AMUSING STORY OF AN ENGLISH BISHOP.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 633, 11 May 1882, Page 2

AMUSING STORY OF AN ENGLISH BISHOP.

A Home paper says : —An accident of a somewhat startling though amusing character happened recently to one of our most popular bishops. He had been invited to preach on some special occasion in a country parish,and was proceeding to church after breakfast when his host the rector, a man known to be given to “ dodges,” called him aside. “ My lord,” he said, “ I wish to tell you about the pulpit, which is constructed on a plan of my own, with a movable bottom. This communicates with a screw underneath the floor of the church, and can be raised or lowered at pleasure to suit the height of any preacher. If, when your lordship gets into the pulpit, you find that the floor is not high enough, please stamp once gently with your foot. The sexton will be underneath, and will wind you up until you signal for him to stop.” Now his lordship is a somewhat stout and short man, with legs quite worthy (as to shape) of a dignitary of the Church, but, unfortunately, not of any great length. When he got into the pulpit he found that the floor was, apparently, unwound to its uttermost limit. He had hardly finished his prayer, as the last verse of the hymn before the sermon was being sung, when he dis-

covered the state of affairs, and stamped gently with his loot, a signal which was at once responded to by a creaking sound below and a perceptible elevation of the floor. Then again, the good bishop stamped ; and, believing that the screw would forthwith stop working, delivered with all due solemnity, the injunction, “ Let us pray.” To his horror, however, the screw, so far f.iom stopping, appeared on this second signal to revolve with the greater celerity. Little by little the good ecclesiastic found himself propelled towards the ceiling, prematurely proceeding heavenwards. His sermon and his Bible slowly disappeared from before his eyes. He clutched at the pulpit candles to stay his upward tendency, and again he stamped in a ghostly mannner on the treacherous floor. But it was of no avail. Onwards went the screw until the topmost rung was reached ■ and when the astonished congregation, who had been waiting for the prayer, raised their eyes to the pulpit they found, instead of an eloquen t orator, a shame-faced and indignant mortal (the tops of whose kneebreeches were visible above the railings of the pulpit), preserving his balance by clinging to the summit of the pulpit candlebra, and in whose face all appearance of saintly calm had given place to unmistakeable signs of wrath and indignation. The horror-struck appearance of their rector as he rushed from the church, the audible creaking of the screw and the gradual descent of the bishop to a level more in accordance with the fitness of things, enlightened the delighted congregation as to what had really happened. But the dignity and force of the subsequent discourse were powerless against the cachinnation that reigned universal in the church. The unhappy rector had, alas 1 ommitted to state that while one gentle stamp of the foot was the signal to ascend, three stamps rendered in quick succession told the sexton that he was to cease screwing.