The Parish Clerk Part 17

This story so amused George Cruikshank that he wanted to make an ill.u.s.tration of it. But the journal in which it ought to have appeared was very short-lived. Hence Cruikshank's drawing was lost to the world.

The clerk is a firm upholder of established custom. "We will now sing the evening hymn," said the rector of an East Anglian church in the sixties. "No, sir, it's doxology to-night." The preacher again said, "We'll sing the evening hymn." The clerk, however, persisted, "It's doxology to-night"; and doxology it was, in spite of the parson's protests.

In the days when parish notices with reference to the lost, stolen, or strayed animals were read out in church at the commencement of the service, the clerk of a church [my informant has forgotten the name of the parish] rose in his place and said:

"This is to give notice that my Lady ---- has lost her little dog; he comes to the name of Shock; he is all white except two patches of black on his sides and he has got--eh?--what?--yes--no--upon my soul he has got four eyes!" It should have been sore eyes, but the long _s_ had misled the clerk.

The clerk does not always shine as an orator, but a correspondent who writes from the Charterhouse can vouch for the following effort of one who lived in a village not a hundred miles from Harrow about thirty years ago.

There was a tea for the school children, at which the clerk, a farm labourer, spoke thus: "You know, my friends, that if we wants to get a good crop of anything we dungs the ground. Now what I say is, if we wants our youngsters to crop properly, we must see that they are properly dunged--- put the larning into them like dung, and they'll do all right."

The subject of the Disestablishment of the Church was scarcely contemplated by a clerk in the diocese of Peterborough, who, after the amalgamation of two parishes, stated that he was desired by the vicar to announce that the services in each parish would be morning and evening to _all eternity_. It is thought that he meant to say _alternately_.

I have often referred to the ancient clerkly method of giving out the hymns. It was a terrible blow to the clerk when the parsons began to interfere with his prerogative and give out the hymns themselves. All clerks did not revenge themselves on the usurpers of their ancient right as did one of their number, who was very indignant when a strange clergyman insisted on giving out the hymns himself. In due course he gave out "the fifty-third hymn," when out popped the old clerk's head from under the red curtains which hung round the gallery, and which gave him the appearance of wearing a nightcap, and he shouted, "That a baint!

A be the varty-zeventh."

The following account of a notice, which was scarcely authorised, shows the homely manners of former days. It was at Sapiston Church, a small village on the Duke of Grafton's estate. The grandfather of the present Duke was returning from a shooting expedition, and was pa.s.sing the church on Sunday afternoon while service was going on. The Duke quietly entered the vestry, and signed to the clerk to come to him. The Duke gave the man a hare, and told him to put it into the parson's trap, and give a complimentary message about it at the end of the service. But the clerk, knowing his master would be pleased at the little attention, could not refrain from delivering both hare and message at once before the whole congregation. At the close of the hymn before the sermon he marched into a prominent position holding up the gift, and shouted out, "His Grace's compliments, and, please sir, he's sent ye a hare."

In giving out the hymns or Psalms many difficulties of p.r.o.nunciation would often arise. One clerk had many struggles over the line, "Awed by Thy gracious word." He could not manage that tiresome first word, and always called it "a wed." The old metrical version of the Psalm, "Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks," etc. is still with us, and a beautiful hymn it is:

"As pants the hart for cooling streams When heated in the chase."

A Northumbrian clerk used to give out the words thus:

"As pants the 'art for coolin' streams When 'eated in the chaise,"

which seems to foreshadow the triumph of modern civilisation, the carted deer, a mode of stag-hunting that was scarcely contemplated by Tate and Brady.

CHAPTER XIV

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 mediaeval 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 pa.s.sage, 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 a.s.s; 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 ba.s.s voice.

Congregations were often very spa.r.s.e. 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 cx.x.xvii., "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 G.o.d 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 ba.s.soon 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 ba.s.soon 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 ca.s.sock 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 p.r.o.nounced 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 l.u.s.tily.

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 cx.x.xii. 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.]