My cousin, Mr. G. F. King, teaching a class of little London boys one
Sunday, was questioning them about the parable of the Good Samaritan,
and asked them what it was that the man "fell among." He tried to get
them to remember by saying that it was a dangerous road to travel along,
when one little boy held up his hand. My cousin said, "Well, what did he
fall among?" and the little boy replied, "Buses."
An anachronism:
The Duke of York lately visited Leeds, and there were large crowds in
the streets. Shortly afterwards one of the clergy was questioning some
little children about the birth of our Lord, and asked, "How came there
to be so many people at Bethlehem at that time?" One of the children
replied, "Please, sir, the Duke of York was there."
At Denbigh a girl at Howell's school was reading St. Matt. v. 41 to the
rector of Henllan, and gave it thus: "And whosoever shall compel thee to
go a mile, go with him by train."
Mr. Castley, curate of Marsden, questioning the children in the school
as to the history of St. Stephen, asked what it was of which he was
accused before the Council. A boy replied, "Looking after the widows."
When the diocesan inspector was examining the Cathedral Schools,
Wakefield, in 1895, he asked the children what Moses said when God told
him to go and speak to Pharaoh. One child answered, "Our Aaron would do
it better."
The next story was an experience of the Bishop's own when he
was rector of Whittington:
I once set a class of girls in our school to write the life of Solomon.
When I looked over the exercises I found one girl began, "Solomon slept
with his fathers," and went on after that with his history. On
questioning her I found she thought it meant that Solomon when a child
slept in his father's bed.
Another girl at the same time brought me a new and wonderful judgment of
Solomon in the following words: "The Queen of Sheba was as wise a woman
as Solomon was a man. She brought a hundred children, fifty boys and
fifty girls, to Solomon, all dressed the same, to see if he could tell
which was which. So Solomon commanded water to be brought and bade them
wash; whereupon the girls washed up to their elbows, but the boys only
washed up to their wrists. So Solomon knew which was boys and which was
girls."
The headmaster of the Wakefield Grammar School in an examination-paper
on general knowledge asked, "Who was John Wesley?" One boy answered as
follows: "John Wesley invented Methodist chapels, and afterwards became
Duke of Wellington."
My daughter was teaching a class of boys at Upper Clapton just before
the boat race, when she saw one of the boys tear a page out of his
Bible, crumple it up, and throw it away. She said, "What are you doing?"
to which the boy replied quite demurely, "I'm for Oxford, and this Bible
was printed at Cambridge, and I'm not going to use a Bible with
Cambridge in it."
The Vicar of St. Augustine's, South Hackney, turned a boy out of his
class one Sunday for misbehaviour. Next Sunday the boy appeared again in
his class, when the vicar said, "Wasn't it you I put out last Sunday?"
The boy at once replied, "No, sir, I think it was the gas."
A boy in an examination, being asked to give an account of the Sadducees
and Publicans, wrote, "The Sadducees did not believe in spirits, but the
Publicans _did_."
Here follows another story which, in common with the last two or
three, was noted by the Bishop during the time of his
suffragan-episcopate for East London.
The diocesan inspector was examining a very young class in the St. Mary
Axe Ward School, and asked, "What became of Adam and Eve when they were
turned out of the Garden of Eden?" To which a little girl answered,
"They went to the workhouse, sir."
In a school examination the question was set, "Explain the meaning of a
Bishop, Priest, and Deacon." One boy answered, "I never saw a Bishop, so
I don't know. A Priest is a man in the Old Testament. A Deacon is a
thing you pile up on the top of a hill, and set fire to it."
A boy, being asked for the derivation of Pontifex, said, "It is derived
from _pons_ a bridge, and means the Chief Priest, just as we say
_Arch_bishop."
Some children in an Irish school were asked the meaning of "He that
exalteth himself shall be abased," when one of them replied, "Turned
into horses or cows."
A Confirmation having been held in a Yorkshire village, some children
were seen very busy in the road making a church with mud. A passer-by
asked them where the bishop was, and they said they hadn't got mook
enough to mak' a beeshop.
A boy in Christ Church, Albany Street, School when asked, "What are the
Ember weeks?" answered, "The weeks when we pray for the young gentlemen
who are afraid of not passing their examination."
Prizes have for several years been offered for the best essays by
children on subjects set the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals. In 1893, in answer to the question, "What passages in Holy
Scripture bear upon cruelty to animals?" one boy said, "Cruel people
often cut dogs' tails and ears, but the Bible says, 'Those whom God hath
joined together, let no man put asunder.'" Another boy, in reply to the
question, "Why should you be kind to animals?" said, "If you are very
kind to a dog he will follow you to the grave at your funeral."
The next two stories are not of exactly the same nature, but so
closely relate to the subject of children and schools that they
may be fittingly inserted here.
I met an officer once who was relating his experiences of Sunday School
teaching. He said he met an old schoolfellow one day who was a
clergyman, and who persuaded him to spend a Sunday with him. In the
morning his friend told him that he must come and take a class of boys
in the Sunday School. This he protested he could not, and would not, do,
but was finally over-persuaded, his friend lending him a commentary, and
telling him he had only to keep the class quiet, as he would his own
men, hear them read a chapter, and ask them a few questions which he
would find in the notes of the commentary. "All went well," he said,
"till we had read the chapter through, when I tried to find the
questions. I managed to ask one or two, which I found they answered in a
moment, so in my despair I thought I would take them into the Old
Testament, and now I was more lucky, for I asked them, 'Boys, who was
Mephistopheles?' Well, would you believe it, there wasn't a boy of them
that knew! And wasn't I glad! I didn't know anything about him myself,
you know, except that he was one of the old patriarchs, but it got me
out of this trouble, for, though the time wasn't half up, I closed the
Bible with a bang and exclaimed, 'Boys! I can teach you no more. Go home
and search the Scriptures!'"
A clergyman living at Rainbow Hill, Worcester, in visiting his parish,
called on the mother of one of the girls in the Church School, who,
being rather "superior," told him she thought a parish school was not
quite suited to Florrie, and, as she was rather delicate, she had
decided to take her away and send her to a young ladies' cemetery.
Besides the mistakes made by children, the Bishop not
unnaturally collected a number of curious answers made in
examination papers by older people. The candidates for
ordination in the Wakefield diocese supplied some of these, and
others he was told by his brother-bishops. Some of these stories
were told in the "Memoir of Bishop Walsham How," and others may
be well known, but they form an important part of the Bishop's
note-book, and must not be omitted here.
The following are answers made in writing by different
candidates for ordination:
A number of words were given for explanation, and among them was
"cherub." One man wrote, "A cherub is an infant angel, who died before
baptism, and will undoubtedly be saved."
Another question was, "How may St. Paul's Epistles be grouped?" One
answer was, "St. Paul's Epistles may be divided into two groups, those
he wrote before his conversion and those he wrote after."
Another candidate rather surprised the examiner by stating that "in the
early Church, before a person was baptized, he was obliged to learn a
catechumen."
Another, to the question "Who were the Ophites?" gave the interesting
answer that "the Ophites were people who walked by sight and not by
faith, the word being derived from the Greek word for to see."
In the Ripon diocese an ordination candidate, in answer to the question,
"What religious sects have been founded during the last two centuries?"
gave a list which included "the Ecclesiastical Commissioners."
An ordination candidate, being asked in a paper on doctrine to write out
the Nicene Creed, wrote (with a magnificent grasp of faith), "I believe
in all things visible and invisible."
The Vice-President of the Liverpool Philomathic Society vouches for the
story that, in answer to the question "Define a parable," an examinee
wrote, "A parable is a heavenly story with no earthly meaning."
A young man having attended some University Extension lectures on
physiology, remarked to his clergyman how much light they threw on many
things. "For instance," he said, "I never understood one of the Collects
in the Prayer-book, which speaks of 'both our hearts,' before. But I see
now that it refers to the right and the left ventricle."
Here is another physiological story:
The late Canon Lyttelton, of Gloucester, when rector of Hagley, was fond
of scientific teaching, and formed a class in his school for physiology.
After a few lectures he received a letter from the mother of one of his
pupils, saying, "Reverend sir, Please not to teach our Susan anything
more about her inside; it makes her so proud."
In a paper on practical subjects one of the questions asked what rules
for almsgiving could be recommended. One of the candidates advised a
plan he had seen of having about six boxes in the house, and sending
them round at meals for various charities according to the viands on the
table. Thus, when the fish was served the box for the Deep Sea Fisheries
would be sent round, and when pineapples were being eaten that for the
S.P.G.
In answer to the question, "What is a churchwarden?" one of the
Battersea College students wrote, "A churchwarden is a godly layman, who
appropriates the money of the offertory, and acts as a check upon the
extravagance of the parochial clergy."
A friend of mine, when taking missions in Australia, met a clergyman in
Victoria who had an old Sunday-school teacher, a man who had taught for
thirty years, and who asked him one day whether infant baptism was not
invented by Philo at the Council of Trent.
The Warden of University College, Durham, asks the young men of the
College to breakfast occasionally. One day, when a few of them were at
his table, the following conversation took place: Warden to student,
"Have you ever read the Apocrypha?" Student to Warden, "Not all, sir."
Warden, "How much have you read?" Student, "Oh, not much, sir." Warden,
"Have you read the Maccabees?" Student, "No, sir." Warden, "Or Esdras?"
Student, "No, sir." Warden, "Or Wisdom?" Student, "No, sir." Warden,
"Well, have you read Bell and the Dragon?" Student, "Oh yes, sir, I've
read part of that." Warden, "How much?" Student, "Three chapters, I
think." Warden, "Then you've read more than any of us, for there is
only one chapter." Poor student!
In one of the examination papers I set as examining chaplain to Bishop
Selwyn of Lichfield, it being Michaelmas, I asked the candidates to give
an outline of a sermon upon the text, "Are they not all ministering
spirits?" One man wrote as follows: "I should consider this a good text
for a sermon for the Additional Curates' Society or the Church Pastoral
Aid. I should begin by describing in what our ministrations consist, and
should speak of the privilege of being called to minister to others. I
should then go on to speak of the heirs of salvation to whom we
minister, and I should conclude with an earnest appeal to the
congregation to provide funds for the sending forth of more such
ministering spirits."
A candidate for ordination was asked what he knew of St. Bartholomew,
and wrote, "He was almost, if not quite, identical with Nathanael."
Bishop Bickersteth of Ripon had occasion to reject a conceited young
deacon who was a candidate for priest's orders, and when the bishop
told him of his failure, he said, "I suppose, my Lord, you know that
Ambrose was made a bishop, though only a deacon." "Yes," the bishop
replied, "and I quite think that if ever _you_ are made a bishop it will
be direct from the diaconate."
Archdeacon Bather, who was a great educationist, went into his parish
school one day where there was an old and not highly educated master,
who was giving an oral lesson on the English language, in which, he said
to his class, there are many words pronounced the same, but spelt quite
different. "Now," he said, "there's the word 'har.' There's the har you
breathe, and the har of your head, and the har that runs in the fields,
and the har to an estate, all spelt quite different, but all pronounced
the same."
The Bishop of Brisbane, when he was in England before his consecration,
was examining in one of the Oxford Local examinations. He set the
candidates to write out the Fourth Commandment. One wrote, "Six days
shall thy neighbour do all that thou hast to do, and the seventh day
thou shalt do no manner of work."
A number of stories in the Bishop's note-book are connected with
Scotland and Ireland. Both of these countries were resorted to
from time to time by him for purposes of the annual fishing
holiday, and it is not too much to say that he made many friends
in each among the ghillies and others who accompanied him on his
various excursions on loch and riverside. Great was the
amusement of two Highland boatmen, who many years ago were
rowing him on a Sutherlandshire loch, when during an hour when
the fish were very "stiff," he sang them, "Hame cam our gude mon
at e'en," an old Scotch ballad by Wilson. The Irish boatmen, he
used to think, were more melancholy, and he expressed his
surprise at the character for rollicking fun which is often
given them in books. At the same time he now and then drew out a
real witticism, and more than once he notes with delight a real
Irish "bull." Here are some of the stories, not all gleaned from
the actual countries, but all referring to persons of these two
nationalities:
An Irish clergyman, a neighbour of mine, thought it his duty to speak to
a lady who had unhappily lost her faith in Christianity, and after a few
arguments he ended by saying, "Well, you will go to hell, you know, and
I shall be very sorry indeed to see you there."
A well-known Irish judge in the Insolvent Court once detected a witness
kissing his thumb instead of the Book in taking the oath, and in
rebuking him sternly said, "You may think to deceive God, sir, but you
won't deceive _me_."
The Reverend G. B----, of Bridgenorth, told me that on a recent visit to
Ireland he heard a preacher conclude his sermon with these words: "My
brethren, let not this world rob you of a peace which it can neither
give nor take away."
At the conclusion of the Irish Church Disestablishment in the House of
Commons an enthusiastic Irish member got up and thanked God that at last
the bridge was broken down which had so long separated Catholics and
Protestants in Ireland.
An Englishman was driving through a beautiful glen in county Wicklow,
and asked the driver the name of the valley, to which he replied, "Sure,
and it's the divil's glen, yer honour." A little further on the stranger
again asked, and the driver said, "Sure, and it's still the divil's
glen, yer honour." They afterwards drove through another valley, and the
stranger said, "And pray what do you call this?" "It's the divil's
kitchen, yer honour," was the reply. The stranger then remarked, "He
seems to have a good deal of property in these parts." "Indade, yer
honour, he has," said the driver, "but he's mostly an absentee, and
lives in London."
An Irish professor created a laugh, when called upon to speak at the
Birmingham Church Congress, by beginning, with a rich brogue, "Before I
begin to speak, let me say----" No one heard any more of the sentence.
At Bishop Lonsdale's first Ordination at his palace at Eccleshall there
were a large number of young men, and at dinner a young Irish deacon
called out from the other end of the table to the Bishop, "Me Lord, do
you happen to have read my sermon on Justification by Faith?" "No," said
the Bishop, "I don't happen to have met with it; but surely, Mr. ----,
you have chosen rather a difficult subject." "Not at all, me Lord," the
young deacon called out, "and when you've read my sermon you'll find no
difficulty in the subject at all!"
A former Dean (an Irishman) in one of his sermons, speaking, as he often
did, disparagingly of the Fathers of the early Church, said, "As for
unanimity, there was no unanimity in any one of them." In another sermon
the same dignitary spoke about "Standing on the seashore and watching
the ever-receding horizon." Again, in another he urged his hearers to
"take their immovable stand on the onward path of progress."
An Irishman of a certain church in Shrewsbury spoke one day of "the
narrow way in which there was only room for one to walk abreast."
A certain clergyman, who was preaching a sermon on behalf of a new
burial ground in a large parish, spoke of the sad condition of a
population of thirty thousand souls living without Christian burial.
I was driving in a car from Glengariff to Killarney with a friend, and,
on starting, a ragged boy on an old white horse rode by our side joking
with the driver. My friend spoke to the boy, and said, "Are you the
boots at the inn at Glengariff?" To which the boy answered instantly
with a grin, "Did yer honour pay the boots? For, if you didn't, I am."
This ready reply is matched by the following story which again
shows the readiness to seize an opportunity of personal
advantage.
Bishop Wigram of Rochester insisted on his clergy shaving, and when his
successor, Bishop Claughton, came to confirm in Oswestry he sat at
luncheon opposite to an Irish curate who had a large beard. The bishop,
as a joke, looked across the table and said, "You know, Mr.----, if you
came into my diocese you would have to shave off your beard." To which
came the instant reply, "Me Lord, I accept the condition!"
At a Retreat which I conducted in 1894 one of the services was given out
to be held a quarter of an hour earlier than on the printed time-table.
An elderly clergyman had not heard this and came in at the printed hour,
and found us singing a hymn. He found a seat and then whispered to his
neighbour with a strong brogue, "Is this the end of the last service, or
the beginning of the next?"
I once heard an Irish clergyman preaching at Barmouth, in recounting the
mercies for which we ought to be thankful, speak of "deliverance from
savage wild beasts and noxious insects of the night."
An instance of an Irish bull, which was of so natural a kind
that it might have been made by any one, occurred when the
Bishop and some of his sons were waiting at Athenry Station. Two
farmers were overheard talking, and one said, "Will you be going
by the first train to-morrow" To which came the reply, "There's
no first train from here at all!"
There are in the note-book a large number of entries under the
heading of "Taurology," but most of the stories are already well
known. One or two only need be quoted.
Two sisters whom I knew, Miss B----s, received a letter from a brother
in Australia, and one read it aloud to the other and then began reading
it to herself. The other said, "You might let me have a look at it,"
whereupon the first cried out, "I call that selfish: didn't I read it
all aloud to you before I'd seen a word of it meself?"
I asked a Mr. B---- whom I met in July 1896 whether he was any relation
to another Mr. B----, a friend of mine, to which he replied, "No: I have
no relations of my own. My father was the last of his race."
An Irish footman brought for his master to put on two boots for the same
foot. He was sent to rectify the mistake, but returned with the same two
boots, saying, "Indeed, yer honour, it wasn't my fault, the other pair's
just the same."
The difference between Scotch and Irish character comes out
clearly in these stories. Connected as they almost all are with
matters ecclesiastical, it is not strange to find the strong
Presbyterian dislike to Anglican ceremonial cropping up in the
following stories about Scotsmen. But, apart from this, the wit
is of a drier kind, and the sayings of a far more sanctimonious
character. Here is one about an old forester with whom the
Bishop made friends during several of his holidays. This man was
invited by a certain duke, whose retainer he was, to pay a visit
to his English seat. On the Sunday he was taken to church, and
he said afterwards that when the choir came in he thought it was
some daughters of the duke and other girls dressed up, and
thought it all perfectly disgraceful and making a mock of
religion. When the organ played they had to hold him to prevent
his going out. "It was," he said, "sic a terrible noise." Other
stories follow in the Bishop's own words:
The Duchess of B---- had an old Presbyterian nurse, who was once
persuaded to attend the beautiful church they had built. The Duchess
afterwards asked her if it was not very beautiful, and she said, "Oh
yes, very." "And the singing," said the Duchess, "was not that lovely?"
"Yes, your Grace," she said, "it was lovely; but it's an awfu' way of
spending the Sabbath."
A Scotch lady and her gardener used to worship together, not agreeing
with any form of Church doctrine. A friend remonstrated with her and
asked, "Do you really think you and your gardener are the only two real
members of the true Church on earth?" To which she replied, "Weel, I'm
nae sae sure o' John."
A Scotch minister from a large town once visited and preached in a rural
parish, and was asked to pray for rain. He did so, and the rain came in
floods and destroyed some of the crops; whereupon one elder remarked to
another, "This comes o' entrusting sic a request to a meenister who isna
acquentit wi' agriculture."
Bishop Wilberforce used to tell a story of a Scotch minister who always
regulated his grace before meat by the prospect before him. If he saw a
sumptuous table he began, "Bountiful Jehovah," but if the fare was less
tempting he began, "Lord, we are not worthy of the least of Thy
mercies."
Archbishop Tait when in Scotland had to sign the receipt for a
registered letter before the postman, who, when he heard it was the
Archbishop, looked at him and remarked, "Weel, I must say you look
rather consequential about the legs."
One of the Bishop's sons was fond of sketching, and on one
occasion brought back a story which the Bishop delighted in
telling. This son and an artist friend arranged to go on a
sketching expedition to the west coast of Scotland, and on
arriving there the latter went to interview the minister of the
little village which was to be their headquarters. In the course
of conversation he asked the minister whether, if they attended
his ministrations in the morning, he would be greatly
scandalised if they did a little sketching on the Sunday
afternoon, to which the good man replied, "Well, your business
is to paint pictures and mine is to preach and pray. I preach
and pray on the Sabbath, you paint pictures on other days. If
you saw me preaching and praying on other days you would raise
no objection, so I shall raise none if you paint pictures on the
Sabbath." It was a curious argument, and probably it would be
difficult to find another minister in all Scotland who would
agree with him.
A number of stories relating to sermons have already been given,
but a large part of the Bishop's notebook which relates to them
has not yet been touched. There are some sermons given almost
_in extenso_, and to these it is only possible to refer briefly.
The longest report of a sermon is of one that was printed after
it had been delivered by an old gentleman who married his cook
and thought that it was necessary to justify his action to his
parishioners. He described his bride as "one of plebeian birth
and the superintendent of my establishment." He based his
explanation on the fact that he himself was of such
extraordinarily high birth that, in order to make his hearers
comprehend how utterly incapable he was of appreciating the
little social distinctions which existed in that parish he would
tell them that he could no more appreciate such distinctions
than, standing upon a mountain, he could judge of the heights,
as compared with each other, of the mole-hills lying scattered
around its base. Where, therefore, was he to a find a woman, and
moreover a woman willing to take charge of a gouty old gentleman
like himself, whose birth in comparison with his own was not
plebeian? In the matter of his wife's little peculiarities of
pronunciation, &c., he would just remind any satirists that
their tenements were constructed of a material certainly not
iron, and that to such persons the throwing of stones was a
proverbially dangerous practice. He announced in conclusion that
all these things were of small importance, as he and his wife
had resolved to lead a life of almost absolute seclusion,
devoting themselves entirely to her improvement, to the duties
of their station, and to the preparation of their souls for
heaven.
Another long extract is given from a sermon preached at
Llanymawddy. The original is said to be in the British Museum,
and the copy made by Dr. Griffith of Merthyn. The sermon is
headed "A funeral sermon for a dead body," and is a wonderful
example of "English as she is spoke" by the Welshman. It begins
with these words: "Good people of Llanymawddy. My dearly beloved
brethren, we are met together here to-day for a great preachment
for a dead body, the body of good Squire Thomas, the squire of
our parish. We did all love him, though he has scolded us
shocking, &c."
The preacher went on to say that he knew the words of his text
in three languages, "The Latin tongue which is the language of
all learned people: I do know them in the English language--it
is the language of all genteel people. I do know them in the
Welsh language of course--it is the language of all vulgar
people."
Much of the sermon is given up to a description of Adam and Eve,
the latter being described as "the beautifullest of all women,
but she was a very peculiar woman. She wanted to know everything
she ought not to know." The Garden of Eden is thus portrayed:
"The garden of Squire Thomas was nothing to it: it would take
twenty thousand of Squire Thomas' to make such a garden."
It is altogether a most wonderful discourse, and it would be
well worth anyone's while to hunt it up in the British Museum,
if the original is really to be found there.
Then there is an extract from a sermon preached by an Irish
bishop, which, says Bishop Walsham How, "I heard described by
one of his clergy who heard it." The point of the sermon was an
illustration of the joy over the one repentant sinner by the joy
in a household over the baby which had been ill and had
recovered. The curious part of the story lies in the fact that
at every mention of the baby the preacher dandled his hands up
and down as if he were holding it. The constant repetition of
this must have been trying to the gravity.
A few more "sermon-notes" may find a place here just as they
were jotted down by the Bishop.
A certain preacher, after describing all sorts of evil, exclaimed, "And
all this in the so-called nineteenth century!"
A working man refused to go to church because (he said) the parson could
tell him nothing in a sermon he didn't know. However, a friend persuaded
him to go, and asked him afterwards if he had learnt nothing. "Well,
yes," he said, "I did learn one thing. I learnt as Sodom and Gomorrha
was two places. I always thought they was man and wife."
It is said that Dean Goulbourn while preaching on the intermixture of
evil with good in the Church, said, "Remember, there was a Ham in the
Ark"--then, thinking it might sound odd, corrected himself and added, "I
mean a human Ham."