Lighter Moments from the Notebook of Bishop Walsham How

by William Walsham How

An Act of Parliament against making false entries in registers, or mutilating them, is bound up with many Registers. The penalty is transportation for ten years. Towards the end of the Act is a short clause (with the word "penalties" in the margin) saying, "Half the penalties under this Act are to go to the informer, and the other half to the poor of the parish."

At a charity sermon a certain nobleman was in a seat with a rich man whom he did not know, but who knew him, the nobleman being furthest from the door. At the close of the sermon the nobleman took out a shilling and placed it on the book-board. The rich parvenu was very indignant, and as a rebuke took out a sovereign and placed it on the book-board. The nobleman looked for a moment and then quietly put down another shilling, the other putting down at once a second sovereign. And so they went on till the nobleman had five shillings and the other five pounds before him. When the alms-bag came the rich man ostentatiously put the five sovereigns in. The nobleman put one shilling into the bag, and the other four into his pocket.

Some Americans managed to get an interview with Mr. Keble at Hursley. He walked with them through the garden, when one of them picked a branch of a climbing rose, and said, "Now, if you will have the goodness to hand that to me I can get five dollars for it in New York."

The vicar of an East London parish was one of the first London clergymen to grow his beard. The then Bishop of London wished to stop the practice, and, as he was going to confirm in that church, sent his chaplain to the vicar to ask him to shave it off, saying he should otherwise select another church for the Confirmation. The vicar replied that he was quite willing to take his candidates to another church, and would give out next Sunday the reason for the change. Of course, the bishop retracted.

The old Mitre Hymn-book had in it a hymn describing the just man, and, among the noble Christian graces ascribed to him, is the following couplet:

And what his charity impairs He saves by prudence in affairs.

A Professional View of a Church Congress.—At the Bath Church Congress a friend of mine went to have his hair cut, and, finding that the barber had been to a session of the Congress the evening before, he asked him what he thought of it. He replied, "I was greatly struck, sir, with the number of bald heads."

A clergyman travelling in the North of England got into conversation with a fellow traveller, and told him about St. Cuthbert, and then was beginning to tell him about the Venerable Bede, when the other remarked, "I think, sir, you are mistaken. You will find that Cuthbert and Bede were the same person." He was doubtless thinking of "Cuthbert Bede," the nom de plume of Edward Bradley, the author of "Mr. Verdant Green."

Jowett of Balliol was once asked by a friend if he thought a really good man could be happy on the rack. He said, "Perhaps, if he were a very good man, and it was a very bad rack."

One of the speakers at the meeting of the Catholic Truth Society at Bristol (Sept. 1895) told a story of a pious Catholic visiting Westminster Abbey, and kneeling in a quiet corner for private devotion, when he was summoned in stentorian tones to come and view the royal tombs and chapels. "But I have seen them," said the stranger, "and I only wish to say my prayers." "Prayers is over," said the verger. "Still, I suppose," said the stranger, "there can be no objection to my saying my prayers quietly here?" "No objection, sir!" said the irate verger. "Why, it would be an insult to the Dean and Chapter."