lerk in the
Craven district, who used to give out the hymn in the accustomed form
with charming manner. He liked not itinerant choirs, which were not
uncommon forty or fifty years ago, and used to migrate from church to
church, and sometimes to chapel, in the district where the members
lived. One of these choirs visited the church where the Rev. ----
Morris was rector, and he was directed to give out the anthem which the
itinerant strangers were prepared to sing. He neither knew nor cared
what an anthem was; and he gave the following somewhat confused notice:

"Let us sing to the praise and glory of God the fiftieth Psalm, _while
you folks sing th' anthem_," casting a scornful glance at the wandering
musicians in the opposite gallery.

Missionary meetings and sermons were somewhat rare in those days, but
the special preacher for missions, commonly called the deputation, who
performs for lazy clerics the task of instructing the people about work
in the mission field--a duty which could well be performed by the vicar
himself--had already begun his itinerant course. The congregation were
waiting in the churchyard for his arrival, when the old Yorkshire vicar,
mentioned above, said to his clerk, "Jock, ye maunt let 'em into th'
church; the dippitation a'n't coom." Presently two clergymen arrived,
when the clerk called out, "Ye maunt gang hoame; t' deppitation's coom."
The old vicar made an excellent chairman, his introductory remarks being
models of brevity: "T' furst deppitation will speak!" "T' second
deppitation will speak!" after which the clerk lighted some candles in
the singing gallery, and gave out for an appropriate hymn, "Vital spark
of heavenly flame."

A writer in _Chambers's Journal_ tells of a curious class of clergymen
who existed forty years ago, and were known as "Northern Lights," the
light from a spiritual point of view being somewhat dim and flickering.
The writer, who was the vicar for twenty-five years of a moorland
parish, tells of several clerks who were associated with these clerics,
and who were as quaint and curious in their ways as their masters[83].
The village was a hamlet on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, near the
confines of Derbyshire. Beside the church was a public-house kept by the
parish clerk, Jerry, a dapper little man, who on Sundays and funeral
days always wore a wig, an old-fashioned tailed coat, black stockings,
and shoes with buckles. His house was known as "Heaven's Gate," whe