A further selection of stories about Church in days gone by.
Announcements in Church
In
old times all notices which we now read for ourselves on our Church doors were
read to the congregation in Church by the parish Clerk, and many curious
mistakes would be made from time to time.
On one occasion the Clerk read of a “rat, mad and singed by the
inhabitants”, instead of a “rate, made and signed”.
Another
Clerk gave out that there would be no service that afternoon as the minister
was going ‘fishing’ in another parish.
(This of course should have read “officiating”. Ed.).
Singing in Church
The
story used to be told of the Revd. Arthur Job Wallace [brother of Revd. Tom
Wallace] of Braxted [Essex] that on one occasion he was more than usually
disgusted with the vocal efforts of his congregation at the first hymn of an
evening service at his Church, and that, when the Clerk got up to give out the
second hymn according to custom, he met the invitation to harmony with this
abrupt dismissal of it: “No, let us pray”.
Hadleigh Church Choir
The
organist of Hadleigh [Suffolk] – and a capital musician – when asked of the
family how his choir was progressing, replied with a sigh, “Some are beginning
to sound A, and some are beginning to grumble B”.
The Week Ahead
Dr
[Job] Wallace [D.D., Rector of Messing] seems to have been the pattern of a
country gentleman of his day. After the
manner of those times [Dr Wallace died in 1793], his churchwarden would meet
him immediately after Divine Service on Sunday to arrange where and at what
hours the harriers should meet during the week.
No comments:
Post a Comment