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Few people possess the gift of humour in the same degree as the late Bishop Walsham How, and his stories of the race of parish clerks and vergers must not be omitted, and are here published by permission of his son, Mr. F.D.  How, editor of Lighter Moments.

When I was a deacon, and naturally shy, I was visiting my aunts at Workington, where my grandfather had been rector, and was asked to preach on Sunday evening in St. John’s, a wretched modern church—­a plain oblong with galleries, and a pulpit like a very tall wineglass, with a very narrow little straight staircase leading up to it, in the middle of the east part of the church.  When the hymn before the sermon was given out I went as usual to the vestry to put on the black gown.  Not knowing that the clergyman generally stayed there till the end of the hymn, I emerged as soon as I had vested myself and walked to the pulpit and ascended the stairs.  When nearly at the summit, to my horror I discovered a very fat beadle in the pulpit lighting the candles.  We could not possibly pass on the stairs, and the eyes of the whole congregation were upon me.  It would be ignominious to retreat.  So after a few minutes’ reflection I saw my way out of the difficulty, which I overcame by a very simple mechanical contrivance.  I entered the pulpit, which exactly fitted the beadle and myself, and then face to face we executed a rotary movement to the extent of a semicircle, when the beadle finding himself next the door of the pulpit was enabled to descend, and I remained master of the situation.

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At Uffington, near Shrewsbury, during the incumbency of the Rev. J. Hopkins, the choir and organist, having been dissatisfied with some arrangement, determined not to take part in the service.  So when the clerk, according to the usual custom of those days, gave out the hymn, there was a dead silence.  This lasted a little while, and then the clerk, unable to bear it, rose up and appealed to the congregation, saying most imploringly, “Them as can sing do ye sing:  it’s misery to be a this’n” (Shropshire for “in this way").

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At Wolstanton, in the Potteries, there was a somewhat fussy verger called Oakes.  On one occasion, just at the time of the year when it was doubtful whether lights would be wanted or no, and when they had not yet been lighted for evening service, a stranger, who was a very smart young clergyman, was reading the lessons and had some difficulty in seeing.  He had on a pair of delicate lavender kid gloves.  The verger, perceiving his difficulty, went to the vestry, got two candles, lighted them, and walked to the lectern, before which he stood solemnly holding the candles (without candlesticks) in his hands.  This was sufficiently trying to the congregation, but suddenly some one rattled the latch of the west door, when Oakes, feeling that it was absolutely necessary to go and see what was the matter, thrust the two candles into the poor young clergyman’s delicately gloved hands, and left him!