CONFESSIONS OF A CANON.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 876, 23 July 1910, Page 9

CONFESSIONS OF A CANON.

CLERICAL LIFE AT YORK • MINSTER, , Dealing with his new duties at York Minster, Canon A. D. Tuppei-Carey writes in entertaining, stylo in ' the Lowestoft Parish Magazine, in which town' he was formerly rector. The new Canon says:—"My duties are to live in a great barrack of a house with thirty-live rooms, somo of which havo not been painted for forty years. It is shared by the four Canons, who are supposed to occupy it for thirteen weeks at a time." After describing the daily and Sunday services which -he has to attend, but at which ho is not allowed to do anything, the ; Canon says:— "Wherever I go I am led by a verger in a gown and cassock and a'silver stick, who helps me to put on my robes and to take thorn off. -After a few days of bo-ing dressed and undressed I told my verger that I had never been dressed or batlicd before since the days of my childhood, and could I be allowed to dress myself. Since then, ] am glad to say, I have been able to put my own things on. But there is no getting over the extreme deference which is paid one by the officials of tho church and by the choir-boys. ■ AVhereve'r one goes one gets the most profound bows, and as one walks to tho, vestry between two rows of choir-boys one only sess the back of their necks, so low are their bows. I long to have- them shake hands as I pass them. Once I did try to avoid passing throughthem, and tried to steer outside tho row, but they at once all turned round and bowed as obsequiously as ever. So I have given up trying to dodge them, and can only long to 'be once more among fishermen who could not bow to anyone to save their lives. But I suppose one will gradually got accustomed to tho job, and. after all, it only lasts thirteen, weeks in the year, and then I can get about. among the Yorkshire people and do something to help the clergy and try and get them to do more for foreign missions. But I know I shall miss Ldwestoft and the parish most dreadfully." It is interesting to know that Canon Tlipper-Carey is to tako part in the coining General Mission to New Zea- ■ land. '