Lighter Moments from the Notebook of Bishop Walsham How

by William Walsham How

One of my curates, in walking down from Frankton, fell in with a man who startled him by saying what a pity it was that the owner of Halston was not a better man. On being asked what he meant, the man said that no good man would do as was being done on that property, and build cottages in pairs or close together. My curate asked why not, and the man said, "Because it is written 'Thou shalt not add house to house'"; and, on my curate explaining the true meaning to him, he repudiated it entirely, and said he had no doubt the thing was condemned in the Bible because next-door neighbours always quarrel.

Here is an account of a curious interview the Rector had with a local stonemason. Probably the spread of education would make such a thing impossible to-day.

A stonemason one day brought a stone to put into the churchyard, with a verse on it in which occurred the line—

Till life's brief span be ended.

I had given no permission for this, and make a rule of refusing to allow poetical effusions upon tombstones. However, the mason had omitted the 's' after "life," so I was able to remonstrate with him, and told him that if he had sent me his epitaph beforehand I could at least have saved him from making ridiculous mistakes. He was quite incredulous, and asked me to point out the mistake. When I did so he put his head on one side, and, after contemplating the stone for some moments, said, "Now I should say, if you were to put an 's' in that line, it would come in better after 'brief.'"

Some anecdotes relating to pastoral visits occur here and there in the notebooks. The following story is interesting as illustrating the fact that it does not always do to trust to first impressions.

I was visiting on his death bed an old man in the village called John Richards, and one day found a very rough-looking fellow sitting by the head of his bed with his hands in his pockets, and his legs stretched out, so I asked him if he was the old man's son, to which he answered with a rough "Yes." I then asked him where he lived, and he answered in the same insolent tone, "Manchester." So, thinking he was not a pleasant specimen of Manchester manners, I took no further notice of him, but read and prayed with his father as if he were not there, he sitting in the same irreverent attitude all the time. Just as I was going he said abruptly, "I'll tell ye something." "Well," I said, "what is it?" "I had a mate once," he said, "down with the small-pox, uncommon bad, black as your hat. 'John,' he says to me, 'fetch me a minister.' So I went for one of these Chapel ministers, and I says to him, 'Come along o' me, I've got a mate bad.' So he came. So when we got to the house, before we went up, I says, 'You don't know what's the matter with him?' and he says, 'No, what is it?' 'Small-pox,' I said, 'as black as your hat.' And what do you think he did?" "I don't know," I said. "Why, run away!" he said, breaking into a loud laugh. I thought this was the end of the story, and that it was meant as a hit at all ministers, but he went on, "I warn't to be done that way, so next I goes for a Church minister, and I says to him, 'Come along o' me, I've got a mate bad.' And he came. Well, when we got to the foot of the stairs I says to him just like t'other one, 'You don't know what's the matter with him?' and he says, 'No, what is it?' So I says again, 'Small-pox as black as your hat.' Well, what do you think this chap did?" "Not run away, I hope," I answered. "No," he shouted in the most defiant way, "No, he walked straight up to the bedside and prayed with him just like you've done with my father." So I found that my rough and defiant friend was all the time paying me a compliment. But it was the most pugnacious bit of friendship I ever encountered.

No one who knew the Bishop and his wide-hearted sympathy would think for a moment that he told this story to contrast the ministers of various denominations. That was not the point. The fun lay in the man's manner. Might it not be fair to suggest that possibly the one minister had been vaccinated while the other was a "conscientious objector" arrived before his time? Here is another story of pastoral visitation:

A woman in a small Welsh farmhouse [Whittington is on the border of Wales] being taken very ill, a neighbour went for the clergyman, who said he would come directly. The neighbour going back to the farmhouse said they had better get out a Bible, as the parson might ask for one. The farmer thereupon told the woman she would find one, he thought, at the bottom of an old chest, "for thank goodness," he added, "we have had no occasion for them sort of books for many a long year—never since the old cow was so bad."

Talking of family Bibles, when Bishop Walsham How was Rector of Whittington he copied the following list from the entries in the family Bible of some people called Turner. The names are those of the twelve children of the family: