A MADMAN IN CHURCH.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2415, 31 December 1881, Page 3

A MADMAN IN CHURCH.

The "Nelson Mail" gives the following account of a scene whioh oocuired in Christ's Ohuroh, Nelson, recently :—Just after the officiating clergyman (the Rev. S. Poole) had taken his plaoe in the reading desk, a man accompanied by four little children entered the ohuroh by the main door, and unhesitatingly walked up the aisle to the chancel. There he left the children standing in the aisle and went into the choir stalls, taking up his position in one immediately behind, and on a level with the floor of the reading desk. One of the officers of the ohuroh regarding this as a somewhat strange proceeding, took charge of the four children, who appeared quite dazed, and accommodated them with a pew. Meanwhile the voluntary ceased and the service commenoed, the man standing immediately bohind Mr Poolo and looking I down the ohurch over his right shoulder. A member of the oongregation left his seat and , endeavored to persuade him to come down, but without avail, his request being quietly but firmly refused. The confession was made, the absolution read, and then came the Lord's prayer, and as soon as the strange visitor's ear caught the familiar words his oountenance, up to the time dark and gloomy, lighted up, and, with apparent earnestness and fervenoy, he joined in the prayer. The clergyman, despite the awkwardness and disagreeableness of his position, maintained his self-possession, and with unfaltering voice, oontinned to read the prayer, but occasionally he might be seen to oast a furtive glanoe over his shoulder, prompted by a pardonable curiosity to know what was going on immediately behind him. The opening prayers over, the organ struok up the chant for the " Venite," and the ohoir commenced to sing tbe hymn of praise, but in all other parts of the ohuroh there was a dead silence, for every eye was fixed on the intruder, who evidently moved by the musio, began to walk up and down on tbe space behind the clergyman. There oould now no longer be any question what was the matter. The man was perfectly mad! The " Venite" conoluded there was the usual pause while the clergyman pronounced the Psalms for the day, and then the chanting recommenced. More and more excited became the stranger; he increased the space of his uneasy tramp over the yard and half of the floor on whioh he had to walk; he gnashed his teeth under the growing excitement, and now and then he paused to glare and to make grimaoes, now over the right, now over the left shoulder of the clergyman. One or two ladies who were in pews immediately under the reading desk here made a move, and this was the signal for a general stampede. The oongregation was an unusually large one, but within the spaee of a very few minutes none were left within the walls, except a few men. A parley now commenoed with the madman, who now stepped into the reading desk, and took up the position vacated by the clergyman, who retired when he saw the oongregation disperse. The man's desire ap peared to be to preaoh, and na persuasion oonld induce him to leave his point of vantage, while if any approsohed too near, he at onoe showed fight. Under the ciroumstacoes, it was thought best to sead for the police, and three of them shortly arrived, and after a short but hard struggle be was handcuffed and sent to the look-up. The requisite number of doctors and Justices of the Peace were summoned, and he was oommittsd and oonveyed to the Asylum. The unfortunate man was a storeman in the. employ of one of the leading mercantile firms in Nelson, and was a sober, industrious, and generally respeoted man. About eighteen months sinoe he lost his wife and was left a widower with a family of six young children. He has for some time past been ailing, and during tbe last day or two had displayed symptoms of insanity.