LONELIEST VICAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 954, 23 April 1930, Page 12

LONELIEST VICAR

DOG AS CONGREGATION

The loneliest priest in England, a a elderly man. with a gentle manner and a sof'. musical voice, read Matins this morning in the parish church of Compton Abdale, to a congregation which consisted of his dog Skipper a rather scared-looking little boy an ,j myself. Generally he is aloiie but for the dog. So wrote a special correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle” recentlv. This vicar, the Rev. E. A. T. Lowndes, is a shepherd without » flock, and St. Oswald's, which stands i.-i ilie top of a hill ■ oking the ipournful village ot Compton Abdale, is a church without a congregation At 10.55 a.m. the vicar, with his dog at his heels, left the viearare and climbed the steep path to the church to ring the bell. The old door is green with moss, and the prayer books scattered about the pews are sodden with damp. The vicar showed me to a seat, and for five minutes there was no sound but the melancholy bell calling to prayer the unanswering people in the village below. The little church, its beauty Taded and its ancient glories tarnished hv vears of neglect, was as cold and gloomy as a vault. Skipper took his accustomed place near the pulpit, from which a sermon is rarely preached, and as I looked at his shaggy red coat I wondered if there could be any more poignant loneliness than that of a priest who depends on his dog to form his congregation. The bell ceased, but no one had .responded to its plaintive appeal. Th.> vicar put on his surplice, motioned to me to say the responses, and begun the service. It was then that a little boy, perhaps attracted by the unfrequent sight of a worshipper, slipped in and knelt in the pew behind me. The service continued. No priest in a cathedral where morning prayer is said with every accompaniment of beauty could have read the incomparably lovely prayers of the Church with greater reverence for anti ap preciation of their glorious English. As we said the Psalm together, I wished passionately that I had the power to bring the village to church, so that this trs.’-ic priest should no longer know his agony and desolation. There was no music, no sermon, nn collection, and the service lasted aquarter of an hour. After the service I asked Mr. Lowndes, who is a musician, it he could get one simple hymn tune out of the organ. He sat down and played a few bars, but they ended in a dreadful, discordant wail. The very soul of this unhappichurch was expressed in these despairing notes. Yet not so verv many years ago the church was filled for Divine worship. In the graveyard. where weeds flourished- about the tombs. Mr. Lowndes told me of the wretched misunderstanding which has wrecked the life of the church in this village. “Years ago,” he said, “the Bishop of Gloucester held an inquiry, ths object of which was to examine certain statements about myself and the manner in which I conducted the service.

“It was found that there was no truth in the allegations, but village gossip dies hard. “I am a very lonely man,” he added. With surprise I learned that one of tile allegations against this man was that he. had conducted the services in a slovenly fashion. “And there was some trouble about the village school, which belongs to the church,” the vicar continued. “IVe could not agree. “I should like sometimes to help in Northleach Church,” the vicar said as we parted, and remembering the roses that grow in Northleach graveyard, and the loving care which has kept the neighbouring church so fair and so fine a place for prayer, I understood the joy it must mean to England's loneliest priest when he looks from the sanctuary, not to the wondering eyes of a dog, but to a goodly congregation of men and women praising God. Some say that there is a spell upon Compton Abdale. It is a village without a smile.

The people are almost all members of the Church of England, and they told me that they desire with a great longing that old wounds should be healed.