As
it was very unusually performed there, he was totally at a loss what
service to find, and asked in great perturbation:
"Please, sir, be I to read the responses in the services for the Queen's
Accession?"
The same service sadly puzzled the clerk at Haddington, who was in the
employment of the then Earl of W----. One Sunday Lady W---- came to be
churched, when in response to the clergyman's prayer, "O Lord, save this
woman, Thy servant," the clerk said, "Who putteth her ladyship's
trust in Thee."
The Rev. W.H. Langhorne tells me some amusing anecdotes of old clerks.
Once he was preaching in a village church for home missions, and just as
he was reaching the pulpit he observed that the clerk was preparing to
take round the plate. He whispered to him to wait till he had finished
his sermon. "It won't make a ha'porth o' difference," was the
encouraging reply. But at the close of the sermon there was another
invitation to give additional offerings, which were not withheld.
In the old days when _Bell's Life_ was the chief sporting paper, a
hunting parson was taking the service one Sunday morning and gave out
the day of the month and the Psalm. The clerk corrected him, but the
rector again gave out the same day and was again corrected. The rector,
in order to decide the controversy, produced a copy of _Bell's Life_ and
handed it to the clerk, who then submitted.
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