John Wesley must have had a sense of humour, though perhaps it
might have been exhibited in a more appropriate place. However, he was
determined to humble his conceited clerk, and said to him one Sunday
morning, "John, I shall preach on a particular subject this morning, and
shall choose my own psalm, of which I will give out the first line, and
you will proceed and repeat the next as usual." When the time for
psalmody arrived Wesley gave out, "Like to an owl in ivy bush," and the
clerk immediately responded, "That rueful thing am I." The members of
the congregation looked up and saw his small head half-buried in his
large wig, and could not restrain their smiles. The clerk was mortified
and the rector gratified that he should have been taught a lesson and
learned to be less vain.
Old-fashioned ways die hard. Only seven years ago the incumbent of a
small Somerset parish found when in the pulpit that he had left his
spectacles at home. Casting a shrewd glance around, he perceived just
below him, well within reach, one of his parishioners who was wearing a
large pair of what in rustic circles are termed "barnacles" tied behind
his head. Stretching down, the parson plucked them from the astonished
owner's brow, and, fitting them on his clerical nose, proceeded to
deliver his discourse. Thenceforward the clerk, doubtless fearing for
his own glasses, never failed to carry to church a second pair wherewith
to supply, if need be, his coadjutor's shortcomings.
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