MODRYB MARYA: AUNT MARY.A CHRISTMAS CHANT.
MODRYB MARYA: AUNT MARY.A CHRISTMAS CHANT.
MODRYB MARYA: AUNT MARY.
A CHRISTMAS CHANT.
[In old and simple-hearted Cornwall, the household names “uncle” and “aunt” were uttered and used as they are to this day in many countries of the East, not only as phrases of kindred, but as words of kindly greeting and tender respect. It was in the spirit, therefore, of this touching and graphic usage, that they were wont, on the Tamar side, to call the Mother of God, in their loyal language, Modryb Marya, or Aunt Mary.]
Now, of all the trees by the king’s highway,Which do you love the best?Oh! the one that is green upon Christmas Day,The bush with the bleeding breast!Now, the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our dear Aunt Mary’s tree!Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour’s name,’Tis a plant that loves the poor:Summer and winter it shines the same,Beside the cottage door.Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our kind Aunt Mary’s tree!’Tis a bush that the birds will never leave,They sing in it all day long;But, sweetest of all, upon Christmas Eve,Is to hear the robin’s song.’Tis the merriest sound upon earth and sea,For it comes from our own Aunt Mary’s tree!So, of all that grow by the king’s highway,I love that tree the best:’Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas Day,The bush of the bleeding breast.Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our sweet Aunt Mary’s tree!
Now, of all the trees by the king’s highway,Which do you love the best?Oh! the one that is green upon Christmas Day,The bush with the bleeding breast!Now, the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our dear Aunt Mary’s tree!Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour’s name,’Tis a plant that loves the poor:Summer and winter it shines the same,Beside the cottage door.Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our kind Aunt Mary’s tree!’Tis a bush that the birds will never leave,They sing in it all day long;But, sweetest of all, upon Christmas Eve,Is to hear the robin’s song.’Tis the merriest sound upon earth and sea,For it comes from our own Aunt Mary’s tree!So, of all that grow by the king’s highway,I love that tree the best:’Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas Day,The bush of the bleeding breast.Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our sweet Aunt Mary’s tree!
Now, of all the trees by the king’s highway,Which do you love the best?Oh! the one that is green upon Christmas Day,The bush with the bleeding breast!Now, the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our dear Aunt Mary’s tree!
Now, of all the trees by the king’s highway,
Which do you love the best?
Oh! the one that is green upon Christmas Day,
The bush with the bleeding breast!
Now, the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;
For that is our dear Aunt Mary’s tree!
Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour’s name,’Tis a plant that loves the poor:Summer and winter it shines the same,Beside the cottage door.Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our kind Aunt Mary’s tree!
Its leaves are sweet with our Saviour’s name,
’Tis a plant that loves the poor:
Summer and winter it shines the same,
Beside the cottage door.
Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;
For that is our kind Aunt Mary’s tree!
’Tis a bush that the birds will never leave,They sing in it all day long;But, sweetest of all, upon Christmas Eve,Is to hear the robin’s song.’Tis the merriest sound upon earth and sea,For it comes from our own Aunt Mary’s tree!
’Tis a bush that the birds will never leave,
They sing in it all day long;
But, sweetest of all, upon Christmas Eve,
Is to hear the robin’s song.
’Tis the merriest sound upon earth and sea,
For it comes from our own Aunt Mary’s tree!
So, of all that grow by the king’s highway,I love that tree the best:’Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas Day,The bush of the bleeding breast.Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;For that is our sweet Aunt Mary’s tree!
So, of all that grow by the king’s highway,
I love that tree the best:
’Tis a bower for the birds upon Christmas Day,
The bush of the bleeding breast.
Oh! the holly, with her drops of blood, for me;
For that is our sweet Aunt Mary’s tree!
The following was sent to the same young girl, P—— M——:—
Morwenstow, February, 1853.Dear P——,—I have copied a little parable-story for you. Tell me if you can understand it. May God bless you, my dear child, whom I love for your father’s sake!
Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
Natum ante omnia sæcula.
Natum ante omnia sæcula.
Natum ante omnia sæcula.
The first star gleamed over Nazareth, when thus the Lady said unto her Son: “Jesu, wilt thou not arise and go with me into the field that we may hear the sweet chime of the birds as they chant their evening psalm?”—“Yea, Mary, mother,” answered the awful Boy, “yea, for I love their music well. I have loved it long. I listened, in My gladness, to the first-born voices of the winged fowl, when they break forth into melody among the trees of the Garden, or ever there was a man to rejoice in their song. Twain, moreover, after their kind, the eagle and the dove, did My Father and I create, to be the token-birds of our Spirit, when He should go forth from us to thrill the world of time.”
His theory was that the eagle symbolised the Holy Ghost in His operation under the old covenant, and the dove His work in the Church. The double-headed eagle, so often found in mediæval churches—and there is one carved on a boss at Morwenstow—he thought represented the twofold effusion of the Spirit in two dispensations.
The following “Carol of the Kings” was written during the Epiphany of 1859, and published with the signature “Nectan” in a Plymouth paper:—
A CAROL OF THE KINGS.
A CAROL OF THE KINGS.
A CAROL OF THE KINGS.
[It is chronicled in an old Armenian myth[33]that the wise men of the East were none other than the three sons of Noe, and that they were raised from the dead to represent, and to do homage for, all mankind in the cave at Bethlehem! Other legends are also told: one, that these patriarch-princes of the Flood did not ever die, but were rapt away into Enoch’s Paradise, and were thence recalled to begin the solemn gesture of world-wide worship to the King-born Child! Another saying holds, that, when their days were full, these arkite fathers fell asleep, and were laid at rest in a cavern at Ararat until Messias was born, and that then an angel aroused them from the slumber of ages to bow down and to hail, as the heralds of many nations, the awful Child. Be this as it may—whether the mystic magi were Shem, Cham, and Japhet, in their first or second existence, under their own names or those of other men, or whether they were three long-descended and royal sages from the loins or the land of Baalam, one thing has been delivered to me for very record. The supernatural shape of clustering orbs which was embodied suddenly from surrounding light, and framed to be the beacon of that westward-way, was and is the Southern Cross! It was not a solitary signal-fire, but a miraculous constellation, a pentacle of stars, whereof two shone for the transom and three for the stock; and which went above and before the travellers, day and night, radiantly, until it came and stood over where the young Child lay! And then? What then? Must those faithful orbs dissolve and die? Shall the gleaming trophy fall? Nay—not so. When it had fulfilled the piety of its first-born office, it arose, and, amid the vassalage of every stellar and material law, it moved onward and onward, obedient to the impulse of God the Trinity, journeying evermore towards the south, until that starry image arrived in the predestined sphere of future and perpetual abode: to bend, as to this day it bends, above the peaceful sea, in everlasting memorial of the Child Jesus: the Southern Cross!]
Three ancient men in Bethlehem’s caveWith awful wonder stand:A voice had called them from their graveIn some far Eastern land.They lived, they trod the former earth,When the old waters swelled:The ark, that womb of second birth,Their house and lineage held.Pale Japhet bows the knee with gold,Bright Shem sweet incense brings,And Cham the myrrh his fingers hold:Lo! the three Orient kings!Types of the total earth, they hailedThe signal’s starry frame:Shuddering with second life, they quailedAt the Child Jesu’s name.Then slow the patriarchs turned and trod,And this their parting sigh,—“Our eyes have seen the living God,And now—once more to die.”
Three ancient men in Bethlehem’s caveWith awful wonder stand:A voice had called them from their graveIn some far Eastern land.They lived, they trod the former earth,When the old waters swelled:The ark, that womb of second birth,Their house and lineage held.Pale Japhet bows the knee with gold,Bright Shem sweet incense brings,And Cham the myrrh his fingers hold:Lo! the three Orient kings!Types of the total earth, they hailedThe signal’s starry frame:Shuddering with second life, they quailedAt the Child Jesu’s name.Then slow the patriarchs turned and trod,And this their parting sigh,—“Our eyes have seen the living God,And now—once more to die.”
Three ancient men in Bethlehem’s caveWith awful wonder stand:A voice had called them from their graveIn some far Eastern land.
Three ancient men in Bethlehem’s cave
With awful wonder stand:
A voice had called them from their grave
In some far Eastern land.
They lived, they trod the former earth,When the old waters swelled:The ark, that womb of second birth,Their house and lineage held.
They lived, they trod the former earth,
When the old waters swelled:
The ark, that womb of second birth,
Their house and lineage held.
Pale Japhet bows the knee with gold,Bright Shem sweet incense brings,And Cham the myrrh his fingers hold:Lo! the three Orient kings!
Pale Japhet bows the knee with gold,
Bright Shem sweet incense brings,
And Cham the myrrh his fingers hold:
Lo! the three Orient kings!
Types of the total earth, they hailedThe signal’s starry frame:Shuddering with second life, they quailedAt the Child Jesu’s name.
Types of the total earth, they hailed
The signal’s starry frame:
Shuddering with second life, they quailed
At the Child Jesu’s name.
Then slow the patriarchs turned and trod,And this their parting sigh,—“Our eyes have seen the living God,And now—once more to die.”
Then slow the patriarchs turned and trod,
And this their parting sigh,—
“Our eyes have seen the living God,
And now—once more to die.”
We began this chapter with stories illustrating the harsh side of Mr. Hawker’s character. We have slided insensibly into those which show him forth in his gentler nature. There was in him the eagle and the dove: it is pleasanter to think of the dove-like characteristics of this grand old man.
And naturally, when we speak of him in his softer moods, not when he is doing battle for God and the Church, and—it must be admitted—for his own whims, but when he is at peace and full of smiles, we come to think of him in his relations with children.
When his school was first opened he attended it daily; but in after-years, as age and infirmities crept on, his visits were only once a week.
He loved children, and they loved him. It was his delight to take them by the hand and walk with them about the parish, telling them stories of St. Morwenna, St. Nectan, King Arthur, Sir Bevil Grenville, smugglers, wreckers, pixies and hobgoblins, in one unflagging stream. So great was the affection borne him by the children of his parish, that when they were ill, and had to take physic, and the mothers could not induce them to swallow the nauseous draught, the vicar was sent for, and the little ones, without further struggle, swallowed the medicine administered by his hand.
A child said to him one day: “Please, Mr. Hawker, did you ever see an angel?”
“Margaret,” he answered solemnly, and took one of the child’s hands in his left palm, “there came to this door one day a poor man. He was in rags. Whence he came I know not. He appeared quite suddenly at the door. We gave him bread. There was something wonderful, mysterious, unearthly, in his face. And I watched him as he went away. Look, Margaret! do you see that hill all gold and crimson with gorse and heather? He went that way. I saw him go up through the gold and crimson, up, still upwards, to where the blue sky is, and there I lost sight of him all at once. I saw him no more; but I thought of the words, ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’”
A good idea of his notions about angels, and their guardianship of his church, may be gathered from a remarkable sermon he preached a few years ago, on St. John the Baptist’s day, in his own church. It was heard by an old man, a builder in Kilkhampton; and it made so deep an impression on his mind, that he was able to repeat to me the outline of its contents, and to give me whole passages.
His text was 1 Sam. iii. 4, “Here am I!”
More than a thousand years ago St. Morwenna came from Wales, from Brecknockshire, where was her father’s palace: she loved the things of God more than the things of men.
And then the wild Atlantic rolled against these cliffs as now, and the gorse flamed over them as now, and the little brook dived through fern, and foamed over the rocks to join the sea, as now. And there were men and women where you dwell, as now; and there were little children on their knees, as now. But then there was no knowledge of God in the hearts of men, as there is now. There was no church, as now; no Word of God preached, as now; no font where the water was sanctified by the brooding Spirit, as now; no altar where the bread of life was broken, as now. All lay in darkness and the shadow of death.
And God looked upon the earth, and saw the blue sea lashing our rocks, and the gorse flaming on our hills, and the brook murmuring into the sea, and men and women and children lying in the shadow of death; and it grieved Him. Then He called: “Who will come and plant a church in that wild glen, and bring the light of life into this lone spot?” and Morwenna answered with brave heart and childlike simplicity, “Here am I!”
And Morwenna came. She built herself a cell at Chapelpiece, where now no heather or furze or thorn will grow, for her feet have consecrated it for evermore; and she got a gift of land; and she built a church, and dedicated it to God the Trinity, and St. John the Baptiser, who preached in a wilderness such as this. And she gave the land for ever to God and His Church; and wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.
Now a holy bishop came; and he accepted, in the name of God, this gift off her hands, and he consecrated for ever this church to God.
Now look you! This house is God’s. These pillars are God’s. These windows are God’s. That door is God’s. Every stone and beam is God’s. The grass in the churchyard, the fern rooted in the tower, all are God’s.
And when the holy bishop dedicated all to God, and consecrated the ground to the very centre of the earth, then he set a priest here to minister in God’s name, to bless, baptise, and break the holy bread, and fill the holy cup, in God’s name.
And God looked out over the earth, and He saw the building and the land Morwenna had given to Him; and He said: “Who will pasture My flock in this desert? Who will pour on them the sanctifying water? Who will distribute to them the bread of heaven?” And the priest standing here made answer, “Here am I!”
And God said: “Who will stand by My priest, and watch and ward My building and My land? Who will defend him against evil men? Who will guard My house from the spoiler? My land from those who would add field to field, till they can say, ‘We are alone in the earth’?” And an angel answered, “Here am I!”
And the angel came down to keep guard here, with flaming sword that turneth every way, to champion the priest of God, and to watch the sanctuary of God.
More than one thousand years have rolled away since Morwenna gave this church to God; and since then never has there been a day in which, when God looked forth upon the earth, there has not been a priest standing at this altar, to say in answer to His call, “Here am I!”
A thousand years, and more, have swept away; and in all these ages there never has been a moment in which an angel, leaning on his flashing sword, has not stood here as sentinel, to answer to God’s call, when foes assail, and traitors give the Judas kiss, and feeble hearts fail, “Here am I!”
And now, my brethren, I stand here.
Does God ask: “Who is there to baptise the children, and bring them to Me? Who is there to instruct the young in the paths of righteousness? Who is there to bless the young hands that clasp for life’s journey? Who is there to speak the word of pardon over the penitent sinner who turns with broken and contrite heart to Me? Who is there to give the bread of heaven to the wayfarers on life’s desert? Who is there to stand by the sick man’s bed, and hold the cross before his closing eyes? Who is there to lay him with words of hope in his long home?” Why, my brethren, I look up in the face of God, and I answer boldly, confidently, yet humbly and suppliantly, “Here am I!”
I, with all my infirmities of temper and mind and body; I, broken by old age, but with a spirit ever willing; I, troubled on every side, without with fightings, within with fears; I—I—strengthened, however, by the grace of God, and commissioned by His apostolic ministry.
And am I alone? Not so. There are chariots and horses of fire about me. There are angels round us on every side.
You do not see them. You ask me, “Do you?”
And I answer, Yes, I do.
Am I weak? An angel stays me up. Do my hands falter? An angel sustains them. Am I weary to death with disappointment? My head rests on an angel’s bosom, and an angel’s arms encircle me.
Who will raise his hand to tear down the house of God? Who will venture to rob God of His inheritance? An angel is at hand. He beareth not the sword in vain: he saith to the assailer, “Here am I!”
And believe me: the world may roll its course through centuries more; the ocean may fret our rocks, and he has fretted them through ages past; but as long as one stone stands upon another of Morwenna’s church, so long will there be a priest to answer God’s call, and say, “Here am I!” and so long will there be an angel to stay him up in his agony and weakness, saying, “Here am I!” and to meet the spoiler, with his sword and challenge, “Here am I!”[34]