[1166] John Wesley (Works, x. 445), records an amusing reminiscence of his boyhood: 'One Sunday, immediately after sermon, my father's clerk said with an audible voice: "Let us sing to the praise, &c., an hymn of my own composing:
King William is come home, come home!
King William home is come!
Therefore let us together sing
The hymn that's called Te D'um."'
[1167] Singing the first line, in order to put the congregation in tune.—Spectator, No. 284. 'The clerk ordered to sing a Psalm, and so keep the congregation together, while Mr. Claxton was away.'—Thoresby's Diary, April 4, 1713.
[1168] Bishop Gibson specially directed the clergy to instruct their clerks to do this. Charge of 1721, Gibson's Charges, 1744, 18.
[1169] Secker's Charges, 65. At St. Lawrence Pountney, the candidates for the office had to 'take the desk' on trial on successive Sundays.—H.B. Wilson, Hist. of St. Lawr. P., 160.
[1170] Somers Tracts, xii. 161. The Scourge, p. 123.
[1171] Paterson's Pietas Lond., passim.
[1172] Brokesby's Life of Dodwell, 359, 369.
[1173] A Discourse concerning the Rise, &c., of Cathedral Worship, 1699.
[1174] V.R. Charlesworth's Life of Rowland Hill, 156.