" This man was deposed ere long, and deservedly, if village
suspicions were truthful.
After which, I think, he usually came just inside the church once every
Sunday, but never to get further than to take a seat close to the door.
He died at a great age. Two or three of his successors were worthy men.
One of them would carefully recite the Psalms for the coming Sunday
within church or elsewhere during the week, and he read with proper
feeling and good sense.
Another of the same little parish, well up in his Bible, once helped the
very excellent clergyman at a baptism in a critical moment. "Name this
child." "Zulphur." This was not a correct name. Another effort,
"Sulphur." The clergyman was in difficulty. The clerk was equal to the
occasion, for the parson was well up in his Bible too.
"Leah's handmaid," suggested the clerk. "Zilpah, I baptize thee," said
the priest, and all was well.
In that church the few farmers who met to levy a poor-rate and do other
parochial work insisted on doing so within the chancel rails, using the
holy table as the writing-desk, and the assigned reason for so doing was
that, being apt to quarrel and dispute over parish matters, there would
be no danger _at such a place_ as this of using profane language. All in
the diocese of Oxford.
It was in the twenties that I must have seen old P.
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