Lighter Moments from the Notebook of Bishop Walsham How

by William Walsham How

An old woman, whom I confirmed lately in a Yorkshire parish, said to the clergyman's wife at the end of the service, "A turned sick three times, but a banged thro'."

I sent a curate to look at a church I wanted him to take charge of, and he found a choirboy in the church who told him the Bishop had been there the Sunday before. "And what did you think of him?" said the curate. The boy replied, "A thought he'd a been a bigger mon."

I have received a letter from a man complaining that, having been recommended to study "Daniel on the Book of Common Prayer," he had read the book of Daniel all through, and could find no mention of the Prayer-book in it.

Our forefathers seem to have had occasion for a curious instrument called a scratchback, which consisted of a small ivory hand screwed on to a long light handle. One of these is preserved as a curiosity at a country house in this diocese. My domestic chaplain, when he first called there, finding himself alone in the drawing-room, took up the instrument, and never having enjoyed the experience proceeded to put it down his back. At that moment the lady of the house entered, and my chaplain hastily withdrawing the machine found the handle had separated from the hand, which was left behind. He had to apologise, and ask permission to retire that he might recover the missing hand.

CONCERNING LUNATICS.

In common with most people whose names are well known, Bishop Walsham How received many letters from lunatics. He also met with a few and has recorded one or two of his experiences. One of these dates from somewhat early days, as will be seen from the reference to Dr. Christopher Wordsworth. It runs as follows:

Once when I was staying at St. John's Wood I took an early omnibus to Westminster, and as it was fine I got up outside and had for a companion a very gentlemanly looking man of military appearance. He soon began to talk about prophecy and the revelation, showing an intimate acquaintance with the Bible, and at last he asked me if I did not think the time had arrived for the Messiah to be again revealed in the flesh. I of course deprecated all attempts to fix the date of the Second Advent, but he persisted in his attempts to prove that the Messiah would again be incarnate. I saw he was full of wild notions, but I was rather startled when he asked me if I could name any one on earth who seemed to me to answer to all the requirements I should look for in the Messiah, and when I said, "Certainly not," he startled me still more by saying, "Now I should be disposed to say Dr. Christopher Wordsworth" (then Dean of Westminster) "answered most nearly, if it were not for his extraordinary hallucination with regard to the millenium." Of course by this time I saw the man was mad. However, I asked him if he could name any one more perfectly answering to his expectation. He then asked me if I understood the meaning of the Frogs in the book of Revelation, and, on my answering in the negative, he said. "I ask myself what can you predicate of frogs? Only two things, they croak and they jump. So when I hear any one clear his throat, suddenly putting his hand up to his mouth, I say to myself, 'That is the sign of the frogs. The time is come'." He then said, "You will allow, I presume, that the Messiah must appear from a mountain?" To which I of course assented, as I did to everything else now. "And that mountain must bear a name equivalent to Armageddon?" "Yes." "Do you know what Armageddon means?" "No." "It is a name of the devil." "Oh!" "Well, such a mountain exists." "Where?" "In the county of Tipperary, and at the foot of that mountain I was born." He then went on with a long rhapsody, saying, "Yes, I am the Messiah, though men won't believe it. It's a most curious fact that, while the interests of humanity centre in me, each man believes that they centre in himself. Yes, I am the scape-goat. You know that goat was sent into the wilderness by the priest. Ah! that event happened on" (here he mentioned very rapidly some date which I forget). "I was the goat: moral wilderness, you know—commission in lunacy. My brother was the priest—sent me into the wilderness, &c. &c." He was now talking very rapidly and excitedly, and I was glad our journey came to an end.

The other incident recorded in the note-book occurred more recently, when on the Monday before Ash Wednesday the Bishop had been preaching in a London church, and a young man came to the vestry after the service to speak to him. The Bishop having asked him how he could help him, the young man laid one hand on the Bishop's knee, looked him earnestly in the face, and said in a loud impressive whisper, "To-morrow's pancake day, and the next day's salt-fish!"

DREAMS.

Few people remember dreams to the same extent as Bishop Walsham How. It was a very usual thing at breakfast for him to tell some absurd dream that he had had, the remembrance of which often amused him so much as to greatly hinder its recital. In his note-book he has recorded two, one of his own, and one of Bishop Jackson's (of London).