A DISGRACED VICAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 16 November 1907, Page 2

A DISGRACED VICAR.

London, November 14. James Henry Taylor, Vicar of Isle of Abbotts, was charged before the Batll and Wella Consistory Court with frer quent drunkenness. 3 On one occasion he read a burial ser--3 vice at a marriage, and when the bride- ' . groom checked him he read the baptismal > service. 1 The Court allowed coats againßt him. He now awaits the Bishop's sentence. The cabled report of the incident , stated that as soon as the couple had j taken up their position at the rails, they were amazed to hear the officiating J clergyman recite an except from the 1 burial service, "We therefore commit '• their bodies to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes." He continued reading until the indignant pair reminded him of their presence, and then he had a fresh try. This was little better. He launched into the order for the public baptism of infants. At the next at* • tempt the clergyman got on the right track, but when the ring was placed on the bride's finger he said, "Peaee, perfect peace." A3 practically everything but the marriage service had been wed. there was some doubt as 10 cne strict legality of the .ceremony. The best man therefore cycled into a neighboring town and captured another clergyman, who tied the knot in the conventional manner. It was subsequently announced that the cause of the clergyman's peculiax conduct was a, mental breakdown. brought about by financial troubles. Interviewed by a reporter, the clergyman stated that he had no recollection of what occurred in the church. He had, it was said, suffered from sunstroke, and that, together with his daughter's death and his subsequent bankruptcy, brought on insomnia. The Bishop of Bath and u ells suspended him from taking clerical duty in the diocese pending an investigation into his conduct.