tions with the priest himself
sometimes occurred within the very walls of the church. It was the
practice to bring tithe of butter and cheese and eggs, and lay it on the
altar on Sunday. This had to be done under pain of exclusion from the
communion, and that was a penalty most grievous to material welfare. So
the Manxmen and Manxwomen were compelled to go to church much as they
went to market, with their butter- and egg-baskets over their arms. It
is a ludicrous picture, as one sees it in one's mind's eye, but what
comes after reaches the extremity of farce. Say the scene is Maughold
old church, once the temple of the saintly hermit. It is Sunday morning,
the bells are ringing, and Juan-beg-Marry-a-thruss, a rascally old
skinflint, is coming along with a basket. It contains some butter that
he could not sell at Ramsey market yesterday because it was rank, and a
few eggs which he knows to be stale and addled--the old hen has sat on
them, and they have brought forth nothing. These he places reverently on
the altar. But the parson knows Juan, and proceeds to examine his tithe.
May I take so much liberty with history, and with the desecrated old
church, as to imagine the scene which follows?

Priest, pointing contemptuously towards the altar:
"Juan-beg-Marry-a-thruss, what is this?" "Butter and eggs, so plaze your
reverence." "Pig-swill and chalk you mean, man!" "Aw 'deed if I'd known
your reverence was so morthal partic'lar the ould hen herself should
have been layin' some fresh eggs for your reverence."

"Take them away, you thief of the Church! Do you think what isn't fit
for your pig is good enough for your priest? Bring better, or never let
me look on your wizened old wicked face again."

Exit Juan-beg-Marry-a-thruss, perhaps with butter and eggs flying after
his retreating figure.

THE GAMBLING BISHOP

This is an imaginary picture, but no less outrageous things happened
whereof the records remain. A demoralised laity usually co-exists with
a demoralised clergy, and there are some bad stories of the Bishops who
preceded the Reformation. There is one story of a Bishop of that period,
who was a gross drunkard and notorious gambler. He played with his
clergy as long as they had anything to lose, and then he played with a
deemster and lost five hundred pounds himself. Poor little island, that
had two such men for its masters, the one its master in the things of
this world, the other its master in the things of the