Such
conduct in church is scarcely credible as that which was witnessed in
this not very remote parish church in not very remote times. The
registers of the parish of Hayes tell the story in plain language. On 18
March, 1749, "the clerk gave out the 100th Psalm, and the singers
immediately opposed him, and sung the 15th, and bred a disturbance. _The
clerk then ceased_." Poor man, what else could he have done, with a
company of brawling, bawling singers shouting at him from the gallery!
On another occasion affairs were worse, the ringers and others
disturbing the service, from the beginning of the service to the end of
the sermon, by ringing the bells and going into the gallery to spit
below. On another occasion a fellow came into church with a pot of beer
and a pipe, and remained smoking in his pew until the end of the
sermon[75]. _O tempora! O mores!_ as some disconsolate clergymen wrote
in their registers when the depravity of the times was worse than usual.
The slumbering congregation of Hogarth's picture would have been a
comfort to the distracted parson.
[Footnote 75: _Antiquary_, vol. xviii, p. 65. Quoted in _Social Life as
told by Parish Registers_, p. 54.]
To prevent people from sleeping during the long sermons a special
officer was appointed, in order to banish slumber when the parson was
long in preaching. This official was called a sluggard-waker, and was
usually our old friend the parish clerk with a new title. Several
persons, perhaps reflecting in their last moments on all the good advice
which they had missed through slumbering during sermon time, have
bequeathed money for the support of an officer who should perambulate
the church, and call to attention any one who, through sleep, was
missing the preacher's timely admonition. Richard Dovey, of Farmcote, in
1659 left property at Claverley, Shropshire, with the condition that
eight shillings should be paid to, and a room provided for, a poor man,
who should undertake to awaken sleepers, and to whip out dogs from the
church of Claverley during divine service[76].
[Footnote 76: _Old English Customs and Curious Bequests_, S.H. Edwards
(1842), p. 220.]
John Rudge, of Trysull, Staffordshire, left a like bequest to a poor man
to go about the parish church of Trysull during sermon to keep people
awake, and to keep dogs out of church[77]. Ten shillings a year is paid
by a tenant of Sir John Bridges, at Chislett, Kent, as a charge on lands
called Dog-whipper's Marsh, to a person for keeping order in the church
during service[78], and from time immemorial an acre of land at
Peterchurch, Herefordshire, was appropriated to the use of a person for
keeping dogs out of church, such person being appointed by the minister
and churchwardens.
[Footnote 77: _Ibid._, p. 221.]
[Footnote 78: _Ibid._, p. 222.]
Mr. W. Andrews, Librarian of the Hull Institute, has collected in his
_Curiosities of the Church_ much information concerning sluggard-wakers
and dog-whippers. The clerk in one church used a long staff, at one end
of which was a fox's brush for gently arousing a somnolent female, while
at the other end was a knob for a more forcible awakening of a male
sleeper. The Dunchurch sluggard-waker used a stout wand with a fork at
the end of it. During the sermon he stepped stealthily up and down the
nave and aisles and into the gallery marking down his prey. And no one
resented his forcible awakenings.
The sluggard-waker and dog-whipper appear in many old churchwardens'
account-books. Thus in the accounts of Barton-on-Humber there is an
entry for the year 1740: "Paid Brocklebank for waking sleepers 2 s. 0."
At Castleton the officer in 1722 received 10 s. 0[79]. The clerk in his
capacity of dog-whipper had often arduous duties to perform in the old
dale churches of Yorkshire when farmers and shepherds frequently brought
their dogs to church. The animals usually lay very quietly beneath their
masters' seat, but occasionally there would be a scrimmage and fight,
and the clerk's staff was called into play to beat the dogs and
produce order.
[Footnote 79: The reader will find numerous entries relating to this
subject in the work of Mr. W. Andrews to which I have referred.]
Why dogs should have been ruthlessly and relentlessly whipped out of
churches I can scarcely tell. The Highland shepherd's dog usually lies
contentedly under his master's seat during a long service, and even an
archbishop's collie, named Watch, used to be very still and well-behaved
during the daily service, only once being roused to attention and a
stately progress to the lectern by the sound of his master's voice
reading the verse "I say unto all, Watch." But our ancestors made war
against dogs entering churches. In mediæval and Elizabethan times such
does not seem to have been the case, as one of the duties of the clerks
in those days was to make the church clean from the "shomeryng of dogs."
The nave of the church was often used for secular purposes, and dogs
followed their masters. Mastiffs were sometimes let loose in the church
to guard the treasures, and I believe that I am right in stating that
chancel rails owe their origin to the presence of dogs in churches, and
were erected to prevent them from entering the sanctuary. Old Scarlett
bears a dog-whip as a badge of his office, and the numerous bequests to
dog-whippers show the importance of the office.
Nor were dogs the only creatures who were accustomed to receive
chastisement in church. The clerk was usually armed with a cane or rod,
and woe betide the luckless child who talked or misbehaved himself
during service. Frequently during the course of a long sermon the sound
of a cane (the Tottenham clerk had a split cane which made no little
noise when used vigorously) striking a boy's back was heard and startled
a sleepy congregation. It was all quite usual. No one objected, or
thought anything about it, and the sermon proceeded as if nothing had
happened. Paul Wootton, clerk at Bromham, Wilts, seventy years ago
performed various duties during the service, taking his part in the
gallery among the performers as bass, flute serpent, an instrument
unknown now, etc., pronouncing his Amen _ore rotundo_ and during the
sermon armed with a long stick sitting among the children to preserve
order. If any one of the small creatures felt that _opere in longo fas
est obrepere somnum_, the long stick fell with unerring whack upon the
urchin's head. When Mr. Stracey Clitherow went to his first curacy at
Skeyton, Norfolk, in 1845, he found the clerk sweeping the whole chancel
clear of snow which had fallen through the roof. The font was of wood
painted orange and red. The singers sat within the altar rails with a
desk for their books inside the rails. There was a famous old clerk,
named Bird, who died only a year or two ago, aged ninety, and, as Mr.
Clitherow informed Bishop Stanley, was the best man in the parish, and
was well worthy of that character.
Even in London churches unfortunate events happened, and somnolent
clerks were not confined to the country. A correspondent remembers that
in 1860, when St. Martin's-in-the-Fields was closed for the purpose of
redecorating, his family migrated to St. Matthew's Chapel, Spring
Gardens (recently demolished), where one hot Sunday evening one of the
curates of St. Martin's was preaching, and in the course of his sermon
said that it was the duty of the laity to pray that God would "endue His
ministers with righteousness." The clerk was at the moment sound asleep,
but suddenly aroused by the familiar words, which acted like a bugle
call to a slumbering soldier, he at once slid down on the hassock at his
feet and uttered the response "And make Thy chosen people joyful." My
informant remarks that the "chosen people" who were present became
"joyful" to an unseemly degree, in spite of strenuous efforts to
restrain their feelings.
Sometimes the clerk was not the only sleeper. A tenor soloist of
Wednesbury Old Church eighty years ago used to tell the story of the
vicar of Wednesbury, who one very sultry afternoon retired into the
vestry, which was under the western tower, to don his black gown while a
hymn was being sung by the expectant congregation. The hymn having been
sung through, and the preacher not having returned to ascend the pulpit,
the clerk gave out the last verse again. Still no parson. Then he
started the hymn, directing it to be sung all through again; but still
the vicar returned not. At last in desperation he gave out that they
"would now sing," etc. etc., the 119th Psalm. Mercifully before they had
all sunk back into their seats exhausted the long-lost parson made his
hurried reappearance. The poor old gentleman had dropped into an
arm-chair in the vestry, and overcome by the heat had fallen soundly
asleep. As to the clerk, he could not leave his seat to go in search of
him; there was no precedent for both vicar and clerk to be away from the
three-decker before the service was brought to a close.
The old clerk is usually intensely loyal to the Church and to his
clergyman, but there have been some exceptions. An example of a disloyal
clerk comes from the neighbourhood of Barnstaple.
A parish clerk, apparently religious and venerable, held his position in
a village church in that district for thirty years. He carried out his
duties with regularity and thoroughness equalled only by the parish
priest. This old clerk would frequently make remarks--not altogether
pleasing--about Nonconformists, whom he summed up as a lot of "mithudy
nüzenses" (methodist nuisances).
A new rector came and brought with him new ideas. The parish clerk would
not be required for the future. As soon as the old clerk heard this he
attached himself to a local dissenting body and joined with them to
worship in their small chapel. This, after thirty years' service in the
Church and a bitter feeling against Nonconformists, is rather
remarkable.
In the forties there was a sleepy clerk at Hampstead, a very portly man,
who did ample justice to his bright red waistcoat and brass buttons. The
church had a model old-time three-decker. The lower deck was occupied by
the clerk, the upper deck by the reader, and the quarter-deck by the
preacher. The clerk, during the sermon, would often fall asleep and make
known his state by a snore. Then the reader would tap his bald head with
a hymn-book, whereupon he would wake up and startle the congregation by
a loud and prolonged "Ah-men."
We are accustomed now to have our churches beautifully decorated with
flowers and fruits and holly and evergreens at the great festivals and
harvest thanksgiving services. Sometimes on the latter occasions our
decorations are perhaps a little too elaborate, and remind one of a
horticultural show. No such charge could be brought against the
old-fashioned method of church decoration. Christmas was the only season
when it was attempted, and sprigs of holly stuck at the corners of the
old square pews in little holes made for the purpose were always deemed
sufficient. This was always the duty of the clerk. Later on, when a
country church was found to be elaborately decorated for Christmas and
the clerk was questioned on the subject, he replied, shaking his head,
"Ah! we're getting a little High Church now." At Langport, Somerset, the
pews were similarly adorned on Palm Sunday with sprigs of the catkins
from willow trees to represent palms.
I have already mentioned some instances of clerks who were sometimes
elated by the dignity of the office and full of conceit. Wesley enjoyed
the experience of having a conceited clerk at Epworth, who not only was
proud of his singing and other accomplishments, but also of his personal
appearance. He delighted to wear Wesley's old clerical clothes and
especially his wig, which was much too big for the insignificant clerk's
head. John Wesley must have had a sense of humour, though perhaps it
might have been exhibited in a more appropriate place. However, he was
determined to humble his conceited clerk, and said to him one Sunday
morning, "John, I shall preach on a particular subject this morning, and
shall choose my own psalm, of which I will give out the first line, and
you will proceed and repeat the next as usual." When the time for
psalmody arrived Wesley gave out, "Like to an owl in ivy bush," and the
clerk immediately responded, "That rueful thing am I." The members of
the congregation looked up and saw his small head half-buried in his
large wig, and could not restrain their smiles. The clerk was mortified
and the rector gratified that he should have been taught a lesson and
learned to be less vain.
Old-fashioned ways die hard. Only seven years ago the incumbent of a
small Somerset parish found when in the pulpit that he had left his
spectacles at home. Casting a shrewd glance around, he perceived just
below him, well within reach, one of his parishioners who was wearing a
large pair of what in rustic circles are termed "barnacles" tied behind
his head. Stretching down, the parson plucked them from the astonished
owner's brow, and, fitting them on his clerical nose, proceeded to
deliver his discourse. Thenceforward the clerk, doubtless fearing for
his own glasses, never failed to carry to church a second pair wherewith
to supply, if need be, his coadjutor's shortcomings.
Another and final story of sleepy manners comes to us from the north
country. A short-sighted clergyman of what is known as the "old school"
was preaching one winter afternoon to a slumberous congregation. Dusk
was falling, the church was badly lighted, and his manuscript difficult
to decipher. He managed to stumble along until he reached a passage
which he rendered as follows: "Enthusiasm, my brethren, enthusiasm in a
good cause is an excellent--excellent quality, but unless it is tempered
with judgment, it is apt to lead us--apt to lead us--Here, Thomas,"
handing the sermon to the clerk, "go to the window and see what it is
apt to lead us into."