first three days, and gave us a tolerably coherent account of what was going to happen on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. But here his patience seemed exhausted, or his presence of mind gone, for he went on to astonish his congregation by announcing in stentorian tones, and on Thursday next, being Good Friday, there will be Divine Service,' &c. When we got into the vestry I said to him, 'I declare I believe you will give out some day, on the first Sunday in the middle of the week, there will,' &c. But he did not take it well. So I collapsed.

I do not personally remember anything comical happening to me when reading the churching service; but we have probably all of us heard of the parish clerk who was so much shocked at hearing the curate describe the titled wife of the great man of the parish as this woman.' He knew his manners better, and promptly replied, 'who putteth her ladyship's trust in Thee.' My fellow-curate at a London church, where a fee of eighteen pence was charged for the use of the churching service, once told me that a poor woman hearing of the charge, and alluding to the brevity of the service, replied, 'What! Eighteenpence for that bit. It's an imposition. Read some more?'

The following is an exact transcript of a paper still in my possession, which was sent into the vestry one Sunday afternoon : Miss Patching, wife John Patching, to be church and cursing baby.'

I once, on coming into the charge of a large town district which had been for some time previously somewhat neglected, discovered that there were a very large number of children unbaptised. I accordingly determined on holding a great public baptism service, and invited the people to bring their children on a week-day evening in their working clothes. More than a hundred babies were brought in response to this invitation. On seeing so large a number of parents and god-parents assembled, I at once came to the conclusion that the opportunity was far too good to be lost, and I therefore ascended the pulpit stairs with the view of instructing them in the meaning of the Holy Sacrament which was about to be administered, and what duties devolved upon them in connection therewith. But I reckoned entirely without my host. The babies were determined to have their say on that subject, and I had no sooner commenced my remarks than I was surrounded by a perfect Lamb Fair.' I at once saw the necessity of giving up the unequal conflict. I sur

rendered at discretion, and beat a hasty and undignified retreat. That was not the only occasion on which I was in some danger of being worsted by a baby. One of about two years old was once brought to me to be baptised. It had its own ideas on the subject, and when I picked it up for the purpose of performing the ceremony it plunged its little hand into my beard and whiskers, and gave them such a thorough good and unmistakable pull, that I was in great danger of calling out with the pain. Another baby was just old enough to run, and run very quickly too. When I came near it, off it went, and, had it not tumbled over a footstool, and thus fallen ignominiously into the hands of its enemies, and been brought back, I think there is some room for doubt whether it would have been christened on that day. The recollection of that scene in the little country church reminds me of a lusty ejaculation I once made in the same place-fortunately quite a clerical one-just before I commenced my sermon, which must at the time have greatly surprised my rustic audience. The fact was, the floods were out, and, as I had to ride through some of the water on horseback, I deemed it only a prudent precaution to affix to my heels a pair of sharp spurs. I forgot to take them off when I put on my surplice, and when I got into the pulpit, which was a very awkward little place, I squatted firmly down upon them.

It was in the same pulpit that I preached my first extempore sermon. I had no idea that I had any gifts that way (very likely I was quite right), and I always used to provide myself with the necessary manuscript. On one occasion I put that document into my tail coat-pocket, and then jogged comfortably down on my cob to the church. Somehow or other the sermon jogged out of my pocket, and fell into a ditch, where I found it on my journey home. I never discovered my loss till I was in the pulpit. We wore no cassocks in those days, but simply pulled an all-enveloping surplice over our riding gear. I put my hand behind me to bring forth my treasure. Horror! It was not there. I grasped the situation in a moment. Two courses seemed to lie before me. I could not even console myself by thinking of Mr. Gladstone's proverbial three. One was to explain the mishap which had befallen me, and to add the remark, "Therefore I am a dumb dog, and cannot bark,' and then beat a hasty retreat. I could not bring myself to adopt this alternative. Therefore I chose the other, which was to make a bold dash for it,

pick up the Bible, give out a text, and proceed to rebuke my hearers for their backslidings. I got through somehow, and my uncritical audience expressed themselves so delighted with the change, that I never used a manuscript in that little church again.

A lady once sent me a message that her footman had not been confirmed, and that she would like him to join some Confirmation classes which were just being formed. One of my

colleagues went to call on her with the view of making the necessary arrangements. Just as he was leaving, it suddenly occurred to her that she had a groom, and very likely he was not confirmed either. So she rang the bell, and told the butler to go over to the stables, and find out whether James had been confirmed. In a few minutes the man returned and stolidly announced, "Yes, Miss, it's all right. He's been done twice.' Of course he meant vaccinated.

The offertory occasionally yields its humours. I can see no fun myself in dropping into the plate buttons or peppermint drops or gilded farthings. But these, and other such-like votive offerings, occasionally come our way. On one occasion a mild hint was given to a dirty-looking verger, when a small coin was carefully wrapped up in a bit of paper, inscribed, 'For a bath for a prominent church official.' On another occasion, when the officiating clergyman had been somewhat bungling through a difficult litany, a similar piece of paper was marked, 'For a singing lesson for the curate.' After a somewhat rambling discourse from one of my colleagues, who shall, of course, be nameless, the churchwarden told me that a man at the bottom of the church, when he offered him the plate, took out a sixpence and looked at it ruefully, and then cast it in with the remark, 'Well, you shall have it, old fellow, but it's a deal more than that sermon was worth.' It fell to my lot for some Sundays to take the service at a once famous proprietary chapel, where shillings used to be charged for seats at the door. When I was there, the place of worship in question had been made free and open, but one morning a lady arrived, and on taking her accustomed place, and missing the usual impost at the door, sent a shilling by the verger to me in the vestry. On my suggesting that times were changed, and that she would have an opportunity by-and-by to deposit the coin in question in the offertory bag, she utterly declined to give way to any such new,

fangled invention, remarking that she always had paid a shilling to sit in that seat, and she always would.'

I was somewhat disconcerted one Sunday, when the vicar's Easter offerings were being collected, by a mad woman who brought a basket of stinking fish, which she insisted on personally offering at the altar. She was not such a pleasant person to deal with as a colonial farmer I was once told of by a friend who looked very much distressed at passing the plate on a similar occasion, but explained his apparent shortcoming by remarking in a loud aside, 'You'll find a pie on the vestry table.'

The modern church verger, though by no means so interesting an animal as the old parish clerk, is still sometimes guilty of a stroke of unconscious humour. One of my curates, who had previously officiated at a very famous London church, where the sexes were divided, the men sitting on the one side of the aisle and the women on the other, once told me a very amusing story of their official. The service was just about to commence. The long procession of the surpliced choir was drawn up in the vestry, just about to march into the church. The vicar was commencing the words of the vestry prayer, when the official in question popped his head through the door and remarked, 'Please, sir, there's a bishop got in among the ladies. Shall I have him

out?'

I will conclude these disjointed clerical reminiscences by recounting what happened to me once when I was still in deacon's orders. The clerk of a neighbouring parish came over to inform me that the parson had been taken suddenly and seriously ill, and that he would be greatly obliged to me if I would take his service for him on the following Sunday morning. The man was much delighted at my consenting, and was profuse in his thanks. Just as he was leaving the room he casually remarked, 'Oh, by the way, it is Sacrament Sunday.' I then explained to him that I was unable to do what he wanted, for I was only in deacon's orders, and that he must get some one else. He seemed much distressed at the failure of his efforts, and at last, like one trying his last chance, he turned to me with a most insinuating smile, and said, 'Couldn't you do it, sir, just for once?'

56

THE LITTLE NAPOLEON OF CARIBOU

A STRANGER from New York City first christened Judge Woods "The Little Napoleon of Caribou.' As every man in the crowd had a mine for sale, no one questioned the visitor's right to speak on this subject, and when he followed up the remark by saying 'it was a long time between drinks,' we accepted his invitation and unanimously voted him a high authority on the personal appearance of Napoleon-later in the day the entire camp accepted the name as singularly appropriate. The mild, harmless face of Judge Woods, showing in every line a decided antipathy to killing anything, could not but suggest to our minds the little General famous for killing everything. So he was christened Napoleon; he reminded us of that singular man in the same way Murdock, the biggest liar in Caribou, reminded us of George Washington, 'he was so entirely different.'

I think the Judge took kindly to his new title, for in a short time the walls of his cabin blossomed with pictures of the great General, and he fell into the habit of walking around the camp with arms clasped behind his back and head bent forward as if he was burdened with great cares of the State. Entering his cabin without knocking one morning, I found him standing before a looking-glass trying to counterfeit Napoleon's position, as shown in one of the pictures on the wall. Glancing at the picture, then at his own reflection, he burst out in his rough fashion, 'Hang me if I don't think that New York man was right;' drawing himself up to his full length, he went on, 'But I'm a bigger man than Napoleon-a bigger man.' I did not contradict him; no one in the camp ever contradicted the Judge; we all loved him too much; loved him in spite of his peculiarities; perhaps on account of them.

Judge Woods was a privileged character in the little mining camp of Caribou; nearly everyone had commenced by laughing at him, all, I believe, ended by loving him, and in 1874, when the camp was at its best, he was the leading spirit in our social and political life. Lazy and good-humoured, possessing a happy faculty of parrying angry words with some harmless joke, he slowly made his influence felt and power recognised by even the roughest class