The Rev. Samuel Sherwen, already alluded to, was surpassed in this direction by another Cumbrian clergyman, the Rev. William Sewell, of Troutbeck. One Sunday morning the latter entered the pulpit of the little church at Wythburn to preach. The pulpit sadly needed repair, and, in leaning out from the wall, left an undesirable opening behind it. Into this chink the parson's sermon fell, and the pulpit was so ricketty in its broken-down condition that the preacher feared the consequences of turning in it. Moreover, the manuscript had fallen so far that it could not be reached. Mr. Sewell, bereft of his sermon, announced to his congregation in broad dialect: "T' sarmont's slipt down i' t' neuk, and I can't git it out; but I'll tell ye what--I'se read ye a chapter i' t' Bible 'at's worth three on't." A similar story is told in connection with the Rev. Mr. Alcock, who in the middle of the last century was rector of Burnsal, near Skipton, in Yorkshire. Of this clergyman another story is given which well illustrates the excessive familiarity indulged in by occupants of the pulpit in bygone days. One of his friends, at whose house he was wont to call previous to entering the church on Sundays, seized a chance to unfasten and then misplace the leaves of his sermon. In the service the parson had not read far before he discovered the trick. "Will," cried he, "thou rascal! what's thou been doing with my sermon?" Then turning to his people, he continued: "Brethren, Will Thornton's been misplacing the leaves of my sermon; I have not time to put them right; I shall read on as I find it, and you must make the best of it that you can." He accordingly read to the close of the confused mass to the utter astonishment of his congregation.