William Walsham How

“ No man, as I believe, walked more closely with his God, but his influence owed much of its power to the fact that he also walked in closest sympathy with men—sympathy not only with their tears but with their laughter—sympathy which begot, as it generally does, a keen sense of humour. ”

“ I always have a dinner of from twenty to thirty of the oldest men of the parish on New Year's day, and on one of these occasions I was displaying to my guests a photograph of two old men who had long worked at the Rectory, and who were taken in their working clothes, one with a spade, and the other holding a little tree as if about to plant it. ”

“ It is unfortunate that some of the very best are told of bishops who are still alive, and, although there is not an ill-natured word on any single page, yet it might not be advisable to publish these anecdotes, lest this little volume should be open to the charge of want of respect for those in high places.
How often a story is told of, say Bishop Wilberforce, and at its conclusion the narrator says, "Or perhaps it was Bishop Magee," entirely forgetting the wide difference between these witty prelates, and spoiling the story by his uncertainty. ”

“ A clergyman going into a very advanced church could not make out what they were doing, and said he tried various parts of the Prayer-book in vain, and at last bethought him of "Prayers for those at sea." But this, too, failed, so he gave up trying.
A clergyman going to see a parish offered him, was shown it by a farmer churchwarden, who in the course of conversation said, "Are there many Puseyites, sir, where you come from?" He answered, "Not many; are there many here?" Farmer: "There used to be, but they are getting scarce now." ”

“ On another occasion at a dinner party a young man was talking rather foolishly about Darwin and his books, speaking very contemptuously of them, and he said to the bishop, "My Lord, have you read Darwin's last book on the Descent of Man?" ”

“ Bishop Walsham How entered most of the amusing incidents and stories he met with in a notebook, but his sense of humour was very different from that of the lady mentioned above. There was no lack of spontaneity. It was part and parcel of himself, and he would never have been the man he was, or had the influence he possessed, without it.
Although far more men than women seem to have this sense, yet every one must be familiar with some few of those unfortunate people in whom it is lacking. Let a man think of his schooldays. ”

“ The next story is told of a little great-niece of the Bishop called Molly.
Little Molly, aged four, after saying her prayers one evening to her aunt, remarked, "There's no one to make you say your prayers as you make me." "No," her aunt said, "we don't want any one to make us, for we like saying our prayers." "Do you?" said Molly, "Then I wish you'd ask God not to let my goloshes fall off so often." ”

“ He never had been a boy: he could not understand.
It is just the same in other professions. The clergyman with pale and heavy features, who sees no fun in anything, may just as well stop at home as go round from house to house with his awkward unsympathetic questions. The children run away from him, their parents are simply bored. ”

“ Workington was also the scene of an awkward situation in which, when a very young man, the Bishop found himself.
When I was a deacon, and naturally shy, I was visiting my aunts in 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. ”

“ The following words are given verbatim as spoken by an old woman in the parish on the occasion of my first visit soon after I became Rector. "The old man and me never go to bed, sir, without singing the Evening Hymn. Not that I've got any voice left, for I haven't; and as for him, he's like a bee in a bottle; and then he don't humour the tune, for he don't rightly know one tune from another, and he can't remember the words neither; so when he leaves out a word I puts it in, and when I can't sing I dances, and so we gets through it somehow." ”

“ A verger was showing a lady over a church when she asked him if the vicar was a married man. "No, ma'am," he answered, "he's a chalybeate."
A verger showing a large church to a stranger, pointed out another man and said, "That is the other verger." The gentleman said, "I did not know there were two of you," and the verger replied, "Oh yes, sir, he werges up one side of the church and I werges up the other."
Two little stories connected with Bishop Walsham How's episcopal life may well conclude the anecdotes about vergers. The Bishop's dislike of ostentation was well known. ”

“ A clergyman in a church in Lancashire gave out as his text, "The devil as a roaring lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour," and then added, "The Bishop of Manchester has announced his intention of visiting all the parishes in the diocese, and hopes to visit this parish on such a date."
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 rather die than be married on my little finger." ”

“ A former vicar of Newbiggin received a message one Sunday morning from a neighbouring clergyman, who had been taken ill, to ask if he could provide for his duty. So he sent to his curate (my brother-in-law) to tell him he should not be at church that morning, ordered his carriage, and put an old sermon, which he had no time to look at, in his pocket. When he began to preach he soon found out that the sermon was one which he had preached on bidding farewell to his first curacy. ”

“ In answer to the question, "What is a churchwarden?" one of the Battersea College students wrote, "A churchwarden is a godly layman, who appropriates the money of the offertory, and acts as a check upon the extravagance of the parochial clergy."
A friend of mine, when taking missions in Australia, met a clergyman in Victoria who had an old Sunday-school teacher, a man who had taught for thirty years, and who asked him one day whether infant baptism was not invented by Philo at the Council of Trent. ”

“ A few more "sermon-notes" may find a place here just as they were jotted down by the Bishop.
A certain preacher, after describing all sorts of evil, exclaimed, "And all this in the so-called nineteenth century!"
A working man refused to go to church because (he said) the parson could tell him nothing in a sermon he didn't know. However, a friend persuaded him to go, and asked him afterwards if he had learnt nothing. "Well, yes," he said, "I did learn one thing. I learnt as Sodom and Gomorrha was two places. I always thought they was man and wife." ”

“ The vicar of an East London parish was one of the first London clergymen to grow his beard. The then Bishop of London wished to stop the practice, and, as he was going to confirm in that church, sent his chaplain to the vicar to ask him to shave it off, saying he should otherwise select another church for the Confirmation. ”

“ Bishop Knight Bruce's little boy accounted for the number of fleas in South Africa by saying, "God made lots and lots of people, so you see He had to make lots and lots of fleas."
A little girl, known to Mr. Edward Clifford, hearing much of the praise of stylishness, once prayed, "O Lord, make me stylish."
When the Bishop was rector of Whittington he was a most diligent teacher in the village school, going there from nine to ten almost every morning. He was also for some years a diocesan inspector of schools. ”

“ A Yorkshire clergyman the other day, visiting a poor man who had just lost his little boy, endeavoured to console him. The poor man burst into tears, and in the midst of his sobs exclaimed: "If 'twarna agin t' law a should ha' liked to have t' little beggar stoofed."
A leading layman in the Wakefield diocese went to see a poor old woman whose husband had just died after a long illness. In talking of him she remarked, "Eh, but John's tabernacle tuk a deal o' riving to bits."
The Vicar of Sowerby Bridge met with a woman in his parish who said she could not agree with the Church. ”

“ The penalty is transportation for ten years. Towards the end of the Act is a short clause (with the word "penalties" in the margin) saying, "Half the penalties under this Act are to go to the informer, and the other half to the poor of the parish."
At a charity sermon a certain nobleman was in a seat with a rich man whom he did not know, but who knew him, the nobleman being furthest from the door. At the close of the sermon the nobleman took out a shilling and placed it on the book-board. ”

“ The Bishop of Peterborough (Magee) , being plagued to go and open all sorts of things—churches, schools, bazaars, &c.—exclaimed one day, "I do believe very soon there will not be a young curate in the diocese who has bought a new umbrella, who will not apply to the bishop to come and open it." ”

“ No one who knew the Bishop and his wide-hearted sympathy would think for a moment that he told this story to contrast the ministers of various denominations. That was not the point. The fun lay in the man's manner. Might it not be fair to suggest that possibly the one minister had been vaccinated while the other was a "conscientious objector" arrived before his time? Here is another story of pastoral visitation:
A woman in a small Welsh farmhouse [Whittington is on the border of Wales] being taken very ill, a neighbour went for the clergyman, who said he would come directly. ”

“ Many of the stories told by Bishop Walsham How centre round Whittington, the Shropshire parish of which he was Rector from 1851 to 1879. In the early days of his residence there superstition was exceedingly rife. There is a note by the Bishop to this effect:
The prevalence of superstition in these enlightened days (as we call them: how our great-grandchildren will laugh at us!) is most marvellous. The following are in this parish generally approved and seriously recommended remedies for the whooping-cough, popularly called the "chin-cough": To be swung nine times under a donkey. ”

“ Bishop Pepys (of Worcester) , who was a stout old man, was walking near Hartlebury one day when the omnibus for Worcester passed, and the driver was beating the horses most unmercifully. The bishop called out to him that if he went on in that way he would have him up. The man told him to hold his noise or he would give him the same. The bishop followed the omnibus into the village and found it standing at the inn door, so he called out the landlady and asked the name of the driver. She said she did not know as he was a stranger, the regular driver being ill. ”

“ While speaking of Halston a good story may find a place concerning the gentleman who owned the property in Bishop Walsham How's time.
One of my curates, in walking down from Frankton, fell in with a man who startled him by saying what a pity it was that the owner of Halston was not a better man. On being asked what he meant, the man said that no good man would do as was being done on that property, and build cottages in pairs or close together. My curate asked why not, and the man said, "Because it is written 'Thou shalt not add house to house'" ”

“ At the same time he now and then drew out a real witticism, and more than once he notes with delight a real Irish "bull." Here are some of the stories, not all gleaned from the actual countries, but all referring to persons of these two nationalities:
An Irish clergyman, a neighbour of mine, thought it his duty to speak to a lady who had unhappily lost her faith in Christianity, and after a few arguments he ended by saying, "Well, you will go to hell, you know, and I shall be very sorry indeed to see you there." ”

“ The other incident recorded in the note-book occurred more recently, when on the Monday before Ash Wednesday the Bishop had been preaching in a London church, and a young man came to the vestry after the service to speak to him. The Bishop having asked him how he could help him, the young man laid one hand on the Bishop's knee, looked him earnestly in the face, and said in a loud impressive whisper, "To-morrow's pancake day, and the next day's salt-fish!"
DREAMS.
Few people remember dreams to the same extent as Bishop Walsham How. ”

“ A girl in Hebden Bridge came to the vicar to put up her banns of marriage. When all was done she lingered at the door and the vicar said, "Well, Mary, is there anything more?" To this she replied rather shyly, "Please, sir, will t' same spurrings do for another chap?" (Spurrings is a Yorkshire word for banns, and is really speerings or inquirings.)
At Thornhill an old woman lost her brother and went continually to talk to him at his grave. ”

“ Prizes have for several years been offered for the best essays by children on subjects set the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In 1893, in answer to the question, "What passages in Holy Scripture bear upon cruelty to animals?" one boy said, "Cruel people often cut dogs' tails and ears, but the Bible says, 'Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.'" Another boy, in reply to the question, "Why should you be kind to animals?" said, "If you are very kind to a dog he will follow you to the grave at your funeral." ”

“ The doctor wrote a very bad hand, and the clergyman read "roller" for "uvula." It happened that he had lately had a stone roller shortened that it might pass through a garden gate, so he wrote back, "Dear sir, it was done by a stonemason in the village. He cut off eighteen inches, and it is now six feet long, and answers thoroughly."
Mr. Burgon had a class of young ladies at Oxford, and had occasion to mention the Targums, when he stopped and said, "By the way, do any of you young ladies know what a Targum is?" ”

“ Vicarious begging letters are not unknown to the police of our big towns, but the scribe who could not do better than the above would have small chance of employment. A modern London begging letter is often a work of fine art. ”

“ His wife had to return ignominiously to the hotel, where she received great commiseration from the landlady. The lady was quite sure some accident had happened to her husband, and a messenger was sent to see, and when he returned the landlady came in with a very grave face, and said, "I am sorry to say, ma'am, there's been no accident. But he didn't look like a gentleman to do such a thing." Of course he returned by the next steamer.
Bishop Selwyn of Lichfield was once asked how he came to give his theological college men such an ugly hood—black and yellow like a wasp. ”