Bush! Well, there was a clergyman of that name come here four Sundays, many a year ago, when the vicar was from home; and now I come to think of it, he did catechise on the Sunday afternoon.  But he is the only man that ever did so here.  There’s been no catechising in this church, except then.”  We parted good friends after what I felt to be a most singular interview, far more interesting, I fear, to me than to any who may read this unadorned tale, and especially the many folks who probably but for this I should never have catechised.

But I hope the old clerk of Crosthwaite’s declaration will not long be true of any church of the Anglican Communion, “There’s been no catechising here.”  My success as a preacher, or catechist, or parish priest has not been great, but this does not greatly surprise me, while sorrowing that so it has been.  But I think it likely that the incident at Crosthwaite Church was a chief cause of my trying to be a catechist, and I conclude by saying to any one in holy orders, or preparing to receive them.  Make catechising an important effort in your ministry.

It was a small parish.  The vicar was a learned man, and an authority as an antiquary, and a man of high character.  On a certain Sunday morning I was detailed to perform all the “duties” of Morning Prayer.  Doubtless I was too energetic in my efforts at preaching, for my “action” proved, almost to an alarming extent, that the huge pulpit cushion had not been “dusted” for a lengthy period.  But it was at the very commencement of divine service that the clerk demonstrated his originality in the proper discharge of his duties.  “I stands up in yonder corner to ring the bells, and as soon as you be ready you gives me a kind of nod like, and then I leaves off ringing and comes to my place as clerk.”  Nothing could work better, and the clerk of B----- d and I parted at the close of divine service on very amicable terms.

Mr. F.S.  Gill, aged 86, has many recollections of old clerks and their ways.  In a parish in Nottinghamshire there was an old clerk who was nearly blind.  There were two services on Sunday in summer, and only morning service in winter.  The clerk knew the morning Psalms quite well by heart, but not so the evening Psalms.  On one occasion when his verse should have been read, he was unable to recollect it.  After a pause the clergyman began to read it, when the clerk, who occupied the box below that of the vicar, looked up, saying, “Nay, nay, master, I’ve got it now.”

Another time, when an absent-minded curate omitted the ante-Communion service and appeared in his black gown in the pulpit, the clerk was indignant, and went up to remonstrate.  Knocking at the pulpit door and no notice being taken of him, he proceeded to pull the black gown, and made the curate come down, change his robes, and complete the service in the orthodox fashion.

In another Notts church, during service, there was an encounter between two clerks.  The regular clerk having been taken ill was unequal to his duties for some weeks, and appointed a man to carry them out for him.  On the restoration to health of the real clerk he came into church to resume his duties, but found the man he had appointed occupying the box—­the so-called desk.  Whereupon they had a scuffle in the aisle.