Bishop Walsham How was the happy possessor of a nature essentially
sunny. Deeply pious from his childhood onwards, his piety was neither of
that morose, narrow, gloomy description met with among some people, nor
was it of that gushing, uncertain, hysterical kind occasionally found
among others. He was happy because he was good. His simple joyous life
was a song of praise to his Creator, like that of a bright spring day.
He rejoiced in the Lord alway. No one who knew him could fail to be
struck with this all-pervading note in his character. No matter what the
anxiety, no matter what the trouble, he was always ready to turn his
face to the Sun and be gladdened by the Light.
A quality on a slightly lower level, but having its own part in helping
to sustain his sunniness of disposition, was his keen sense of humour.
He never could help seeing the funny side of things. A visit to some
dreary and neglected parish in East London would sadden him, but the
ready answer of a street boy, or the good story told him by a fellow
traveller in train or tram, would not fail to be appreciated, and would
give him something cheery to talk about when he got home.
Surely this sense of humour is in some way closely allied with the power
of sympathy. This is apparently true in the case of _men_. _Women_ must
be considered from a different point of view, for, while the world would
be but a poor place bereft of their sympathy, they have for the most
part but little sense of humour. Occasionally one meets with a supposed
exception, but even then one is liable to be deceived. It is natural to
all women to wish to please, and sometimes an apparently humorous
disposition is the result of consummate acting. A lady was staying with
a large house party at a country house, and gained a great reputation by
her power of telling amusing stories with a vast appreciation of their
fun. It was noticed that other people's stories were received by her
with remarkable gravity, and seldom called forth her laughter. This was
ascribed by some to jealousy, by others to a limited sense of humour. At
last the true explanation was forthcoming. An accident revealed the fact
that every story she heard was carefully noted, and entered afterwards
in a book, with the place and date where it was told. Hence the grave
attention with which she listened. It was not the fun that attracted
her, but the opportunity of adding to a store of anecdotes from which a
selection was carefully rehearsed day by day in her bedroom, to be let
off like a number of little set pieces for the amusement of the company
and her own glorification.
Bishop Walsham How entered most of the amusing incidents and stories he
met with in a notebook, but his sense of humour was very different from
that of the lady mentioned above. There was no lack of spontaneity. It
was part and parcel of himself, and he would never have been the man he
was, or had the influence he possessed, without it.
Although far more men than women seem to have this sense, yet every one
must be familiar with some few of those unfortunate people in whom it is
lacking. Let a man think of his schooldays. There were masters who
_understood_--who saw the joke underlying a breach of discipline; who
punished, indeed, but who did it with a twinkle in the eye which helped
to cure the smart. These were the men whom the boys trusted, just
because they felt that they were sure of sympathy. But there was
probably one at least among the staff, ponderous, dull, and worthy,
well-meaning, but a failure simply by reason of an entire lack of the
sense of humour. By dint of dogged perseverance he got certain facts
into the heads of his class, but he never succeeded in interesting them
in their work. He took boys out for a solemn walk, but never gained a
confidence. What was the good of talking to him? He never had been a
boy: he could not understand.
It is just the same in other professions. The clergyman with pale and
heavy features, who sees no fun in anything, may just as well stop at
home as go round from house to house with his awkward unsympathetic
questions. The children run away from him, their parents are simply
bored. The doctor or the lawyer loses touch with his clients when he is
unfortunate enough to be set down as a man who cannot see a joke.
In fact, the sense of humour is a real part of the power of conveying a
sense of sympathy. The sympathy _may_ be there in the dullest and
heaviest of men, but he has not the power of conveying it. One of Bishop
Walsham How's great delights was to share with others the amusement he
gleaned from day to day, and it was his wish that after his death some
of the stories that he collected should be published. Many of them he
frequently told, and they have been repeated from mouth to mouth till
they are well known, others were perhaps well known when he first heard
them. The following selection has been made with the hope of including
all the more original anecdotes, and it is hoped that they may have some
small share in keeping alive the memory of one whose sense of humour
helped to increase his wide-hearted sympathy for his fellow creatures.
Many of the stories told by Bishop Walsham How centre round
Whittington, the Shropshire parish of which he was Rector from
1851 to 1879. In the early days of his residence there
superstition was exceedingly rife. There is a note by the
Bishop to this effect:
The prevalence of superstition in these enlightened days (as we call
them: how our great-grandchildren will laugh at us!) is most marvellous.
The following are in this parish generally approved and seriously
recommended remedies for the whooping-cough, popularly called the
"chin-cough": To be swung nine times under a donkey. To pass the patient
three times under and over a briar growing from a hedge, saying, "Over
the briar and under the briar, and leave the chin-cough behind."[1]
Anything recommended by a seventh son. (One woman cured several people,
she tells me, by sending them to meet a boatman who is a seventh son,
and to ask him what would cure them.) Anything recommended by a man on a
piebald horse. (I have been told of cures being thus effected by gin,
honey, cold water, and an ounce of tea taken wholly.)
[Footnote 1: This process I can remember undergoing at the hands of my
nurse in the garden of Whittington Rectory.--Ed.]
Soon after I came here [Whittington] an old neighbour, Kitty Williams,
was ill, and my wife was ill at the same time. In speaking of the
latter fact to an old woman who lived at the hamlet of Babies' Wood, she
said she hoped we were good to old Kitty, for she had an evil eye and
might have caused Mrs. How's illness. She then told me the following
story: When Kitty was young she lived in service near Whittington, but
was sent away for some misconduct, and after a time married Jonathan
Williams and came to live where I knew her. From the time she left her
place nothing prospered there. Cows died, horses went lame, and all went
wrong. So they consulted a wise woman, who told them to get a pair of
black horses with long tails and to drive them about till they stopped
of themselves, and then to give the first woman they saw whatever she
asked for. They did so; the horses stopped opposite Kitty's cottage
close by Whittington Rectory. Kitty came out, and they greeted their old
servant and asked what they should give her. She chose a shawl, so they
went to Oswestry and bought her one, after which all things prospered
with them. This was told me with the seriousness of profound belief.[2]
[Footnote 2: The following facts may throw some light on the horses
stopping at that exact spot. First, they were probably hearse horses;
secondly, there is a public-house on the other side of the road.--Ed.]
Scarcely less curious were many of the phrases and sayings which
he came across in visiting the old inhabitants of the parish.
Here are a few which found a place in his notebook:
A woman from whom I was making some inquiry concerning a neighbour
answered me, "I really can't tell you, sir, for I've not much confection
of cheerfulness with my neighbours."
Another woman, who had been ill, described herself to me as being "as
thin as a halfpenny herring."
A poor woman in the parish, speaking to me of the wonders of the
heavens, expressed her astonishment at the sun rising in the east,
whereas it set in the west. "I suppose," she said, "it gets back in the
night when it is dark."
The following words are given verbatim as spoken by an old woman in the
parish on the occasion of my first visit soon after I became Rector.
"The old man and me never go to bed, sir, without singing the Evening
Hymn. Not that I've got any voice left, for I haven't; and as for him,
he's like a bee in a bottle; and then he don't humour the tune, for he
don't rightly know one tune from another, and he can't remember the
words neither; so when he leaves out a word I puts it in, and when I
can't sing I dances, and so we gets through it somehow."
Queer letters, too, find a place among the other curiosities of
Whittington. Mrs. How received the following remarkable epistle
about a poor woman who had been sent to a lady in Oswestry.
There is not a stop in the letter from beginning to end:
I am sorry to send to you Ellen Morris which her his heavy afflicted
with the favor on the brain which her is not fit to get her living and
her did go to Mrs. G---- and I did write a note to go to her and her
said if her had a note from a clergyman her would give her 2 6
[two-and-six] what does it matter who write a note for a person when
they are in distress people that can write a note and tell the truth
which her has got a pair of boots in a shoemaker's shop which her
cannot get them out without two shilling and her his very near barefoot
and I hope you will bestow your charity this once for my sake and yours
what we give to the poor we never shall want which I do give her what I
can give her and God will bless us all that will give with a good free
willing heart my dear Mrs. How which I hope you will bestow you are a
very good to the poor and it his a great charity to give to this poor
woman yours truly Mrs. D---- which her does beg her living from one or
another and her does do very well considering.
The above is the complete letter, no date, and no other word of
any sort. Vicarious begging letters are not unknown to the
police of our big towns, but the scribe who could not do better
than the above would have small chance of employment. A modern
London begging letter is often a work of fine art.
A further note on a curious letter tells how, in December 1875,
a good widow in the village received a proposal from a man she
had never spoken to, couched in the following terms:
Dear Friend, I am a widower with two little girls, and I want some one
to take care of them. I think we could live very comfortably together in
this world, & afterwards we could rejoin those we have loved who have
gone before. If you accept this, please write & say so on the other side
of this sheet. If not, please return this letter, & dont make it
public.[3]
[Footnote 3: Proposal declined.--Ed]
The famous and eccentric Jack Mytton lived at Halston, a country
house in the parish of Whittington, not very long before Bishop
Walsham How went there as Rector. Some of the old servants from
that house were still living in the village, and wonderful were
the stories that they told. One would relate how he was
compelled to go out on a snowy night and crawl over the ice to
shoot wild ducks with his master, _dressed only in his
nightshirt_. Another told how, after Jack Mytton's famous
roasting match against a professional roaster in Shrewsbury, his
master called for him in his carriage on his way home, and drove
him up to Halston that he might _scrape_ him where he was burnt.
Happily such days were over before 1850, and no doubt the
stories of these old servants lost nothing in the telling. One
of the last to survive was the subject of the following passage
in the notebook:
Mrs. J----, formerly housekeeper at Halston in Mr. Mytton's time, has
long been a sufferer from asthma. She lost a sister, and in speaking of
arrangements for the funeral told me she had a vault made for four, in
which three, including her own husband, had been already buried, and
that she wished her sister to have the fourth place. When I said,
"Surely, that is meant for yourself," she answered, "No, I never could
breathe in a vault. I must have fresh air. She shall have it, and I'll
be buried in the open ground, if you please."
While speaking of Halston a good story may find a place
concerning the gentleman who owned the property in Bishop
Walsham How's time.
One of my curates, in walking down from Frankton, fell in with a man
who startled him by saying what a pity it was that the owner of Halston
was not a better man. On being asked what he meant, the man said that no
good man would do as was being done on that property, and build cottages
in pairs or close together. My curate asked why not, and the man said,
"Because it is written 'Thou shalt not add house to house'"; and, on my
curate explaining the true meaning to him, he repudiated it entirely,
and said he had no doubt the thing was condemned in the Bible because
next-door neighbours always quarrel.
Here is an account of a curious interview the Rector had with a
local stonemason. Probably the spread of education would make
such a thing impossible to-day.
A stonemason one day brought a stone to put into the churchyard, with a
verse on it in which occurred the line--
Till life's brief span be ended.
I had given no permission for this, and make a rule of refusing to allow
poetical effusions upon tombstones. However, the mason had omitted the
's' after "life," so I was able to remonstrate with him, and told him
that if he had sent me his epitaph beforehand I could at least have
saved him from making ridiculous mistakes. He was quite incredulous, and
asked me to point out the mistake. When I did so he put his head on one
side, and, after contemplating the stone for some moments, said, "Now
_I_ should say, if you were to put an 's' in that line, it would come in
better after 'brief.'"
Some anecdotes relating to pastoral visits occur here and there
in the notebooks. The following story is interesting as
illustrating the fact that it does not always do to trust to
first impressions.
I was visiting on his death bed an old man in the village called John
Richards, and one day found a very rough-looking fellow sitting by the
head of his bed with his hands in his pockets, and his legs stretched
out, so I asked him if he was the old man's son, to which he answered
with a rough "Yes." I then asked him where he lived, and he answered in
the same insolent tone, "Manchester." So, thinking he was not a
pleasant specimen of Manchester manners, I took no further notice of
him, but read and prayed with his father as if he were not there, he
sitting in the same irreverent attitude all the time. Just as I was
going he said abruptly, "I'll tell ye something." "Well," I said, "what
is it?" "I had a mate once," he said, "down with the small-pox, uncommon
bad, black as your hat. 'John,' he says to me, 'fetch me a minister.' So
I went for one of these Chapel ministers, and I says to him, 'Come along
o' me, I've got a mate bad.' So he came. So when we got to the house,
before we went up, I says, 'You don't know what's the matter with him?'
and he says, 'No, what is it?' 'Small-pox,' I said, 'as black as your
hat.' And what do you think he did?" "I don't know," I said. "Why, run
away!" he said, breaking into a loud laugh. I thought this was the end
of the story, and that it was meant as a hit at all ministers, but he
went on, "I warn't to be done that way, so next I goes for a Church
minister, and I says to him, 'Come along o' me, I've got a mate bad.'
And _he_ came. Well, when we got to the foot of the stairs I says to him
just like t'other one, 'You don't know what's the matter with him?' and
he says, 'No, what is it?' So I says again, 'Small-pox as black as your
hat.' Well, what do you think this chap did?" "Not run away, I hope," I
answered. "No," he shouted in the most defiant way, "No, he walked
straight up to the bedside and prayed with him just like you've done
with my father." So I found that my rough and defiant friend was all the
time paying me a compliment. But it was the most pugnacious bit of
friendship I ever encountered.
No one who knew the Bishop and his wide-hearted sympathy would
think for a moment that he told this story to contrast the
ministers of various denominations. That was not the point. The
fun lay in the man's manner. Might it not be fair to suggest
that possibly the one minister had been vaccinated while the
other was a "conscientious objector" arrived before his time?
Here is another story of pastoral visitation:
A woman in a small Welsh farmhouse [Whittington is on the border of
Wales] being taken very ill, a neighbour went for the clergyman, who
said he would come directly. The neighbour going back to the farmhouse
said they had better get out a Bible, as the parson might ask for one.
The farmer thereupon told the woman she would find one, he thought, at
the bottom of an old chest, "for thank goodness," he added, "we have had
no occasion for them sort of books for many a long year--never since the
old cow was so bad."
Talking of family Bibles, when Bishop Walsham How was Rector of
Whittington he copied the following list from the entries in the
family Bible of some people called Turner. The names are those
of the twelve children of the family:
1. Turnerina de Margaret.
2. Turnerannah de Mary Elizabeth.
3. Alfred Fitz Cawley de Walker.
4. Bernard de Belton.
5. Cornelius la Compston.
6. Turnerica Henrica Ulrica da Gloria de Lavinia Rebekah.
7. John de Hillgreave.
8. Eignah de George Turner Jones.
9. Fighonghangal o Temardugh Hope de Hindley.
10. Turnwell William ap Owen de Pringle.
11. Turnerietta de Johannah Jane de Faith.
12. Faithful Thomas.
Surely the father who invented these names was a born humorist!
It must have been the father, for no mother would have permitted
her children to be thus bedizened with absurd appellations if it
had not been that her lack of humour failed to see the fun of
her husband's gorgeous caricature of the "upper ten."
It has often been said that the power of recognising an object
when represented in a picture is not natural but acquired. The
following story of one of the "Old Men's Dinners" at Whittington
Rectory goes to show that in the early days of photography the
rustic population had difficulty in discerning the portraits
somewhat dimly shadowed forth on the old-fashioned glass and
metal plates.
I always have a dinner of from twenty to thirty of the oldest men of
the parish on New Year's day, and on one of these occasions I was
displaying to my guests a photograph of two old men who had long worked
at the Rectory, and who were taken in their working clothes, one with a
spade, and the other holding a little tree as if about to plant it. A
very deaf old man, Richard Jones, took it in his hand, and looking at it
said, "Beautiful! Beautiful!" So I shouted, "Who are they, Richard?"
"Why," he said, "it's Abraham offering up Isaac, to be sure!" I tried to
undeceive him, and, as the old men who had been photographed were
sitting opposite to him, I said, "You'll see them before you if you will
look up." But all I could get was a serene smile, "Yes, yes, I sees 'em
before me--by faith."
The Rector of Whittington was blessed with a succession of
valuable curates, who for the most part became his close
personal friends, and he was also on the most friendly terms
with the clergy of the neighbouring parishes. Concerning his
curates or his neighbours, he would now and then note an amusing
incident, some of which must find a place here while we are
dealing with his Whittington career.
When the curacy of Whittington was vacant on one occasion I had an
application from a young clergyman who sent me a sermon on Baptism,
which he had preached in his last parish, thinking that I should like to
see what his doctrine was. However, his opinion on every controverted
point was studiously concealed. I have, nevertheless, preserved one
passage, the doctrine of which is interesting. It ran as follows: "In
the East baptism was frequently practised by immersion, but in a cold
climate like ours, where we apply water only to the face and hands, such
a practice would be injurious to the health."
A very shy, nervous curate of mine had to take the service alone here
one Sunday morning soon after his ordination. There were banns of
marriage for two couples to give out, the first being for the third time
of asking, and the second for the first. After reading out the four
names he paused, turned very red, and astounded the congregation by
adding, "The first are last and the last first."
When the house, in which a curate of mine lodged, changed hands, the new
landlady agreed to pay the old one L10 for the curate. He complained to
us that, having been paid for, he could not leave, however uncomfortable
he might be. Shortly afterwards the new landlady told him that she had
not paid the L10 and could not do so, so he paid it for her, thus paying
his own valuation!
A neighbour of mine, a clergyman, who had a great dislike of
discouraging little children, was one day examining a class, and asked
how many sons Noah had. "Four," a little girl answered. "Ah! yes," he
said, "perhaps, but one died young." He next asked what their names
were. "Adam," suggested a small child. "Yes, my child," he said, "that
would doubtless be the one that died young."
An Irish curate in Oswestry quoted in his sermon "the deaf adder that
stoppeth her ears," and, being suddenly struck with the physical
difficulties of the process, he paused a moment, and then proceeded.
"How does she stop her ears? I suppose, my friends, she must clap one
ear on the ground and stick her tail in the other." Curiously enough I
see that Brunetto Latini, in his "Booke of Beastes," relates this as a
fact in natural history. Latini was contemporary with Dante, and a
great naturalist, but of the inventive sort.
The following story will be recognised by many, in spite of the
absence of names. When we were children it was one of our
greatest treats to be taken to see the clergyman in question,
who was very kind to us and used to ask us to play drums and
other instruments in his quaint sitting-room. The occasions of
his visits to our house were also much looked forward to, as he
was sure to do something original. He once came to a dinner
party and brought two or three musical-boxes which he set off,
all playing different tunes at the same time, during dinner.
This is the story that occurs in the notebook:
The first time that Archdeacon Wickham visited this deanery as
archdeacon I drove him to a parsonage where the incumbent insisted upon
his inspecting everything. In the garden is a little pond, and over this
pond we beheld a strange erection of posts and planks, with a sort of
saddle-like seat on the top. On the Archdeacon asking the incumbent
what it was, he explained with great delight that it was a capital
contrivance by which you could take exercise and make yourself useful by
pumping water up to the church, where he had just been building a
transept. So, saying that he would show us, he clambered up, sat down on
the saddle smiling, and began to work the treadles eagerly.
Unfortunately, however, the work at the church having been just
finished, the pipe which had conveyed the water to the workmen had been
cut off just above the surface of the water. The consequence was that he
immediately produced a jet of water which shot straight upwards and
almost lifted him off his seat, entirely upsetting the archidiaconal
gravity. As we returned to the house the incumbent begged the Archdeacon
to go into the back yard and smell the pump, which, he said, stank
horribly. The Archdeacon protested that he had no authority over pumps,
but he would take no denial, and when he got into the backyard he said,
"Now, Mr. Archdeacon, if you will put your nose to the spout, I will
pump." The Archdeacon was, however, quite equal to the occasion, and
said, "No, I depute the Rural Dean to put his nose to the spout, and I
will receive his report, and, if needed, pronounce an ecclesiastical
censure."
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 L10 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 L70.
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 machina_ 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.
A child being taken to the seaside for the first time, was asked how she
liked it, and in answer said it was very beautiful, but she didn't see
"all the tinnimies," an expectation due to her private version of the
Fourth Commandment.
I recollect, when a child, being exceedingly interested and affected by
a story which used to be read to me from a small periodical--I think it
was called the _Magazine for the Young_--about two boys who went to
school. Their names were Master Cruelty and Master Innocent Sweetlove,
the former taking with him to school a bow and arrow, and the latter a
dove in a cage and a lute. The natural result followed, Master Cruelty
shooting Master Innocent Sweetlove's dove, and the latter thereupon
taking his lute into the churchyard, and, seated on a tombstone,
solacing his grief with mournful music. This seemed to me very
beautiful!
One of the children of the Vicar of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, told his
father he thought some of the things they collected for in church were
very silly. He could not think why they should have a collection for the
Bishop of London's fun.
Archdeacon Denison told me that his brother, when a boy, among many bits
of mischief did the following: His father was very fond of pictures, and
had one of the death of Isaac in which the patriarch appeared lying on a
couch in a splendid crimson damask tent supported by four Corinthian
pillars, with a beautiful white damask table-cloth spread on the table
before him. Through the tent door you saw Esau running after a stag
while Jacob was bringing in the savoury meat. The offender one day
carefully painted on the corner of the table-cloth "Isaac 6."
A boy being asked whether he always said his prayers, said, "Yes, always
at night." He was then asked, "And why not in the morning?" To which he
answered, "Because a strong boy of nine, like me, ought to be able to
take care of himself in the daytime."
Two little boys, grandchildren of a former vicar of Great Yarmouth, were
looking at some pictures in a copy of "Bunyan's Holy War," and found one
of the devil chained. One of them asked his mother whether the devil was
chained, and, being told "no," asked whether he ever would be. To this
she answered, "Yes, some day." The boy replied, "When he is, need we say
our prayers?"
The Bishop had a niece who is head-mistress of the Godolphin
High School at Salisbury, and the following story was told him
by her.
A child at the school asked if there were any saints now. The mistress
replied that she hoped there were many, on which the child said, "Then,
I suppose they've left off wearing those hats," by which she meant the
_nimbus_.
The next story is told of a little great-niece of the Bishop
called Molly.
Little Molly, aged four, after saying her prayers one evening to her
aunt, remarked, "There's no one to make you say your prayers as you make
me." "No," her aunt said, "we don't want any one to make us, for we like
saying our prayers." "Do you?" said Molly, "Then I wish you'd ask God
not to let my goloshes fall off so often."
A little girl unused to surpliced choirs, on seeing such a choir enter
the church, whispered in dismay to her mother, "They're not _all_ going
to preach, are they?"
The Bishop was chairman of the Committee of the Society for
providing Homes for Waifs and Strays, and in connection with
this work told the following story:
Some children kept some hens, and were allowed to sell the eggs for the
"Waifs and Strays." One Sunday morning they brought nine eggs in to
their father and mother, and said, "We did give it out to the hens that
there would be a collection to-day."
The annual children's parties which the Bishop delighted to
give were great events, and the following incident which
occurred at one of them must find a place here:
At a children's party given by me shortly after the death of Archbishop
Thompson we had a Punch and Judy to amuse the children. The man who
showed it came up to my son before the performance and said that he had
heard that I had been at the Archbishop's funeral, and perhaps I should
prefer his leaving out the coffin scene!
Here are some odd notions about the unseen world which were
developed in the brains of some of the Bishop's little friends:
Little Rupert B----, aged just three, one day when it was raining, said
to his father that he did not think heaven could be a nice place to live
in. "Why not?" asked his father. "Because," he answered, "the floor is
all full of holes and lets the water through." Before he was three a
little baby sister was born, and he was taken into his mother's room to
see her. "Where did it come from?" he asked. His mother said, "God sent
it us." "Then," said Rupert, "I suppose it is a sort of an angel." His
mother explained that it was only a baby. "Hasn't it got any wings?" he
asked, and on being told "No," added, "Hasn't it got any feathers at
all?"
A little boy, hearing the hymn read which says,
"Satan trembles when he sees
The feeblest saint upon his knees,"
asked, "Why does Satan let the saint sit on his knees if it makes him
tremble?"
A little girl who had been taking raspberries in the garden was talked
to by her mother, and told to resist the temptation. She afterwards
appeared with evident signs of having been again among the raspberries,
and, when her mother asked her how it was that she had not resisted the
temptation, she said that when she was looking at the raspberries she
did say "Get thee behind me, Satan," and he got behind her and pushed
her in.
A very little girl was asked, "Who made you?" She answered very
reverently, "God," and then, looking shocked, whispered, "Nurse says He
made me naked."
On my visit to Illingworth to consecrate a new chancel in 1889, the
churchwarden gave a luncheon party, and his little boy, aged nine, told
my chaplain that he wanted to go to church to be confirmed. The chaplain
told him it was not a confirmation but a consecration, whereupon the
small boy said he didn't care which it was so long as he was done.
A little cousin of mine when very small was asked who was the first man,
to which he promptly answered "Adam." He was next asked who was the
first woman, when he thought a little, and then hesitatingly suggested
"Madam."
Bishop Knight Bruce's little boy accounted for the number of fleas in
South Africa by saying, "God made lots and lots of people, so you see He
_had_ to make lots and lots of fleas."
A little girl, known to Mr. Edward Clifford, hearing much of the praise
of stylishness, once prayed, "O Lord, make me stylish."
When the Bishop was rector of Whittington he was a most
diligent teacher in the village school, going there from nine to
ten almost every morning. He was also for some years a diocesan
inspector of schools. He was, therefore, keenly alive to the
numberless mistakes and misapprehensions of children, and
recorded in his note-book a large number of absurd answers which
he either heard himself or of which he was told by friends. A
selection of these is given here.
In examining the schools of the deanery of Oswestry I once visited
Selattyn school, and set four questions for the senior class to answer
in writing. They were, (1) "What do you know about Tarsus?" (2) "Why did
St. Paul go to Damascus?" (3) "What is the meaning of Asia in the New
Testament?" (4) "What happened at Lystra?" The following is a copy of
one paper sent in:
John Jones, 12 last birthday, a teacher in Selattyn. Tarsus was a man
which could not walked from his mother womb and he used to go to the
temple every day and St. Paul heal him St. Paul said to tartus I say
unto thee arise so Tarsus sat up and leap and walked.
St. Paul went to Damascus to preach to the Gentiles. Asia means the
place where they ended when they started from Antiock to Asia.
It happened at Lystra that the two seas met and the soldiers cut the
ropes.
The Vicar of King Cross, Halifax, asked a class of boys what was the
difference between a priest and a deacon, and one boy said the deacon
only wore that thing over one shoulder. The Vicar asked why he did so,
and after some hesitation another boy answered, "Because he hasn't put
both shoulders to the wheel."
At Almondbury in 1897 a class of boys were asked the meaning of an
Archangel, and one boy suggested "One of the angels that came out of the
Ark."
The Rev. T. F. Dale, when in India teaching in his school, asked the
boys what is the meaning of faith. A European boy answered, "When you
believe something you are quite sure isn't true."
A lady was explaining to a class the passage "Not with eye-service as
men-pleasers," and asked the children if they knew what eye-service
meant. One girl suggested, "service in 'igh families."
Mr. B---- of Stamford, in a Teachers' Meeting, urged his Sunday School
teachers not to take it for granted that their scholars knew the meaning
of words, and illustrated his caution by the word "Epiphany," telling
them that they should always explain that it meant "manifestation."
Shortly afterwards the diocesan inspector was examining the day school
and accidentally asked what "Epiphany" meant. One little girl said, "A
railway porter, sir." The inspector asking what made her think that. She
said her teacher had told her it meant the "man at the station."
A lady being anxious to teach a new little kitchen-maid something of the
Bible, rightly thought she must find out what she knew. So she asked her
if she knew about our Lord, and she said "No." So she thought she must
begin at the very beginning, and told the girl she would read to her
about God making the world. The girl sat perfectly stolid and
unintelligent till they came to the serpent tempting Eve, when she
suddenly exclaimed, "I remember summat about that snike." This was her
_summa theologiae_.
A child in a school was asked what he knew about Solomon, and said, "He
was very fond of animals." Being asked what made him think so, he said,
"Because he had three hundred porcupines."
Here is a very up-to-date little story: did it happen in
Leicester?