10 OCTOBER 1896, Page 30

CHURCH NOTICES.

[To TEL EDITOR OP TER "SpsoTAToz."1 SIR,—The Establishment has not a monopoly of curious "Church notices." A friend of mine once heard a worthy old deacon in a Baptist chapel give out that the collection that morning would be in aid of the "Society for Propagation of the Jews." Most people have supposed that any external assistance to the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham was superfluous. At a certain Metropolitan church, where many marriages are celebrated, the clerk was in the habit of giving out after reading the list of couples, "If any of you know any just cause or impediment why these persons should not be respectably joined together," &c. It certainly sounded so, but possibly the fault was more in the clerk's voice than

his intentions.—I am, Sir, &c., E. S. T.