“Oh, you are hypercritical!” cried the lady. “Some latitude should be allowed to clergymen. He only made use of one of the figures of speech of the pulpit.”
It is recorded of the same estimable charpson—if a parson who also discharges the duties of a squire has been called a squarson, may not one who goes out like a charwoman by the day be called a charpson?—that upon one occasion he was asked to do duty for an absent clergyman at a village in Hampshire, but the contract was for the morning service only. When he was disrobing in the vestry after preaching the ser mon, a couple of churchwardens approached him on the subject of the evening service also. He said that he would be very pleased indeed to take the evening service, but of course he should have to receive another guinea. The churchwardens demurred. They said they thought that, as he was on the spot——
He shook his head.
“I cannot see that that has anything to do with the case,” said the clergyman. “One service and sermon, one guinea; two services and two sermons, two guineas.”
The officials agreed that the article was marked in plain figures; but still they thought—— Well, would he consent to take the evening service for another half-guinea?
After thinking over the proposal, the clergyman consented to do so; and then one of the wardens suggested that perhaps Mr. Gilliman would not mind saying just a few words—not a sermon—not a regular sermon, of course, but just a few words—to the congregation after the evening service.
After some further thought Mr. Gilliman said he would have no objection to say a few words in this way, and the wardens thanked him and handed him a sovereign, a half-sovereign, a shilling, and a sixpence. They went so far as to pay him for the evening in advance, to show that they had unlimited confidence in him.
On his part he resolved to prove to them that their confidence in him was not misplaced; so, after reading the evening service, he came to the front of the altar-rails and said—
“Dear brethren, I have been asked to say a few words to you at this time instead of preaching the customary sermon. What I wish to say to each and every one of you whom I see assembled before me—and what I think it is the intention of your churchwardens that I should communicate to you—is that there will be no sermon in this church to-night. Let us sing, to the praise and glory of God, the ninety-second Hymn.”
He easily caught the late train to London, though the evening service in respect of trains is much more irregular than that at which he had presided in the church.