P. H. Ditchfield

“ It is not an easy matter to dismiss an undesirable clerk: it is almost as difficult as to disturb the parson's freehold; and unless the clerk be found guilty of grievous faults, he may laugh to scorn the malice of his enemies and retain his office while life lasts.
It may be useful, therefore, to devote a chapter to the laws relating to parish clerks--a chapter which some of my readers who have no liking for legal technicalities can well afford to skip. ”

“ Young's own clerk was, however, a very worthy man, of such lofty aspirations and of such blameless purity of life, that in making him Nature made the very ideal of a village clerk and schoolmaster, and then "broke the mould." His grave yet kindly countenance, his well-proportioned limbs encased in breeches and gaiters of corded kerseymere, and the natural dignity of his carriage, combined "to give the world assurance of" a bishop rather than a clerk. ”

“ It was the surplice which had once been white. "Here you be," he says; "put you away for a matter of twelve year and more, and you bide your time; you know you will come back again; you are not in any hurry. Even the clerk dies; but you die not, you bide your time. Everything comes again. The old woman shall give you a taste o' the suds and the hot iron. Thus we go up and thus we go down." ”

“ Few people now realise what a business it was to light up a church, say, eighty years ago. But the worthy old clerk, in a wig bestowed on him by the pious and aged patron, is hastening to illuminate his church with old-fashioned candles, in which he is aided not a little by his faithful wife, who, like Abraham's wife, regarded her husband as her lord and responded to the name of Sarah. ”

“ Then the choir sat in the west gallery and made strange noises and sang curious tunes, the echoes of which we shall try to catch. No organ then pealed forth its reverent tones and awaked the church with dulcet harmonies: a pitch-pipe often the sole instrument. And then--what terrible hymns were sung! Well did Campbell say of Sternhold and Hopkins, the co-translators of the Psalms of David into English metre, "mistaking vulgarity for simplicity, they turned into bathos what they found sublime." And Tate and Brady's version, the "Dry Psalter" of "Samuel Oxon's" witticism, was little better. ”

“ When we remember the extraordinary blunders made by many holders of the office in the last century, their lack of education, and strange pronunciation, we should hardly care to hear the mutilation of Holy Scripture which must have followed the continuance of the practice. Would it not be possible to find men qualified to hold the office of parish clerk by education and powers of elocution who could revive the ancient practice with advantage to the church both to the clergyman and the people? ”

“ The finest portrait ever painted of a parish clerk is that of Orpin, clerk of Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts, whose interesting old house still stands near the grand parish church and the beautiful little Saxon ecclesiastical structure. This picture is the work of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., and is now happily preserved in the National Gallery. Orpin has a fine and noble face upon which the sunlight is shining through a window as he turns from the Divine Book to see the glories of the blue sky. ”

“ The office might be made again a sphere of training for those who wish to take Holy Orders, wherein a young man might be thoroughly educated in the duties of the clerical profession. It would be an immense assistance to an incumbent to have an active and educated layman associated with him in the work of the parish, in teaching, in reading and serving in church, and in visiting the sick. Like the clerk of old, he would be studying and preparing for ordination, and there could be no better school for training than actual parish work under the supervision of an earnest and wise rector. ”

“ I am one of those who do not think that all the changes in the ministration of Church services are, after experience had, desirable. I think that in many instances the lay clerk ought to have been instructed in the performance of his duties, to the profit of all concerned. And I deem that this proceeding would have been a far wiser proceeding than any substitution of the man or his function. There is ancient authority for a clerk or clerks. It is wise to secure work to be attended to in the functions of divine service for as many laymen as possible, consistent with principle and propriety. ”

“ The good old man--and he was a good old man--was perhaps a little bit "flustered and flurried," for the folk were gathering within the sacred temple, and W.L. was anxious to complete his task of lighting the loft, or gallery. "I say, Sally, hand us up a little taste of candle," cried her lord, and Sarah obeyed, and the illumination was soon complete.
But, really, few men "gave out" or announced a hymn with truer and more touching and devout feeling than did that old clerk. ”

“ Froude draws a sad picture of the halls of country houses hung with altar cloths, tables and beds quilted with copes, and knights and squires drinking their claret out of chalices and watering their horses in marble coffins. No wonder there was discontent among the people. No wonder they disliked the despoiling of their heritage for the enrichment of the Dudleys and the nouveaux riches who fattened on the spoils of the monasteries, and left the church bare of brass and ornament, chalice and vestment, the accumulation of years of the pious offerings of the faithful. ”

“ Want and avarice take possession of his soul. He begins to take by stealth the money collected in church, putting bran in his pockets so that the coin shall not jingle. He offends with terror, repeats his offence, grows familiar with crime, and is at last detected by a "stern stout churl, an angry overseer." Disgrace, ruin, death soon follow; shunned and despised by all, he "turns to the wall and silently expired." A woeful story truly, the results of spiritual pride and greed of gain! It is to be hoped that few clerks resembled poor lost Jachin. ”

“ Strange and curious carols did he and his sons and friends sing for us on Christmas Eve, the words and music of which have been handed down from father to son for several generations, and have somewhat suffered in their course. His grandson still performs for us the Christmas Mumming Play. The clerk is seventy years of age, and succeeded his father some forty years ago. Save for "bad legs," the curse of the rustic, he is still hale and hearty, and in spite of an organ and surpliced choir, his powerful voice still sounds with a resonant "Amen." Never does he miss a Sunday service. ”

“ As with the clerk, so with his master; the evil that men do lives after them, the good is forgotten. There has been a vast amount of exaggeration in the accounts that have come down to us of the faithlessness, sluggishness, idleness, and base conduct of the clergy of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and perhaps a little too much boasting about the progress which our age has witnessed.
It would be an easy task to record the lives of many worthy country clergymen of the much-abused Hanoverian period, who were exemplary parish priests, pious, laborious, and beloved. ”

“ When we visit the ancient homes of these great societies we are impressed by their magnificence and interesting associations. Portraits of old City worthies and royal benefactors gaze at us from the walls, and link our time with theirs, when they, too, strove to uphold the honour of their guild and benefit their generation. ”

“ A short-sighted clergyman of what is known as the "old school" was preaching one winter afternoon to a slumberous congregation. Dusk was falling, the church was badly lighted, and his manuscript difficult to decipher. He managed to stumble along until he reached a passage which he rendered as follows: "Enthusiasm, my brethren, enthusiasm in a good cause is an excellent--excellent quality, but unless it is tempered with judgment, it is apt to lead us--apt to lead us--Here, Thomas," handing the sermon to the clerk, "go to the window and see what it is apt to lead us into." ”

“ I venture to say that the "giving out" of that verse by that aged clerk with his venerable wig and with a voice trembling a little by age, but more by natural emotion, was preferable to many modern modes of announcing a hymn.
It was common to say "Let us sing, to the praise and glory of God." It is common to be shocked, nowadays, by such an invitation. Are we as reverent now as then? Do we sing praises with understanding better? ”

“ How much longer shall knowledge be allowed to go on increasing?"
The rector taught the clerk how to play chess, to which game he took eagerly, and taught it to the village youths. They played it on half-holidays in winter and became engrossed in it, manufacturing chess-boards out of old book-covers and carving very creditable chessmen out of bits of wood. When he was playing with his rector one evening he lost his queen and at once resigned, saying, "I consider, reverend sir, that chess without a queen is like life without a female." ”

“ The teacher of children, healer of all the lame and sick folk, the consoler and adviser of the troubled, he played an important part in the village life. His accomplishments were numerous. He could make a will, survey or convey an estate, reduce a dislocation, perform the functions of a parish clerk, lead a choir, and write an ode. This remarkable man was born at Eyam in 1791, the village so famous for the story of its plague, in an old house long held by his family. ”

“ The old man has to be bribed or cajoled to allow the books to be tampered with. A stranger arrives one evening at Rochester, and demands of the clerk to be shown the registers. The stranger finds the entry upon which much depends. In its present form it does not support his case. It must be altered in order to meet his requirements. The clerk hovers about the vestry, alert, vigilant. He must be got rid of. The stranger proposes various inducements; the temptation of a comfortable seat in a cosy corner of the nearest inn, a stimulating glass, but all in vain. ”

“ Hooker died and was buried at Borne, and many people used to visit his monument, and the clerk had many rewards for showing his grave-place, and often heard his praises sung by the visitors, and used to add his own recollections of his holiness and humility. But evil days came; the parson of Borne was sequestered, and a Genevan minister put into his good living. The old clerk, seeing so many clergymen driven from their homes and churches, used to say, "They have sequestered so many good men, that I doubt if my good Master Hooker had lived till now, they would have sequestered him too." ”

“ A rather pompous rector's wife used to like to refer at intervals during a dinner-party to "our coachman says," "our gardener always does this," "our footman is ...," leaving the impression of a somewhat large establishment. The dear old rector used to disturb the vision of a large retinue by saying, "They are all one--old Corby, the clerk."
One of the chief characteristics of old parish clerks, whether in ancient or modern times, is their faithfulness to their church and to their clergyman. ”

“ Often can we learn much from them of old-world manners, superstitions, folk-lore, and the curious form of worship practised in the days of our forefathers. My own clerk is a great authority on the lore of ancient days, of bygone hard winters, of weather-lore, of the Russian war time, and of the ways of the itinerant choir and orchestra, of which he was the noted leader. ”

“ Among tales of awe and weird mystery stands out the story of the adventures of Peter Priestly, clerk, sexton, and gravestone cutter, of Wakefield, who flourished at the end of the eighteenth century. He was an old and much respected inhabitant of the town, and not at all given to superstitious fears. One Saturday evening he went to the church to finish the epitaph on a stone which was to be in readiness for removal before Sunday. ”

“ I recollect preaching one weekday night (and people would crowd the churches on weekday evenings fifty years ago far more readily than they do now) at some wild place in Lancashire or Yorkshire, I think Lancashire. I was taken to see and stand upon a stepping stone outside the church, and close against the south wall of the sacred edifice, upon which almost every Sunday the clerk, as the people were leaving church, ascended and in a loud voice announced any matters concerning the parish which it appeared desirable to proclaim. ”

“ He it was who, when the sermon was ended, strode with dignity from his box on the "lower deck" down the aisle to the belfry, and pulled the "dishing-up bell" to let home-keeping mothers know that hungry husbands and sons were set free. Folks in those days were less easily fatigued than they are now. Services were longer, the preacher's "leanings to mercy" were less marked, and congregations counted themselves ill-used if they broke up under the two hours. The boys stood in wholesome awe of the clerk, as well they might, for his eye was keen and his stick far-reaching. ”

“ The members of the congregation looked up and saw his small head half-buried in his large wig, and could not restrain their smiles. The clerk was mortified and the rector gratified that he should have been taught a lesson and learned to be less vain.
Old-fashioned ways die hard. Only seven years ago the incumbent of a small Somerset parish found when in the pulpit that he had left his spectacles at home. ”