nd do other
parochial work insisted on doing so within the chancel rails, using the
holy table as the writing-desk, and the assigned reason for so doing was
that, being apt to quarrel and dispute over parish matters, there would
be no danger _at such a place_ as this of using profane language. All in
the diocese of Oxford.

It was in the twenties that I must have seen old P.W. (the parish clerk)
and two other men in the desk singing to "Hanover," with a certain
apparent self-complacency in nice smock-frocks, "My soul, praise the
Lord, speak good of His Name," etc. The little congregation listened
with seeming contentment, and it is worth recording that the parson
always preached in the surplice. I suppose Pusey was a boy at that time,
but the custom in this church was not a novelty, whether right or wrong.

It was not the clerk's fault that the hour of service was hastened by
some seventy minutes one afternoon, so that one or two invariably late
worshippers were astounded to be driven backwards from the church by the
congregation returning from service. But so it was. The really
well-meaning kind-hearted parson was withal a keen sportsman and a
worthy gentleman, and with his "long dogs" and man was on his horse and
away for Illsley Downs race course to come off next day, and his dogs
(they won) must not be fatigued. Old P.W., the clerk, reached a good
age, an inoffensive man.

I was rather interested when residing in my parish in grand old
Yorkshire to observe two steady-looking and rather elderly men, each
aided by a strong walking-stick, coming to church with praiseworthy
regularity and reverence. I found, on making their acquaintance, that
they were brothers who had recently come into the parish, natives of
"the Peak," or of the locality near the Peak, which was not many miles
distant from my parish.

Since I heard from their lips the story which I am about to relate, I
have heard it told, _mutatis mutandis_, as happening in sundry other
parishes, until one rather doubts the genuineness of the record at all.
But as they recounted it it ran as follows, and I am sure they believed
what they told me.

Some malicious person or persons unknown entered the church, and having
seized the rather large typed Prayer Book used by the clerk, who was
somewhat advanced in years, they observed that the words "the righteous
shall flourish like" were the last words at the bottom of the page,
whereupon they altered the next words