* * * * *
Few people possess the gift of humour in the same degree as the late
Bishop Walsham How, and his stories of the race of parish clerks and
vergers must not be omitted, and are here published by permission of his
son, Mr. F.D. How, editor of _Lighter Moments_.
When I was a deacon, and naturally shy, I was visiting my aunts at
Workington, where my grandfather had been rector, and was asked to
preach on Sunday evening in St. John's, a wretched modern church--a
plain oblong with galleries, and a pulpit like a very tall wineglass,
with a very narrow little straight staircase leading up to it, in the
middle of the east part of the church. When the hymn before the sermon
was given out I went as usual to the vestry to put on the black gown.
Not knowing that the clergyman generally stayed there till the end of
the hymn, I emerged as soon as I had vested myself and walked to the
pulpit and ascended the stairs. When nearly at the summit, to my horror
I discovered a very fat beadle in the pulpit lighting the candles. We
could not possibly pass on the stairs, and the eyes of the whole
congregation were upon me. It would be ignominious to retreat. So after
a few minutes' reflection I saw my way out of the difficulty, which I
overcame by a very simple mechanical contrivance.
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