What aged dame in Lindsey had not heard of the Spiritual Court? Why the mere sound of the word served to fill her with mysterious awe, and to call up in her memory all the fireside stories of her grandmothers: how such awful "penances" were inflicted by this court, on erring females, in _their_ days,--when the dread power of the priesthood was displayed in punishing the subjects of that natural frailty called "scandal," by compelling them to walk up the church aisle covered with a white sheet, and bearing a wax taper in their hand! With such associations derived from his grandmother, only conceive how awfully queer poor, moral, gentle, religious, upright Clerk William felt when he received the mysterious "writ," issued against him by this mysterious court. "Schollard," as he was, it was so strange a thing to look upon, that he instantly sent for the parish schoolmaster, who, with spectacles on nose, and frequent spelling and some mispelling, read aloud--to a house full of consternated neighbours,--Clerk William turning pale as he heard the beginning,-- "IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN! "We, John Haggard, Doctor in Civil and Canon Law, Vicar-General in spirituals of the Right Reverend Father in God, John, by Divine Permission, Lord Bishop of Lincoln, and official Principal of the Episcopal and Consistorial Court of Lincoln, lawfully constituted,--to you William Middleton, of the parish of Stow, &c. &c., touching and concerning your soul's health, and the lawful correction and reformation of your manners and excesses, and more especially for profaning the parish church of Stow aforesaid, by brawling, quarrelling, or chiding in the said parish church during the celebration of divine service therein by the Rev. ----, perpetual curate, &c. &c., and also for contumacious behaviour, and refusing to obey the lawful commands of the said----," &c. &c. And then followed a pompous quotation from a statute of Edward the Sixth, showing that a clergyman had power to prohibit a contumacious member of his flock _ab ingressu ecclesiæ_,--that is to say, from entering the church: in other words, to excommunicate him! Furthermore, an act of the 53d George III. was quoted, declaring that "Persons who may be pronounced or declared to be excommunicate by any ecclesiastical court _in definitive sentences_, or _in interlocutory decrees_, having the force and effect of definitive sentences, as spiritual censures for offences of ecclesiastical cognisance, shall incur imprisonment not exceeding six months, as the court pronouncing or decreeing such person excommunicate shall direct."