CHAPTER VII

Condition of the Church last Century—Parson Radford—The Death of a Pluralist—Opposition Mr. Hawker met with—The Bryanites—Hunting the Devil—Bill Martin’s Prayer-meeting—Mr. Pengelly and the Candle-end—Cheated by a Tramp—Mr. Hawker and the Dissenters—Mr. B——’s Pew—A Special Providence over the Church—His Prayer when threatened with the Loss of St. John’s Well—Objections to Hysterical Religion—Mr. Vincent’s Hat—Regard felt for him by old Pupils—“He did not appreciate me”—Modryb Marya—A Parable—A Carol—Love of Children—Angels—A Sermon, “Here am I”.

Thecondition of the Church in the diocese of Exeter at the time when John Wesley appeared was piteous in the extreme. Non-residence was the rule: the services of the sanctuary were performed in the most slovenly manner, the sacraments were administered rarely and without due reverence in too many places, and pastoral visitation was neglected. The same state of things continued, only slightly improved, to the time when Mr. Hawker began his ministrations at Morwenstow.

There was a story told of a fox-hunting parson, Mr. Radford, in the north of Devon, when I was a boy. He was fond of having convivial evenings in his parsonage, which often ended uproariously.

Bishop Phillpotts sent for him, and said: “Mr. Radford, I hear, but I can hardly believe it, that men fight in your house.”

“Lor’, my dear,” answered Parson Radford, in broad Devonshire, “doant’y believe it. When they begin fighting, I take and turn them out into the churchyard.”

The Bishop of Exeter came one day to visit him without notice. Parson Radford, in scarlet, was just about to mount his horse and gallop off to the meet, when he heard that the bishop was in the village. He had barely time to send away his hunter, run upstairs, and jump, red coat and boots, into bed, when the bishop’s carriage drew up at the door.

“Tell his lordship I’m ill, will ye?” was his injunction to his housekeeper, as he flew to bed.

“Is Mr. Radford in?” asked Dr. Phillpotts.

“He’s ill in bed,” said the housekeeper.

“Dear me! I am so sorry! Pray ask if I may come up and sit with him,” said the bishop.

The housekeeper ran upstairs in sore dismay, and entered Parson Radford’s room. The parson stealthily put his head out of the bedclothes, but was reassured when he saw his room was invaded by his housekeeper, and not by the bishop.

“Please, your honour, his lordship wants to come upstairs, and sit with you a little.”

“With me, good heavens!” gasped Parson Radford. “No. Go down and tell his lordship I’m took cruel bad withscarlet fever: it is an aggravated case, and very catching.”

In the neighbourhood of Morwenstow, a little before Mr. Hawker’s time, was a certain Parson Winterton.[*] He was rector of Eastcote, rector of Eigncombe, rector of Marwood, rector of Westcote, and vicar of Barton. Mr. Hawker used to tell the following story:—

When Parson Winterton lay on his death-bed, he was visited and prepared for dying by a neighbouring clergyman.

“What account can you render for the talents committed to your charge? What use have you made of them?” asked the visitor.

“Use of my talents?” repeated the dying man. And then, thrusting his hands out from under the bedclothes, he said: “I came into this diocese with nothing—yes, with nothing—and now,” and he began to check off the names on the fingers of the left hand with the forefinger of the right hand, “I am rector of Eigncombe, worth £80; rector of Marwood, worth £450; rector of Westcote, worth £560; vicar of Barton, worth £300; and rector of Eastcote, worth a £1000. If that is not making use of one’s talents, I do not know what is. I think I can die in peace.”

Morwenstow, as has been already said, had been without a resident vicar for a century before Mr. Hawker came there. When he arrived, it was with his great heart overflowing with love, and burning to do good to the souls and bodies of his people. He was about the parish all day on his pony, visiting every one of his flock, taking vehement interest in all their concerns, and doing everything he could think of to win their hearts.

But two centuries of neglect by the Church was not to be remedied in a generation. Mr. Hawker was surprised that he could not do it in a twelvemonth. He was met with coldness and hostility by most of the farmers, who were, with one or two exceptions, Wesleyans or Bible Christians. The autocrat of the neighbourhood was an agent for the principal landowner of the district, and he held the people under his thumb. With him the vicar speedily quarrelled: their characters were as opposed as the poles, and it was impossible that they could work together. Mr. Hawker thought—rightly or wrongly, who shall decide?—that this man thwarted him at every turn, and urged on the farmers to oppose and upset all his schemes for benefiting the parish, spiritually and temporally. Mutual antipathy caused recriminations, and the hostility became open. The agent thought he had dealt the vicar a severe blow when he persuaded Sir J. Buller to claim St. John’s Well. Mr. Hawker found himself baffled by the coldness of the Dissenters, and the hostility of the agent, which he had probably brought upon himself; and it struck a chill to his heart, and saddened it.

The vicar was, however, not blameless in the matter. He expected all opposition to melt away before his will; and if a parishioner, or any one else with whom he had dealings, did not prove malleable, and submit to be turned in his hands like a piece of wax, he had no patience with him. He could not argue, but he could make assertions with the force and vehemence which tell with some people as arguments.

The warmth with which Mr. Hawker took up the cause of the labourers, his denunciation of the truck system, and the forcible way in which he protested against the lowness of the wage paid the men, conduced, no doubt, to set the farmers against him. But he was the idol of the workmen. Their admiration and respect for him knew no bounds. “If all gentlemen were like our vicar,” was the common saying, “the world would have no wrongs in it.”

When Mr. Hawker’s noble face was clouded with trouble, as he talked over the way in which he had been thwarted at every turn by the agent and the farmers, if a word were said about the poor, the clouds cleared from his brow, his face brightened at once: “‘The poor have ye always with you,’ said our Lord, and the word is true—is true.”

In a letter written in 1864 to a former curate of Wellcombe, now an incumbent in Essex, he says:—

The only parish of which I can report favourably is my own cure of Wellcombe. Morwenstow is, as it always was, Wesleyan to the backbone; but at Wellcombe the church attendance is remarkable. The same people are faithful and constant as worshippers, and the communicants from two hundred and four souls are fourteen. When any neighbouring clergyman has officiated for me, he is struck with the number and conduct of the congregation. The rector of Kilkhampton often declares Wellcombe to be the wonder of the district. This is to me a great compensation for the unkindly Church feeling of Morwenstow.

The opposition of the Wesleyans and Bryanites caused much bitterness, and he could not speak with justice and charity of John Wesley. He knew nothing of the greatness, holiness and zeal of that zealous man: he did not consider how dead the Church was when he appeared and preached to the people. When he was reproached for his harsh speeches about Wesley, his ready answer was: “I judge of him by the deeds of his followers.”

One of his sayings was: “John Wesley came into Cornwall and persuaded the people to change their vices.” Once, when the real greatness of Wesley was being pressed upon him, he said sharply: “Tell me about Wesley when you can give me his present address.”

If this vehement prejudice seems unjust and unchristian, it must be remembered that Mr. Hawker had met with great provocation. But it was not this provocation which angered him against Methodists and Bryanites, for he was a man of large though capricious charity: that which cut him to the quick was the sense that Cornish Methodism was demoralising the people. Wesleyanism was not so much to blame as Bryanism.

The Cornish Bryanites profess entire freedom from obligation to keep the law, and the complete emancipation from irksome moral restraint of those who are children of God, made so by free grace and a saving faith. One of their preachers was a man of unblushingly profligate life: the details of his career will not bear relation. Mr. Hawker used to mention some scandalous acts of his to his co-religionists, but always received the cool reply: “Ah! maybe; but after all he is asweet Christian.”

A favourite performance in a Bryanite meeting, according to popular report, is to “hunt the Devil out.” The preacher having worked the people up into a great state of excitement, they are provided with sticks, and the lights are extinguished. A generalmêléeensues. Every one who hits thinks he is dealing the Devil his death-blow; and every one who receives a blow believes it is a butt from the Devil’s horns.

Mr. Hawker had a capital story of one of these meetings.

The preacher had excited the people to a wild condition by assuring them he saw the Devil in person—there! there! there!

“Where, where is he?” screamed some of the people.

“Shall I hit ’un down with my umbrella?” asked a farmer.

“He’ll burn a great hole in it if ye do,” said his wife; “and I reck’n he won’t find you another.”

Sticks were flourished, and all rushed yelling from their pews.

“Where is he? Let us catch a glimpse of the end of his tail, and we’ll pin him.”

The shouting and the uproar became great.

“I see ’un, I see ’un!” shouted the preacher; and, pointing to the door, he yelled, “He is there!”

At that very moment the door of the Bryanite meeting-house was thrown open and there stood R——, the dreaded steward of Lord ——, with his grey mare. He had been riding by, and astonished at the noise, had dismounted and opened the door to learn what had occasioned it.

I give the account of a private Bible Christian meeting from the narrative of an old Cornish woman of Kilkhampton.

“Some thirty or more years agone, Long Bill Martin was converted and became a very serious character in Kilkhampton; and a great change that was for Bill. Prayer-meetings were now his delight, especially if young women were present—then he did warm up, I tell’y. He could preach, he could, just a word or two at a time; and then, when he couldn’t find words, he’d roar. He was a mighty comfortin’ preacher, too, especially to the maidens. Many was the prayer-meeting which he kept alive; and if things was going flat—for gospel ministers du go flat sometimes, tell’y, just like ginger-beer bottles if the cork’s out tu often. And, let me tell’y, talkin’ of that, there comed a Harchdeacon here one day: I seed ’un, and he had strings tied about his hat, just as they du corks of lemonade, to keep the spirit in him down; he was nat’rally very uppish, I reck’n. But to go back to Bill. When he couldn’t speak, why, then he’d howl, like no sucking dove: ‘Ugh! the devil! drive the devil!’ Yu could hear him hunting the devil of nights a hundred yards or more off from the cottage where he was leading prayer. One day he settled to have a meeting down near the end of the village and sent in next door to borrow a form (not a form of prayer, yu know, for he didn’t hold to that), and invited the neighbours to join. ‘You’d better come. We’m goin’ to have a smart meetin’ t’night, can tell’y.’

“So us went in, and they set to to pray: fust won and then another was called upon to pray. ’sister, you pray.’ ‘Brother Rhicher (Richard), you pray.’ So to last Rhicher Davey he beginned: ‘My old woman,’ sez he, ’she’s hoffal bad in her temper, and han’t got no saving grace in her, not so much as ye might put on the tail of a flea,’ sez he; ‘but we hopps for better things, and I prays for improvement,’ he went on; ‘and if improvement don’t come to her, why, improvement might come to me, by her bein’ taken where the wicked cease from troubling, and so leave weary me at rest.’ Then I began to laugh; but Long Bill he ketched me up and roared, ‘Pray like blazes, Nanny Gilbert, do’y!’ So I kep my eye fixed to her, and luked at her hard and steadfast, I did, for I knew what the latter hupshot would be with her; and her beginned, ‘We worms of hearth!’ and there her ended. So we waited a bit; and then Bill Martin says, ’squeedge it hout, Nanny, squeedge it hout!’ But it were all no good. Never another word could she utter, though I saw she was as red as a beet-root with tryin’ to pray. She groaned, but no words. Then out comed old Bill—Long Bill us called ’un, but Bill Martin was his rightful name—‘Let us pray, my friends,’ he sez. ‘Honly believe,’ he sez. ‘Drive the devil,’ he roars. ‘There he is! There he is!’ he sez. ‘Do’y not see ’un! Do’y not smell ’un?’—‘It’s the cabbidge,’ sez Nanny Gilbert; ‘there’s some, and turnips tu, and a bit of bacon, biling in the pot over the turves.’ For her was a little put out at not being able to pray. It was her cottage in which the prayer-meeting was being held, yu know. Well, Long Bill didn’t stomach the cabbidge, so he roars louder than afore, ‘Faith!my friends; havefaith!and then yu can see and smell the devil.’—‘If it’s the cabbidge yu mean,’ sez Nanny, ‘I can smell ’un by my nat’ral faculties.’—‘There’s the devil!’ shouts Bill Martin, growing excited. ‘Ugh! drive the hold devil! Faith! my friends, have faith, hellshaking faith, conquering faith, devil-driving faith, a damned lot of faith!’ And then he roars, ‘There he is! I can zee ’un afluttering hover your heads, ye sinners, just like my hands afluttering over the cann’l!’

“So I titched her as was next me, and I sez: ‘Where is ’un? I doan’t see ’un, d’yu?’—‘Yer han’t got faith,’ sez she. ‘But I can feel ’un just as if he was acrigglin’ and acrawlin’ in my head where the partin’ is.’

“Well, just then—and I am sure I can’t tell yu whether it happened afore Bill Martin speaked, or after—but he roars out, ‘I see ’un! he’s flown up the chimley!’ And just then—as I sed, I cannot say whether it was afore he speaked or after—down came a pailful of soot right into the midst of old Nanny’s pot of cabbage and turnips.

“Well, I tell’y, when old Nanny Gilbert seed that, her was as mad as Parson Hawker during a wreck. She ups off her chair and runs first to the pot and looks what’s done there; and then she flies to Bill Martin—Long Bill, yu know—and ketches him by the ear and drags him forward to the pot and sez, flaming like a bit of fuzz, ‘Yer let the devil loose out of your own breast and sent ’um flittering up my chimley, the wiper! and he’s smutted all my supper, as was biling for me and my old man and the childer. And I’ll tell’y what, if yu don’t bring your devil down by his tail, that I may rub his nose in it, I’ll dip yours, I will.’

“Well, yu may believe me, Bill tremmled as a blank-mange—that’s a sort of jelly stuff I seed one day in a gentleman’s house to Bude, when the servant was carrying it in to dinner; it shooked all hover like. For I tell’y, a woman as has had her biling of cabbage and turnips spoiled, especial if there be a taste of bacon in it, ain’t to be preached peaceable.

“After that I can’t tell’y ’xactly what took place. We wimin set up screaming and scuffled about like bats in the light. But I seed Nanny giving Long Bill a sort of a chuck with one hand where his coat-tails would have grown, only he didn’t wear a coat, only a jacket. P’raps, though, yu know, he’d nibbled ’em off like the monkey as Parson Davies keeped in the stable for his childer. That monkey had the beautifullest tail—after a peacock—when first he came to Kilkhampton; but he bit it off in little portions. And then, poor thing, at last he got himself into a sort of tangle or slip-knot in twisting himself about to bite right off the last fag-end of stump. And when Ezekiel—that’s the groom—comed in of the morning with his bread and milk, the poor beast stretched his head out with a jerk to get his meat and forgot he had knotted himself up with his own body, and so got strangled in himself. Well, but I was telling yu about Bill Martin and not Parson Davies’s monkey. So after that meetin’ his nose was a queer sort of mixture of scald-red and black. He was never very partial to water, was Bill: and so the scald and smut stuck there, maybe one year, maybe two. But all this happened so long ago that I couldn’t take my Bible oath that it wasn’t more—say three, then: odd numbers is lucky.”

Mr. Hawker had a story of a Wellcombe woman whom he visited after the loss of her husband.

“Ah! thank the Lord,” said she, “my old man is safe in Beelzebub’s bosom.”

“Abraham’s bosom, my good woman,” said the vicar.

“Ah! I dare say. I am not acquainted with the quality, and so don’t rightly know their names.”

While on the subject of the Devil, I cannot omit a story told of a certain close-fisted Cornish man, whom we will call Mr. Pengelly, as he is still alive. The story lost nothing in the vicar’s mouth.

Mr. Pengelly was very ill and like to die. So one night the Devil came to the side of his bed, and said to him: “Mr. Pengelly, I will trouble yu, if you please.”

“Yu will trouble me with what, your honour?” says Mr. Pengelly, sitting up in bed.

“Why, just to step along of me, sir,” says the Devil.

“Oh! but I don’t please at all,” replies Mr. Pengelly, lying down again and tucking his pillow under his cheek.

“Well, sir, but time’s up, yu know,” was the remark the Devil made thereupon; “and whether it pleases yu or no, yu must come along of me to once, sir. It isn’t much of a distance to speak of from Morwenstow,” says he by way of apology.

“If I must go, sir,” says Mr. Pengelly, wiping his nose with his blue pocket-handkerchief covered with white spots, and R. P. marked in the corner in red cotton, “why, then, I suppose yu ain’t in a great hurry. Yu’ll give me ten minutes?”

“What do’y want ten minutes for, Mr. Pengelly?” asks the Devil.

“Why, sir,” says Mr. Pengelly, putting his blue pocket-handkerchief over his face, “I’m ashamed to name it, but I shu’d like to say my prayers. Leastwise, they couldn’t du no harm,” exclaimed he, pulling the handkerchief off and looking out.

“They wouldn’t du yer no gude, Mr. Pengelly,” says the Devil.

“I shu’d be more comfable in my mind, sir, if I said ’em,” says he.

“Now, I’ll tell yu what, Mr. Pengelly,” says the Devil after a pause, “I’d like to deal handsome by yu. Yu’ve done me many a gude turn in your day. I’ll let you live as long as yonder cann’l-end burns.”

“Thank’y kindly, sir,” says Mr. Pengelly. And presently he says, for the Devil did not make signs of departing: “Would yu be so civil as just tu step into t’other room, sir? I’d take it civil. I can’t pray comfably with yu here, sir.”

“I’ll oblige yu in that too,” said the Devil; and he went out to look after Mrs. Pengelly.

No sooner was his back turned, than Mr. Pengelly jumped out of bed, extinguished the candle-end, clapped it in the candle-box, and put the candle-box under his bed. Presently the Devil came in, and said: “Now, Mr. Pengelly, yu’re all in the dark: I see the cann’l’s burnt out, so yu must come with me.”

“I’m not so much in the dark as yu, sir,” says the sick man, “for the cann’l’s not burnt out, and isn’t like to. He’s safe in the cann’l-box. And I’ll send for yu, sir, when I want yu.”

Mr. Pengelly is still alive; but let not the visitor to his farm ask him what he keeps in his candle-box, or, old man of seventy-eight though he is, he will jump out of his chair, and lay his stick across the shoulders of his interrogator. “They du say,” said my informant, “that Mrs. Pengelly hev tried a score of times to get hold of the cann’l-end, and burn it out; but the master is tu sharp for his missus, and keeps it as tight from her as he does from the Devil.”

Mr. Pengelly has the credit of having been only once in his life cheated, and that was by a tramp, in this wise:—

One day a man in tatters, and with his shoes in fragments, came to his door, and asked for work.

“I like work,” says the man, “I love it. Try me.”

“If that’s the case,” says Mr. Pengelly, “yu may dig my garden for me, and I will give yu one shilling and twopence a day.” Wages were then eighteen pence, or one and eightpence.

“Done,” said the man.

So he was given a spade, and he worked capitally. Mr. Pengelly watched him from his windows, from behind a wall, and the man never left off work except to spit on his hands; that was his only relaxation, and he did not do that over-often.

Mr. Pengelly was mighty pleased with his workman; he sent him to sleep in the barn, and paid him his day’s wage that he might buy himself a bit of bread.

Next morning Mr. Pengelly was up with the lark. But the workman was up before Mr. Pengelly or the lark either, and was digging diligently in the garden.

Mr. Pengelly was more and more pleased with his man. He went to him during the morning; then the fellow stuck his spade into the ground, and said:

“I’ll tell yu what it is, sir, I like work! I love it! but I cannot dig without butes or shoes. Yu may look: I’ve no soles to my feet, and the spade nigh cuts through them.”

“Yu must get a pair of shoes,” said Mr. Pengelly.

“That’s just it,” says the man; “but no boot-maker will trust me; and I cannot pay down, for I haven’t the money, sir.”

“What would a pair of shoes cost, now?” asks his employer, looking at the man’s feet wholly devoid of leather soles.

“Fefteen shilling, maybe,” says he.

“Fefteen shilling!” exclaims Mr. Pengelly; “yu’ll never get that to pay him.”

“Then I must go to some other farmer who’ll advance me the money,” says the man.

“Now don’t’y be in no hurry,” says Mr. Pengelly, in a fright lest he should lose a man worth half a crown a day by his work. “Suppose I were to let’y have five shilling. Then yu might go to Stratton, and pay that, and in five days you would have worked it out, keeping twopence a day for your meat; and that will do nicely if yu’re not dainty. Then I would let’y have another five shilling, till yu’d paid up.”

“Done,” says the man.

So Mr. Pengelly pulled the five shillings out, in two half-crown pieces, and gave them to the man.

Directly he had the money in his hand, the fellow drove the spade into the ground, and, making for the gate, took off his hat and said: “I wish yu a gude morning, Mr. Pengelly, and many thanks for the crown. Now I’m off to Taunton like a long dog.” And like a long dog (greyhound) he went off, and Mr. Pengelly never saw him or his two half-crowns again. So the man who cheated the Devil was cheated by a tramp: that shows how clever tramps are.

But to return to the vicar of Morwenstow, and the Dissenters in his parish. Although very bitter in speech against Dissent, he was ready to do any kindness that lay in his power to a Dissenter. He took pains to instruct in Latin and Greek a young Methodist preparing for the Wesleyan ministry, and read with him diligently out of free good-nature. His pupil is now, I believe, a somewhat distinguished preacher in his connection. He was always ready to ask favours of their landlords for Dissenting farmers, and went out of his way to do them exceptional kindnesses.

Some one rallied him with this:—

“Why, Hawker, you are always getting comfortable berths for schismatics.”

“So one ought,” was his ready reply. “I try my best to make them snug in this world, they will be so uncommonly miserable in the next.”

He delighted in seeing persons of the most opposed religious or political views meet at his table. A Roman Catholic, an Independent minister, a Nothingarian and a High Anglican, were once lunching with him.

“What an extraordinary thing, that you should have such discordant elements unite harmoniously at your table!” said a friend.

“Clean and unclean beasts feeding together in the ark,” was his reply.

“But how odd that you should get them to meet!”

“Well, I thought it best: they never will meet in the next world.”

One day he visited the widow of a parishioner who was dead. As he entered, he met the Methodist preacher coming out of the room where the corpse lay.

“When is poor Thomas to be buried?” asked the vicar.

“We are going to take him out of the parish,” answered the widow; “we thought you would not bury him, as he was a Dissenter.”

“Who told you that I would not?”

The widow lady looked at the Nonconformist minister.

“Did you say so?” he asked of the preacher abruptly.

“Well, sir, we thought, as you were so mighty particular, you would object to bury a Dissenter.”

“On the contrary,” said the vicar, “do you not know that I should be but too happy to bury you all?”

He was highly incensed at Mr. Cowper Temple’s abortive proposal for admitting Dissenters to the pulpits of the Church. “What!” said he in wrath, “suffer a Dissenting minister to invade our sacred precincts, to draw near to our pulpits and altars! It is contrary to Scripture; for Scripture says: ‘If a beast do but touch the mountain, let him be stoned or thrust through with a dart.’”

As an instance of despotic conduct towards a parishioner, it would be difficult to match the following incident: A wealthy yeoman of Morwenstow, Mr. B——, was the owner of a tall pew, which stood like a huge sentry-box, in the nave of the church. Most of the other pew-owners had consented to the removal of the doors, curtains and panelling which they had erected upon or in place of their old family seats to hide themselves from the vulgar gaze; but no persuasion of the vicar had any effect upon the stubborn Mr. B——. The pew had been constructed and furnished with a view to comfort; and, like the famous Derbyshire farmer, Mr. B—— could “vould his arms, shut his eyes, dra’ out his legs and think upon nothin’” therein, unnoticed by any one but the parson. Moreover, Mr. B—— had, it was said, a faculty-right to the hideous enclosure. He was therefore invulnerable to all the coaxing, reasoning, threatening and preaching which could be brought to bear upon him. Weeks after all the other pews had been swept away, he intrenched himself in his ecclesiastical fortress, and looked defiance at the outside world. At last the vicar resolved to storm the enemy, and gave him due notice, that, on a certain day and hour, it was his intention to demolish the pew. Mr. B—— was present at the appointed time to defend his property, but was so taken aback at the sight of the vicar entering the church armed with a large axe, that he stood dumfounded with amazement, whilst, without uttering a word, the vicar strode up to the pew, and with a few lusty blows literally smashed it to pieces, and then flung the fragments outside the church door. To the credit of Mr. B——, he still continued to attend church; but he took on one occasion an un-seasonable opportunity of rebuking the vicar for his violence. It was on the parish feast day, or “revel” as the inhabitants of the parish called it; and, as was his wont, the vicar was expatiating in the pulpit on the antiquity of the church, and how the shrine of St. Morwenna had been preserved unchanged whilst dynasties had perished and empires had been overthrown. Whereupon Mr. B—— exclaimed in a voice of thunder, “No such thing: you knacked down my pew!” The vicar, however, was still more than a match for him. Without the least embarrassment, he turned from St. Morwenna to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and, in describing the life and character of Dives, drew such a vivid portrait of Mr. B——, that the poor man rushed out of church when the preacher began to consign him to his place of torment.

The impression was strong upon him, that he and the Church were under special Divine protection, and he would insist that no misfortune ever befel his cows or sheep. When, however, after some years he was unlucky, he looked on every stroke of misfortune as an assault of Satan himself, allowed to try him as he had tried Job.

This belief that he had, of a special Providence watching over him, must explain the somewhat painful feature of his looking out for the ruin of those who wrought evil against the Church. He bore them no malice; but he looked upon such wrongs done as done to God, and as sure to be avenged by Him. He had always a text at hand to support his view. “I have no personal enemies,” he would say, “but Uzziah cannot put his hand to the ark without the Lord making a breach upon him.”

His conviction that the Church was God’s kingdom was never shaken. “No weapon formed against thee shall prosper,” he said; “that was a promise made by God to the Church, and God does not forget His promises. Why, I haveseenHis promise kept again and again. I know that God is no liar.”

“But look at the hostility to the Church in Mr. M——, what efforts he has made in Parliament, and throughout the country, agitating men’s minds, and all for the purpose of overthrowing the Church. He prospers.”

“My friend,” said the vicar, pausing, and laying his hand solemnly on his companion’s arm, “God does not always pay wages on Saturday night.”

When an attempt was made in 1843 to wrest the Well of St. John from him, he went thrice a day, every day during that Lent, whilst the case was being tried, till 27th March, and offered up before the altar the following prayer:—

Almighty and most merciful God! the Protector of all that trust in Thee! We most humbly beseech Thee that Thou wouldest be pleased to stretch forth Thy right hand to rescue and defend the possessions of this Thy sanctuary from the envy and violence of wicked and covetous men. Let not an adversary despoil Thine inheritance, neither suffer Thou the evil man to approach the waters that flow softly for Thy blessed baptism, from the well of Thy servant St. John.

And, O Almighty Lord, even as Thou didst avenge the cause of Naboth the Jezreelite, upon angry Ahab and Jezebel his wife; and as Thou didst strengthen the hands of Thy blessed apostle St. Peter, insomuch that Ananias and Sapphira could not escape just judgment when they sought to keep back a part of the possession from Thy Church; even so now, O Lord God, shield and succour the heritage of Thy holy shrine! Show some token upon us for good, that they who see it may say, “This hath God done”. Be Thou our hope and fortress, O Lord, our castle and deliverer, as in the days of old, such as our fathers have told us. Show forth Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power unto them that are yet for to come. So shall we daily perform our vows, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The attempt to deprive him of the Well of St. John signally failed.

They dreamed not in old Hebron, when the soundWent through the city, that the promised sonWas born to Zachary, and his name was John,—They little thought that here, in this far groundBeside the Severn Sea, that Hebrew childWould be a cherished memory of the wild!—Here, where the pulses of the ocean boundWhole centuries away, while one meek cell,Built by the fathers o’er a lonely well,Still breathes the Baptist’s sweet remembrance round.A spring of silent waters with his name,That from the angel’s voice in music came,Here in the wilderness so faithful found,It freshens to this day the Levite’s grassy mound.

They dreamed not in old Hebron, when the sound

Went through the city, that the promised son

Was born to Zachary, and his name was John,—

They little thought that here, in this far ground

Beside the Severn Sea, that Hebrew child

Would be a cherished memory of the wild!—

Here, where the pulses of the ocean bound

Whole centuries away, while one meek cell,

Built by the fathers o’er a lonely well,

Still breathes the Baptist’s sweet remembrance round.

A spring of silent waters with his name,

That from the angel’s voice in music came,

Here in the wilderness so faithful found,

It freshens to this day the Levite’s grassy mound.

Morwenstow, Sept. 20, 1850.My dear Mrs. M——,— ... I have but a sullen prospect of winter tide. I had longed to go on with another window. But my fate, which in matters ofl.s.d.is always mournful, paralyses my will. A west window in my tower is offered me by Warrington for the cost of carriage and putting together. But—but—but. Fifteen years I have been vicar of this altar; and all that while no lay person, landlord, tenant, parishioner or steward, has ever proffered me even one kind word, much less aid or coin. Nay, I have found them all bristling with dislike. All the great men have been hostile to me in word or deed. Yet I thank my Master and His angels, I have accomplished in and around my church a thousand times more than the great befriended clergy of this deanery. Not one thing has failed. When I lack aid to fulfil, I go to the altar and ask it. Is it conceded? So fearfully that I shudder with thanksgiving. A person threatened me with injury on a fixed day. I besought rescue. On that very day that person died. A false and treacherous clergyman came to a parish close by. I shook with dread. I asked help. It came. He entered my house five days afterwards to announce some malady unaccountable to him. He went. It grew. He resigned his cure last week.

And these are two only out of forty miracles.

Yours faithfully,

R. S. Hawker.

It is painful to record this side of the vicar’s character; but without it this would be but an imperfect sketch. He was, it must be borne in mind, an anachronism. He did not belong to this century or this country. His mind and character pertained to the Middle Ages and to the East.

He is not to be measured by any standard used for men of our times.

Morwenstow, July 24, 1857.My dear Mrs. M——,—All my pets are dead, and I cannot endure my lonely lawn. I want some ewe lamb, “to be unto me a daughter.” T—— is a parish famous for sheep: are there any true Church farmers among the sheep-masters, to whom, with Dr. C——’s introduction, I could write, in order to obtain the animals I seek? I want to find a man, or men, who would deal honestly and sincerely by me, and in whom I could trust. Will you ask your father if he would have the kindness to instruct me hereon? I want soft-eyed, well-bred sheep, the animal which was moulded in the mind of God the Trinity, to typify the Lamb of Calvary.

Yours always,

R. S. Hawker.

He had the greatest objection to hysterical religion. “Conversion,” he said, “is a spasm of the ganglions.” “Free justification,” was another of his sayings, “is a bankrupt’s certificate, whitewashing him, and licensing him to swindle and thieve again.”

“There was a young Wesleyan woman at Shop” (this is one of his stories) “who was ill; and her aunt, a trusty old Churchwoman, was nursing her. The sick woman’s breast was somewhat agitated, and rumblings therein were audible. ‘Aunt,’ said she, ‘do you hear and see? There is the clear witness of the Spirit speaking within!’—‘Lor’, my dear,’ answered the old woman, ‘it’s not that: you can get the better of it with three drops of peppermint on a bit of loaf-sugar.’”

On the occasion of a noisy revival in the parish, he wrote the following verses, to describe what he believed to be the true signs of spiritual conversion—very different from the screeching and hysterics of the revival which had taken place among his own people, the sad moral effect of which on the young women he learned by experience.

When the voice of God is thrilling,Breathe not a sound;When the tearful eye is filling,Breathe not a sound;When the memory is pleading,And the better mind succeeding,When the stricken heart is bleeding,Breathe not a sound.When the broad road is forsaken,Breathe not a sound;And the narrow path is taken,Breathe not a sound;When the angels are descending,And the days of sin are ending,When heaven and earth are blending,Breathe not a sound.

When the voice of God is thrilling,

Breathe not a sound;

When the tearful eye is filling,

Breathe not a sound;

When the memory is pleading,

And the better mind succeeding,

When the stricken heart is bleeding,

Breathe not a sound.

When the broad road is forsaken,Breathe not a sound;And the narrow path is taken,Breathe not a sound;When the angels are descending,And the days of sin are ending,When heaven and earth are blending,Breathe not a sound.

When the broad road is forsaken,

Breathe not a sound;

And the narrow path is taken,

Breathe not a sound;

When the angels are descending,

And the days of sin are ending,

When heaven and earth are blending,

Breathe not a sound.

A Dissenter at Bude considered this sentiment so unsuited to evangelical religion, and so suitable for the dumb dogs of the Established Church, that he had it printed on a card, and distributed it among his co-religionists, in scorn, with a note of derision of his own appended.

Mr. Hawker was walking one day on the cliffs near Morwenstow, with the Rev. W. Vincent,[*] when a gust of wind took off Mr. Vincent’s hat, and carried it over the cliff.

Within a week or two a Methodist preacher at Truro was discoursing on prayer, and in his sermon he said: “I would not have you, dear brethren, confine your supplications to spiritual blessings, but ask also for temporal favours. I will illustrate my meaning by narrating an incident, a fact, that happened to myself ten days ago. I was on the shore of a cove near a little, insignificant place in North Cornwall, named Morwenstow, and about to proceed to Bude. Shall I add, my Christian friends, that I had on my head at the time a shocking bad hat, and that I somewhat blushed to think of entering that harbour, town and watering-place, so ill-adorned as to my head? Then I lifted up my prayer to the Almighty, that He would pluck me out of the great strait in which I found myself, and clothe me suitably as to my head; for He painteth the petals of the polyanthus, and colours the calyx of the coreopsis. At that solemn moment I raised my eyes to heaven; and I saw, in the spacious firmament on high, the blue, ethereal sky, a black spot. It approached, it largened, it widened, it fell at my feet. It was a brand-new hat, by a distinguished London maker. I cast my battered beaver to the waves, and walked into Bude as fast as I could, with the new hat on my head.”

The incident got intoThe Methodist Reporter, or some such Wesleyan publication, under the heading of “Remarkable Answer to Prayer.” “And,” said the vicar, “the rascal made off with Vincent’s new hat from Bennett’s; there was no reaching him, for we were on the cliff, and could not descend the precipice. He was deaf enough, I promise you, to our shouts.”

That Mr. Hawker was appreciated by some, the following note received by me will show:—

Nov. 16, 1875. In the spring of this year, and consequently before there could have been any idea of “De mortuis,” etc., I happened to find myself in company with two Morwenstow people, returning to their old home. One of them was a prosperous-looking clerk or shopman from Manchester, the other a nice, modest-looking servant girl. On recognising each other, which they did not do at once, their talk naturally turned to old days. The Sunday School, Morwenstow and its vicar were discussed; and it was very remarkable to see how lively was their remembrance of him, how much affection and reverence they entertained for him, how keen was their appreciation of the great qualities of his head and heart, and how much delight they testified in being able to see his honoured face and white head, and hear the well-remembered tones of his voice once more. It may seem but a trivial incident; but to those who know how constant is the complaint, and, indeed, how well founded, that our children, when they leave school, leave us altogether, such attestation to his work and influence is not without its value. I remain, etc.,

W. C——.

“Talking ofappreciation,” as Mr. Hawker said once, “the Scripture-reader, Mr. Bumpus,[*] at ——, came to me the other day, and said: ‘Please, sir, I have been visiting and advising Farmer Matthews, but he did not quite appreciate me. In fact, he kicked me downstairs.’”

Mr. Hawker could not endure to hear the apostles or evangelists spoken of by name without their proper prefix or title of “Saint.” If he heard any one talk of Mark, or John, or Paul, he would say: “Look here. There was a professor at Oxford in my time who lectured on divinity. One day a pert student began to speak about ‘Paul’s opinion.’ ‘Paul’s opinion, sir!’ said the professor. ‘Paul is not here to speak for himself; but if Paul were, and heard you talk thus disrespectfully of him, it is my belief that Paul would take you by the scruff of your neck and chuck you out of the window. As I have Paul in honour, if I hear you speak of him disrespectfully again, I will kick you from the room.’”

“Never boast,” was a favourite saying of the vicar’s. “The moment you boast, the Devil obtains power over you. You notice if it be not so. You say, ‘I now never catch cold,’ and within a week you have a sore throat. ‘I am always lucky in my money ventures’; and the next fails. So long as you do not boast, the Devil cannot touch you; but, the moment you have boasted, virtue has gone from you, and he obtains power. Nebuchadnezzar was prosperous till he said, ‘Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?’ It was while the word was in the king’s mouth that the voice fell from heaven which took it from him.”

Morwenstow, Jan. 2, 1850.My dear Mrs. M——,—I know not when I have been more shocked than by the sudden announcement of the death of good Bishop Coleridge. For good he verily and really was. What a word that is, “suddenly”! The Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and, behold, there were horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. May God grant us Sir T. More’s prayer, “that we may all meet and be merry in heaven”! ... I am to do something again for the new series ofTracts for the Christian Seasons. Did you detect my “Magian Star” and “Nain, the lovely city”?

I hope to hear from you what is going on in the out-world. Here within the ark we hear only the voices of animals and birds, and the sound of many waters. “The Lord shut him in.” Give my real love to P——, and say I will write her soon a letter, with a psalm about “her dear Aunt Mary.”

Yours faithfully,

R. S. Hawker.

The psalm came in due time with this introduction:—

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