This was sufficiently
trying to the congregation, but suddenly some one rattled the latch of
the west door, when Oakes, feeling that it was absolutely necessary to
go and see what was the matter, thrust the two candles into the poor
young clergyman's delicately gloved hands, and left him!
At the church of Stratfieldsaye, where the Duke of Wellington was a
regular attendant, a stranger was preaching, and the verger when he
ended came up the stairs, opened the pulpit door a little way, slammed
it to, and then opened it wide for the preacher to go out. He asked in
the vestry why he had shut the door again while opening it, and the
verger said, "We always do that, sir, to wake the duke."
A former young curate of Stoke being very anxious to do things
rubrically, insisted on the ring being put on the "fourth finger" at a
wedding he took. The woman resisted and said, "I would sooner die than
be married on my little finger." The curate said, "But the rubric says
so," whereupon the _deus ex machina_ appeared in the shape of the parish
clerk, who stepped forward and said, "In these cases, sir, the thoomb
counts as a digit."
A gentleman going to see a ritualistic church in London was walking
into the chancel when an official stepped forward and said, "You mustn't
go in there." "Why not?" said the gentleman.
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