Hopkins’ formed the main source of musical tastes.  On great occasions the choir sang an anthem, in which the key-bugles always ran away at a great pace, while the bassoon every now and then boomed a flying shot after them.”  It was all very curious, very quaint, very primitive.  The Church was asleep, and cared not to disturb the relics of old crumbling inefficiency.  The Church was asleep, the congregation slept, and the clerk often slept too.

Hogarth’s engraving of The Sleeping Congregation is a parable of the state of the Church of England in his day.  It is a striking picture truly.  The parson is delivering a long and drowsy discourse on the text:  “Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and I will give you rest.”  The congregation is certainly resting, and the pulpit bears the appropriate verse:  “I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.”  The clerk is attired in his cassock and bands, contrives to keep one eye awake during the sermon, and this wakeful eye rests upon a comely fat matron, who is fast asleep, and has evidently been meditating “on matrimony,” as her open book declares.  A sleepy church, sleepy congregation, sleepy times!

Many stories are told of dull and sleepy clerks.

A canon of a northern cathedral tells me of one such clerk, whose duty it was, when the rector finished his sermon, to say “Amen.”  On a summer afternoon, this aged official was overtaken with drowsiness, and as soon as the clergyman had given out his text, slept the sleep of the just.  Sermons in former years were remarkable for their length and many divisions.

After the “firstly” was concluded, the preacher paused.  The clerk, suddenly awaking, thought that the discourse was concluded, and pronounced his usual “Arummen.”  The congregation rose, and the service came to a close.  As the gathering dispersed, the squire slipped half a crown into the clerk’s hand, and whispered:  “Thomas, you managed that very well, and deserve a little present.  I will give you the same next time.”

[Illustration:  THE SLEEPING CONGREGATION BY HOGARTH]

At Eccleshall, near Sheffield, the clerk, named Thompson, had been, in the days of his youth, a good cricketer, and always acted as umpire for the village team.  One hot Sunday morning, the sermon being very long, old Thompson fell asleep.  His dream was of his favourite game; for when the parson finished his discourse and waited for the clerk’s “Amen,” old Thompson awoke, and, to the amazement of the congregation, shouted out “Over!” After all, he was no worse than the cricketing curate who, after reading the first lesson, announced:  “Here endeth the first innings.”

Every one has heard of that Irish clerk who used to snore so loudly during the sermon that he drowned the parson’s voice.  The old vicar, being of a good-natured as well as a somewhat humorous turn of mind, devised a plan for arousing his lethargic clerk.  He provided himself with a box of hard peas, and when the well-known snore echoed through the church, he quietly dropped one of the peas on the head of the offender, who was at once aroused to the sense of his duties, and uttered a loud “Amen.”