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A meeting was recently held at Shrewsbury to promote a national memorial to the late Charles Darwin. A few days later a portion of the spire and nearly the whole of the nave of St. Mary's Church in that town collapsed. The Reverend N. Poyntz, vicar of the damaged structure, thus moralized on the two events: -

"The fall of the spire should stop for ever in their mouths at least the jargon about natural laws and natural forces and the like, so common at the present day. One day this month a certain event occurred in Shrewsbury, and the spire was blown down by the act of God. Was there any connection between the two events? He thought it likely, and if he was right, and it was at least possible, then many had received a warning."

One would think that a more obvious moral would be that the fall of the spire was a warning to those who took a narrow-minded view of the vast services rendered by Mr Darwin to the discovery of truth. Unfortunately for both morals, the same gale injured Chester Cathedral. Was there a Darwinian memorial meeting in Chester also? What about the distressed mariners most of whom never heard of Darwin?

[From the Lancashire Evening Post (28 February 1894): 2:]

During the heavy gale on Sunday evening, February 11th, a portion of the spire of St. Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, was blown down. The spire was under repair at the time, and was surrounded by scaffolding, and the roof of the church was in a very rotten condition. To most people, these facts, coupled with the terrific force of the wind, were amply sufficient to account for the disaster. The vicar of the church however, the Rev. N. Poyntz, after considering the phenomenon for a week, came to the conclusion that it was a special judgment of the Almighty, evoked by a meeting which had been held in the town a week or two previously for the purpose of erecting a monument to Darwin. His reverence preached a sermon to this effect.

I should have thought that anybody above the intellectual level of the Reverend Poyntz would have asked himself why Westminster Abbey did not tumble down 12 years ago, when Darwin was buried there, with a Bishop to preach his funeral sermon. It may be, however, that the Almighty has only just discovered what a dangerous person this Darwin is.