Home › At Table with the Clergy › At Table with the Clergy: Canon

At Table with the Clergy: Canon

Canon Barham, no less than Sydney Smith, wielded a valiant spoon, and to the unpunctual at dinner he has delivered one of his most forcible sermons in "The Lay of St. Cuthbert": "When asked out to dine by a Person of Quality, Mind and observe the most strict punctuality!

For should you come late, and make dinner wait, And the victuals get cold, you'll incur, sure as fate, The Master's displeasure, the Mistress's hate.

And though both may, perhaps, be too well-bred to swear, — They 'll heartily wish you-I need not say Where."

Grace before meat is usually well expressed by the reverend clergy, and perhaps the brief introductory thanksgiving of the late Canon Shuttleworth is as happy as any: "For good life and good health; for good company and good cheer, may the Giver of all good things make us thankful." So far as orthodox graces are concerned, it were difficult to improve upon the two fervent thanksgivings of Psalms XXXIV and CXLV: "The lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they who seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good. "The eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord: and thou givest them their meat in due season. "Thou openest thine hand: and fillest all things living with plenteousness."

So many Protestant denominations exist in America that the manner of entertaining the ministry varies considerably. In no religious sect does fine champagne or any other form of cognac figure, as a general rule, though the use of vinous beverages is less denounced at present than formerly. The most genial hosts and guests among Protestant divines are unquestionably the Episcopalians. But if claret and alcoholic beverages are the exception on the tables of many denominations, the pastor does not lack for substantial aliments when entertained by his parishioners, who here, as in England, fairly dispute for his possession. That the duck at least, among the toothsome contributions to the table, is appreciated by the Protestant clergy no less than the laity is apparent from the apostrophe to the canvasback of the Rev. Joseph Barber, who has addressed the king of the Anseres in these colourful stanzas: "A duck has been immortalized by Bryant, A wild one, too; Sweetly he hymned the creature, lithe and buoyant, Cleaving the blue.

But whoso says the duck through ether flying, Seen by the bard, Equals the canvas-back before me lying, Tells a canard. "Done to a turn, the flesh a dark carnation, The gravy red; Four slices from the breast-on such a ration Gods might have fed.

Bryant, go to: to say that thy rare ghost-duck, Traced 'gainst the sky, Could e'er at all compare with this rare roast duck, Is all my eye." 1 1 Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

BRYANT: Lines to a Waterfowl.

As regards wine the case is vastly different in Europe, among both the clergy and those who welcome them. When Urban X resolved to remove the Papal See from Avignon to Rome grave discord resulted among his cardinals, several of whom refused to accompany him. Petrarch, in reply to a letter received from the Pope soon afterwards, wherein his Holiness expressed his astonishment at their action, explained the reason thus briefly: "Most holy Father," he wrote, "the princes of the church esteem the wine of Provence, and know that the wines of France are more rare than holy water at Rome."

The anecdote of the curé of a village in the Bordelais would indicate, furthermore, that the cloth prefer their wine in a non-diluted state. On the occasion of a wedding dinner at which the officiating pastor was present, he would exclaim after every course, as he raised his glass: "My children, with this you must drink some wine." The turn of dessert arriving, he repeated his injunction for the tenth time, again setting the example himself. "Pardon, Monsieur le Curé," one of the guests interrupted, "but with what do you not drink wine?" "With water, my son!"

During the episcopate of Bishop Timon of Buffalo, a Roman Catholic prelate of great ability but of small stature, complaint was entered against a certain German priest of the diocese for his over-conviviality and partiality for the foaming glass of Gambrinus, the offender being a man of Falstaffian proportions. The priest was accordingly summoned, and, after being severely reprimanded, was asked by the bishop if he could bring forward any extenuating circumstances with regard to his conduct. "Your Reverence is a small man, and my detractors are men of small calibre, who require but little beer," was the reply. "I am a large man, as you are aware, with a large appetite, and what might suffice for others were scant pittance for me; the vessel should be filled according to its capacity."

That so distinguished a church dignitary as a bishop should dine well goes without saying. How else might he be so urbane, so stately, and so contented! And without wine how might he dispense such sunshine or pronounce his blessings so sonorously! For a bishop, dean, or archdeacon to be tendered scanty fare or be toasted with ice-water were as incongruous as to deprive the beverage termed "bishop" of its main ingredient. When Bishop Magee of Peterborough, afterwards Archbishop of York, was "entertained" by another church dignitary he was told on his arrival that he would find wine in his room. The dinner which he afterwards sat down to was a wineless one.

A few weeks later the positions of host and guest were reversed, whereupon the bishop, shaking hands heartily with his visitor, informed him that he would find water in his room and wine upon the table. "Scarcely any bishop," says Sydney Smith, "is sufficiently a man of the world to deal with fanatics. The way is not to reason with them, but to ask them to dinner. They are armed against logic and remonstrance, but they are puzzled in a labyrinth of wines, disarmed by facilities and concessions, introduced to a new world, and come away thinking more of hot and cold and dry and sweet than of Newman, Keble, and Pusey."

A number of years ago, when long tables were in vogue at the great hostelries at Saratoga, Bishop Onderdonk of New York was among the guests.

The bishop, in accordance with his station, was seated at the head of the table, where the attentive head waiter had just placed his bottle of hotel "Pontet- Canet." Among the other clerical guests was a Connecticut divine and teetotaler who had come to test the restorative virtues of Congress water, so delicious when drunk at the fountainhead in the morning. "Ah!" said the cynical dominie to a ministerial visà-vis, as he frowned over his Oolong and the portly prelate beamed over his Bordeaux, "he wants to prove his apostolic descent by showing that if he drink of any deadly thing it shall not hurt him."

Later, when his Right Reverence was informed of the remark, he observed, quoting Ecclesiasticus as his would-be detractor had quoted St. Mark, "Wine measurably drunk and in season bringeth gladness of the heart and cheerfulness of the mind,' and as a churchman it were heretical for me to take exception to so orthodox a precept."

The minister whose knowledge of gastronomy is far exceeded by his zeal in "reforming," notably in an attempted extermination of all joyous fluids, is far more prevalent in the United States than abroad.

While no one will object to his denunciation of "King Rum" or the "Wine-cup," though rum is but little used as a beverage, and wine is supposed to be consumed in glasses at the dinner-table, -one must nevertheless deplore the inconsistency which would annihilate all alcoholic fluids and permit the grossest heterodoxness of diet to pass unscathed. Not undeserved, perchance, are the lines addressed to this class of the clergy by a Western versifier: "He preached 'gainst whisky, rum, and gin, All use of liquor he 'd decry; He said that drinking was a sin- But eat the toughest kind of pie. "He said there was no greater vice Than that which made of man a sot- But took not water without ice, And gorged himself on biscuit hot. "He flouted the advice of Paul To drink wine for the stomach's sake- But give him dumpling in a ball, And any quantity he 'd take. "Tobacco in each form he spurned, Its soothing virtues he denied ; For him no soft Havana burned But he would eat a beefsteak fried. "Jaundiced he lived, and died of spleen, And some kept green his memory then- Called him 'reformer,' who had been The most intemperate of men."

On more catholic lines is the gastronomic experience of a distinguished Baptist doctor of divinity of western New York, who, though always temperate, CLa contenāce De la table Rou uellemét imprimee A Paris.