Singularly enough, in Sweden, the calling of banns is entitled "falling out of the pulpit." It was customary on the occasion of the final call to present the bridegroom with a crutch and stick. Charles XI wrote to Field-Marshal Aschelberg: "Your son fell out of the pulpit last Sunday. I think Count Gustaf will recover without the administration of either black draught or bolus, for the Frue Beata Thorstensson is the best plaster he can obtain to recover him of his bruises."[1]
There was a pew in front of the reading-desk at Lew reserved for women who desired to be churched.
One Sunday, two young and blooming females, strangers, entered this pew, entirely unconscious of the object for which it was reserved. My uncle, taking it for granted that one of them at least was a mother desiring to return thanks after a safe delivery in child-birth, proceeded to read the appropriate service. Great was their consternation when the clerk approached them with a pewter bowl for the customary offering. This led to an explanation by the two young women: "Us b'ain't mothers, nor us b'ain't married." "Don't foller," replied the clerk, and then: "Why did you go into the Churching pew?" "Us didn't know no better," was the reply of the blushing girls. The congregation listened with keener attention to the colloquy than they did to a sermon. "Then you ort," said the clerk sententiously. "But"—relaxing—"never you mind! Such purty maids as you be, blushin' as rose-buds, you'll be sure before long to get 'usbands, and then you'll want to be churched. So you can give thanks afore that takes place."
At the trial of Bishop Wren of Norwich, impeached before the Houses of Parliament in 1640 for "setting up idolatry and superstitious practices," among the twenty-four articles wherewith he was charged was one concerning the Churching Service. A Norwich tradesman being pursued down the street by a bull took refuge in a shop. He asked the bishop to be allowed to make a public act of thanksgiving for his escape. Wren adapted the Churching Service for the purpose, altering "safe delivery in child-birth" into "safe delivery from a bull." The unfortunate man had a sorry time of it after that in Norwich,
- ↑ The same expression "throwing out of the pulpit" is employed in the Catholic Churches of the Black Forest to describe calling of banns.
