Sunday Supplement: Guarding the Pulpit

Sir Richard Arcos here: Last weekend, my wife and I paid a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Rule, my daughter and son-in-law, at Plas Llangarmon, Carms. We attended the Rules' own church, Salem, Llangarmon, a solid and very typical Welsh Chapel. The Rev. Geraint Pryse, the minister there, was away on holiday, so we were to listen to a supply preacher. This gent, who will remain nameless, was from a college somewhere in London. He got into the pulpit and welcomed everyone. We sung lustily, Mr. Rule, one of the deacons, watching closely. The prayer was a little odd, but we let that pass for a bit. When the sermon started, however, we quickly discovered some disagreements between ourseoves and the preacher. He told us that the Gospel was more about society than individuals.

That probably started it. Two of the decons got up, a large chap who is rugby teacher at the local school motioned him to get down. When he refused and continued, three decons charged up the pulpit. The rugby player got his legs, and the man crashed down from the pulpit. Two others got the man in an arm-lock, as he continued to strugle and attempt to deliver his sermon. He was pinned across the communion table and gagged with a handkerchief, before being bodily ejected from the church.

The late arrival of a rather worried-looking gentleman was the cue for us to discover that the man had in fact been a Unitarian who had gone to the wrong church in error. He had done the same thing and suffered similar consequences.