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river. See how it draws its tribute of many waters from many a distant land, many a mountain range, and many a wide moor-land, sending their ever-growing streams to swell the noble river as it pursues its way down the valley, till all these various tributaries converging into one great volume, it pours its glorious flood into the bosom of the boundless ocean! Such, my brethren, is the race of man." Here the preacher paused, and it was quite obvious to every one that he saw that his metaphor was just the wrong way up! So he coughed and hemmed, and changed the subject.

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 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 a misery to be a this'n" (Shropshire for "in this way").

Canon B -was on a voyage to Egypt in a Cunard steamer, and on Sunday, in the Bay of Biscay, he undertook to hold a service. He read one of the sentences, and said "Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places," when he had to bolt and collapse. He told me he thought this a record service for brevity.

At St. Saviour's, Hoxton, the daily prayer is held in the south chancel aisle. The vicar, the Rev. John Oakley, having to go out, left the evening service at 8.30 to a curate, but, returning home at 8.50, thought he would step in to the west end of the church and be in time for the end of the service. When he went in, to his dismay he saw a few women kneeling in the accustomed place but no clergyman. Concluding that the curate had forgotten, he rapidly passed up the north aisle to the vestry, slipped on a plice, went across to the south side and read the service. He afterwards found that the curate had already done so, but, being in a hurry, had somewhat shortened it, and had left

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the church a minute before he (Mr. O.) arrived. The good women who always knelt some time at the close of the service thus did double duty that evening.

At Kensington parish church one of the curates asked for the prayers of the congregation for "a family crossing the Atlantic, and other sick persons."

At Wolstanton in the Potteries there was a somewhat fussy verger called Oakes. On one occasion, just at the time of 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!

A clergyman in a church in Lancashire gave out as his text, "The devil as a roaring lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour," and then added, "The Bishop of Manchester has announced his intention of visiting all the parishes in the diocese, and hopes to visit this parish on such a date."

A former young curate of Stoke being very anxious to do things rubrically, insisted on the ring being put on the "fourth finger" at a wedding he took. The woman resisted and said, "I would rather die than be married on my little finger." The curate said, "But the rubric says so," whereupon the deus ex machinâ appeared in the shape of the parish clerk, who stepped forward and said, "In these cases, sir, the thoomb counts as a digit."

The rector of Thornhill, near Dewsbury, on one occasion could not get the woman to say "obey" in the marriage service, and he repeated the word

with a strong stress on each syllable, saying, "You must say O-bey." Whereupon the man interfered and said, "Never mind: go on, parson. I'll mak' her say 'O' by-and-by."

At the church of Strathfieldsaye, where the Duke of Wellington was a regular attendant, a stranger was preaching, and the verger when he ended came up the stairs, opened the pulpit door a little way, slammed it to, and then opened it wide for the preacher to go out. He asked in the vestry why he had shut the door again while opening it, and the verger said, "We always do that, sir, to wake the duke."

Mr. Ibbetson, of St. Michael's, Walthamstow, was marrying a couple when the ring was found to be too tight. A voice from behind exclaimed, "Suck your finger, you fool."

Two or three stories about vergers naturally find a place here. Possibly some of them are well known, but, even so, they will bear repetition.

A gentleman going to see a ritualistic church in London was walking into the chancel when an official stepped forward and said, "You mustn't go in there." "Why not?" said the gentleman. "I'm put here to stop you," said the man. "Oh! I see," said the gentleman, "you're what they call the rude screen, aren't you?"

A clergyman in the diocese of Wakefield told me that when he first came to the parish he found things in a very neglected state, and among other changes he introduced an early celebration of the Holy Communion. An

old clerk collected the offertory, and when he brought it up to the clergyman he said, "There's eight on em, but two 'asn't paid."

A verger was showing a lady over a The Sunday Magazine.

church when she asked him if the vicar was a married man. "No, ma'am," he answered, "he's a chalybeate."

A verger, showing a large church to a stranger, pointed out another man and said, "That is the other verger." The gentleman said, "I did not know there were two of you," and the verger replied, "Oh yes, sir; he werges up one side of the church and I werges up the other."

Two little stories connected with Bishop Walsham How's episcopal life may well conclude the anecdotes about vergers. The bishop's dislike of ostentation was well known. He caused much amusement one occasion when living in London by frustrating the designs of a pompous verger. It had been this man's custom to meet the Bishop at the door of the Church, and precede him up the centre aisle en route for the vestry, thus making a little extra procession of his own. One day the Bishop, after handing this verger his bag, let him go on his way up the centre of the church, and himself slipped off up a side aisle, and gained the vestry unobserved, while the verger marched up in a solemn procession of one!

The other story occurs in the note-' books and runs as follows:

On my first visit to Almondbury to preach, the verger came to me in the vestry, and said, "A've put a platform in t' pulpit for ye; you'll excuse me, but a little man looks as if he was in a toob." (N.B.-To prevent undue inferences, I am five feet nine inches in height.)

TO A CITY CROCUS.

[The following lines are designed for a singer of a certain age; "cuius," in fact, "octavum trepidavit ætas claudere Justrum."]

Crocus! thou virgin flower that dost,

When wanton winds of March are out,
Upon the town's astonied crust
Habitually deign to sprout:-

Observing thee with punctual eye,
Rathe herb, amid thine elfin ring,
The minor bard is moved to cry
"Behold, the harbinger of Spring!"

They, too, the mass, whose common feet
Trail wingless through the budding park,
Find in thy beauty, frail and fleet,

A ready subject for remark.

Oblivious of her infant charge

Enthralled with ducklings on the mere,
Maria, by the flowery marge,

Invokes her absent bombardier.

The patriot, painting all the air
A lurid khaki, learns of thee
That this is not the only wear

Allowed to Nature's pageantry.

Awhile the weary philo-Boer

Forgets his bosom's urgent smart;

Right to its little-english core

Thy healing gladness haunts his heart.

For me, who close my fortieth year,
Thy petals painfully recall
Those early fancies which the seer
Alluded to in "Locksley Hall."

In Spring, said he, an ampler red
Emerges on the robin's chest;
In Spring some other bird, he said,
Procures himself a change of crest.

Just then, it seems, a braver bloom
Distinguishes the polished dove;
And adolescent cheeks resume

The intermitted blush of love.

But not for me those vernal tints

That Nature's youth contrives to don;

Rather the amorous season hints

Of yet another lustre gone.

The Saturday Review.

Owen Seaman.

V.

JOHN ENGLAND'S OUTGOING.

A DISINHERISON.

The expression of Jasper England as, standing in the doorway, he surprised his son in the act of proposing marriage to Alce Steptoe, was one of such overindignation that a girl who was not poor in spirit could not but feel cruelly outraged.

With a whitening face Alce crossed the room, and though Jasper bulked large in the doorway, and did not move to allow of her exit, she passed him.

When in the corridor she observed that John had followed her, and with an imperious gesture signified her desire that he would let her proceed on her way alone. He obeyed her sorrowfully, and she went in search of her cousin.

Some moments later Parson was speeding parting guests. As both his father and his brother were at Bucklands this thing was beyond all use, and he wore a troubled look. It was noticed by Penelope, and, as he helped her into her saddle, she contrived to say:

"There has been, I fear, a quarrel. I wish you will keep silence concerning this thing."

"Your wishing it shall make me do so, Penelope," Parson answered, handsomely, and watched the riders out of sight.

Meanwhile John and his father were trying conclusions.

"How, sir, all huff?" So Jasper England opened up conversation with his son, who, having been virtually told by Alce to return whence he came, had gone back to the parlor, and had taken up his stand at a window with an expression which the words just em

ployed by his father very accurately described.

"I believe, sir, my being all bluster," John answered, in a somewhat personal vein, "would very little mend matters."

"You are, sir, a jackanapes!" his father exclaimed. "I desire you will show me a little of that respect which brings you to your knees before young misses."

John was at no loss for an answer. "I hope, sir," he said, "I know better than in my perpendicular to ask a young lady to be my wife."

Jasper snorted. He had in his day fallen at the feet of a young lady under conditions similar to those obtaining in his son's case, and there was nothing either in the spirit or the wording of John's speech which took him aback. He snorted merely because it incensed him to reflect that this very proper sentiment was uttered in connection with Alce Steptoe.

"I wish, sir," he said, angrily, “you knew better than to ask to marry with beggary."

John, whose face contracted as from. a sharp cut, left this speech unanswered, and a silence set in. Jasper broke it.

"Is

"Hey, Jack-what!" he said. Penelope Steptoe's person so deformed that her fortune is to be despised?"

"Penelope's person is most beautiful, sir," John answered, quietly; "but my affections are not fixed on it, and never will be fixed upon a fortune."

"Then, sir, I have done with you. I disinherit you. You may go where you will for me. The world's wide."

There was a tremor in Jasper's voice which his son knew. He had quailed before it in childhood, and in manhood he knew the import of it too well to meet it with counter-comment.

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"Because, Parson, you are so worldly wise."

An eulogium in the form of an irony was a subtlety past Parson's immediate comprehension; for the rest his thoughts were occupied with his brother, and not with himself.

"This cannot be, John," he said, reverting to the disinherison. "You have angered our father, but in time he will come about."

It was characteristic of Parson that, while he had never known his father to illustrate the mental process in Georgian days called coming about, it was impossible to him to conceive of a total breaking off of relations between father and son.

"I tell you, Parson," John exclaimed, with something of impatience at this remarkable blindness in his brother, "my father has done with me, and you are heir to Bucklands."

"That, brother, I am not, and I wish you will not say I am," Parson said, with some heat; adding, as he flushed deeply, "His name is thief who takes what belongs to another, which I have never done, John, and will never do."

John's face worked. His expulsion from his home was not made easier to bear that Parson wrung his heart at going. He forced a laugh, and said:

"An' you take not Bucklands, Parson, there are others will take it." "My brothers will not," Parson protested.

"Bate George," John said, drily.

George, who, it has been seen, could take a bone from a dog, was a person to whom nothing came amiss, and who could not reasonably be expected to refuse to enter into the inheritance of his family.

Parson was silent. John smiled, and said:

"Heart, brother, I care not this fingersnap who becomes heir of Bucklands, but I am galled to be thrust from my father's home because I have too much honesty to ask one lady in marriage while my heart is engaged to another. Well, well, least said is soonest mended, and all my leave-taking shall be from you, Parson."

"How, John, you do not purpose to leave Bucklands without baggage, do you?" Parson exclaimed.

"I do so, indeed," was answered. "I have in my purse what will buy me all I need on my journey, and, at the end on't-"

He paused, brought to a standstill by the sharp distress expressed in his. brother's face.

"Come, Parson, heard you never of Yorkshiremen making their fortune in London?" he said, gaily.

He had

Parson's face brightened. certainly heard of this thing. Then he said:

"How much have you in your purse, John?"

"A hundred pound more or less, Parson," John answered, mysteriously.

Parson was not at all astute, but he rightly gauged the word "less" to express here more exactly the state of affairs than the word "more." He forthwith took his own purse from his pocket. It was, like himself, of very slim proportions. Parson was no spendthrift, but was a lavish almoner. He

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