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 passage, with high pews on each side, led up to the
chancel-arch, in which was a "three-decker," fifteen feet high. The
clerk wore a wig and immense horn spectacles. He was a shoemaker,
dressed in black, with a white tie. In the gallery sat "the music"--a
clarionet, flute, violin, and 'cello. The clerk gave out the "Twentieth
Psalm of David," and the fiddlers tuned for a moment and then played at
once.
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