ced a copy of _Bell's Life_ and
handed it to the clerk, who then submitted. It is not often, I imagine,
that a sporting paper has been appealed to for the purpose of deciding
what Psalms should be read in church.

One very wet Sunday Mr. Langhorne was summoned to take an afternoon
service several miles distant from his residence. The congregation
consisted of only half a dozen people. After service he said to the
clerk that it was hardly worth while coming so far. "We might have done
with a worse 'un," was his reply.

That reminds me of another clerk who apologised to a church dignitary
who had been summoned to take a service at a small country church. The
form of the apology was not quite happily expressed. He said, "I am
sorry, sir, to have brought such a gentleman as you to this poor place.
A worse would have done, if we had only known where to find him!"

The new vicar of D---- was calling upon an old parishioner, who said to
him: "Ah! I've seen mony changes. I've seen four vicars of D----. First
there was Canon G----, then there was Mr. T----, who's now a bishop, and
then Mr. F---- came, and now you've coom, and we've wossened (worsened)
every toime."

A clerk named Turner, who officiated at Alnwick, was a great character,
and in spite of his odd ways was esteemed for his genuine worth and
fidelity to the three vicars under whom he served. He looked upon the
church and parish as his own, and used to say that he had trained many
"kewrats" in their duties. His responses in the Psalms were often
startling. Instead of "The Lord setteth up the meek," he would say,
"The Lord sitteth upon the meek." "The great leviathan" he rendered "the
great live thing." "Caterpillars innumerable" he pronounced
"caterpilliars innumerabble." When a funeral was late he scolded the
bearers at the churchyard gate.

At Wimborne Minster, Dorset, there used to be three priest vicars, and
each of them had a clerk. It was the custom for each of the priest
vicars to take the services for a week in rotation, and the first lesson
was always read by "the clerk of the week," as he was called. On
Sundays, when there was a celebration of the Holy Communion, the "clerk
of the week" advanced to the lectern after the sermon was finished, and
said, "All who wish to receive the Holy Communion, draw near." These
words, in the case of one worthy, named David Butler, were always spoken
in a high-pitched, drawling voice, and finished off with a kick to the