"
At Sutton Maddock, Shropshire, there was a clerk who used to read
"_Pe_-li-_can_ in the wilderness," and the usual "_Howl_ in the
_De_sart," and "Teach the _Se_nators wisdom," and when the Litany was
said on Wednesdays and Fridays declared that it was not in his Prayer
Book though he took part in it every Sunday. When a kind lady, Miss
Barnfield, expressed a wish that his wife would get better, he replied,
"I hope her will or _summat_."
At Claverley, in the same county, on one Sunday, the rector told the
clerk to give notice that there would be no service that afternoon,
adding _sotto voce_, "I am going to dine at the Paper Mill." He was
rather disgusted when the clerk announced, "There will be no Diving
Service this arternoon, the Parson is going to dine at the Peaper Mill."
The clerk was no respecter of persons, and once marched up to the
rector's wife in church and told her to keep her eyes from
beholding vanity.
The Rev. F.A. Davis tells me of a story of an illiterate clerk who
served in a Wiltshire church, where a cousin of my informant was vicar.
A London clergyman, who had never preached or been in a country church
before, came to take the duty. He was anxious to find out if the people
listened or understood sermons. His Sunday morning discourse was based
on the text St. Mark v.
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