"Vestry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... almost exclusively editions of the classics. It is certain, however, that Caxton's books have experienced many ups and downs. Mr. Blades tells us of an incident in which he was personally concerned. He happened on a copy of the 'Canterbury Tales' in a dirty pigeon-hole close to the grate in the vestry of the French Protestant Church, St. Martin's-le-Grand; it was fearfully mutilated, and was being used leaf by leaf—a book ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... gardener, and old Master Mott, the head gardener to the Squire, and Master Cole, the farmer, and various others, the original inhabitants of Yokelton; discussing the weather and the crops, the probability of Mr. Tomson getting in again at the vestry as waywarden; what kind of a highway rate there would be for the coming year; how that horse got on that Mr. Sooby bought at the fair; and various other matters of importance to a village community. They would also pass remarks upon any striking personage who passed them on his way to ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... fine view of the modern improvements which have been constructed upon this Indian mound. I rode up a paved carriage-way into the church-yard that now occupies the top, and giving my horse to a squalid Indian imp who came out of the vestry, I went in and took a survey of the tawdry images through which God is now worshiped by the baptized descendants of the builders of this mound. My curiosity was soon gratified, and I returned to ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... as the procession passed she looked at her husband. He had already sat down, and was getting his hat from under the seat. The procession streamed slowly out of sight into the vestry, and the congregation moved out into the aisles with much soft rustling and swishing of skirts and a subdued, buzzing hum of ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... delight that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to the youngest and merriest. Marilla was not given to subjective analysis of her thoughts and feelings. She probably imagined that she was thinking about the Aids and their missionary box and the new carpet for the vestry room, but under these reflections was a harmonious consciousness of red fields smoking into pale-purply mists in the declining sun, of long, sharp-pointed fir shadows falling over the meadow beyond the brook, of still, crimson-budded ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... October the Vestry, consisting of certain elected members and magistrates, assembled in the court-house at Morant Bay about noon, and proceeded with their ordinary business till between three and four o'clock, when notice was given that a crowd of people was approaching. The volunteers were hastily ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... of the obsequies of Henry VII. also contains mention of these funeral palls: the Earls and Dukes came in procession, from the Vestry, with "certain palls, which everie of them did bring solemnly between their hands and coming in order one before another as they were in degree, unto the said herse, they kissed their said palls... and laid them upon ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... Ahasuerus and Esther, and the floor laid with carpets strewed with roses, lavender, and other sweet herbs. Another compartment of the church was hung with tapestry, representing the siege of Troy; the walls of the choir being covered with blue cloth, emblazoned with fleurs-de-luce. The vestry was hung with "red sarsenet, most richly beseen;" whilst the belfry was ordained for the offices of the pantry, confectionary, and cellar. There "lacked neither venison, cream, spice-cakes, strawberries, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... lots to thaay as'd do best by 'em; only he said as the farmers went agin givin' more nor an acre to any man as worked for them; and the Doctor, you see, he don't like to go altogether agin the vestry folk." ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... inscribed in front of the organ gallery. In the parish registers mention is made of an attack of the plague, by which this place was afflicted, though happily not to a very alarming extent, they commence in the year 1560. Over the vestry, (which was built in the reign of Edward VI) is a very curious old room reached by means of a spiral stair-case, terminated by a trap door: the oaken roof depends entirely upon a large beam in the centre. It is called the Lollard's ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... on her Army brother's arm. He's as nice as the other isn't. He hasn't got the money-making disease. When Uncle Parke and Doctor Willwood came out of the vestry-room Uncle Parke gave me one look, just one, but it was so understanding I winked back, and then he came farther down and stood by Miss Katherine like she was his until kingdom ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... thought they were still talking of heaven, when in truth Jennie only meant a concert which was to be given that afternoon at the vestry. ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... year we had a tremendous stimulus in the meetings from the active participation of four of the most prominent theosophists in the country—two of whom are members of the vestry. They sharpened the line between spiritual and material things. They brought to the notice of working-class Socialists the essential things of the soul. They made the meetings a melting-pot in which the finest, best and most permanent things were made to stand out distinctly. The world affords ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... was at last coming out of his confessional. He was a handsome man, of some forty years of age, with a smiling, kindly air. When he recognised Madame Quenu he grasped her hand, called her "dear lady," and conducted her to the vestry, where, taking off his surplice, he told her that he would be entirely at her service in a moment. They returned, the priest in his cassock, bareheaded, and Lisa strutting along in her shawl, and paced up and down in front of the side-chapels adjacent to the Rue du Jour. They ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... subjugation of the country by Offa, and transformed, as tradition alleges, out of one of the palaces of the Kings of Powis, is now a ruin. The modern one, dedicated to the same saint, of whom there is an ancient carved figure in the vestry, is now the fashionable church ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... I think it was, on the north side of Leicester Square, I counted as many as nineteen ugly falls in as many minutes, necessitating, in nearly every case, the despatch of the creature on the spot by a shot from a revolver. The fact is, the laying of asphalte anywhere should be made criminal in a Vestry. I write impartially on this subject, as, beyond being a sleeping partner in a large firm of Wooden Road-Paving Contractors, I have no sort of interest to serve, one way or the other. But it must be obvious, from the account I have given of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... other pre-Norman sculptured stones at Kirkdale. They are generally built into the walls on the exterior, and are not very apparent unless carefully looked for. In the vestry some fragments of stone bearing interlaced ornament ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... she got inside the Chapel—it was a big, airy, pleasant building—she heard hammering from the organ-loft, and saw the flicker of a candle. Some workman busy before Sunday. She shut the baize door behind her, and hurried across to the vestry, for vases, then out to the tap, for water. All ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... should say to Mrs. Bolton. There was not a grave there that she did not know; those lying under many of the grassy sods were as familiar to her as the men and women now in full life in the neighboring town. Just within sight, near the vestry window was a little mound covered with flowers, where she had seen a little child of David and Sophy Chantrey's laid to rest. A narrow path was worn up to it; more bare and trodden than before Mr. Chantrey ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... England. Not that it matters whether they came over with William the Norman, nor whether they could once on a time ride from sea to sea on their own acres. For Kitty was the last to carry the name, and she left it in Ardevora vestry the day she signed marriage with Paul Lebow (or, as he wrote it, Lebeau—"b-e-a-u,"): and the property had gone generations before. As she said 'pon her death-bed, "five-foot-six of church-hay will hold the only two achers left to me," she being a little body ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and bridegroom withdrew with their friends to the vestry for the signing of the register; and there, while they dallied and interchanged good wishes, were interrupted by the beadle, a white-faced pew-opener, and two draymen from the street, with news (as one of the draymen put it, shouting down the rest) that "one of Scougall's yellow ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... we will make a cathedral of it! bishops, priests, deacons, wardens, vestry, and choir; organ, organist, amid bellows! By the Lord Harry, as Benjamin says, we will clap a steeple on the other end of it, and make two churches of it. What say you, Duke, will you pay? ha! my ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... that Aldgate pump is to be painted, but the vestry have not yet determined what the colour is to be. It is thought, to suit the diversity of opinions in the parish cabinet, that it will be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian columns, and of the beauties of Greek architecture, but compare these white, symmetrical piers, raised in one solid piece, without join or crevice. Observe yonder alabaster gallery where the organ swells its harmonious tones; observe the vestry, where the preacher dons his sacerdotal garb—they are perfect. But did I hear a lady sneeze? Alas! Nature forgot the hot-air pipes; the Cathedral, I admit, strikes a little chilly. Therefore ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... God are marvellous," he mused, as he went to his vestry, "and it is fitting that youth should find its mate. We grieve and wring our hearts—and nothing is final—and while there is life there is hope—that love may bloom again. Peace ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... staring back at the church entrance, and still the sacristy door remains firmly shut. Surely 'tis time for the groom and his best man to appear there; one minute of eight and no sign. Who in all that crowd could dream that Ray and Blake have vainly stormed the vestry door and found it locked? By some unaccountable error the sexton has barred their entrance as well as that of the intrusive uninvited whom ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... ended at last, and once more the long procession of which he was a part slowly made its way out of the church. Philip found himself in the vestry in the midst of a crowd of ecclesiastics from which he extricated himself with all possible speed; and got once more into the open air. He threaded his way among the groups standing on the sidewalks chatting and hindering him. Suddenly a man turned close to him, and ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Rachel Lynde was here again today, pestering me for a subscription towards buying a carpet for the vestry room," said Mr. Harrison wrathfully. "I detest that woman more than anybody I know. She can put a whole sermon, text, comment, and application, into six words, and throw it at you like ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... tower itself was rebuilt; but the larger works were the addition of a vaulted sacristy in the corner between the west side of the south end of the transept and the nave. On the opposite side of the same part of the transept a square-ended chapel with a vestry attached was added in place of the original shallow apsidal chapel. The original chapel on the east side of the north end of the transept was also removed to make way for another and much larger one. This is now ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... given to recreation. All of us felt the work to be trying to the flesh at the outset; but none ever repented of persevering in it. One Saturday forenoon, at the close of the usual prayer-meeting, which met in Dr. Chalmers' vestry, we went up together to a district in the Castle Hill. It was Robert's first near view of the heathenism of his native city, and the ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... slowly filling, the choir filed into their places, the organ stopped playing Cavalleria Rusticana, a hush fell over the place and Doctor Leslie, his white hair and black gown passing through the changing lights of the windows, came slowly out of the vestry and up to the pulpit. He was an old man now, but a vigorous one, and his sermons were still strong and full of the fire of his earlier years. He had never walked quite so smartly, nor spoken with quite his old vim since the day he had been left alone in the ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... for the Tory candidate in the City, Mr. Hobson Newcome plumped for the Reformer. While Brian, in the House of Commons, sat among the mild Conservatives, Hobson unmasked traitors and thundered at aristocratic corruption, so as to make the Marylebone Vestry thrill with enthusiasm. When Lady Anne, her husband, and her flock of children fasted in Lent, and declared for the High Church doctrines, Mrs. Hobson had paroxysms of alarm regarding the progress of Popery, and shuddered out of the chapel where ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from Pennant, how St Werberg lived immaculate with her husband Astardus, copying her aunt, the great Ethelreda, who lived for three years with not less purity with her good man Tonberetus, and for twelve with her second husband the pious Prince Egfrid: and the churchwarden left the vestry, lifting up his hands, and saying—"Poor gentleman!"—and you laughed as if you had never laughed before, when you heard it, and heartily shook him by the hand to convince him you were in your senses; which action he nevertheless ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... left are the steps leading to the chancel and the chancel rails. Beyond the rails are palms, grouped, which conceal the altar. Past the chancel, up stage, is the exit into the choir. Down stage is the exit to the vestry and robing-room. To right of centre begin the pews of the church on each side of a broad centre aisle. The stage is set a little diagonally so that the aisle runs from upper right toward centre stage. This will make a row or two more pews above ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... forth from the "cofre of Mr. Canynge,"[7] so long preserved in the room over the north porch of this Bristol church of Redcliffe—a "cofre" secured by six keys, all of which being lost or mislaid, the vestry ordered the "cofre" to be opened; and not only "Canynge's cofre," but all the "cofres," in the mysterious chamber: not from any love of antiquity, but because of the hope of obtaining certain title-deeds supposed to be contained therein. Well, these intelligent worthies, having ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... taken Tabby off my hands; so that I have nothing further to do, but to comfort my friend Baynard, and provide for my son Loyd, who is also fairly joined to Mrs Winifred Jenkins. You are an excellent genius at hints. — Dr Arbuthnot was but a type of Dr Lewis in that respect. What you observe of the vestry-clerk deserves consideration. — I make no doubt but Matthew Loyd is well enough qualified for the office; but, at present, you must find room for him in the house. — His incorruptible honesty and indefatigable care will be serviceable in superintending the oeconomy of my farm; tho' I don't ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... her to go yachting with him next day in the Spindrift. Miss King accepted the invitation, and then, worked up perhaps to an unusual pitch of friendliness by the sermon, asked the Major to go back to Ballymoy House with her for luncheon. Meldon appeared from the door of the vestry room and urged the Major to accept ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... very little like a Jesuit, but no accomplished Jesuit could have turned a question more adroitly. Harriet had to defend her husband instead of blaming her brother, and the conversation ended at a point as far from the beginning as some recent sparring between the brothers-in-law at a vestry meeting. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... heartfelt gratification met them—it was that the parish had shown their undiminished confidence in Mr. Willcoxen, and their high appreciation of his services, by keeping his pulpit open for him. And a few days after his settlement at home a delegation of the vestry waited upon him to solicit his acceptance of the ministry. And after talking with his "liege lady," as he fondly and proudly termed Marian, Mr. Willcoxen was well pleased to return a ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... more than twenty-five years after, when the question, "Do you remember Miss Jones?" was asked. "Remember her? I should think I do. I could never forget her. She used to have a Bible class on Sunday afternoons and on a week-day evening in that little vestry belonging to the church. She began it for the nurses, but there were only about fifteen of them then, and so she used to let us officers go as well if we liked. I used to love it, for it was beautiful to see her sitting there so homely and nice, and then she used to pray with ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... the earliest of which any traces remain in the present church, unless the doubtful signs on a shaft in the exterior are to be taken as evidence of Saxon workmanship. This shaft is attached to the north wall of the Chapel of St. John-the-Divine (now used as a clergy vestry), which is perhaps the oldest part of the fabric. The undoubted Norman remains consist of three arches in the same chapel, where their outline is just discernible among the brickwork; the fragment of a string-course, with billet moulding, on the inner wall of the north transept; a portion ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... the "Pilgrim's Progress," was co-pastor in a Baptist Meeting House, in Mill-lane, from 1671 until his death in 1688. The chair in which he used to sit is still preserved in the vestry as a relic. ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... antecedents, was she to enter suddenly into all the activity of an English clergyman's home? There were the schools, and the vestry meetings, and the sick and the destitute to be fretted after from Monday morning till Saturday night—Eustace and Marion hardly ever had a moment's respite or a leisure hour the whole week; whilst Sunday, of course, was the ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... divided by walls behind the columns into compartments; the northern one forms a communication with the entrance to the Lady Chapel; the middle one a vestry for the Grammar Scholars; and the third a vestry for the Lay-Clerks; remains of fresco paintings may be seen on the ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... a better arrangement to have the groom and the best man enter the church without their hats, and have the latter sent from the vestry to the church door, so that the groom may receive his when ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... had determined to be greatly overcome, and, consequently, when they entered the church, the sobs of the affectionate parent were so heart-rending that the pew-opener suggested the propriety of his retiring to the vestry, and comforting himself with a glass of water before ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... made, rose from his seat, opened the little door that held him in, and walked forward into the aisle. As he passed Zulma, he tapped her gently upon the shoulder as a sign that she should follow him. She did so at once, and the two glided noiselessly into the vestry. There the priest, after divesting himself of his surplice, turned towards the girl, and in the gentlest manner inquired after her health and that of her father. He then signified his pleasure at her punctual discharge of her devotions, in spite ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... watches a madman, and with the same purpose—to prevent any outburst even by bodily strength, if such restraint be needed. When all was over; when the principal personages of the ceremony had filed into the vestry to sign their names; when the swarm of townspeople were going out as swiftly as their individual notions of the restraints of the sacred edifice permitted; when the great chords of the "Wedding March" clanged out from the organ, and the loud bells pealed overhead—Ellinor laid her ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... stub of wood as he was hurrying on his men at work in thinning a plantation. It had festered and inflamed his leg to a terrible size; but, spite of that, he ordered out his cart with a bed laid in it, and came up to the door of the vestry-room, where he caused himself to be carried in on the bed, and set on the vestry-room floor, not very distant from the clergyman. Here he waited, listening first to one speaker and then another, till the debate had grown ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... at her first question was merged in the interest inspired by her second, for his glance had followed hers until it rested on the Babcocks, who had just entered the vestry to attend the social reunion. Selma's face wore its worried archangel aspect. She was on her good behavior and proudly on her guard against social impertinence. But she looked very pretty, and her compact, slight ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... steps to the building at the back to which the cloister leads. We enter a little sacristy and vestry, and beyond is a dark chapel, with a side-chapel opening out of it. It was originally an old brew-house, with a timbered roof. The sanctuary is now divided off by a high open screen, of old oak, reaching nearly to the roof. The whole place is full of statues, carved and painted, embroidered ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... think, call "vestrylisation." I dare say the company present have read the reports of the Cholera Board of Health, and I daresay they have also read reports of certain vestries. I have the honour of belonging to a constituency which elected that amazing body, the Marylebone vestry, and I think that if the company present will look to what was done by the Board of Health at Glasgow, and then contrast those proceedings with the wonderful cleverness with which affairs were managed at the same period by my vestry, there ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... a skilled traveller in the Holy Land, Carleton frequently opened this "Fifth Gospel" to delighted listeners. There hung on the wall of the "vestry," or social prayer-room, above the leader's chair, a steel-plate picture of modern Jerusalem, showing especially the walls, gates, and roadways leading out from the city. Carleton often declared that this print was "an inspiration" ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... of erecting a new house of worship was discussed in the vestry of Truro, and a vote in favor of the project was secured. On the location, the vestrymen ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... other duties in addition to his collegiate work and some two weeks after the reopening of the college he attended a vestry meeting of the Episcopal Church. At this meeting the subject of rebuilding the church and increasing the rector's salary was under discussion and the session lasted for three hours, at the close of which he volunteered to subscribe from ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... surveyors accompanying the party were to run the line anew, disputes were to be equitably settled, and the line so laid out to be final. For administration of processioning, the county court was to order the vestry to divide each parish into as many precincts as necessary, and the time set in 1661/62 for processioning was between Easter and Whitsunday (seventh Sunday or fiftieth day after Easter). The time was changed in 1691 to the months from September to March as a more convenient ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... parish help me to deck the creche for the infant Christ. We take down the images—see, there is St. Joseph, and there yonder Our Lady, in the side chapel; the two oxen and a sheep are put away in the vestry, in a cupboard full of camphor. We have the Three Kings too. . . . In short, we put our hearts into the dressing-up. By nightfall all is completed, and I turn the children out, reserving some few last touches which I invent to surprise them when they come ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... good reason for not serving, must serve or pay the fine. Six guineas is the heavy penalty inflicted upon a recusant who declines service altogether. This preliminary meeting is called merely to insure a sufficient company to be in attendance in the vestry of —— Church, at the general wardmote held on St ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... profoundly, knowing from past experience that Hepsey's word carried more weight than all the vestry. ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... rudeness for any one, whether clergyman, bridegroom, or any member of the bridal train, to keep the bride waiting. The clergyman should be within the rails, the bridegroom and groomsmen should be in the vestry-room, by the time bride is due at the church. The bridesmaids may receive the bride in the vestibule, or may accompany her ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... instituted for the suppression of nonconformity, Quaker preachers were severely dealt with, and clergymen, such as they were, were imposed upon the more or less reluctant parishes. But though the governor held the right of presentation, the vestry of each parish asserted and maintained the right of induction or of refusing to induct. Without the consent of these representatives of the people the candidate could secure for himself no more than the people should from year to year consent to allow him. It was the only protection of the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... for this object. All have assembled, one on the other, to press against those whom they call 'The Republicans and the Levellers,' the most inquisitorial measures. Among other parishes, one (S. James' Vestry Room) distinguishes itself by a decree worthy of the sixteenth century. It promises twenty guineas reward to any one who shall denounce those who in conversation or otherwise propagate opinions contrary to ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... better suited to the site in a narrow mountain pass, and what is of more consequence, better constructed in the interior for the purposes of worship. It has no chancel. The Altar is unbecomingly confined. The Pews are so narrow as to preclude the possibility of kneeling. There is no vestry, and what ought to have been first mentioned, the Font, instead of standing at its proper place at the entrance, is thrust into the farthest end of a little pew. When these defects shall be pointed out to the munificent patroness, they ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... as the bank authorities had foreseen, there was little or nothing of the wild, panic-stricken run on the capital which heralds and intensifies many a bank's fall. The losers went about their ordinary occupations. The Rector preached, presided over meetings of the vestry and Christian Associations, and attended to his sick. Doctor Millar looked after his sick. Colonel Russell even went to the Literary Institute and read the newspapers as usual. Every one of them wore his customary face, however abnormal the working of his heart. The Redcross ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... has been protected by the peculiar appropriation of part of the church-rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from a "Country parson," in The Times of June 4th (or 5th; the letter is dated June 3rd,) 1862:—"I have heard at a vestry meeting a good deal of higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the church; but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of that part of the rate which is invested in 50 or 100 ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... aisle and Lady Chapel roofs is similar to that on the east side and the quatrefoil heads of the two-light windows help to mark the entry into the Decorated period. The little room in the angle between the transept and the choir aisle is used as a vestry and will have to ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... that she's a valuable article," she said to herself; "so she locks herself up in the cupboard, like the best china." Sanchia's resolution persisted, and enthusiasm followed its growth. She frequented the churches early in the mornings, and one fine day presented herself in the vestry of one of them. Upon her knees, but with unbent head and eyes fixed steadily to the grille, she rehearsed her tale from the beginning, neither faltering nor losing countenance. What followed upon that was ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... on the right cheek from my wilful companion sent me off at a fresh angle, and presently I came in sight of the village church, sitting solitary within its circle of elms. From forth the vestry window projected two small legs, gyrating, hungry for foothold, with larceny—not to say sacrilege—in their every wriggle: a godless sight for a supporter of the Establishment. Though the rest was hidden, I knew the legs ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... abandoned hassocks. It had the effect of a preposterous misfit. Johnson consulted with a thin-legged, short-skirted verger about the disposition of the party. The officiating clergy appeared distantly in the doorway of the vestry, putting on his surplice, and relapsed into a contemplative cheek-scratching that was manifestly habitual. Before the bride arrived Mr. Polly's sense of the church found an outlet in whispered criticisms of ecclesiastical architecture ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... neighbouring parishes no corn is given, the farmers giving money instead; and in some places the money collected is placed in the hands of the clergyman and churchwardens, who, on the Sunday nearest to S. Thomas's Day, distribute it at the vestry. The fund is called S. Thomas's Dole, and the day itself ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... I mean — a blushing bride All bib and tucker, frill and furbelow! How exquisite she looked as she was borne, Recumbent, in her foster-mother's arms! How the bride wept — nor would be comforted Until the hireling mother-for-the-nonce Administered refreshment in the vestry. And I remember feeling much annoyed That she should weep at marrying with me. But then I thought, "These brides are all alike. You cry at marrying me? How much more cause You'd have to cry if it were broken off!" These were my thoughts; I kept them to myself, For at that ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... first, impatiently, "that is all nonsense. If they looked as conspicuous as all that what was there to prevent them from entering the vestry and appropriating a couple of the spare habits that are always hanging there? If they did that they could walk out of the church in broad daylight, and nobody would dream of challenging them. Now, if they are in the church at all, it is my belief that they will be found behind ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... it came to pass that Miss Gushing could never get her final prayer said, her shawl and boa adjusted, and stow away her nice new Prayer-Book with the red letters inside, and the cross on the back, till Mr Oriel had been into his vestry and got rid of his surplice. And then they met at the church-porch, and naturally walked together till Mr Oriel's cruel gateway separated them. The young thing did sometimes think that, as the parson's civilisation ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... five minutes late, George, my boy. What a day, eh? Demmy, it's like the commencement of the rainy season in Bengal. But you'll find my carriage is watertight. Come along, my mother and Emmy are in the vestry." ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... eastward, south of this space, and marked A on plan, was once a chapel, said by Blomefield to have been dedicated to St. Edmund. It is now used as the Dean's Vestry in the lower storey, and as the Chapter Clerk's Office ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... colony (let not the comparison be too much disdained) is only the vestry of a larger parish, which may lay a cess on the inhabitants, and enforce the payment; but can extend no influence beyond its own district, must modify its particular regulations by the general law, and, whatever may be its internal expenses, is ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... made no lasting impression on my mind. I grew worse and worse. Three or four days before I was confirmed, and thus admitted to partake of the Lord's Supper, I was guilty of gross immorality; and the very day before my confirmation, when I was in the vestry with the clergyman to confess my sins, after a formal manner, I defrauded him; for I handed over to him only the twelfth part of the fee which my father had given me for him. In this state of heart, without prayer, without true repentance, without faith, without knowledge of the plan of salvation, ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... Boaz goes to the town-gate next day, and sits down in the gate (for the porch of the gate was a sort of town-hall or vestry- room in the East, wherein all sorts of business was done), and there he challenges the kinsman,—Will he buy the ground and marry Ruth? And he will not: he cannot afford it. Then Boaz calls all the town to witness that day, that he has bought all that ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... alight at the vestry. They remain in the back of the chancel until the first notes of the wedding march notify them of the presence of the bride. The best man must see before the ceremony that the bridegroom's top hat, as well as his own, is sent to the entrance of the church to be handed to ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... service on this Easter Sunday, he met the Rev. Samuel Bishop in the vestry. The organist had already gone to his seat behind the chancel. The first preliminary notes of the voluntary—weak and uncertain, because the organ-blower had come late and as yet there was not sufficient wind in the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... of office at week-day solemnities of marrying or burying, and, having accomplished his clerical duties, rapidly divest himself of his holy robes, and bloom forth in unmitigated scarlet and buckskins, while the temporary cloud of sanctity which had obscured them was rapidly rolled into the vestry closet. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... to that at the Mazarin Library, happened about the same time in London, at the French Protestant Church, St. Martin's-le-Grand. Many years ago I discovered there, in a dirty pigeon hole close to the grate in the vestry, a fearfully mutilated copy of Caxton's edition of the Canterbury Tales, with woodcuts. Like the book at Paris, it had long been used, leaf by leaf, in utter ignorance of its value, to light the ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... the site of the Green Man, of ancient date. In 1879 the Vestry proposed to sweep away the groves of the Well Walk and make it into a modern thoroughfare, a New Wells Street, which drew forth indignant protest from the parishioners and a pamphlet ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... he is quite ignorant of their admiration, and therefore quite innocent. I am the only woman he loves, and he never even remembers me when he is in the sacred office. If you could see him come out of the vestry in his white surplice, with his rapt face and prophetic eyes. So mystical! So beautiful! You would not ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... the old mechanism—the backfalls, roller-boards and trackers—is now swept away, it is possible by placing the bellows in the cellar to utilize the inside of the organ for a choir-vestry, as was indeed done with the pioneer Hope-Jones organ at St. John's ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... little boy had been asked to sign a contract binding him to accept grapes every day, to keep them always near him, to eat them and to enjoy them every day, he would have signed that contract as joyously as any radiant bridegroom or demure bride signs the register in the vestry. But is a complex man or woman, with unknown capacities for changing or deteriorating, and with incalculable aptitudes for inflicting torture and arousing loathing, is such a creature more easy to be bound to than an exquisite fruit? All the countries of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the House of God it traffics in chairs and kneeling stools in a way that offends foreigners; though it cannot have forgotten the anger of the Saviour who drove the money-changers out of the Temple. If the Church is so loath to relinquish its dues, it must be supposed that these dues, known as Vestry dues, are one of its sources of maintenance, and then the fault of the Church is the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... the 12th century onwards. Thus, Jocelin of Brakelond tells of a fire in the Abbey Church of Bury St. Edmunds in the year 1198.[33] The relics would have been destroyed during the night, but just at the crucial moment the clock bell sounded for matins and the master of the vestry sounded the alarm. On this "the young men amongst us ran to get water, some to the well and others to the clock"—probably the sole occasion on which a clock served as a ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... is occupied by the clergy. The windows are of stained glass. Those at the sides are very simple, but the oriel over the altar is a grand work. There are two organs, a monster instrument over the main entrance, and a smaller organ in the choir. Both are remarkably fine instruments. The vestry rooms, which lie on each side of the chancel, contain a number of handsome memorial tablets, and in the north room there is a fine tomb in memory of Bishop Onderdonk, with a full-length effigy of the deceased prelate ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... squint. With the exception of two which are Norman, the windows are nearly all of modern date. One is in the north wall of the chancel and is widely splayed. It is not seen on the outside owing to the vestry which now covers it. The other, a very interesting specimen, is situated over the western bay of the south arcade, and is a portion of the original clerestory and the earliest known clerestory window in the county. The roof of the nave is of oak, and a good specimen of Perpendicular ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate
... perhaps, coupled with a series of urgent letters to the Times, would be your wisest course. But, in the present unsatisfactory state of the law, it is difficult to know how to advise you for the best. Your idea, if the worst comes to the worst, and you cannot get the Vestry to attend to it, of blowing up your dust-bin yourself with gunpowder, you might resort to as a last expedient; but, as you seem to think it might bring down your portico, and possibly the whole front of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... Di was married, and people whispered what a beautiful bride, and how good-looking the American bridegroom was, while she and Sidney were in the vestry signing their names in the book. Then, down the aisle they came, Di radiant, Major Vandyke flushed and brilliant eyed. "He looks as if he had just fought a successful engagement," I heard an American man in the ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... day, I was in my confessional, listening to the confession of a young man, when, I saw Miss Mary entering the vestry, and coming directly to my confessional-box, where she knelt by me. Though she had, still more than at the first time, disguised herself behind a long, thick, black veil, I could not be mistaken; she was the very same amiable young lady in ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... Parish Councillor, Poor Law Guardian, Inspector of Lunatic Asylums, High Sheriff, or even Public Hangman; but save, oh, save us from being churchwardens! To be obliged to attend those terrible institutions called "vestry meetings," and to receive each year an examination paper from the archdeacon of the diocese propounding such questions as, "Do you attend church regularly? If not, why not?" etc., etc., is the natural destiny of the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... her—followed in the same direction and vanished at her heels into the churchyard, whither she had now gone. Mr. and Mrs. Belmaine exchanged glances, and instead of following the pair they went with Mrs. Doncastle into the vestry to inquire of the person in charge for the register of the marriage of Oliver Cromwell, which was solemnized here. The church was now quite empty, and its stillness was as a vacuum into which an occasional noise from the street overflowed and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... He demonstrated that it was a seed cake. The sermon was really very amusing, and more than once he saw a smile pass over the sea of faces underneath him. The Bishop was very angry, and gave my hero a severe reprimand in the vestry after service was over; the only excuse he could make was that he was preaching ex tempore, had not thought of this particular point till he was actually in the pulpit, and had then been carried away ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... In the vestry, after signing the books, Herbert and Ronald and some of the others insisted on their ancient right of kissing the bride in good old English fashion. But Arthur did not. It would not have been loyal. He felt in his heart that he had loved little Miss Butterfly ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... and in several other ancient religious buildings in Normandy. Nor is England altogether without specimens of the same kind: a similar chapel, now in a ruinous state, and called by Blomefield, "the sexterie or ancient vestry," is joined to the north transept of Norwich cathedral; and near the eastern extremity of the same church, are four others. But the principal characteristic of those at St. Nicholas', is the extremely high pitch of the stone roof, a peculiarity equally observable in the roof of the ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... Judith, Leonard Holt searched every corner of the subterranean church, except the vestry, the door of which was locked, and the key removed; but without success. They then ascended to the upper structure, and visited the choir, the transepts, and the nave, but with no ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the next day, being the first Monday in the month, I went to the "Concert" for prayer, which had been announced the day before. It was held in a vestry or a school-room under the church. About sixty or seventy persons were in attendance. When I got there, they were singing ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... ready sir. I spoke to the rector, sir, and, with his leave, had them brought around to the vestry door, so that you can all go out that way, ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... rabbits is "dogs," and so's parrots; but this 'ere tortis is a hinsect, and there ain't no—need—for it. And the tone of Punch's more serious utterances is now that of the dining-room rather than of the debating society and the vestry room. Mr. Ruskin, among others, deplored Punch's kid gloves and evening-dress, when amiable obituary notices on Baron Bethell—(had he not been Punch's counsel in the old days?)—and the Bishop of Winchester were published. "Alas, Mr. Punch," he wrote, "is it come to this? ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... experienced hands to form a background for the bridal party. The seats for the respective families have been roped off with wide white satin ribbons; those on the right for the bridegroom's family, those of the left for the bride's. The bridegroom and the best man are with the clergyman in the vestry; the bridesmaids have assembled at the bride's house, and have entered their carriages; the relatives, including the bride's mother, and guests are in their seats. The carriages containing the bridesmaids precede that of the bride to the church; they alight and await her in the vestibule. The ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... down; and of the ghost of the unfortunate Governor Leisler, who was hanged for treason, which haunted the old fort and the government house. The gossiping knot dispersed, each charged with direful intelligence. The sexton disburdened himself at a vestry meeting that was held that very day, and the black cook forsook her kitchen, and spent half the day at the street pump, that gossiping place of servants, dealing forth the news to all that came for water. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Hollingsworth writes that it is an error to suppose that Young remained long as chaplain to merchants abroad. 'He must have remained generally in constant residence, because we possess his signature to the vestry accounts, in a curious quarto book, which contains the annual accounts of Stow upland Parish for eighty-four years. At the parish meetings, and at the audit of each year's accounts Vicar Young presided, with some exceptions, from the ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... was built by Calixtus II, and was for two centuries and a half the Vestry of the Roman Pontiffs. It was repaired and consecrated in 1747. See Cancellieri. De Secretariis T. ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... Hart Street, is intimately associated with Pepys both in his life and in his death, and for many years the question had been constantly asked by visitors, "Where is Pepys's monument?" On Wednesday, July 5th, 1882, a meeting was held in the vestry of the church, when an influential committee was appointed, upon which all the great institutions with which Pepys was connected were represented by their masters, presidents, or other officers, with the object of taking steps to obtain an adequate memorial ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... With the vestry of the Marrow kirk in Bell's Wynd the synod met, and was constituted with prayer. Sederunt, the Reverend Gilbert Peden, moderator, minister of the true kirk of God in Scotland, commonly called the Marrow Kirk, in which ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... "stands remarkably in three parishes—the pulpit in Speldhurst, the altar in Tunbridge, and the vestry in Frant. The stream also, which parted the counties of Kent and Sussex, formerly ran underneath it, but is now turned to a greater distance." —Hist. Kent, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... rate which the Churchwardens and Vestry had the right to levy on ratepayers for the repairs of the Church, and for the expenses connected with Divine Service. Ina, king of Wessex, drew up a code of Ecclesiastical Laws, which were accepted in a National Council in A.D. 690. Among these laws was that—"The Church Scot (or ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... a story as this which was told him by a bishop: There was a dispute in a vestry at Providence between two hot church-members. One said at last, "I should like to know who ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... church. It contains an old carved pulpit and reading-desk, a tiny altar under a window filled with dark old-coloured glass, a font, some half-dozen pews, and perhaps a dozen seats for the poor; and also a vestry. The roof is high pitched, and of black old oak, and the three large beams which support it run down to the side walls, and terminate in grotesquely carved faces,—two devils and an angel on one side, two angels and a devil ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... wheedle the votes at the vestry, I'd have a share of those good sav'ry things; Enchained by turkey, in love with the pastry. And floating in Champagne, while Bow bells ring. Those who are cautious are skinny and fretful, Hunger, alas! naught but ill-humour brings; I'd be an Alderman, rich with a net full, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... the devils of Hell were in one of their churches celebrating Christmas in such manner as the devils observe that day; and how Jurgen came through the trapdoor in the vestry-room; and how he saw and wondered over the creatures which inhabited this place. For to him after the Christmas services came all such devils as his fathers had foretold, and in not a hair or scale ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... sat Beth could see the vicar's pew in the chancel, and she had noticed a tall slender youth sitting at the far end, near the vestry door, but he did not interest her at first; now, however, she looked at him again, and wondered who he was, and presently she found that he was gazing at her intently. Then their eyes met, and it was as ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Close on 10th November, 1697, and his baptism is entered in the parish register on the 28th of the same month.[2] It is recorded that the font had a narrow escape in the eighteenth century, when the Vestry ordered it to be removed for a new one, but fortunately the order was never ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... great changes for the better, socially. Politically, no. England governed by the Marylebone vestry and the penny papers, and England as she would be after years of such governing; is what I make of that. Socially, the change in manners is remarkable. There is much greater politeness and forbearance in all ways. . . . On the other hand there are still provincial oddities ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... this holy function, the statue being half consumed, Eberard felt himself extremely ill; he was led into the vestry, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... 1879. To establish a school of philosophy had been the dream of Alcott's life; and there he sat as I entered the vestry of a church on one of the hottest days in August. He looked full as young as he did twenty years ago, when he gave us a 'conversation' in Lynn. Elizabeth Peabody came into the room, and walked up to the seat of the rulers; her white hair streamed ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... lesson, which was punctuated throughout by Mr. Whitehead with bitter comments on the enormity of theft, the boys went to chapel. Smith and Hart were in the choir: they wore white surplices which were put on in the vestry. Hart Minor, who knew that he was in for a terrific row of some kind, thought he observed something unusual in the conduct of the masters who were assembled in the vestry. They were all tittering. Mr. Whitehead seemed to be convulsed with uncontrollable laughter. The choir ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... Sir. In compliance with your request, I. have been, this morning, to the vestry of St. James, Westminster, where I examined the record of Oglethorpe's baptism, of which the following is an exact ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... officer of the parish or township was the constable, or petty constable, as he is often called, to distinguish him from the high-constable of the hundred. He was appointed by the court-leet, where this was still held; in other cases by the steward of the lord of the manor, the vestry of the parish, or, as a part of their residuary duties, by the justices of the peace. The regular form of oath of the constable may be quoted in some fulness to show the nature of his duties. "You shall swear that ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... this of yours? Do you want to drop the Lodger and come out as a Householder?—Now you must know that I took this house of mine at Enfield, by an obvious domiciliary fiction, in my Sister's name, to avoid the bother and trouble of parish and vestry meetings, and to escape finding myself one day an overseer or big-wig of some sort. What then w'd be my ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... altar, was occupied by the clergy and singers. The altar itself, a name which insensibly became familiar to Christian ears, was placed in the eastern recess, artificially built in the form of a demi-cylinder; and this sanctuary communicated by several doors with the sacristy, the vestry, the baptistery, and the contiguous buildings, subservient either to the pomp of worship, or the private use of the ecclesiastical ministers. The memory of past calamities inspired Justinian with a wise resolution, that no wood, except for the doors, should be admitted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... a special meeting of the wardens and vestry of St. Jude's Church held this day, it was unanimously decided to grant your request for leave of absence from your duties as rector of this parish from June 1st till September 13th, inclusive, proximo, with permission to go abroad. I am instructed further to state that the wardens and ...
— A Temporary Dead-Lock - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... children are crying with cold and hunger, and the very bed on which his sick wife is lying, is dragged from beneath her. What can he do? To whom is he to apply for relief? To private charity? To benevolent individuals? Certainly not—there is his parish. There are the parish vestry, the parish infirmary, the parish surgeon, the parish officers, the parish beadle. Excellent institutions, and gentle, kind-hearted men. The woman dies—she is buried by the parish. The children have no protector—they are taken ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Huckley Church which, he said—and he seemed to spend his every week-end there—had been perpetrated by the Rector's predecessor, who had abolished a 'leper-window' or a 'squinch-hole' (whatever these may be) to institute a lavatory in the vestry. It did not strike me as stuff for which Reuters or the Press Association would lose much sleep, and I left him declaiming to Woodhouse about a fourteenth-century font which, he said, he had unearthed ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... little. We promise you that there are giants on the earth in these days, ay, and famous giants of their cubits! But when a giant is made to drivel, his drivelings are very little better than those of a pigmy. And we swear to you, (under correction from the parish vestry, which is entitled to half-a-crown an oath,) that the circulating libraries would make a driveler of Seneca! Under the circulating library tyranny, Johnson himself would have been forced to break up his long words into smaller pieces, to supply due ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... who is to perform the marriage comes into the chancel from the vestry. At a few paces behind him follows the groom, who in turn is followed by the best man. The groom stops at the foot of the chancel steps and takes his place at the right, as indicated in the accompanying diagram. His best man stands directly behind him. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... the country people in the neighbourhood resorted to lay out their money. I had employed all my stock, and even engaged my credit, to procure a large assortment of goods for the Lammas market; but, having given my vote in the election of a vestry-clerk, contrary to the interest of Justice Gobble, he resolved to work my ruin. He suppressed the annual fairs, by which a great many people, especially publicans, earned the best part of their subsistence. The country people resorted to another town. I was overstocked ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... so well lighted, if half-a-dozen squalid lanes had been transformed into a stately street, if half the town no longer depended on tanks for their water, if the poor-rates were reduced one-third, praise to the brisk new blood which Richard Avenel had infused into vestry and corporation. And his example itself ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... inches from the ground; They'll walk without fatigue, No longer plagued with trains to lift Above the slush or snow; They'll not sweep Mud that's deep While the stormy tempests blow; Long dresses do the Vestry's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... at home, as if I had been at some vestry-meeting, or some committee in the old country, when Elatreus got up. He was stout, very bald, and had a way of thrusting his arm behind him, and of humming and hawing, which vividly brought back to mind the oratory of my native land. ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... by one, that I may hear what they have to say, and thus be in a better position to form a sound judgment. I have written the petitioners to this effect, and have told them that I shall be in the vestry of the church next Thursday, morning and afternoon, to hear what they have to say. I have also written to your wardens—whose names, by the way, do not appear on the petition— stating the case, that they may give due ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... was delivered. Even the doctor himself had the recollection of the words he had uttered swept out of his mind, as, having doffed his gown and donned his surplice, he came out of the dusk of his vestry and went to the church-door, looking into the broad light which came upon the plain of the church-yard on the cliffs; for the sun had not yet set, and the pale moon was slowly rising through the silvery mist that obscured the distant moors. There was ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his Bible and visit the cottages of his negroes and read to them even when sick of contagious fevers. He defended poor clients freely in the courts, and fought for the lives of free negroes under capital indictments. He was of the vestry of the aged Episcopal Church, which dominated the social influence of the town, and never omitted attendance on all the services, but with the shadow forever on his brow. Young Perry went everywhere with his father, and chattered ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... should strip, three cents (For that was all they figured out apiece), Three cents so small beside the dollar friends I should be writing to within the hour Would pay in cities for good trees like those, Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools Could hang enough on to pick off enough. A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had! Worth three cents more to give away than sell, As may be shown by a simple calculation. Too bad I couldn't lay ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... running away—still I'll do my best to get you a good master, for my bible teaches me to do good for evil. The next day I was called out with forty other slaves, belonging to different owners in the County, and we were marched into the doctor's vestry for examination; here the doctor made us all strip—men and women together naked, in the presence of each other while the examination went on. When it was concluded, thirty-eight of us were pronounced sound, ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... building in sight—a small ancient-looking church built on a raised mound, surrounded by a wide shallow grass-grown trench, on the border of a marshy stream. The people went in and took their seats, while we remained standing just by the door. Then the priest came from the vestry, and seizing the rope vigorously, pulled at it for five minutes, after which he showed us where to sit and the service began. It was very pleasant there, with the door open to the sunlit forest and the little green churchyard ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... without her seeing the old parsonage too, the cottage covered with Austrian roses, and yellow jessamine, where she had been born, sole child of parents already long past the prime of youth. She saw the path, not a hundred yards long, from the parsonage to the vestry door: that path which her father trod daily; for the vestry was his study, and the sanctum, where he pored over the ponderous tomes of the Father, and compared their precepts with those of the authorities ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... beachcomber himself, pale as putty through his half-grown beard, was beseeching us from the pink penumbra of the Apostle Paul: "You seen it? You seen what I seen?" but Miah wouldn't hear him, and mounting the steps and passing dull-footed through the vestry, came into the veiled light and heavy scent of breath and flowers. Following at his heels I saw the faces of women turned to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... perfectly happy sweeping the chapel floor, dusting the pews, polishing the brasswork, rearranging the hymnals in the racks. He arranged with the milkman to leave a bottle of milk and some cinnamon buns at the chapel gate every morning, so he had a cheerful and stealthy little lunch in the vestry-room, though always a trifle nervous lest some of ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... done it. And anyway what are you going to do about it? Did you seriously suppose that I—I—was going through all the orange-blossom rigmarole, voice that breathed o'er Eden, fully choral, red carpet on the pavement, flowers, photographers, vicar, vestry, Daily Picture, reception, congratulations, rice, old shoes, going-away dress, 'Be kind to her, Ozzie.' Not much! And I don't think. They say that girls love it and insist on it. Well, I don't, and I know some others who ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... the maiden had to wait longer for her deliverance. There are stories similar to this of fairies lending such articles on this condition. If the condition be not complied with, the fairies are never seen again. Aubrey relates that in the vestry of Frensham Church, in Surrey, is a great kettle, which was borrowed from the fairies who lived in the Borough Hill, about a mile away. It was not returned according to promise, and though afterwards taken back, it was not received, nor since that time ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... past age they are worthy of high consideration. Everything that was used by him, and that survives the ravages of time, possesses a peculiar charm; even the chair in which he at is preserved in the vestry of the new chapel, and is shown to those who make the pilgrimage to the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... revival had swept into the church, during the winter months, a great company of the young people of the congregation; and of these, a band of some ten or twelve young men, with Don among them, were attending daily a special class carried on in the vestry of the church for those who desired to enter training for ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... who are at times a little puzzled as to what to do with it. They get rid of a good portion in this way: at every service which is held in the church, they place a bottle of the best sherry which can be procured for money upon the vestry-table; from this the 'officiating priest' strengthens his inner man with a glass or two before commencing his ministrations, and then the church-wardens sit down and finish the remainder comfortably by themselves, while the reverend gentleman is in the reading-desk or the pulpit. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... lay in the vestibule was examined, and found to contain all the church plate; a silver salver that had disappeared, about a month before, from Dr. Lincote's store of valuables; the Vicar's gold pencil-case, which he thought he had forgot in the vestry book; silver spoons, and various other contributions, levied from time to time off a dozen different households, the mysterious disappearance of which spoils had, of late years, begun to make the honest little community uncomfortable. Two bells had been taken down from the chime; and now the ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... taking a walk to the top of Moel-y-llan, and although harmless he was a great terror to the neighbourhood, and but few would venture to enter the church alone. Mr. Roberts was told that on a certain occasion a vestry was held in a public house, that stood on the north side of the church, not a vestige of which now remains, but no one would go to the church for the parish books. The landlady had the courage to go but no sooner had she crossed the threshold than the Evil Spirit blew the light ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... because that's put down in the great book of the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but mother told me I was born some time ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... that hindered it during these years from coming out, sat her bright angel, waiting. Meanwhile she was not a person to watch the destruction of her hopes without making violent efforts to stop it; and immediately she had played the vicar into the vestry after service that Sunday she left the congregation organless and hurried away into the churchyard. There she stood and waited for the villagers to question them about this unheard of thing; and it was bad to see how they melted away in other directions,—out at unused gates, ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the college beyond all peradventure. Wherever he was, in the recitation room, in the academic circle, in the Medical School of which he was ex officio president, in the Board of Trustees, in the councils of the bishop and the Diocese, in the conferences with the Vestry of Old Trinity Church, before the Board of Regents, before the Legislature of the State, he was always the learned, sagacious, loyal, and inspiring president; respected and beloved always, by all who entered the circle of his influence; and illustrating daily ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... addition to those above mentioned, are found at S. Mary's, Stamford, Ottery S. Mary, Chudleigh, Bovey, and in nearly all the Devon parish churches. At Dunstable a screen of Queen Mary's time separates the vestry from ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... visit to Aberystwith, I walked to the mother church of Llanbadarn, a fine old building, which I was glad to find, since a former visit, was undergoing important repairs in its exterior. While inspecting the interior, I requested the clerk to show me into the vestry, and upon inquiring if the church possessed any black-letter Bible, Foxe's Martyrs, or any of those volumes which at the Reformation were chained to the desks or pews, he opened a case in the vestry, in which I was sorry to observe many volumes, not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... under the name of banishment!" In this letter Mr. O'Connell made some magnificent promises to the electors of Clare and the people of Ireland at large. He would obtain the repeal of the disfranchisement act, of the sub-letting act, and of the vestry bill; would assail the system of "grand jury jobbing, and grand jury assessment;" would procure an equitable distribution of church property between the poor on the one hand, and the laborious portion of the Protestant clergy on the other; would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... others who have their living to make in the town are terrorised, and they preserve a discreet silence in public however much they may speak evil of dignities in private. As a general rule, a show of decorum is kept up; yet I should think it hardly possible for the average vestry or council to meet without an interchange of winks among the members. John favours Tommy's tender when Tommy contracts to horse all the corporation's water-carts, dust-carts, and so forth; then Tommy is friendly when John wants to sell his row of cottages to the municipality. If ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... came out on the pine knoll at the close of the service many persons went up to him; but before he had time to speak to a soul Sexton Blackie stepped up and asked him to come along into the vestry. ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... of a parish usually distinguished by the titles, Senior and Junior. In some Dioceses they are elected directly by the people of the parish at the same time the Vestrymen are elected. In other Dioceses they are appointed by the newly elected Vestry. The Senior Warden is usually appointed by the Rector and the Junior Warden is elected by the Vestry. It is the special duties of the Wardens to see that the Church edifice is kept from unhallowed use; that it be kept clean and in good repair, ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... Calder, which formed the south-west boundary of the close, was the house itself, consisting of three quadrangles, besides stables and offices. The first and most westerly of these was the cloister-court, of which the nave of the conventual church formed the north side; the chapter-house and vestry, yet remaining, the east; the dormitory, also remaining, the west; and the refectory and kitchens the south. The cloister was of wood, supported, as usual, upon corbels, still remaining: the area within was the monks' cemetery, and some of the ancient ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby |
