The Blackpool Herald. — 1877-09-21 (Blackpool, Lancashire, England)

THE BLAQFPOM, HERA  4E-OPENING OF KIRKHAM PARISH CH#RCH.  The church of St. Michael, Kirkham, was reopened? after being cleaned, painted, and internally brit roved, on Sunday. The windows of the chureh, which had got into -a very bad condition, have beens removed, and been retilaced by windows neat in design and durable. Th,c latrger square pews, excepting those in what is caR&I" the Mowbrick eChapel, have been removed, and in their places there have been fixed comfortable pews in keeping with the body of the Church. In order to afford better view of the stained glass east window, -which was given to the church a few years ago by A. L. Birfey, Esq., the reading desk and the pulpit have been removed to thefoot of thechancel arch. Ahaudsome lectern, the gift of Mrs. Langton Birley, has been placed in front of the chanceL Whrevever improvements could be effected they have been made, and these have involved an outlay of some £7OO, the great portion of which had been promised before the opening. It may be interesting to state that it i s believed the church was in existence at the time of the Normans. In 1822 the nave of the edifice was rebuilt; in 1864 the tower, which formed the oldest portion of the church, was rebuilt and surmounted by a spire, and in 1853 the chancel was rebuilt. The building was . said to be capable of seating 1,400 persons, but now that some of the cumbrous square-built pews have been removed and substituted by the ordinary free and open seats, the sittings will exceed this number. The Rev, H. W. Mason, the vieat, and his wardens are to be complimented on the improvement that has been effected in the:church,and the parishioners have contributed with characteristic liberality towards the defrayal of the expense involved in the improvements. On Sunday morning the sermon was preached by the Bishop of Manchester, the vicar and the curate assisting at the service. The Bishop preached from the 16th verse of the 7th chapter of St. Luke: "And there came a fear on all; and they glorified God, saying that a great prophet is risen up among us and that God bath visited His people." In the course of the sermon, his lordship said that in the Old Book God was represented as coming out of His place to visit the laud, and God's four tokens of Himself as the old prophets were wont to deliver them, were the sword, the famine, the pestilence, and the noisome beast. To-day what did they see amongst themselves. They had no sword drawn in England, but every heart was anxious lest perhaps this country should be drawn into the terrible and accursed war raging with such aggravations of bitterness, and cruelty, and murderous purpose in the East. They had uo famine in England, but they had a famine laying waste its thousands and hundreds of thousands in one of England's greatest dependencies, and even in England people engaged in agriculture must have had some anxious and uncomfortable thoughts in these latter days, for Lord ‘Vinmarleigh told him last Thursday, when he was at Manchester, that in his part of the county, all round Garstang, the potato crop was almost destroyed. Then there was the noisome beast, and men and facetious newspapers Pulich, for instance made themselves merry over the Colorado beetle. It had become a joke in people's mouths. If they wish to speak of a nuisance, they call it a Colorado beetle. They did not seem to think that, perhaps, this noisome beast, which had destroyed many a harvest field on the other side of the Atlantic, might come and destroy our harvest fields. Be did not think that the Colorado beetles were things to make jokes about. At any rate, there did seem to be certain tokens that, in the language of the prophet, "God is coming out and visiting the nations of the earth." He did not say in judgment, perhaps in mercy. "When God's judgments are upon the earth," said an old prophet, "men will learn righteousness," and if they won't be taught righteousness by prosper, y and blessings, it is as well that they rhould learn them by troubles, sorrows and difficulties. Hie lordship also preached in the evening. The 'total collections on behalf of the liquidation of the debt incurred in the alterations amounted to the sum of £l2O.