A Clerical Reminiscence.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 337, 26 January 1889, Page 5

A Clerical Reminiscence.

It is not so long ago since a Yorkshire incumbent, dwelling in a A*alley where the people are supposed to be particularly longheaded, narrated a mournful experience which befel him when visiting a sick parishioner. The Yorkphireman was very ill, but, doggedly opposed to spending a penny on the doctors. He had found, he thought, a more excellent vray, and was accordingly conducting, with very alarming results, some experiments upon his constitution. Excessive devotion to a cheap but far from innocuous quack medicine was fast bringing him to a state in which medical aid and the infallible pill would be alike superfluous. 'My dear ]\h-s ,' said the vicar to his obstinate parishioner's wife, ' your husband is really killing himself wibh those pills. It's a case of suicide — a downright sin.' 'Yes, sir,' replied the tearful partner, ' I know it, and many's the time I prayed against it in the Church service.' •In fche Church ser\ ice ?' said the vicar ; 'you mean when we pvay for the sick.' ' Oh no, sir,' was the reply ; c I mean where we -always say in the Litany — isn't it? — 'From all false doctoring., good Lord, deliver us." Here, surely, says an exchange, is a fact that, in determining the decree in -njhieh the Church services are understood by the poor, must be worth a bushel ot theory.