A woman wishing good-bye to a clergyman's wife when they were going to another parish, said to her, "We shall all miss Mr. ----'s sermons very much, for, you know, intellect is not what we want in this parish."
A certain rector, who was not a lively preacher, always closed his eyes when saying the Prayers. His curate wrote the following epigram:
I never see my rector's eyes; He hides their light divine: For, when he prays, he shuts his own, And, when he preaches, mine.
A man who had been a great drunkard was persuaded to take the pledge, and some time afterwards a lady went to see the wife, and asked her how they were getting on, to which she replied, "Oh, ma'am, we're getting on right well. He never beats me now, and never swears at me. I say he's more like a friend than a husband now."
A gentleman was invited to a Church function, and wrote and excused himself as he was going to the races, "but," he added, "I shall be with you in spirit."
An old verger whom I knew lost his wife, and a clergyman went in the evening after the funeral to condole with him. As he reached the door he heard very lively voices inside, and on opening it the first words he heard were from the old verger himself who was exclaiming, "What's trumps?" The room was full of tobacco smoke, and as soon as the verger, to his horror, saw his vicar standing at the door he said very humbly, "Oh, sir, I beg pardon; it's only a few friends as helped to put my poor wife underground."
A former Archdeacon of Gloucester had on his paper of inquiries addressed to the churchwardens this question: "Is your clergyman of sober life and conversation?" One churchwarden answered, "He is sober, but I have had no conversation with him for many years."
An enthusiastic total abstainer had a bit of blue ribbon sewn on his nightshirts, for, he said, if the house was on fire and he had to escape in his night-dress, he would like people to see that he was a member of the blue ribbon society.
A Mr. Manning was curate of my old parish of Whittington at the time the present form of marriage registers came into use, and, not understanding the heading "Condition," he filled up that column in the first entry, "Man lean, woman rather fat."