CLERICAL STORIES

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5474, 31 December 1904, Page 13

CLERICAL STORIES

A clergyman in Dublin once invited several of his colleagues to dinner, but was disappointed at not getting an answes from a very popular clergyman whom ha particularly desired to be present, so he called on his friend, fearing he might be ill. “Yen received my invitation, I hope.” ‘'Yes,” replied the other. “I re. ceivcd your very insulting communication.” “Insulting?’' “Very. Bead it yq,urself.” The amazed rector read it, and found that, by a truly clerical error, he had invited the clergyman to come and dine in order "to meet a few other clerical fiends." We all know of the vicar who was away when a gentleman called to see him, but whose servant asked would the "local demon" do aa well; and wo con sympathise with the people who heard the following mixture given as his text by a bashful curate at his first sermon, “And immediately the cock wept, and Peter went out and crew bitterly;" which is perhaps not worse than the announcement of a hymn os “From Iceland's greeny mountains” instead of the familiar words. In a village in Yorkshire a notice was, affixed to the church door stating that the annua) Easter meeting would be held the foil owing Tuesday in vestry, “at two o’clock, D.AV “What does D.V. mean <" queried one neighbour of another, and at length the villagers decided to ask the oldest man in the place if he could throw .any light on the meaning of it. This man had been sexton in his day, but declared he had never heard of D.V, when suddenly a bright idea struck him. “D.V. ? Why., that means dinner in the vestry, of course." The following Tuesday, when the vicar entered the vestry he found all the vestrymen assembled, each laden with a mug. knife, fork, and spoon, according to the fashion in which Yorkshire rustics go furnished to a tea-meeting.—“ Chambers's Journal."