A Dream of Red Tape.—A clergyman is often rather beset with forms to fill up. Probably in consequence of this I dreamt one night that I was walking through a street with a lady, and, it having been raining, there were many puddles. I stopped and said I had got some new forms in my pocket which would be most useful. I then pulled out a large roll of forms, printed as follows: "Madam, allow me to have the honour of assisting you to——over this——." There was a line below for a signature. I explained that you had only to fill up the first space with "step" or "jump," and the second with "puddle" or "pool," according to size, sign your name at the bottom and the thing was done.
This is a comparatively recent entry in the note-book, but the dream occurred many years ago. Those who remember the Bishop telling it in old days will not have forgotten that he used to say that he dreamt it after spending a long day signing his name at the Oswestry Savings' Bank of which he was a trustee.
Bishop Jackson's dream was as follows:
The Bishop of London, at the time of one of the great gatherings of Sunday school children in St. Paul's Cathedral, dreamt that he was there, and heard them singing a hymn, one verse of which was as follows:
To our Churchwardens we will tell The wonders of this day, And eke to them will take the bill Of what they have to pay.
YORKSHIRE STORIES.
A Yorkshire clergyman the other day, visiting a poor man who had just lost his little boy, endeavoured to console him. The poor man burst into tears, and in the midst of his sobs exclaimed: "If 'twarna agin t' law a should ha' liked to have t' little beggar stoofed."
A leading layman in the Wakefield diocese went to see a poor old woman whose husband had just died after a long illness. In talking of him she remarked, "Eh, but John's tabernacle tuk a deal o' riving to bits."
The Vicar of Sowerby Bridge met with a woman in his parish who said she could not agree with the Church. On being pressed for particulars she said she could not hold with renouncing the devil and all his works.
The Vicar of one of the large towns in the diocese of Wakefield was having a pipe in his kitchen late at night when, about 11 P.M., there was a knock at the door, and when he opened it he found two Salvation lassies who said they had called to see if he would give them something for their work. He said he was sorry he could not do so, though he wished them well, and he asked if they found much drunkenness in that town. "Yes," said one of them, "and also of its twin child of the devil, smoking."