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It had been nearly a ruin, when, stirred by the Major, the church-wardens had taken it in hand, so that, owing to Richard Stokes and John Ball, as they permanently declared in yellow letters on a blue ground, the congregation were no longer in danger of the roof admitting the rain or coming down on the congregation.
The church-wardens told him that, ever since he came, the curate had done nothing but set the congregation by the ears; and that he could not fail to receive as a weighty charge. But they told him also that some of the principal dissenters declared him to be a fountain of life in the place and that seemed to him to involve the worst accusation of all.
Every one cries up his generosity; for instance, one of my church-wardens tells him that we need a new organ in the church and the people won't give a penny-piece towards it, so Toyner says, with his benevolent smile, 'They must be taught to give.
However, as it was, he made himself most egregiously busy; there was his brother church-wardens and the curates summoned to assist him in a court of inquiry; evidence was taken in form, and a sort of proces verbal drawn out and duly attested. Mr Root was a miracle-monger, and gloried in being able to make himself the hero of his own miracles.
And woe be to him if he allowed such a prisoner to escape. The constable must carry out the lesser sentences of the justices, inflicting the punishment ordered and collecting the fines imposed. The most important remaining ancient parochial officers were the church-wardens. Their position and functions were not so purely ecclesiastical as the name would suggest.
Sandy was so grateful and so comforted that she charged a couple of church-wardens with willow-bark and sumach-tobacco for us, and told us to smoke as much as we pleased, it couldn't get under the canopy, and she was used to smoke, being the first lady in the land who had ever seen a cloud blown.
Formerly it used to take place in the Church, immediately after the service in the afternoon, but in consequence of the unseemly disturbance which used to ensue the practice was discontinued. The Church used to be filled with a congregation whose conduct was occasionally so reprehensible that sometimes the church-wardens had to use their wands for other purposes than symbols of office.
The vestry was searched-the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before Caleb's last illness, had a dim recollection of having taken the registry up to Mr. Price at the time the vestry-room was whitewashed. The house was searched-the cupboard, the, mysterious cupboard, was explored.
The register was not in the vestry; the church-wardens knew nothing about it; the clerk a new clerk, who was also the sexton, and rather a wild fellow had gone ten miles off to a wedding: every place was searched; till, at last, the book was found, amidst a heap of old magazines and dusty papers, in the parlour of Caleb himself.
That the said committees after they have taken it themselves, do speedily disperse themselves through the said counties, so as three or four of them be together, on days appointed, at the chief places of meeting, for the several divisions of the said counties: and summon all the ministers, church-wardens, constables, and other officers unto that place, where, after a sermon preached by one appointed by the committee for that purpose, they cause the same minister to tender the league and covenant unto all such ministers, and other officers, to be taken and subscribed by them, in the presence of the said committees.
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