SLEEPY CHURCH AND SLEEPY CLERKS
There was a time when the Church of England seemed to be asleep. Perhaps it may have been that "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," was only preparing her exhausted energies for the unwonted activities of the last half-century; or was it the sleep that presaged death? Her enemies told her so in plain and unvarnished language. Her friends, too, said that she was folding her robes to die with what dignity she could. Lethargy, sloth, sleep--a dead, dull, dreary sleep--fell like a leaden pall upon her spiritual life, darkening the light that shone but vaguely through the storied panes of her mediæval windows, while a paralysing numbness crippled her limbs and quenched her activity.
Such scenes as Archbishop Benson describes as his early recollection of Upton, near Droitwich, were not uncommon. The church was aisleless, and the middle passage, with high pews on each side, led up to the chancel-arch, in which was a "three-decker," fifteen feet high. The clerk wore a wig and immense horn spectacles. He was a shoemaker, dressed in black, with a white tie. In the gallery sat "the music"--a clarionet, flute, violin, and 'cello. The clerk gave out the "Twentieth Psalm of David," and the fiddlers tuned for a moment and then played at once. Then they struck up, and the clerk, absolutely alone, in a majestic voice which swayed up and down without regard to time or tune, sang it through like the braying of an ass; not a soul else joined in; the farmers amused and smiling at each other. Such scenes were quite usual.
In Cornwall affairs were worse. In one church the curate-in-charge had to be chained to the altar rails while he read the service, as he had a harmless mania, which made him suddenly flee from the church if his own activities were for an instant suspended, as, for example, by a response. The churchwarden, a farmer, kept the padlock-key in his pocket till the service was safely over, and then released the imprisoned cleric. At another Cornish church the vicar's sister used to read the lessons in a deep bass voice.
Congregations were often very sparse. Few people attended, and perhaps none on weekdays, unless the clerk was in his place. On such occasions the parson was tempted to emulate the humour of Dean Swift, who at the first weekday service that he held after his appointment to the living of Laracor, in the diocese of Meath, after waiting for some time in vain for a congregation, began the service, addressing his clerk, "Dearly beloved Roger, the scripture moveth you and me in sundry places," etc.
When the Psalms were read, you heard the first verse read in a mellifluous and cultured voice. Perhaps it was the evening of the twenty-eighth day of the month, and you listened to the sacred words of Psalm cxxxvii., "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Sion." Then followed a bellow from a raucous throat: "Has fur ur 'arp, we 'anged 'em hup hupon the trees that hare thurin." And then at the end of the Lord's Prayer, after every one had finished, the same voice came drowsily cantering in: "For hever and hever, Haymen." Sometimes we heard, "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God the 'undred and sixtieth Psalm--'Ymn 'ooever." The numbers of the hymns or Psalms were scored on the two sides of a slate. Sometimes the functionary in the gallery forgot to turn the slate after the first hymn. "Let us sing," began the clerk--(pause)--"Turn the slate, will you, if you please, Master Scroomes?" he continued, addressing the neglectful person.
The singing was no mechanical affair of official routine--it was a drama. "As the moment of psalmody approached a slate appeared in front of the gallery, advertising in bold characters the Psalm about to be sung. The clerk gave out the Psalm, and then migrated to the gallery, where in company with a bassoon and two key-bugles, a carpenter understood to have an amazing power of singing 'counter,' and two lesser musical stars, formed the choir. Hymns were not known. The New Version was regarded with melancholy tolerance. 'Sternhold and Hopkins' formed the main source of musical tastes. On great occasions the choir sang an anthem, in which the key-bugles always ran away at a great pace, while the bassoon every now and then boomed a flying shot after them." It was all very curious, very quaint, very primitive. The Church was asleep, and cared not to disturb the relics of old crumbling inefficiency. The Church was asleep, the congregation slept, and the clerk often slept too.
Hogarth's engraving of The Sleeping Congregation is a parable of the state of the Church of England in his day. It is a striking picture truly. The parson is delivering a long and drowsy discourse on the text: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and I will give you rest." The congregation is certainly resting, and the pulpit bears the appropriate verse: "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." The clerk is attired in his cassock and bands, contrives to keep one eye awake during the sermon, and this wakeful eye rests upon a comely fat matron, who is fast asleep, and has evidently been meditating "on matrimony," as her open book declares. A sleepy church, sleepy congregation, sleepy times!
Many stories are told of dull and sleepy clerks.
A canon of a northern cathedral tells me of one such clerk, whose duty it was, when the rector finished his sermon, to say "Amen." On a summer afternoon, this aged official was overtaken with drowsiness, and as soon as the clergyman had given out his text, slept the sleep of the just. Sermons in former years were remarkable for their length and many divisions.
After the "firstly" was concluded, the preacher paused. The clerk, suddenly awaking, thought that the discourse was concluded, and pronounced his usual "Arummen." The congregation rose, and the service came to a close. As the gathering dispersed, the squire slipped half a crown into the clerk's hand, and whispered: "Thomas, you managed that very well, and deserve a little present. I will give you the same next time."
At Eccleshall, near Sheffield, the clerk, named Thompson, had been, in the days of his youth, a good cricketer, and always acted as umpire for the village team. One hot Sunday morning, the sermon being very long, old Thompson fell asleep. His dream was of his favourite game; for when the parson finished his discourse and waited for the clerk's "Amen," old Thompson awoke, and, to the amazement of the congregation, shouted out "Over!" After all, he was no worse than the cricketing curate who, after reading the first lesson, announced: "Here endeth the first innings."
Every one has heard of that Irish clerk who used to snore so loudly during the sermon that he drowned the parson's voice. The old vicar, being of a good-natured as well as a somewhat humorous turn of mind, devised a plan for arousing his lethargic clerk. He provided himself with a box of hard peas, and when the well-known snore echoed through the church, he quietly dropped one of the peas on the head of the offender, who was at once aroused to the sense of his duties, and uttered a loud "Amen."
This plan acted admirably for a time, but unfortunately the parson was one day carried away by his eloquence, gesticulated wildly, and dropped the whole box of peas on the head of the unfortunate clerk. The result was such a strenuous chorus of "Amens," that the laughter of the congregation could not be restrained, and the peas were abolished and consigned to the limbo of impractical inventions. Possibly the story may be an invention too.
One of the causes which tended to the unpopularity of the Church was the accession of George IV to the throne of England. "Church and King" were so closely connected in the mind of the people that the sins of the monarch were visited on the former, and deemed to have brought some discredit on it. Moreover, the King by his first act placed the loyal members of the Church in some difficulty, and that was the order to expunge the name of the ill-used, if erring, Queen Caroline from the Prayers for the Royal Family in the Book of Common Prayer.
One good clergyman, Dr. Parr, vicar of Hatton, placed an interesting record in his Prayer Book after the required erasure: "It is my duty as a subject and as an ecclesiastic to read what is prescribed by my Sovereign as head of the Church, but it is not my duty to express my approbation." The sympathy of the people was with the injured Queen, and they knew not how much the clergy agreed with them. During the trial popular excitement ran high. In a Berkshire village the parish clerk "improved the occasion" by giving out in church "the first, fourth, eleventh, and twelfth verses of the thirty-fifth Psalm" in Tate and Brady's New Version:
"False witnesses with forged complaints
Against my truth combined,
And to my charge such things they laid
As I had ne'er designed."
These words he sang most lustily.
Cowper mentions a similar application of psalmody to political affairs in his Task:
"So in the chapel of old Ely House
When wandering Charles who meant to be the third,
Had fled from William, and the news was fresh,
The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce,
And eke did rear right merrily, two staves
Sung to the praise and glory of King George."
It was not an unusual thing for a parish clerk to select a psalm suited to the occasion when any special excitement gave him an opportunity. Branston, the satirist, in his Art of Politicks published in 1729, alluded to this misapplication of psalmody occasionally made by parish clerks in the lines:
"Not long since parish clerks with saucy airs
Apply'd King David's psalms to State affairs."
In order to avoid this unfortunate habit, a country rector in Devonshire compiled in 1725 "Twenty-six Psalms of Thanksgiving, Praise, Love, and Glory, for the use of a parish church, with the omission of all the imprecatory psalms, lest a parish clerk or any other should be whetting his spleen, or obliging his spite, when he should be entertaining his devotion."
Sometimes the clerks ventured to apply the verses of the Psalms to their own private needs and requirements, so as to convey gentle hints and suggestions to the ears of those who could supply their needs. Canon Ridgeway tells of the old clerk of the Church of King Charles the Martyr at Tunbridge Wells. His name was Jenner. He was a well-known character; he used to have a pipe and pitch the tune, and also select the hymns. It was commonly said that the congregation always knew when the lodgings in his house on Mount Sion were unlet; for when this was the case he was wont to give out the Psalm:
"Mount Sion is a pleasant place to dwell."
At Great Yarmouth, until about the year 1850, the parish clerk was always invited to the banquets or "feasts" given by the corporation of the borough; and he was honoured annually with a card of invitation to the "mayor's feast" on Michaelmas Day. On one occasion the mayor-elect had omitted to send a card to the clerk, Mr. David Absolon, who was clerk from 1811 to 1831, and had been a member of the corporation and common councillor previous to his appointment to his ecclesiastical office. On the following Sunday, Master David Absolon reminded his worship of his remissness by giving out the following verse, directing his voice at the same time to the mayor-elect:
Let David his accustomed place
In thy remembrance find."
The words in Tate and Brady's metrical version of Psalm cxxxii. run thus:
"Let David, Lord, a constant place
In Thy remembrance find [73]."
[73] History of St. Nicholas' Church, Great Yarmouth, by the present Clerk, Mr. Edward J. Lupson, p. 24.
In the same town great excitement used to attend the election of the mayor on 29 August in each year. Before the election the corporation attended service in the parish church, and the clerk on these occasions gave out for singing "the first two staves of the fifteenth Psalm:
"Lord, who's the happy man," etc.
The passing of the Municipal Act changed the manner and time of the election, but it did not take away the interest felt in the event. As long as Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms was used in the church, that is until the year 1840, these "two staves" were annually sung on the Sunday preceding the election [74].
[74] Ibid., p. 23.
In these days of reverent worship it seems hardly possible that the beautiful expressions in the psalms of praise to Almighty God should ever have been prostituted to the baser purposes of private gain or municipal elections.
Sleepy times and sleepy clerks--and yet these were not always sleepy; in fact, far too lively, riotous, and unruly. At least, so the poor rector of Hayes found them in the middle of the eighteenth century. Such conduct in church is scarcely credible as that which was witnessed in this not very remote parish church in not very remote times. The registers of the parish of Hayes tell the story in plain language. On 18 March, 1749, "the clerk gave out the 100th Psalm, and the singers immediately opposed him, and sung the 15th, and bred a disturbance. The clerk then ceased." Poor man, what else could he have done, with a company of brawling, bawling singers shouting at him from the gallery! On another occasion affairs were worse, the ringers and others disturbing the service, from the beginning of the service to the end of the sermon, by ringing the bells and going into the gallery to spit below. On another occasion a fellow came into church with a pot of beer and a pipe, and remained smoking in his pew until the end of the sermon [75]. O tempora! O mores! as some disconsolate clergymen wrote in their registers when the depravity of the times was worse than usual. The slumbering congregation of Hogarth's picture would have been a comfort to the distracted parson.
[75] Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 65. Quoted in Social Life as told by Parish Registers, p. 54.
To prevent people from sleeping during the long sermons a special officer was appointed, in order to banish slumber when the parson was long in preaching. This official was called a sluggard-waker, and was usually our old friend the parish clerk with a new title. Several persons, perhaps reflecting in their last moments on all the good advice which they had missed through slumbering during sermon time, have bequeathed money for the support of an officer who should perambulate the church, and call to attention any one who, through sleep, was missing the preacher's timely admonition. Richard Dovey, of Farmcote, in 1659 left property at Claverley, Shropshire, with the condition that eight shillings should be paid to, and a room provided for, a poor man, who should undertake to awaken sleepers, and to whip out dogs from the church of Claverley during divine service [76].
[76] Old English Customs and Curious Bequests, S.H. Edwards (1842), p. 220.
John Rudge, of Trysull, Staffordshire, left a like bequest to a poor man to go about the parish church of Trysull during sermon to keep people awake, and to keep dogs out of church [77]. Ten shillings a year is paid by a tenant of Sir John Bridges, at Chislett, Kent, as a charge on lands called Dog-whipper's Marsh, to a person for keeping order in the church during service [78], and from time immemorial an acre of land at Peterchurch, Herefordshire, was appropriated to the use of a person for keeping dogs out of church, such person being appointed by the minister and churchwardens.
[77] Ibid., p. 221.
[78] Ibid., p. 222.
Mr. W. Andrews, Librarian of the Hull Institute, has collected in his Curiosities of the Church much information concerning sluggard-wakers and dog-whippers. The clerk in one church used a long staff, at one end of which was a fox's brush for gently arousing a somnolent female, while at the other end was a knob for a more forcible awakening of a male sleeper. The Dunchurch sluggard-waker used a stout wand with a fork at the end of it. During the sermon he stepped stealthily up and down the nave and aisles and into the gallery marking down his prey. And no one resented his forcible awakenings.
The sluggard-waker and dog-whipper appear in many old churchwardens' account-books. Thus in the accounts of Barton-on-Humber there is an entry for the year 1740: "Paid Brocklebank for waking sleepers 2 s. 0." At Castleton the officer in 1722 received 10 s. 0 [79]. The clerk in his capacity of dog-whipper had often arduous duties to perform in the old dale churches of Yorkshire when farmers and shepherds frequently brought their dogs to church. The animals usually lay very quietly beneath their masters' seat, but occasionally there would be a scrimmage and fight, and the clerk's staff was called into play to beat the dogs and produce order.
[79] The reader will find numerous entries relating to this subject in the work of Mr. W. Andrews to which I have referred.
Why dogs should have been ruthlessly and relentlessly whipped out of churches I can scarcely tell. The Highland shepherd's dog usually lies contentedly under his master's seat during a long service, and even an archbishop's collie, named Watch, used to be very still and well-behaved during the daily service, only once being roused to attention and a stately progress to the lectern by the sound of his master's voice reading the verse "I say unto all, Watch." But our ancestors made war against dogs entering churches. In mediæval and Elizabethan times such does not seem to have been the case, as one of the duties of the clerks in those days was to make the church clean from the "shomeryng of dogs." The nave of the church was often used for secular purposes, and dogs followed their masters. Mastiffs were sometimes let loose in the church to guard the treasures, and I believe that I am right in stating that chancel rails owe their origin to the presence of dogs in churches, and were erected to prevent them from entering the sanctuary. Old Scarlett bears a dog-whip as a badge of his office, and the numerous bequests to dog-whippers show the importance of the office.
Nor were dogs the only creatures who were accustomed to receive chastisement in church. The clerk was usually armed with a cane or rod, and woe betide the luckless child who talked or misbehaved himself during service. Frequently during the course of a long sermon the sound of a cane (the Tottenham clerk had a split cane which made no little noise when used vigorously) striking a boy's back was heard and startled a sleepy congregation. It was all quite usual. No one objected, or thought anything about it, and the sermon proceeded as if nothing had happened. Paul Wootton, clerk at Bromham, Wilts, seventy years ago performed various duties during the service, taking his part in the gallery among the performers as bass, flute serpent, an instrument unknown now, etc., pronouncing his Amen ore rotundo and during the sermon armed with a long stick sitting among the children to preserve order. If any one of the small creatures felt that opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum, the long stick fell with unerring whack upon the urchin's head. When Mr. Stracey Clitherow went to his first curacy at Skeyton, Norfolk, in 1845, he found the clerk sweeping the whole chancel clear of snow which had fallen through the roof. The font was of wood painted orange and red. The singers sat within the altar rails with a desk for their books inside the rails. There was a famous old clerk, named Bird, who died only a year or two ago, aged ninety, and, as Mr. Clitherow informed Bishop Stanley, was the best man in the parish, and was well worthy of that character.
Even in London churches unfortunate events happened, and somnolent clerks were not confined to the country. A correspondent remembers that in 1860, when St. Martin's-in-the-Fields was closed for the purpose of redecorating, his family migrated to St. Matthew's Chapel, Spring Gardens (recently demolished), where one hot Sunday evening one of the curates of St. Martin's was preaching, and in the course of his sermon said that it was the duty of the laity to pray that God would "endue His ministers with righteousness." The clerk was at the moment sound asleep, but suddenly aroused by the familiar words, which acted like a bugle call to a slumbering soldier, he at once slid down on the hassock at his feet and uttered the response "And make Thy chosen people joyful." My informant remarks that the "chosen people" who were present became "joyful" to an unseemly degree, in spite of strenuous efforts to restrain their feelings.
Sometimes the clerk was not the only sleeper. A tenor soloist of Wednesbury Old Church eighty years ago used to tell the story of the vicar of Wednesbury, who one very sultry afternoon retired into the vestry, which was under the western tower, to don his black gown while a hymn was being sung by the expectant congregation. The hymn having been sung through, and the preacher not having returned to ascend the pulpit, the clerk gave out the last verse again. Still no parson. Then he started the hymn, directing it to be sung all through again; but still the vicar returned not. At last in desperation he gave out that they "would now sing," etc. etc., the 119th Psalm. Mercifully before they had all sunk back into their seats exhausted the long-lost parson made his hurried reappearance. The poor old gentleman had dropped into an arm-chair in the vestry, and overcome by the heat had fallen soundly asleep. As to the clerk, he could not leave his seat to go in search of him; there was no precedent for both vicar and clerk to be away from the three-decker before the service was brought to a close.
The old clerk is usually intensely loyal to the Church and to his clergyman, but there have been some exceptions. An example of a disloyal clerk comes from the neighbourhood of Barnstaple.
A parish clerk, apparently religious and venerable, held his position in a village church in that district for thirty years. He carried out his duties with regularity and thoroughness equalled only by the parish priest. This old clerk would frequently make remarks--not altogether pleasing--about Nonconformists, whom he summed up as a lot of "mithudy nüzenses" (methodist nuisances).
A new rector came and brought with him new ideas. The parish clerk would not be required for the future. As soon as the old clerk heard this he attached himself to a local dissenting body and joined with them to worship in their small chapel. This, after thirty years' service in the Church and a bitter feeling against Nonconformists, is rather remarkable.
In the forties there was a sleepy clerk at Hampstead, a very portly man, who did ample justice to his bright red waistcoat and brass buttons. The church had a model old-time three-decker. The lower deck was occupied by the clerk, the upper deck by the reader, and the quarter-deck by the preacher. The clerk, during the sermon, would often fall asleep and make known his state by a snore. Then the reader would tap his bald head with a hymn-book, whereupon he would wake up and startle the congregation by a loud and prolonged "Ah-men."
We are accustomed now to have our churches beautifully decorated with flowers and fruits and holly and evergreens at the great festivals and harvest thanksgiving services. Sometimes on the latter occasions our decorations are perhaps a little too elaborate, and remind one of a horticultural show. No such charge could be brought against the old-fashioned method of church decoration. Christmas was the only season when it was attempted, and sprigs of holly stuck at the corners of the old square pews in little holes made for the purpose were always deemed sufficient. This was always the duty of the clerk. Later on, when a country church was found to be elaborately decorated for Christmas and the clerk was questioned on the subject, he replied, shaking his head, "Ah! we're getting a little High Church now." At Langport, Somerset, the pews were similarly adorned on Palm Sunday with sprigs of the catkins from willow trees to represent palms.
I have already mentioned some instances of clerks who were sometimes elated by the dignity of the office and full of conceit. Wesley enjoyed the experience of having a conceited clerk at Epworth, who not only was proud of his singing and other accomplishments, but also of his personal appearance. He delighted to wear Wesley's old clerical clothes and especially his wig, which was much too big for the insignificant clerk's head. John Wesley must have had a sense of humour, though perhaps it might have been exhibited in a more appropriate place. However, he was determined to humble his conceited clerk, and said to him one Sunday morning, "John, I shall preach on a particular subject this morning, and shall choose my own psalm, of which I will give out the first line, and you will proceed and repeat the next as usual." When the time for psalmody arrived Wesley gave out, "Like to an owl in ivy bush," and the clerk immediately responded, "That rueful thing am I." 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. Casting a shrewd glance around, he perceived just below him, well within reach, one of his parishioners who was wearing a large pair of what in rustic circles are termed "barnacles" tied behind his head. Stretching down, the parson plucked them from the astonished owner's brow, and, fitting them on his clerical nose, proceeded to deliver his discourse. Thenceforward the clerk, doubtless fearing for his own glasses, never failed to carry to church a second pair wherewith to supply, if need be, his coadjutor's shortcomings.
Another and final story of sleepy manners comes to us from the north country. 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."