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About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I Wb dull Bob tn wnmg In conoludlnfr that, in Hawkev'B opinion, memibeiBhlp of the Ctiarch of England curled wltii It uembeTBhip of a catholic church, and that ttieielore Bocession iitaa one brancb to suother seemed to him to he In no flenso that nossbg of the Knbicon which it ii In the eyee of a Frateittant. ^l- ^ -r Mc/ ^ . MEMORIALS OF THE LATE REV. ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER, M.A. Sometime Vicar of Monvenstow, in the Diocese of Exeter. COLLECTED, ARRA/fCED, AND EDITED THE REV. FREDERICK GEORGE LEE, D.CL. VICAR or ALL SAIN Stonn, Inllow, whirlwind pji^t, rktSiUtl Tffwir of Eolln:a«.—'&. S. HaWKSK. HotiQoii : CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 1876. \AU righlt rtsei-vid.^ i-4 . / -r • . . TO THE WIDOW AND CHILDREN OF THE SUBJECT OF THESE MEMOEIALS WITU HEARTY SYMPATHY VOR THEIR LOSS, AND yriTR A PRAYER THAT GOD THE TRINITY MAY BE OVER, AND WITH THEM, BOTH IN SUNSHINE AND SHADOW; AND THAT THE SAINTS OP THE MOST HIGH MAY BE EVER ON THEIR SIDE. •-•>: •■•• *.•■ - ^ : ••. 'r . «• • • PREFACE. Most conscious am I that I have but the slenderest claims to put together such brief Memorials of a respected and venerated friend as were either in my own possession, or have been kindly supplied by his various relations, in the pages which follow. Had the latest event of Mr. Hawker's life not been commented on in some of the Radical newspapers with a bitterness, a violence of words, and a literary rudeness happily not often experienced, I should probably not have planned this volume,— the expansion of a sUght Memoir from my pen, which appeared in the Morning Post of September 8, 1875. But, when a Priest has served God for nearly half a century, quietly ministering, by sacrifice, intercession and sacrament, to a flock, too long VI PREFACJE. neglected ; and this without rebuke, in patience, hope, and love, — ^the instinct of Churchmen can hardly be as nobly true and charitably tender for the departed as in times gone by, if such epithets as those recently applied to Mr. Hawker, avowedly from the pens of brother clergymen, could be read with other than feelings both of painful amazement and honest disgust.^ I felt one attack upon him so keenly, that I at once penned the following expostulatory letter, attaching my name, and sent it to the Editor of The Guardian^ declining (on grounds intelligible to any person of right feeling) to communicate either with the Editors or Pro- prietor of the paper in which the gross attack in question had appeared. But my letter, given below verbatim^ was refused admission — a dis- agreeable piece of evidence of the presence of a lower moral tone amongst our leaders of Eccle- * In the Standard of September 1, 1875, there is a pleasant and kindly notice of Mr. Hawker in an article headed " Morwenstow," the writer of which both appre- ciates and describes his character with taste and impar- tiality. PREFACE. Til siastical opinion (and in quarters least expected) than I had hoped could have existed. " Sir, — Charitably grant me the use of your influential columns to enter my earnest protest against language which has been used in the Church Times concerning my friend the late Rev. R. S. Hawker. "It is implied of him in two anonymous letters recently printed, first, that he was •a blasphemous rogue and a scoundrel' (Church TimeSy September 3, 1875) — language not often used in any decent newspaper, least of all in one which is supposed to represent a religious party in the Church; and, secondly, that my deceased friend believed that * there was a female element in the Trinity' — a statement (without a shadow of warrant or a half-tittle of evidence) obviously intended to give an im- pression to thoughtless and ill-informed readers that Mr. Hawker was at once a dreaming mad- man and a formal heretic. "No one deplores more than myself his VIU PREFACE, secession from the English Church. His mo- tives, whatever they may have been, I am con- fident were perfectly pure, upright, and disin- terested. But to throw literary mud from behind a screen by anonymous hands — and this at a venerable clergyman, who is loved and reverenced wherever he was known, but who being called hence cannot speak in reply — seems to me even beyond the limits hitherto adopted by the wire-pullers of cheap Ritualistic news- papers. " Knowing that his friends and relations feel these attacks keenly, and remembering that we should do to others as we would have others do to us, I write this my open and indignant protest.*' As marking the true temper of these dan- gerous times, I would here venture to point out what has been again and again noticed by many with sadness and surprise. If a public man, from having been a member of the Church of England, becomes a servile imitator of German neological critics, whose ideas he appropriates. PREFACE. IX and whose principles he adopts, and eventually rejects the Christian Religion altogether ; or if an educated person writes at once dirty and blasphemous verses, over which other dirty per- sons are said to go into spasms and paroxysms of admiration, both in print and conversation, (and such people unfortunately abound,) no one follows them with biting sarcasms, gross insinua- tions, or bitter words. They go their own way, and take their own crooked and shadowy course. They are spoken of with tenderness, and even with respect and apologies. But if an EngUsh Churchman adds to his faith, by joining the Roman communion, the floodgates of abuse on all sides are immediately opened upon him, and the unclean torrent spreads in force and fury. I have only to add, that I am indebted to Mr. Hawker's widow for several kind and im- portant communications, as well as for permis- sion to re-produce his likeness ; to his brother, Claude C. Hawker, of Penally, Boscastle, Esq., for much valuable assistance; as also to the X PREFACE. Bishop of Chester, the Rev. W. Valentine, of Whixley, Yorkshire, to the Rev. J. C. D. Yule, of Bradford Rectory, North Devon, to Mr. J. G. Godwin,^ Librarian to the Marquis of Bute, to Miss Louisa Twining, to William Maskell, Esq., of Bude Castle, and to Mr. Bar- tholomew C. Gidley, Town Clerk of Exeter, — each and all of whom I respectfully and cordially thank for their courteous and valued replies to my several and varied inquiries. All Saints' Vicarage, Lambeth. ■ Mr. Hawker's and my mutual friend, Mr. J. G. Godwin, possesses a very considerable "number of original letters in Mr. Hawker's handwriting — which are full of ripe wisdom, forcible sentiments, and interesting records. He also owns a very excellent pencil-drawing of Mr. Hawker's side-face, taken some years ago, and reported to be an admirable likeness when it was first taken. Mr. Godwin has, like- wise, gathered an almost perfect and complete set of his works, bound most sumptuously and in the best of taste, — a possession, very probably, unique. CONTENTS. PAGE Dedication iii Peefacb V CHAPTER I. Personal History and Ministerial Work. Birth and Parentage of Mr. Hawker — His cele- brated Grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Hawker, of Charles Chapel, Plymouth — Mr. R. S. Haw- ker maiTies Miss PAns — Matriculates at Pembroke College, Oxford, but afterwards migrates to Magdalene Hall — Gains the Newdigate Prize and takes his degree — Rise of the Oxford Movement — Mr. Hawker or- dained Deacon and Priest — Curate of Well- combe — Presented to Morwenstow by the Bishop of Exeter — Mr. Hawker's earnest labours as a Parish Priest — Description of the Parish of Morwenstow — Mischievous in- fluence and Dissent — St. Morwenna — The Church and its Ornaments — The Grin of Arius — The Vicarage House, its Pictures and Curiosities — Mr. MaskeU's description of the Scenery of North Cornwall — Mr. Xll CONTExVTS. «( CHAPTER 11. Literary Labours. Poetical First Buds" by Reuben— " Pompeii " — " Records of the Western Shore," First and Second Series — " Welcome to the Prince Albert" — "Ecclesia:" a Volume of Poems — " Reeds shaken with the Wind " — Rural Synods " — Diocesan Synodical Action — The Restoration of the Offertory—" The Field of Rephidim :" a Visitation Sermon — " Echoes of Old Cornwall "— " A Voice from the Place of St. Morwenna" — Aishah-Shechinah — "The Quest of the Sangraal " — Essay on " Time and Space " — Account of Morwenstow in The GentlemarCs Magazine — " Cornish Ballads and other Poems " — " Footprints of Former Men in Old Cornwall " — " Poem on the War between France and Germany" — "On lAGS Hawker's criticism of "The Martyrs of Vienne and Lyons" — The people of Mor- wenstow — The Wreck of the " Caledonia " — Morwenstow Churchyard — Mr. Hawker as a Preacher — Adopts the Eucharistic Vest- ments—Parochial difficulties— Affection for his Flock — Mr. Hawker's frank and forcible Opinion of Wesleyanism-His Love of Animals — Interest in public events — His Address to the Queen on her Majesty's Man'iage — His Poem on the Death of Cardinal Wiseman — His Prayers on behalf of the Prince of Wales — Death of Mrs. Hawker . . . 1-63 CONTENTS. XUl PAGE Science and Faith " — " Lettei^s to Miss Louisa Twining " — Symbolism — "A Canticle for Christmas " — Mr. William MaskelFs Opinion and Criticism 64-1 1 o CHAPTER III. Altered Convictions and Death. Appointment of Dr. Temple, Editor of Essays and RevietcSf to the See of Exeter — Triumph of Liberalism — Dr. Templets Latitudinarianism — Weakness and timidity of the Bishops — Archbishop Tait's Erastian Aggressions — Disobedience of the Ritualists — Disorganiza- tion of the Establishment — Mr. R. S. Haw- ker's mental distress — Church of England Ordinations : their impoiiance and validity — Mr. Hawker preaches at AH Saints', Lam- beth, and his judgment of the Service — Scheme for Restoring the Church of Mor- wenstow — Mr. Hawker's Visit to London — Want of sympathy of certain of the London Clergy — Discussion r^arding Archbishop Tait's Baptism — The Spn-itual and Temporal in Government — Disorder, Division, and Dis- organization of the English Clergy — Letter to Mr. Godwin — Mr. Hawker's opinion of the ^' Radical Ritualists," and of the Missionaty operations of the Church of England— Doubts concerning the Validity of Baptism admi- nistered by Presbyterians — The case of Arch- bishop Seeker — Poem of "Aurora," contri- buted to " Lyrics of Light and Life " — The Public Worship Regulation Act, and its XIV CONTENTS. PACK influence on the old position of the Clergy — His determination as to opposing Dr. Temple — Altered position of the Beneficed Clergy — His distrust of the Ritualist section and their Fuglemen — Position and influence of the Church of Rome in England — His thoughts turn Romewards — Poem addressed to Car- dinal Manning on his elevation to the Purple — "Modern Thought," so-called — Mr. Haw- ker's Second Marriage — ^Altered convictions concerning the Reformers and other tra- ditional opinions — Isolation and despondency — Increasing physical weakness — He goes to Plymouth — His severe and last illness — Is received into the Church of Rome by Canon Mansfield — Mr. Hawker's death and burial — The Rev. W. Valentine's testimony — Mr. Hawker's powers and character — Con- clusion 116-201 Note-Letter from Rev. J. C. D. Yule . . 202-204 APPENDICES. No. I. The English Reformation . . . 205-209 No. II. Archbishop Tait's Baptism . . .210-217 No. III. The Public Worship Regulation Act . 218-227 No. IV. At Morwenstow, November 10, 1875. By John D. Stedding, Architect . 228-234 HA\ VALL Sherf joline Hawker, 'rtrHftn"' UviOff, annuirrii]d» isn. Orolino Gsorgo — Hawker, OMebtrama, ' d daogblsr, geniiemBia. ■" low Uving C. E. Hflflcer, tlh daughter. r '• Sisters they were, the fair and holj twain, Marveena and Morwenna ; and the vales And mountains of their birth were in wild Wales: — Thence came they in their youth across the main. King Breehan was their sire, and his sweet wife Gladwise, their mother gave them love and life ; Virgins they lived and died — O not in vain I One meekly built a solitary cell, Where still her lingering memory loves to dwell, In the old arches of Gray Marham's fane ; The other sought the sea : her pleasant place The pilgrim of the waters still may ti*ace, Where rock and headland watch the ocean plain. Mark how their blended names in music flow. The Church of Marham and Morwenna's Stowe ! Nor let the dreamer of the past complain, The saints, the sanctuaries, the Creed, this very day remaiu. B. S. Hawkeb. Pedigi'ee of the Family of Hawker. — To face page 1. ILLUSTRATIONS. 1 . Portrait of the Rev. E. S. Hawker, from a Photojijraph by J. Hawke, of Plymouth. — To face title page. 2. South Porch, Mor wen stow Church, Cornwall. — To face page 11. 3. The Vicarage House, Morwenstow. — To face page 18. 4. Ground Plan of St. Morwenna's Church, Morwenstow, Drawn by John D. Sedding, Architect. — To face page 230. Plates Noa. 2, 3, and 4 are engraved by Mr. C. C. Irons. MEMORIALS OF THK LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. CHAPTER I. PERSONAL HISTORY AND MINISTERIAL WORK. EoBERT Stephen Hawker, the subject of these memorials, born at Plymouth, December 3rd, 1804, was the eldest son of the Rev. James Stephen Hawker, Clerk in Holy Orders, by Jane Elizabeth, second daughter of Stephen Drewitt, of Winchester, gent., and was the grandson of the celebrated Calvinistic Divine, the Rev. Robert Hawker, D.D., who for fifty years was Minister of Charles Chapel, Plymouth.^ Dr. Hawker ^ The accompanying Pedigree, though anythmg but perfect, compiled from family records, will be interesting B 2 MEMORIALS OF sprang from an old family of gentle-people long resident at Exeter, many members of wliich have served God and their neighbours as cler- gymen of the National Church. Mr. R. S. Hawker married early in life, that is, in November, 1823, Charlotte Eliza Rawleigh I*Ans (one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Colonel I'Ans, a country gentleman of Whitstone House, in Cornwall), who died on February 2nd, 1863, and was buried in the churchyard of Morwenstow. Just before his marriage, it was resolved that he should enter as a student at Oxford, with a view to receiving Holy Orders. Accordingly, at the age of nineteen, he matriculated at Pembroke College on April 28th, 1823, and is described in the Matriculation Register as at that time the " only son '' of his father. His to many. The Rev. Dr. Hawker's D.D. degree was from Edinburgh. Id 1792 he published " Sermons on the Divinity of Chiist ; " in 1794, " Sermons on the Divinity and Operations of the Holy Ghost." He became a kind of itinerant preacher, marvellously popular, in order to diffuse his own peculiar doctrines widely throughout the country. THE LATE EEV. B. S, HAWKBE, M.A. 6 earnest and distinguished grandfather had been a member of St. Mary Magdalene Hall, where he had matriculated on May 27th, 1770, to which Society the subject of this memoir in due course migrated ; where, both to the satis- faction of the college authorities and himself, he duly and creditably finished his University course, obtained the Newdigate Prize, which was recited June 27th, 1827, and took his B.A. degree upon May 14th, 1828. He was known to a wide circle of friends for his frankness of manner, sweetness of temper, ready wit, accu- rate scholarship, general literary ability, and remarkable powers of conversation ; and many friendships, first made by him at Oxford, were cherished lovingly unto the end. A more con- sistent or respected character was never borne by Oxford graduate ; and few who once looked on the frank and handsome features of the author of " Pompeii " — ^his Newdigate Prize Poem — could ever fail to remember him. Troops of fi:iends were his from all quarters; many of whom, however, were seldom personally greeted B 2 4 MEMOKIALS OF by him after leaving Oxford to enter upon his work as a clergyman ; for. he at once went to his native diocese to receive the sacerdotal commission, and labour in the vineyard of his Master; and Cornwall was not then so easily accessible as it is now. Oxford, at that time, was about to witness the rise of the great rehgious movement which has by God's blessing convulsed and changed considerably the rehgious convictions of the nation. The trusted men of high principle and good repute, who set themselves so earnestly to stem the inroads of Whiggery, Brastianism, and Misbehef, had not then chosen their motto, " K the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" but their sound was soon to go forth to many lands, and their words unto the ends of the world. No one more cordially fell in with the wise policy of those earliest Tractarian leaders, or more thoroughly co-operated with them, according to his opportunity and ability, than Mr. Hawker, A Tory by birth and conviction, — a THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. & respectful admirer of More and Fisher, the noble Laud, the saintly Charles, and the high- principled Sancroft, a hearty detester of both the Cromwells, all the German reformers, but more especially of William of Orange, Tillotson and Burnet, — he was the very model of an English clergyman, absolutely untainted by "Liberalism," so-called, and wholly uncor- rupted either by Latitudinarian Erastianism, or the wild and far-fetched historical theories of recent hterary gymnasts. Mr. Hawker was ordained Deacon by Dr. William Carey, Bishop of Exeter (afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph), in the year 1829, and Priest in 1831, by Dr. George Henry Law, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Late in the year 1830, that distinguished man and valued champion of true principles, Dr. Henry Philpotts, was nominated and duly elected Bishop of Exeter, for which dignity he was consecrated at Lambeth on January 2nd, 1831, by the then pious and venerable primate, Dr. William Howley, Lord Archbishop of Can- 6 MZMOBIALS OF terburjr, and went to occupy his new position. Bishop Philpotts' eldest son had taken a copy of Mr. Hawker's Prize Poem, soon after its delivery in the Sheldonian theatre, to Stanhope, in Dnrham, where it won the deserved appro- bation of the fdtnie Bishop of Exeter. At that period Mr. Hawker was Curate of Wellcombe, in Devonshire ; but when, in 1834, the Vicarage of Morwenstow became vacant, the Bishop of Exeter, who was its patron, offered it to him in a letter at once paternal and kindly ; this offer was very gratefully and respectfully accepted. Such a charge, as the accepter of it said, was one of great respon- sibility ; for, without venturing either to blame or criticize others, the fact that the parish, for some cause or another, had not known a resi- dent pastor for more than a century, is a sufficiently obvious reason for its having been so regarded by the new vicar. Mr. Hawker found the clergyman*s residence partly used as a bam, and in a state of almost utter ruin — so bad that repair and restoration were impossible. THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 7 The church was sadly dilapidated — a dusty- desolation ; the churchyard a wilderness, where weeds overtopped the broken gravestones in wild and rank abundance. Dissenters, who called themselves " Bryanites," were alone active amid the religious indifference which reigned; and certain emasculated Methodists (with a few original " views " of their own selection or invention) divided with the Bryan- ites what little religious enthusiasm had, under the circumstances referred to, managed to exist. The influence of the National Church was at freezing point, the Catholic faith prac- tically unknown. Traditions of Christian truth had not utterly died out, for many devout practices were still current; but the prospect for a new vicar was scarcely inviting. But Mr. Hawker, young and high-principled, full of zeal and energy, set to work both wisely and well ; and in due course won his way amongst people who had been too long neglected by the authorities of the National Communion. His own deep beUef in the Catholic religion, his 8 MEMORIALS OF high sacramental doctrine, his anxious care and patient watching for those over whom he was set in the Lord, his daily intercessions, accompanied with the obvious benedictions of Almighty God, Who mercifully gave the increase in abundance, enabled Mr. Hawker's Oxford friends to reckon up Morwenstow amongst the many out-of-the-way parishes where the revived teaching of the Church of England was prac- tically experienced, and eventually heartily welcomed. Here a brief account of the church and parish may be fittingly recorded. Morwenstow is situated on the sea-coast of the upper and northern nook of the county of Cornwall. It lies between Hartland Point and Bude; its nearest town being Stratton. It is shut in and bounded on the one side by the Severn Sea, and on the other by the offspring of its own bosom, the Tamar River, which gushes, with its sister-stream, the Torridge, from a rushy knoll on the eastern side of the village. Below lies a breadth of wild and rocky land. THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 5> " Barrows curve above the dead ; a stony cross stands by a mossed and licliened well.'* A beautiful spot here eventually became the " stow " or " station " of St. Morwenna. Tradition tells that she was the saintly daughter of Breachan, a Keltic king of the ninth century, who, as Leland declares, had no less than twenty-four children. Of these Morwenna was pious, wise, and discreet above her years and generation. The chief desire of her soul was to send messengers of God to lead the pagans and barbarians of the wild coasts of Cornwall to the font of regeneration. Ethel- wolf, the Saxon king, then lived. He it was who laid the endowment of his realm on the altar of the Apostles Peter and Paul at Eome. Of his many children he entrusted his sons to the care of St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester; and having obtained her father's royal ^auction, secured the services of holy Morwenna as a teacher of the Saxon Princess Edith and other daughters of his house. So patiently and efficiently did she labour in imparting a know- 10 • MEMORIALS OF ledge of God and of His goodness, that lie was ready to give her whatever she might demand. Then said Morwenna, — " Sir, there is a stem and stately headland of thine appanage in the Tamar-land, with a boundary rugged and tall, and it looks along the Severn Sea. They call it the Raven's Crag, because for long ages the birds of Elias have made it their home. Give me there, I beseech thee, my lord king, a station for a priest, that so the Name of God may be for ever worshipped and adored." Her voice was heard, her request granted. And so there came in dark times those who marked out the ground with holy rite, and scared away the demons with sacramental power, and set up the light of Christ. Rude font, with carved cable coiled around it, was erected to lave the unre- generate. Pillar and arch, deep foundation and moulded stone, stately wall and curving roof closed in the altar-throne of the Most High and the Sacred Presence. There, where the Christian Sacrifice was offered, and the Sacraments of Holy Church shed, they linked [r-^«^Bj«ii. THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 11 the name of Morwenna to fane, and sleeping- place, and sacred well ; and so these holy spots ^are held to belong to an almost undated era^ A document of the year 1296, having reference to the endowment of the church, exists in the Registry of the Diocese of Exeter, in which the structural building is there termed " a very ancient and well-known sanctuary." Such is the " Stowe " or " Station " of Morwenna. The church itself consists of nave, chancel, north and south aisles, and a lofty embattled tower at the west end, surmounted with pinnacles. The external walls, and in parts the roof, are covered with the maiden-hair fern, which grows profusely. The southern porch is of Norman work, as are also some of the westernmost pillars and arches of the north side of the nave. These are as curious and interesting to the archaBologist as the well- known Norman work in IflSley Church, near Oxford, and quite as fresh and beautiful. As Mr. Hawker himself wrote: — "There is one very graphic ^ sermon in stone ' twice repeated 12 MEMORIALS OF on the curve and on the shoulder of the arch. Our forefathers called it (and our people inherit their phraseology) ^ The Grin of Arius.' The origin of the name is this : — It is said that the final development of every strong and baleful passion in the human countenance is an angry laugh. In a picture of the Council of Mcasa, which is said still to exist, the baflSled Arius is shown among the doctors with his features convulsed into a strong and demoniac spasm of malignant mirth. Hence it became one of the usages, among the graphic imagery of internal decoration, to depict the heretic as mocking the mysteries with that glare of derision and gesture of disdain which admonish and instruct by the very name of ^ The Grin of Arius.' Thence were derived the lolling tongue and the mocking mouth which are still preserved on the two corbels of stone in this early Norman work." The other north side arches are of first Pointed work. The arches on the south side, imiform in character, are supported on early third Pointed clustered pillars, with THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 13 double capitals exquisitely carved, of marked character and great beauty. The western arch is an exact semicircle of dun-stone from the shore, utterly unadorned, severe and simple in its design. The original open seats are very interesting specimens of second Pointed work in oak, as also is the screen which separates the chancel from the nave ; and, with the exception of the old gallery-loft, is perfect. The font, near the chief entrance, is of rude and simple Norman work, irregular in shape, very plain, with a cable represented in stone round the middle^ The lower portion has certain incised figures on it; and the whole stands on a broad and solid, step, one side of which is rudely carved. The wooden pulpit is placed against a pillar on the north side of the nave, the lectern on the south, just outside the chancel. The chancel screen is surmoimted by a rood; and the altar is dignified, stately, and duly furnished with cross and lights. The east window, of second Pointed tracery, is filled with stained glass ; and the chancel is in 14 MEMORIALS OF excellent order. The window itself, of tliree lights, was the pious and dutiful oblation to God of " Rudolph, Baron Clinton, and Georgiana Elizabeth, his wife," as the legend within it proclaims. The central figure represents St. Morwenna, who stands in the attitude of the teacher of the Princess Edith, daughter of Ethelwolf, the royal founder of the church; and on either side are representations of St. Peter and St. Paul. The Piscina on the south side of the altar-sanctuary is of Norman work, simple but undoubted. It stands under a semicircular arch in the wall, which had been blocked up and plastered over, until it was opened and restored by Mr. Hawker. The nave requires considerable restoration, for the mullions in many of the windows are either seriously damaged, or altogether gone, and certain of the windows are half blocked up with bricks. The roofs are covered with oaken shingles. In the churchyard the southern por- tion only contains graves, the north part being untenanted ; as the Cornish believe (following old THE LATE EEV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 15 traditions) that the north is the region of demons. In some parishes of Cornwall, even to the present day, when a baptism occm*s, the north door of the nave opposite the font is always thrown open, so that, as is beheved, the devil cast out may retire to his own place, "the region of the north." An efficient restoration, such as the late vicar desired to see carried out, would be a good work bestowed upon one of the most ancient and interesting churches of North Cornwall. This Mr. Hawker knew full well, for he was an excellent archaeologist, and a sound and trustworthy antiquarian. But he was chiefly a Christian poet. Into verse, therefore, he put a description of his church — ^verse so graphic, so forcible in its expressions, so religious in its tone and thought, and so perfect a poem taken as a whole, that it is here quoted at length : — My Saxon shrine I the only ground Wherein this weary heart hath rest : What years ih» birds of God have found, Along thy walls their sacred nest : 16 MEMORIALS OF The storm — the blast — the tempest shock Have beat upon those walls in vain ; She stands — a daughter of the rock — The changeless God's eternal fane. Firm was then* faith, the ancient bands, The wise of heart in wood and stone, Who rear'd with stem and trusting hands. These dark grey towers of days unknown : They fill'd these aisles with many a thought. They bade each nook some truth reveal ; The pillar'd arch its legend brought, A doctrine came with roof and wall. Huge, mighty, massive, hard, and strong, Were the choice stones they lifted then : The vision of their hope was long, They knew their God, those faithful men They pitched no tent for change or death. No home to last man's shadowy day; There ! there ! the everlasting breath Would breathe whole centuries away. See now, along the pillar'd aisle The graven arches, firm and fair : They bend their shoulders to the toil. And lift the hollow roof in air. A sign ! beneath the ship we stand. The inverted vessel's arching side ; Forsaken — when the fisher ba^d Went forth to sweep a mightier tide. THE LATE EEV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 17 Pace we the ground ! our footsteps tread, A Cross — the builder's holiest form : That awful couch, where once was shed The Blood, with man's forgiveness warm. And here, just where His miglity breast Throbb'd the last agony away. They • ade the voice of worship rest. And white-robed Levites pause and pray. Mark ! the rich rose of Sharon's b')wers Curves in the paten's mystic mould : The lily, lady of the flowers. Her shape must yonder chalice hold : Types of the Mother and the Son, The twain in this dim chancel stand : The badge of Norman banners, one. And one a crest of English land. How all things glow with life and thought. Where'er our faithful fathers trod ! The very ground with speech is fraught. The air is eloquent of God. In vain would doubt or mockery hide The buried echoes of the past ; A voice of strength, a voice of pride. Here dwells amid the storm and blast. Still points the tower, and pleads the bell^ The solemn arches breathe in stone : Window and wall have lips to tell The mighty faith of days unknown. 18 MEMORIALS OF Yea, flood and breeze, and battle shock, Shall beat upon this church in vain ; She stands, a daughter of the rock. The changeless God's eternal fane. The Yicarage-house, built under Mr. Hawker's personal superintendence, is a picturesque, comfortable, and good-looking building near tlie church, standing on the glebe, and close to the sea. It is in the style of old Elizabethan houses, but with several peculiarities : the chimneys are singular, and were meant to re- present certain church-towers at Oxford. The chief gable is stepped and surmounted with a cross ; underneath a bay-window projects of six lights. All the windows have dripstones over them; and they^contain geometrical glass. A porch of two stories placed in an angle, serves to protect the chief rooms from the wind ; over the porch stood — for, since its author's death, it has recently been removed — the following verse from the Yicar's pen ; — A house, a glebe, and a pound a day, A pleasant place to watch and pray : Be true to the Church, and kind to the poor, O Minister, for evermore. THE LATE EBV. U. S. HAWKER, M.A. 19 He owned some curious pictures ; amongst others portraits of Killigrew and Black John, the Cornish jesters; another of Tim Bobbin, the Lancashire ostler and famous jester; a view of Hartland Abbey ; an old picture, on panel, of Bude ; and several interesting and rare engravings. The house contained a large amount of an- tique oak furniture: mantelpieces, bedsteads, chests, cabinets, sofas, sideboards, mirrors ; carved oak chairs from Stowe (certain of which had been sometime the property of Sir Beville Granville of Stowe), and other pieces of furniture at once curious and valuable. His collection of English, Delft and Oriental china was likewise considerable. Perhaps the most curious piece was a waeshael bowl with cover : on the top being carved morrice-dancers sur- rounding a fiddler. It was dated 1687, and was much valued by its owner. " The coast is ironbound," writes a kindly chronicler of Mr. Hawker's words and works in the Standard; " strangely-contorted schists and 2 20 MEMOBIALS OF sandstones stretch away northward in an almost unbroken line of rocky wall to the point of Hartland ; and to the south-west a bulwark of cliffs of a very similar character, extends to and beyond Tintagel, whose rude walls are sometimes seen projected against the sunset in the far distance. The coast scenery is of the grandest description, with its spires of splin- tered rock, its ledges of green turf inaccessible but tempting, from the rare plants which nestle in the crevices of its seal-haunted caverns, its wild birds (amongst which the red-legged chough can hardly be reckoned any longer, so much has it, of late years, lessened in numbers), the miles of sparkling blue sea over which the eye ranges from the summits, ablaze and fragrant with furze and heather; and here and there the little cover of yellow sand, bound in by towering blackened walls, haunts which seem specially designed for the sea-elves."^ " Nothing," writes Mr. Maskell in his de- scription of the country near Morwenstow, • Standard, September 1, 1875. THE LATE EEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 21 adding vividly to one's ideas of its beautiful scenery — "can exceed the delight of a walk along these downs and cliffs. The glorious expanse of sea, the broken headlands, the glittering surf below, and the hollow murmur filling the ear from the breaking waves ; a few white sails near land or far out upon the dim horizon ; a sweeping gull or soaring hawk upon the wing ; the purple thyme with which the turf abounds, crushed under the tread and filling the whole air with perfume; or yellow fragrant blossoms of the farze winding in large patches here and there, and gilding the more distant slopes ; the spread of country often visible far inland with waving corn growing here and there to the very edge of the precipice, and a farm-house or church-tower of some neighbour- ing village just showing above a cluster of low trees : all these bathed in an autumn sunshine, in the purest air, form a picture which I do not hesitate to say is unequalled upon any other part of the coast of England." * » " Odds and Ends." By W. Maskell. RSI. London : J. Toovey, 1872. 22 MEMORIALS OP When, in the year 1854, I had the good for- tune to obtain the Newdigate Prize at Oxford — after two previous attempts, and two failures — my friend Mr. Hawker, from his Cornish home, was the first to send me his own valued con- gratulations, and to do me the honour of asking for an early copy of the verses. This act of unlooked-for kindness made an indelible impression upon me. On receipt of the printed exercise he sent me the following interesting letter — to myself most interesting, for there was no poet whose good opinion I would more thankfully have received than his ; and no one whose criticism could have been more true, pointed, and practical. I trust its publication now, more than twenty years after it was penned, may not lay me open to the charge of undue egotism : — "Morwenstow, July 12, 1854. " Alli3w me to express my earnest thanks to you for the pleasure which you have enabled me to enjoy in the perusal of your beautiful Poem. Said I, as an old Prizeman, when I THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 23 read it : * The ancient spirit is not dead ; old times, methinks, are breathing here.' "But why in rhymeless verses? you, too, who can rule the sound so well. It may be that I rather eschew the metre * from horror at the false fame of that double-dyed thief of other men's brains — John MUton, the Puritan, — one-half of whose lauded passages are, from my own knowledge, felonies committed in the course of his reading on the property of others; and who was never so rightly appreciated, as by the publisher, who gave him fifteen pounds for the copyright of his huge larcenies, and was a natural loser by the bargain. " You ask me for my criticism. Well, the diflficult part, the beginning from * Quivering his golden shafts,' to * the dark blue vault of Heaven,' is a fine pictorial passage: a land- scape by Guido, if he ever painted one. * It will be noticed that in his grand Poem, " The Quest of the Sangraal," 1864, Mr. Hawker adopted this same metre, and with a success regarding which there can be scarcely two opinions. 24 MEMORIALS OF Quivering his golden shafts, the Sun reposed On clouds of purple. Slowly from the East Mantled in sable garb — upon her brow A silver crescent caught the sun's last gleam, — Evening came up ; while stars and planets bright, Like scattered jasmine flowers upon a stream. Were clustering in the dark blue vault of Heaven. " Again : * Levell'd the billows of Gen- nesareth/ is a majestic line. It called up in my mind a vision of Him, the Master, with His lifted hand, when He said to the storm, * Hash ! be mute/ "But— Angel forms y leaving their courts on high. Came down, at His behest, to strengthen her, And on their rainbow-pinions, bear her soul ; — this troubles me. Angels have no wings : not a single feather. Whensoever in the Old Testament or the New Testament they actually appear, they are expressly said to be * young men in white garments : * not to be distin- guished by the patriarchs from other youthful guests, and so entertained at unawares. Are you not instructed that the alb of the Primal THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 25 Church, girdled, was an exact copy of the usual garments worn by angels when they comxuned with men ? " Did you never hear the legend of the man who died, and whose soul came back after his wife had besought St. Stephen, and who re- lated his journey to a place where a concourse of persons assembled all in white, and a young man, in a deacon's alb, came to him and announced that he might return, and he did so ? Gretser De Sancta Cruce tells the tale. Read it in the Bodleian. "Wings, moreover, are to me destructive of all poetry of motion from place to place. They imply effort. The p,ngels glide on the chariots and horses of their own desires. One in Syria is fain to be in Egypt, and immediately is there ; just as we think in one scene of a dis- tant spot and at once our minds behold it without consciousness of the space between. . " No, no, angels have not one feather. Michael Angelo, the inspired, neither carved nor drew a single wing; save once, when he 26 MEMOEIALS OF portrayed the Annunciation in the Blessed Virgin's Room, and then as an obvious delicacy of design. True, the prophetic ima- gery is abundant in feathers — symbolic every one. But the actual angels are real existing people, who walk and live and move in calm unalterable youth; who speak in their un- earthly language, although their voices do not move the air; who pass among us and the grass bends not where they tread. "The portraiture of the Church is very graphic, me judice, and very good : * and I con- • So to the end. But still methought the Church, In power divine and majesty supreme, Walked forth through lands, and nations heard her voice. Owning Her sway. Then, sign'd with Jesu's sign. Ten thousand forms flock'd to Her lowly ranks, — Kings, nobles, poets, princes, senators. Swelling Her triumph, as She walk'd erect Across the desert of this sinful world ; And upward tuneful rose through starry space Her songs of praise to God. The courts of Heaven Swell'd with the anthem, and the white-robed choirs. Tuning their harps in unison, sang forth — THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 27 gratulate you, as a brother Prizeman, on tliat indelible * white stone ' in a man's career — your Oxford prize. Back-echoing sweetly to the Church on earth — Unceasing praises to the Crucified. Onward, upon the margin of Time's stream, Grazing, She saw the empires of the earth — Dynasties old — fall, like rock-fragments hurl'd Into the mighty chaos of the past. Firm as eternal mountains still She stood. Gazing serenely o'er the troubled world. Her footsteps moved, while broader grew Her ranks. Even as a river widening to the sea. Kings bow'd before Her, and Her altars bright Shone with rich jewels, as the ocean- waves Gleam with a thousand glistening gems at night; Her shrines were circled round with costly stones, Sapphire and pearl, and violet amethyst. Looms of the East, and cedars from the North, Balm from the forest, incense from the groves. And sweet flowers clustering on the breast of Earth, Adorn'd the temples of the Saviour's Bride. Her silver voice, resounding o'er the waves, Westward and southward, call'd the nations home ; And they, responding, own'd Her Queen, until Climes that on Earth's far edge courted the sun, Welcomed Her saving step, and echoing sent Eternal alleluias up to God. The Martyrs of Vienne and Lyons : an Oxford Prize Poem, 1854. 28 MEMORIALS OF " My * Pompeii ' was carried by Mr. Pliilpotts to Stanhope in Durham, and to his father the Eector there; who, when he came down to Exeter as Bishop, asked for me ; and finding me at work hard as a curate, gave me at an early period, two years after I was ordained Priest, this Vicarage. You have my earnest wishes that a similar fruit, or a like advantage may follow from your own success. "At any time it will give me pleasure to receive your remembrance, in letter or other way. " My race is well-nigh run. Except a wife who is and has been, the sole solace of my worn existence, I have no companion. A son and daughter I have none. .... I am twenty-five miles fi:om a town or bookseller, with neither mail, road, nor train ; nor even carrier nearer than that ; and only fastened to the far world by the fibre of a Daily Post, granted by Lord Lonsdale as a special com- passion to my loneliness. But then I have the Severn Sea for my lawn ; and cliffs, the height of the Great Pyramid, build me in." THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 29 In such a spot of course the ocean with all its beauties and unfailing attractions must have afforded the subject of these Memorials vast and permanent interest. So stern and pitiless is that iron-bound coast of North Cornwall, that within the memory of one man, upwards of eighty wrecks have been counted within a range of fifteen miles, with only here and there the rescue of a single living person. The people of Morwenstow, when the Vicar was first in- stituted, were a mixed multitude of smugglers, wreckers, and dissenters of various hues. " A few simple-hearted farmers," as Mr. Hawker himself declared, "had clung to the grey old sanctuary of the church and the tower that looked along the sea; but the bulk of the people had become the followers of the great Preacher of the last century who came down into Cornwall and persuaded the people to alter their sins." With some of the cruel and covetous natives of the strand, it was at one time a pastime to lure a vessel ashore by a treacherous light, or to withhold succour from 30 MEMORIALS OF the seamen struggling with the sea. Some of his parishioners could tell tales of wild adven- ture, which would have made the foot of an exciseman falter, and his cheek turn pale; of some of these, as regards shipwrecks, Mr. Hawker was a witness, and in the recovery and preservation of the crew ever first and fore- most. The wreck of the "Caledonia'* has been told with graphic power by Mr. Hawker himself, in his published " Reminiscences," and most touching the account is : " We rounded the Land's End all well," said the only survivor, Le Daine, a Jersey man, to the Vicar, "and came up channel with a fair wind. The captain turned in. It was my watch. All at once, about nine at night, it began to blow in one moment as if the storm burst out by signal: the wind went mad ; our canvas burst in bits. "We reeved fresh sails: they went also. The captain had turned out when the storm began; he sent me forward to look out for Limdy Light. I saw your cliff [at Morwenstow]. I sung out * Land ! ' I had hardly done so, when THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 31 she struck with a blow, and stuck fast. Then the captain sung out, ' AM hands to the main- top/ and we all went up. The captain folded his arms and stood by silent. . . At last there came on a dreadfiil wave, mast-top high, and away went the mast with the board, and we with it into the sea. I gave myself up. I was the only man on the ship that could not swim ; so when I fell in the water there I lay. I felt the waves beat me and send me on. At last there was a rock under my hand. Just then 1 saw Alick Kant, one of our crew, swimming past. I saw him lay his hand on a rock, and I sung out *Hold on, Alick!' but a wave rolled and swept him away, and I never saw his face more. I was beaten onward and onward among the rocks and the tide, and at last I felt the ground with my feet. I scrambled on ; I saw the cliff dark and steep above my head. I chmbed up until I reached a kind of platform with grass, and then I fell down flat upon my face, either I fainted away or I fell asleep. There I lay a long time, and 32 MEMOBIALS OP when I awoke it was just the break of day. . . I could see no house nor sign of people, and the country looked to me like some wild and desert island. At last I felt thirsty, and tried to get down towards a valley where I thought I should find water. But before I could reach it I fell and grew faint again, and there, thank God, Sir, you found me." When the bodies of the dead were found, " wrecked and cast ashore " was the verdict, usual, common, and ordinary; and such ver- dicts were constantly being recorded, and then the funerals took place. Nothing could have been more solemn, sad, or impressive. With cross and song the corpses were born to the southern side of the sacred churchyard, and laid in peace until the general resurrection, when both grave and sea shall give up their dead. To the ordinary service of the Enghsh Church Mr. Hawker added some special prayers, singularly appropriate, for a blessing on the departed, and for a warning to the living. Over the grave of the captain of the vessel, THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 33 its figure-head — the form of Caledonia-^-was placed, and the Vicar sang of the dread occur- rence as a bard with Christian hope : — We laid them in their lonely rest, The strangers of a distant shore : We smooth'd the green turf on their breast, 'Mid baffled Ocean's angry roar ! And there — the relique of the storm — We fix'd fair Scotland's figured form. She watches by her bold — her brave — Her shield towards the fatal sea : Their cherish'd Lady of the wave, Is guardian of their memory ! Stern is her look, but calm, for there No gale can rend, or billow bear. Stand, silent image, stately stand ! Where sighs shall breathe and tears be shed; And many a heart of Cornish land Will soften for the stranger-dead. They came in paths of stoim — they fotind This quiet home in Christian ground." When shipwrecks took place, or ships were in danger, nothing could exceed the interest Mr. Hawker took in rendering all the help D 34 MEMORIALS OF possible to their crews. He was often the first to go to the rocks, and the last to leave them. His tried and trusted friends amongst the Morwenstow people were always ready to aid him. And his name is remembered by many for his practical charity, Christian care, and kindly forethought. He was fii'equently touched to the heart's core by the sufferings of the sailors ; and always relieved them, and helped them onward to their homes. Nor were the lessons of shipwrecks either unnoticed or unforgotten. He often dwelt on them deeply, and for a long time. In the case of the " Caledonia " as regards the warning for him- self and the living, he likewise penned the following : — THE CREW OF THE BRIG "CALEDONIA." DIED SEPTEMBER 8, 1842. THE NIGHT COMETH. When darkness fills the western sky, And Sleep, the twin of Death, is nigh, What soothes the soul at set of sun ? The pleasant thought of duty done ! THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. Yet must the pastoral slumbers be The shepherd's — by the Eastern tree — Broken and brief, with dreams that tell Of ravaged flock and poison'd well. Be stilly my soul ! Fast wears the night, Soon shall day dawn in holier light : Old faces, ancient hearts be there, And well-known voices thrill the air ! 35 Concerning the frequent wrecks, these are bis own words : — " The events of the last twenty years have added fresh interest to God's acre — for such is the exact measure of the grave-ground of St. Morwenna. Along and beneath the southern trees, side by side, are the graves of between thirty and forty seamen, hurled by the sea in shipwreck, on the neighbouring rocks, and gathered up and buried there by the present Vicar and his people. The crews of three lost vessels, cast away upon the rocks of the glebe and else- where, are laid at rest in this safe and silent ground." The first line of the sweet and musical verses which follow, called " A Dirge," are said by Mr. D 2 36 MEMORIALS OF Hawker to have haunted the memory and lips of a good and blameless farmer of Morwenstow, Richard Cann, who died there some years ago. This Hne— Sing from the chamber to the grave, which commemorates a very common Cornish custom, was evidently the fi^gment of some forgotten dirge, of which the sick man could remember no more. But it was his strong desire that the words should be graven on his memorial head-stone, and that the Vicar should "write other words to match, and make it complete." Mr. Hawker fulfilled his entreaty, and wrote the following, which may be read on Cann's tombstone in Morwenstow church- yard : — * Sing! from the chamber to the grave!' Thus did the dead man say, — A sound of melody I crave Upon my burial-day. Bring forth some tuneful instrument And let your voices rise : My spirit llsten'd as it went To music of the skies ! THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 37 Sing sweetly while you travel on, And keep the funeral slow : The angels sing where I am gone ; And you should sing helow ! Sing from the threshold U> the porch. Until you hear the bell; And sing you loudly in the church The Psalms I love so well. Then bear me gently to my grave : And as you pass along, Remember, 'twas my wish to have A pleasant funeral song ! So earth to earth — and dust to dust — And though my bones decay, My soul shall sing among the just, Until the Judgment-day ! In the same churcliyard there is another touching inscription in verse, from the same graceful pen, in memory of a young child. It stands thus : — Those whom God loves die young ; They see no evil days ; No falsehood taints their tongue, No wickedness their ways. 38 MEMORIALS OF Baptized — and so made sure To win their safe abode ; What could we pray for more ? They die, and are with God. As a preacher, Mr. Hawker, who had a most prepossessing and commanding appearance, always spoke wifh authority. He was at once luminous and lucid in his expositions of Holy Writ, and both simple and forcible in applying the lessons he endeavoured to teach. He was a " divine *' in the highest sense of the word, penetrated with a beUef in the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, and most able in enunciating its truths. In some respects he was like the late Dr. Neale in his grasp of Catholic dogma, only his manner was far more winning and less shy, while his matter was free from that wild straining after mysticism which, with all their beauties, sometimes disfigured Dr. Neale' s writings. Unlike many pulpit orators, who, if they make a plain and obvious dogmatic assertion one moment, begin at once to weaken it, or carefully explain it away THE LATE EEV. B. S. UAWKEB, M.A. 39 immediately afterwards, Mr. Hawker set forth the Faith with marked power and yet with eminent simplicity. His meaning was unmis- takeable. Early in life he preached from a MS., as at one time all " orthodox divines " did ; but, in later years, he declined to depend upon notes or written sermons, and always preached extemporarily. His sermons were of high Kterary merit ; theological in tone, effective and appropriate in illustration ; hearty and forcible in practical application, and warm in hortatory wisdom and Christian teaching. At the same time they were so simple in their language, that a child might comprehend their truly beautiful lessons. Such was that preached at All Saints', Lambeth. That he was a great student of the Holy Scrip- tures was evident as well by his conversation as bv his sermons. The Fathers of the Catholic Church, too, both East and West, were very familiar to him ; and he read constantly the lofty, deep, and exhaustive writings of that great saint and teacher, Thomas of Aquin ; by the 40 MEMORIALS OP light of whose almost inspired words he grasped the mysteries both of nature and grace. Mr. Hawker was very careful and neat (some might say " original ") in his dress and appearance, but every inch a clergyman. He commonly wore a brown cassock with red buttons (disliking black exceedingly), and a broad-brimmed dark-brown velvet hat. The cassock was girded with a cincture; and this dress was at once canonical, becoming, and picturesque.^ Soon after his institution to Morwenstow, in accordance with the directions of the Prayer Book, he adopted certain distinctively sacer- dotal vestments for his pubUc ministrations at the altar; the alb of fine white linen, the • Haviog been commented upon by some of the clergy for adopting the flowing cassock at a ruri-decanal meeting, he replied promptly and warmly, — **At all events, brethren, you will allow me to remark that I don't make myself look like a waiter out-of-place, or an unemployed undertaker ; and, secondly, that I do scrupulously abide by the injunctions of the seventy-fourth Canon of 1603/' THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 41 chief sacrificial garment of silk, and tlie stole. These he wore regularly for many years, but latterly discontinued their use. In the year 1853 he was kind enough to give me a detailed written account of them, which I then read at a meeting of the Oxford Architectural Society, which account has since been mislaid by me. Of his obliging commimication I accurately remember thus much, viz. that in shape the chief vestment was more like a cope than a chasuble ; and, if I remember' rightly, it was of rich purple and yellow silk, adorned with symbolical embroidery. I am told that in later years he became possessed of some ancient vestments and ecclesiastical hangings, reputed to have been part of the ornamenta of Hartland Abbey; and that a chasuble from an old Cornish church near Bude, was sometimes used by him at God's altar in the Chm*ch of St. Morwenna. The Vicar of Morwenstow worked on steadily and steadfastly for years, undismayed by oppo- sition, unmoved by want of sympathy in some 42 MEMORIALS OP quarters, but ever firm and resolute in what he undertook ; for very few influenced him a hair's- breadth. He preached by deed as well as word : and his almsgiving was even more considerable than, for prudence sake, it ought to have been. " Mine," he wrote, " was a perilous warfare. If I had not, like the Apostle, to * fight with wild beasts at Bphesus,' I had to soothe the wrecker, to persuade the smuggler, and to 'handle serpents ' in my intercourse with adversaries of many a kind." He daily interceded for all his flock : for the faithful in the first instance, and then for the disaffected and dissenters. Always regarding it the truest charity to warn his people against heresy and schism, he ever spoke out so plainly, in language the complete reverse of ambiguous, that none could miss his point or mistake his meaning. Thus he showed his true, large-hearted, and eminently Christian charity. He never used language to obscure his ideas (as is the case with some, and successfully), but always to lucidly e2:pound them and plainly set them forth. The pitfalls of dissent and THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 43 « error are numerous and deep. As a divine guide he plainly pointed them out. And though, in this feeble namby-pamby age, there were many who hated his plain-speaking ; yet, never- theless, there are several who now bless his memory for having been so true and faithful to his Master's cause. He was patient and silent under misrepresen- tation, and frequently remarked that he would most likely be better understood later on. The position of a parish priest in a diocese of vast extent, where in former times the influence of the National Chiu^ch had been steadily circum- scribed, he always held to be one of grave practical difficulty.^ The fathers had eaten sour grapes, and, as a consequence, their children's teeth were set on edge. Just as the EstabKshed Church, guided by crafty and designing politi- * "Thaok God!" he wrote, "the promises which the Clergy inherit from their Founder cannot fail to be fulfilled. It was never prophesied that thej should be popular or wealthy, or successful among men ; but only that they * should endure unto the end,' that * their generation should never pass away.' Well has this word been kept." 44 MEMORIALS OF cians under Queen Elizabetli, had been compelled to break away from communion with the rest of Christendom, — ^when altars were thrown down, tabernacles destroyed and shrines rifled, and the houses of God made ruinous and desolate, — so, in later reigns, the people in a strong and passionate torrent of self-will broke away from their national teachers, and set up quaint and questionable systems of unbelief. When Autho- rity was short-sightedly weakened for mere poHtical purposes, confusion, doubt, and divi- sions grew apace. In Cornwall, as in most other remote parts of England and Wales, examples of these are abundantly numerous; while many a pastor's heart has grown sad and woebegone because of the wild phantasies of modern religionists, the crooked extravagancies of self-constituted prophets, and the apparent inutility of endeavouring to meet and overmaster the grotesque intellectual absurdities of the dangerous but popular principle of private judgment. For ours is a state of national religious isolation, and within the too compre- THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 45 hensive border of our conmninion, alas I that it should be written, direct contradictories both in doctrine and practice are tolerated by those "rulers who rule not," — ^rulers who grasp only the shadow of authority, and whose personal in- fluence — on which alone some (as upon a reed) appear to depend — dwindles and withers up more completely day by day. His affection for and interest in his flock — more especially for those whose child-Hke faith had been undestroyed by schism and untainted by theological error — were both true and deep. Nothing rejoiced him more than to find that old traditional practices, which gave good evidence of a sure belief in the Supernatural — the certain basis of the Christian Religion — were still current and cherished. Again and again examples of Christian folk-lore were brought to his notice, and were always received by him with curious interest and thankful gratitude. By that Chris- tian intuition which is no doubt an ordinary fruit of the grace of baptism, the poor, the un- educated and the humble — living within sound 46 MEMORIALS OF of the ever-speaking ocean, and marking the grandeur of God's visible creation in the wild beauty and stem magnificence of the Cornish coast — "walked by faith and not by sight." They realized the abiding sanctity of sacred spots and consecrated sleeping-places, where, with Christian rite, in the years past, balsam and oil, hallowed by the sacred sign, had been poured out with prayer and praise. Wells, — ^where of old angels had glided down to trouble the waters, for mankind smitten and wasting away, — were regarded with reverence, and visited with simple faith and true devotion, to secure the patronage of a saint and the blessing of Almighty God. The sign of the cross was not altogether unused ; while the sacred drops brought away from holy springs, were frequently sprinkled, with trust in the Paraclete, to guard the weak from the noon- day demon and " the pestilence that walketh in the darkness." All these, and such like lingering truths — truths enshrined in acts — gathered up and cherished by the Vicar of Morwenstow, were used " to point a moral and THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, 3J.A. 47 adorn a tale " in his most attractive and edifying sermons. Many a simple soul, won from the • slippery and dangerous paths of schism, under his fatherly teaching, has learnt to believe practically in the communion of saints, and to walk steadfastly and hopefully in the presence of God, even up to the very gate of the Unseen World ; knowing that both at the particular and general judgment-bar each shall be judged according as his works have been. And this remark brings me to the subject of Dissent. Now few have measured the true character of schism, and dissent of aU sorts, more thoughtfully in a broader spirit or more accurately than the subject of these Memorials. In the present shallow and unreal age it is the fashion, even with Churchmen, to praise Mr. John Wesley and his labours : but the Vicar of Morwenstow, as on other subjects, so on this, declined altogether to follow the fashion. Having unusual opportunities for judging of the m practical working of Wesleyanism, and its varied offshoots, he put on record, in a letter to Mr. 48 MEMORIALS OF John G. Godwin, dated " December, 1863," the following forcible and characteristic opinion : — ^ ^ John Wesley years ago corruptedand degraded the Cornish character; found them wrestlers, caused them to change their sins, and called it * conversion.' With my last breath I protest that the man Wesley corrupted and depraved, instead of improving, the West of England; indeed all the land. He found the miners and the fishermen an upstanding, rollicking, cou- rageous people : he left them a down-looking, lying, selfish-hearted throng. I maintain that he did not effect a single moral change. It is not * conversion ' to effect a change of sins. The vices of the body are not after all, bad as they are, so hateful as the sins of the mind. These latter the Demon prefers and practises. He cannot be sensual, though hjp tempts men thereto ; and even herein Wesleyans about here are secret dram-drinkers too often, and their lust is cruel, deadly. Look at the statistics of Wesleyan regions, seduction and mfanticide are the badges of the meeting-house throughout the TH15 L\TE BEV. R. S. HAWKEK, M.A. 40 land. When our Lord said * By their fruits ye shall know them/ He did not refer so much to the conduct of the heretics themselves as to the results of their doctrine whereon it is sown. I undertake to prove statistically that Methodism is the mother of the brothel, and the throttling- cord of modem England." Mr. Hawker was known, by correspondence, to many of the most distinguished literary men of the day, who frequently consulted him on various subjects, knowing how considerable and valuable was his store of out-of-the-way infor- mation, and how thoroughly he was acquainted with the past and present history of his native county. Many, too, knew him personally, amongst whom were— the Poet Laureate, the late Canon Kingsley, and the late Charles Dickens. The first drafts of some of Mr. Ten- nyson's poems are said to have been written on the clifijs above Morwenstow, especially " Break, break, break," where likewise some of the most m striking of Mr. Hawker's own poetical works were produced* The wild beauty of the place 50 • MEMORIALS OF is its great charm. " It is as yet unspoiled by cockney excursionists and intrusive prigs," wrote the late Canon Kingsley of this remark- able spot. " One is here out of the world." Another remarkable trait in Mr. Hawker^s character — a trait in which he who pens these lines most heartily sympathizes with him-was his great love for the whole of the animal creation. His horses, his mule, his cattle, and his dogs were most attached to him ; and, at one time, he owned quite a colony of cats. ^^ At other times a tame seal and a tame otter might have been seen hastening to receive a word of kindness when Mr. Hawker appeared at his door ; and, indeed, the habits and hkings of all the wild creatures about his cliffs and woods were so well known to him, that he may be said to have lived as their familiar friend." « Though dwelling in a most remote home, Mr. Hawker took the deepest interest in all public events, specially in those bearing upon the * Standard, September 1, 1875. THE LATE BEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 51 well-being of Church or State. Not only did he exercise the poetical faculty, with which Almighty Grod had so largely endowed him, by commemorating public occurrences of interest in rhyme from the standing-point of a Christian minister ; but he often addressed his parish- ioners in discourses from the pulpit upon such fresh and interesting public topics as were uppermost in men's minds, pointing his moral and illustrating his narrative by the applications of those imohangeable Catholic principles which he loved and practised — and this to the delight and benefit of his attentive flock. A bold and vigorous thinker, he scorned to take for his own, at second-hand, the frequently common- place convictions of other men. He was original, independent, and vigorous in word; so that his conclusions and determinations, never arrived at without patient consideration, were invariably the result of painful study and careful thought, by a mind as remarkably independent as it was honest and lofty. His " Address to the Queen " on the coming E 2 52 MEMOKIALS OF of the late Prince Consort, while loyal and profound in its terms and phrases, was fiill of the true spirit of poetry, and was most adroitly penned as regards the mere art of versifying ; for the ring is true and the melody sweet. Though his Royal Highness had been brought up as a member of the Lutheran com- munity, yet neither Mr. HaT^ker nor his critical friends saw any incongruity whatsoever in the composition of a set of verses, to honour and vvelcome the Lutheran Prince who was coming to be the husband and protector of our gracious Queen, by the Anglo-Catholic priest of a Cornish parish. In the same way, whenever events of special public interest occurred, whatever might have been the nature and quality of fluctuating current opinions, the Vicar of Morwenstow, knowing that there is a time to speak out as well as a time for silence, sometimes spoke out with vigour and boldness. The absurd panic which, under Whig guidance, arose when the Anglo-Roman Hierarchy was set up, was looked upon by him as a temporary THE LATE REV. U. S. HAWKER, M.A. 53 act of national insanity, intensified by the passing of a law, never enforced, of which, in due course, its chief authors seem to have been so thoroughly ashamed, that when, in a future tim^ of restored common-sense and calm, wise politicians proposed its repeal, the instigators of the original panic shrank away in silence €uid shame. If the boast of "civil and x-eligious liberty" means anything practically equitable, it surely means that the Roman Oatholic commimion shall experience its bless- ings, if blessings they are, in common with all ^he later multitudinous sects, with their con- :flicting messages, newly-made theories, or ^ireary platitudes. This Mr. Hawker expressed "^th freedom and fluency — in a sermon to his :flock — to the dismay and anger of the con- ductors of a Radical newspaper at Exeter, to "^hom a garbled account had been forwarded, ^nd whose literary shrieks, heard for some "^eeks afterwards, might have been more appalling had they been less confusedly wild ^nd dismally incoherent. 54 MEMORIALS OF On the death (a.d. 1865) of Cardinal Wise- man, a prince and prelate who would have done a great work for Christianity in England had he written nothing more than his well-known " Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion," Mr. Hawker penned the following appreciatory verses, for which the ' author, since his departure hence, has been severely criticized : — ICHABOD. Hush! for a star is swallow'd up in night! A noble name hath set along the sea, An eye that flksh'd with Heaven, no more is bright Tlie brow that ruled the Islands, where is he ? He trod the earth, a man! a stately mould — Cast in the goodliest metal of his kind ! The semblance of a soul in breathing gold, A visible image of God's glorious mind. Well he became his Throne : even from his birth, On him the balsam of a Prince was shed : Myriads of liwlier men, the sons of earth, Bent with prone neck, to greet his conquering tread THE LATE EEV. K. S. HAWKER, M.A. 55 He! when the Sage's soul with doubt was riven, Smote the dull dreamers with the Prophet-rod : He call'd ou Earth and Sea to chaunt of Heaven, And made the stars rehearse the truth of Grod! Yea ! when the demons quelFd the bold and brave, And roused the nations with their fiendish mock, Unmoved he met the Gadarenes, and gave A lordly echo from the Eternal Rock ! Where reigns he now ? What throne is set for him ? Amid the ninefold armies of the sky ? Waves he the burning sword of Seraphim ? Or dwells a calm Archangel, orown'd on high ? We cannot tell ; we only understand He bears an English heart before God's Throne ; In Heaven he yearns o'er this his chosen land ; His zeal — his vows — his prayers-— are yet our own I But if Anglican bishops and clergy may actively co-operate with the latest new Con- tinental sect — the sect presided over by certain (xerman Professors, or with the Dutch Jan- senists, and this not only without rebuke, but 'with praise — surely a country clergyman with Caithohc sentiments of the old tradition, believ- ing that the Roman Communion is an important as it is a venerable portion of the On^ Family of 56 3IEM0RIALS OF God, may reasonably, and without condemna- tion, mourn the loss of a Christian prelate of unblameable life and great intellectual powers in stately and high-sounding verse. The inconsistency lies with Mr. Hawker's one-sided critics, not with himself. For, to hold the balance fairly, no one, so far as I am aware, condemned Dean Stanley for his somewhat stilted and overdone laudations of John Bunyan when an image of that dissenter was set up at Bedford; nor were the Bishop of Worcester and the other respectable Church-of-England people who presided over the rite, rated when another image of another anti-church Noncon- formist was recently unveiled (with weird rituaHstic ceremonies) at Kidderminster. The want of impartiality is with Mr. Hawker's opponents. Moreover, if images of saints, as is known to have been the case, were so highly distasteful to the sects of Baxter and Bunyan, some simple persons may fail to understand how images of sinners could be suitably erected to their memory. THE LATE BEV. T^. S. HAWKER, JI.A. 57 At the period of the Prince of Wales's severe and most dangerous illness (a.d. 1871), when fear overcame the British people lest they should lose the Heir to the Throne, and when some of the dangers consequent upon such a loss were before them, when everywhere in our island prayer went up for him to God the Trinity; and when the crude absurdities of the "philosophers" concerning the use and efficacy of prayer were rudely but efficiently swept away, like dusty cobwebs, Mr. Hawker composed and used the following beautiful intercession : — " Lord Jesus Christ ! Thou second Person of the glorious and undivided Trinity I Thou ^Tho wert once blended here upon earth thirty and three years with the visible form and xxature of a man ! Hear us. Thou Healer of the Nations, hear I In and by Thy manhood, built from an earthly Mother's veins, and taken into God, Thou didst assuage all manner of disease, and even death by Thy Voice, Thy "touch, Thy silent command. Thou art the 58 ' MEMORIALS OF self- same Redeemer still ! the unalterable God ! We call upon Thee for Albert Edward, the firstborn Prince and hope of the Royal House of England, the future King, beneath Thy will, of our native and natural land ! Say but the word which Thou didst utter in Cana of Galilee, * Thy son liveth ! ' and in the same hour the fever shall leave Thy servant, our Prince, and he shall be made whole. Restore him, Lord, to the yearning hearts of his people; to the wife of his youth; and to the Royal Lady weeping over her child. Even so. Lord Jesu ; and by the memory of Thine Own great impulse at the gate of the City called Nain, and of Her who won Thy latest love upon the Cross, deliver him to his mother. Hear us, O Healer of the Nations, hear ! and grant our trusting prayer to God the Trinity, through Thy manhood, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." And again, when, by the abounding mercy of God, the Prince was raised up again and restored, the Vicar of Morwenstow penned and THE LATE EEV. R. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 59 used constantly the following beautiful " Act of Thanksgiving : "— " Jesu Master ! my Lord and my God ! We utter our earnest and faithful Thanksgiving to Thee for that Thou hast heard and granted our prayer. We besought Thee to have mercy on Thy servant, Albert Edward, our Prince of the Royal House of England, in his perilous disease. Thou hast fulfilled our vows. In Thy mdd-nature between God the Trinity and mankind. Thy Heart, human and divine, hath been the channel of a nation's entreaty and a people's benediction! Thou hast given back to the Princely sufferer strength and hope and life. Command, mighty Redeemer, that he, like those whom Thou didst make whole when Thou wert visible here among men, may arise from his bed healed and forgiven ! Let him follow Thy Voice and be Thine for ever. Blend him, Lord, and his wife, tender and true, with his gracious mother, our Queen, into Thy house and lineage of heaven ; so that, at the last, with penitence for all sin, and trust in that 60 MEMORIALS OP which Thou didst suffer upon the Cross, this Kingly race of England may be gathered into the realm of eternal pardon and peace in the kingdom of God. " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." Mr. Hawker lost his first wife — a very refined and agreeable lady — at a ripe old age early in February, 1863, and the loss was very heavy. She was buried in the south-east portion of the churchyard at Morwenstow, and a granite cross marks her grave. The inscrip- tion upon it stands thus : — HERE RESTS THE BODY OF CHARLOTTE E, HAWKER, for nearly 40 years the wife of one of the Vicars of this Parish. She died FEBRUARY 2nD, 1863. " There is sprung up a light for the righteous, and joyful gladness for such as are true-hearted.'* THE LATE KEV. R. S. HAWKER, M A. 61 The generosity of Mr. Hawker — such an im- portant and leading detail of true Christian charity — was a marked and ruling feature in his character. If he was your friend, he would remain so as cordially and openly in stormy solitude and darkness as in sunshine and calm : and if it were only words of balm that he could hreathe, or a touching epistle that he could pen, the words were spoken or the sentences of consolation written. Always on the side of the weak and the oppressed, and never turning a deaf ear to the sorrow-stricken, he was deservedly venerated for these and such-like Christian qualities. In the spring of the year 1865, I received from him the following cordial letter : — " I have not written to you, and indeed to but few friends of any kind lately. Nothing Can be more remote or unnoticed than my ex- istence ; but I have felt sincere sympathy with you at the unworthy treatment you have ^^ewved in Scotland. But what else could B,^ait you,, or any other champion of God's 02 MEMORIALS OF Truth, in an age which is /car iioxqp the *Hour of Satan and the Power of Darkness ' ? What is the Englishman or Scotchman of the nine- teenth century but a dexterous Blacksmith to whom the Demons have surrendered their myths of Gas, Steam, and Electric force in re- quital for his strong hatred of God and His Church ? . . . I am at all times glad to hear of you, or from you, and with feelings of aflTec- tionate regard, and sympathy responsive and sincere, I am yours very faithfully." Of late years the services in the parish church were not so frequent as in previous times: partly arising from his own increased infirmity, partly from the difficulty of obtaining the assistance of a curate, and partly from the fact that he had set up an Oratory for divine service and private worship in the Vicarage. As in so many country parishes, so here, the chief and most constant worshippers in the weekday office were members of the Vicar's family and household; the convenience of a prayer-room, therefore, was obvious. What- THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 03 ever changes came over him in later years were no doubt the direct result of his growing fears, — ^whether well grounded, or the reverse — that the candlestick of the National Church was being removed, — and this by those who had solemnly promised, the Lord being their Helper, to preserve the Faith, and keep the lamp of Divine Truth ever burning. CHAPTER II. LITERARY LABOURS. Though Mr. Hawker may be chiefly recognized and celebrated in the future as a lyrical poet, yet those who knew him intimately, knew that he was likewise a very deeply-read and exact theologian, as well as an excellent preacher, and a devoted parish Priest. Some detailed account of his literary works shall now be put on record. His eail'liest volume, published at Plymouth in 1825, was entitled "Poetical First Buds. By Reuben." It seems to be both out of print and rare. In the opinion of several competent critics, it gave un- doubted promise of future ability. When it was published, Mr. Hawker was an under- THE LATE BEV. B. S. HAKWEB, M.A. 65 graduate at Pembroke College, where amongst the Scholars he had for his friend, Francis Jeune, eventually Bishop of Peterborough. At Magdalene Hall one of his chief aUies was Wil- liam Jacobson, the present Bishop of Chester. This slight juvenile volume was followed by his Newdigate Prize Poem " Pompeii," printed in 1827,^ and re-issued again nine years later, in 1836. It is a well-conceived and carefully written production, displaying thought, research, and poetical culture. It was remarked at the time of its reqital that parts of it were very Uke Mr. T. B. Macaulay's Cambridge Prize Poem on the same theme: but any one who cares to study and critically compare the two, while giving all credit to the brilliant literary ability and obvious art of Macaulay, will, for poetical power and picturesque beauty, award the palm to that better sus- ^ "Pompeii," recited June 27, 1827, republished by J. Roberts, of Stratton, in 1836. Dedication — "To Arthur Kelly, Esquire of KeUy, Sheriff of this year for the County of Cornwall — in memory of the day of its recitation, this Republished Poem is inscribed by his Friend — the Author." 66 MEMORIALS OF tained and more perfect production from Mr. Hawker's pen. The following extract — a fair specimen of the author's powers — is full of interest : — All, all is mute ! save sadly answering nigh The nightbird's shriek, the shrill cicada's cry. Yet may you trace along the furrow'd street, The chariot's track — ^the print of frequent feet ; The gate unclosed as if by recent hand ; The hearth where yet the guardian Lares stand ; Still on the walls the words of welcome shine, And ready vases proffer joyous wine : But where the hum of men ? the sounds of life ? The Temple's pageant and the Forum's strife ? The forms and voices, such as should belong To that bright clime, the land of Love and Song ? How sadly echoing to the stranger's tread Those walls respond, like voices from the dead ! And sadder traces — darker scenes are there, Talse of the Tomb, and records of Despair ; In Death's chill grasp unconscious arms unfold The fatal burden of their cherish'd gold ; Here wasted relics, as in mockery, dwell Beside some treasure loved in life too well ; There, faithful hearts have moulder'd side by side. And hands are clasp'd that Death could not divide ! "Records of the Western Shore/* a slender volume of 66 pages, was issued at Oxford in 1832, by D. A. Talboys. The preface was THE LATE EEV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 67 dated " North Tamerton, June 1st." A second edition was printed and issued by a local book- seller, J. Roberts, of Stratton. It is dedicated simply " To Charlotte " — his first wife. In this, on page 54, occurs the following celebrated " Song of the Western Men," having reference to the imprisonment by James II. of the Seven noble Bishops, of whom Sir Jonathan Tre- lawny, Bishop of Exeter, was one : — A good sword and a trusty hand ! A merry heart and true ! King James's men shall understand What Cornish lads can do. And brave they fixed the where and when? And shall Trelawny die ? Here's twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why ! Outspake their captain brave and bold, A meny wight was he : " If London tower were Michael's hold. We'll set Trelawny free : We'll cross the Tamar, land to land, The Severn is no stay, — With one and all and hand in hand, And who shall bid us nay ? F 2 68 MEMORIALS OP And when we come to London Wall, A pleasant sight to view, Come forth ! come forth, ye cowards all. Here's men as good as yon. Trelawny he's in keep and hold, Trelawny he may die ; — But here's twenty thousand Cornish bold Will know the reason why !" With the exception of the choral part " And shall Trelawny die ? Here's twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why ! " this poem was composed by Mr. Hawker in the spot known as Sir Seville Granville's Walk, in Stowe Wood. It first appeared anonymously in a Plymouth newspaper, where it attracted the notice of Mr. Davies Gilbert. Sir Walter Scott eulogized it, and believed it to be an old ballad ; as did also Lord Macaulay. In the year 1836, another small volume, a second series of "Records of the Western Shore," was published by J. Roberts, of Stratton. It contains only 52 pages, the preface being THE LATE EKV, R. S. HAWKER, M.A. G9 dated " Morwenstow, July 1, 1836." Many of the verses in those volumes appear in the completed edition of his " Cornish Ballads and other Poems," issued by Messrs. Parker and Co., of London and Oxford, in 1869. Four years afterwards, in the year 1840, Mr. Hawker wrote the following " Welcome " on the Marriage of her Majesty the Queen. It is dated " The Vicarage, Morwenstow, Japuary 8, 1840," and was published by D. A. Talboys, of Oxford : — TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE ALBERT. I. He comes, a conqueror with the soft control, Mightier than warrior's sword in monarch's hand ; He comes to claim the lady of his soul — A fearless knight from the old German land ! II. A voice of welcome from a thousand hills ! The sound of love in earth and air and sea ! A nation's heart, thy name. Prince Albert fills With prayer and blessing for thy bride and thee! 70 MEMORIALS OF III. Thou comest to link thee with a lofty soil, A land of graceful dames and stately men : Be proud : on thee will England's daughter smile. And thou on England's Queen look love again. IV. What haughty dreams thy gathering visions yield ! 'Tis thine the awful couch of kings to share ; The hope of many a land thine arm must shield, The Beauty of Our Isles shall slumher there. V. Bring princes in thy breast across the brine ! Lo ! round the chaste form of thy noble mate. The future spirits of a shadowy line, The souls of kings unborn, in silence wait. VI. Forget thy fatherland ! thou hast no more Another city, hearth or native home :. This is thy country — this thy natural shore — Thine eagle nest amid the ocean foam. VII. Come ! at an English altar proudly stand. Take, from our ancient priest, thy chosen bride. Breathe in the language of thy lady's land. The eternal vows — the pledge of love and pride. THE LATE REV. B. S. IFAWKER, M.A. 71 VIII. Rejoice, O Prince ! her father's faith is thine, One worship and one creed je twain will share ; How many a solemn arch and cloistered shrine Shall hail your blended names in English prayer ! IX. liOve well our clime ! the scenery of thy choice, Thy Lady's isle, the pride of earth and sea, Her fanes will greet thee with their hohest voice, Her towers amid the trees shall thrill for thee. X. 'Tis not the troth of State, the plighted hands Where Passion shudders at the feet of Pride : No selfish Bridegroom at yon altar stands, Nor glitters there a cold and reckless Bride. XI. Joy to that fane ! the noble and the fair Are met to blend the tones of Love and Truth ; Joy to that fane ! an English lady there Binds to her soul the husband of her youth. XII. He comes, as came the mighty hearts of old. The men of bounding steed and belted brand ; That which his vows have won his arm shall hold,- A fearless knight from the old German land. 72 MEMORIALS' OP xui. The voice of welcome, Prince, I wake once more — Far from the glare of courts, of cities free, A lowly name, on Comwairs rocky shore, I breathe this blessing for thy bride and th^e. In the same year he published a new poetical volume — larger than those previously issued, mainly consisting, however, of reprints of verses then out of print, — entitled " Ecclesia : a Volume of Poems." It comprises 144 pages, handsomely printed, and was issued by the Messrs. Rivingtons. In this book there are certain new productions, all marked by that unusual and accurate knowledge of local legends. Christian folk-lore, and true religious sentiment which so markedly distinguished all his productions. The following lyrical gem is transcribed, because it is not found in the com- pleted volume of his poems already referred to : — ARE THEY NOT ALL MINISTERING SPIRITS? I. We see them not — we cannot hear The music of their wing ; Yet know we that they sojourn near, — The Angels of the spring ! THE LATE REV. B. S. UAWKER, M.A. 73 II. They glide along this lovely ground, When the first violet grows : — Their graceful hands have just unbound The zone of yonder rose. III. I gather it for thy dear breast From stain and shadow free, That which an angel's touch hath blest Is meet, my love, for thee. (Pp. 53, 54.) Three years afterwards another small volume of poetry was hkewise sent forth. It is en- titled " Keeds Shaken with the Wind," and was published in London by James Bums, in the year 1843. It is dated " Morwenstow, Festival of St. Andrew, 1842,". and contains only 48 pages. Its motto stands thus :— " The Muse of the Priest should be his Church. It was | the beautiful language of the Sweet Singer of Israel — * Thy statutes have been my songs in « the House of my Pilgrimage.' " It appears that in*the year 1844 Mr. Hawker, being Rural Dean of Trigg Major, took a deep 74 MEMOEIALS OF and active interest in the revival of synodical action, both local, diocesan,* and provincial; and with his bishop's consent, held a ruri- decanal chapter at Morwenstow, the first that had been held for centuries. He justified the meeting of the synod in church by the follow- ing considerations, taken from a small octavo pamphlet of 24 pages, entitled "Rural Synods; by the Vicar of Morwenstow," which was published in London by Edwards and Hughes : — " Our Sermons are delivered during the intervals of Divine Service in church : and the grave expression of our thoughts on themes of doctrine or of discipline in a rural chapter, need not be reckoned more secular or less sacred than those other discourses which we compose and deliver to the people in church. For my ' In one of the last letters which I had the honour to re- ceive from the late Bishop of Exeter, Doctor Philpotts, (when he sent me his parting and final blessing), he re- marked that the Vicar of Morwenstow had been the first to suggest a Diocesan Synod, as a true mode of meeting the direct evils with which that diocese was flooded, through the Gorham Judgment, THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 75 own part I hold the solemnity of such a scene to be a most salutary check on all levity of language, on all warmth and infirmity of temper, on the common tendency of mutual discussion to kindle or to harass the human mind. The solemn roof which now bends over xis, the image of that invisible shelter which tias been our refuge from one generation to Q,nother ; that single sacred font, the memorial 'that we have all been baptized into One Body \)j One Spirit ; the simple and solitary Altar at "^^hich, century after century, so many ministers ^ave * said the same thing ; ' the silence of ^hese ancient aisles, that have grown old with the worship of past generations ; all these are so many pledges to me of the propriety of our thought and language in this * city of our solemnities,' where we come to take sweet counsel together, and to walk in the House of God as friends." (Pp. 22-23.) The effect of the movement which Mr. Hawker thus commenced in North Cornwall under excellent auspices soon became apparent. 76 MEMORULS OF in the steady spread of the restored practice throughout considerable portions of the diocese of Exeter ; and this the Bishop saw and noticed with evident satisfaction. It was Mr Hawker's privilege to lead in many other ways — ^but ever on the old Catholic landmarks — ^for he was a leader by nature, and to live to see many follow in his footsteps. His reputation a3 a brave, fearless, and unflinching supporter of the Catholic Revival, steadily and deservedly in- creased. In the autumn of 1844 there arose consider- able excitement, — a kind of "storm in a tea- cup," with regard to the restoration of the weekly offertory in parish churches — a storm which some of the daily newspapers in London and Exeter did their best to intensify. Mr. Hawker, who had openly defended the prin- ciple of the Ofiertory; and this from the plain and unambiguous directions of the " Book of Common Prayer," was singled out by name for attack in The Times newspaper. Some of his letters in answer to the attack in question, i THE LATE BEV. R. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 77 though strictly confined to the point in dispute, were refiised admission (tactics common enough now, but more unusual then) : upon which he personally addressed the proprietor of that journal, the late Mr. John Walter, of Bear- wood in Berkshire, in a " Letter on the Ofier- tory," which was as forcible in its reasoning as it was true, charitable, and vigorous in its conclusions. It had a very large circulation, and was generally commended. The warning words towards the end are here reproduced : — " And now. Sir, I conclude with one or two parting admonitions to yourself. You are, I am told, an elderly man, fast approaching the end of all things; and ere many years have passed, about to stand a separated soul among the fearful mysteries of the spiritual world. I counsel you to beware, lest the remembrance of these attempts to diminish the pence of the poor, and to impede the charitable duties of the rich, should assuage your happiness in that abode where the strifes and the triumphs of controversy are unknown, * because thou hast 78 MEMOEIALS OP done tlus thing and because thou hadst no pity.' I exhort you, moreover, and all secular persons identified with you in their attacks on the ser- vices of the Church, to seek by diligent prayer a ' right understanding in all things,' before you again embark in rehgious disputation, for which I assure you, as * disputers of this world ' you are not qualified, either by theological know- ledge, or spiritual discernment, or fitting temper of mind. And lastly I advise you not again to assail our rural parishes with such publications, to harass and unsettle the minds of our faithful people. The Cornish clergy are an humble and imdistinguished race ; but we are apt, when unjustly assailed, to defend our- selves in straightforward language, and to utter plain admonitions, such as on this occasion I have thought it my duty to address to yourself."^ In the summer of 1845 Mr. Hawker was selected by his bishop to preach a Visitation ^ Letter on the Offertory to J. Walter, Esq. Dated November 27, 1844. THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 79 Sermon, but owing to his father's death was unable to deUver it. It was, however, preached by the Rev. T. Norton Harper, sometime an English clergyman, but afterwards a convert to the Church of Rome, and now a very distin- guished priest and theologian of the Society of Jesus. The sermon* is thoroughly original, displays considerable thought, much power, and excellent taste — the taste of a far-seeing religious teacher who was a perfect gentleman. The eloquent and forcible conclusion stands thus : — " Although the sun may go down while it is yet day, it shall come to pass that at eventide there shall be light. Moses is dead and Aaron is dead, and Hur is gathered to his fathers also ; but because of their righteous acts in the matter of Eephidim, their memorial and their name live and breathe among us for example and * " The Field of Rephidim :" a Visitation sermon in the diocese of Exeter, written by the Vicar of M or wen stow ; delivered in the church of St. Marj Magdalene, Launceston, July 27, 1845, by T. N. Harper, B.A., Curate of Stratton. 8vo, pp. 16. London, Edwards and Hughes, 1845. 80 MEMORIALS OP admiration still. So shall it be with this generation. He, our spiritual lord, whose living hands are lifted up in our midst to-day — ^he shall bequeath to his successors, and to their children's children, the eloquent example and the kindling heritage of his own stout-hearted name. And we, the lowlier soldiers of the war — so that our succour hath been manifest, and our zeal true — we shall achieve a share of humble remembrance as the duteous children of Aaron and of Hur. "They also, the faithful few, who have lapped the waters of dear old Oxford, and who were the little company appointed to go down upon the foe, with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, and to prevail — ^honour and everlasting remembrance for their fearless names ! If in their zeal they have exceeded, if in the dearth of sympathy, and the increase of desolation, they should even yet more exceed — nay but do Thou, Lord God of Jeshurun ! withstand them in that path, if they should forsake the home of the Mother that bare them for the house of the stranger. Still let it never be forgotten THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 81 that their voices and their volumes were the signals of the dawn that stirred the heart of a slumbering people with a shout for the mastery. Verily they have their reward. They live already in the presence of future generations ; and they are called, even now, by the voices yet imborn, the giants of these days, the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." (Pp. 15, 16.) At the end is a note as follows : — " The Bishop did not desire that this sermon should be printed." . In 1845 Mr. Hawker issued another small poetical volume entitled " Echoes of Old Corn- wall," which was published by that indefatigable and prolific Tractarian publisher, Mr. Joseph M§LSters. It had a considerable sale, for Mr. Hawker's name and powers were now known and appreciated far and wide. Four years afterwards, to generously aid Miss Sellon,.whd, in restoring the religious Ufe within the Church of England, was right royally abused both by Protestants and unbelievers, Mr. Hawker G 82 MEMORIALS OF wrote and published " A Voice from the Place of St. Morwenna in the Rocky Land, uttered to the Sisters of Mercy at the Tamar Mouth, and to Lydia their Lady in the Faith, * whose heart the Lord opened.' By the Yicar of Morwen- stow." Small 4to, pp. 14. London : J. Masters, 1849. From a note on page 6, may be learnt that " the Chancel of Morwenstow has just been nobly restored by the piety of Rudolph Baron Clinton, and the Lady Elizabeth Georgiana, his wife." Mr. Hawker thus writes of Plymouth, its religious desolation and needs : — O city, where my birthplace stands, How art thou fallen amid the lands ! Thy daughters bold, thy sons unblest, A wither'd Salem of the West ! Hark ! from yon hill, what tones arise, — Thy peace is hidden from thine eyes ! w "Nsij ! there be forty, twenty, ten, All women true, and trusty men, A faithful band, like angels given. To plead the Patriarch's prayer with Heaven ; And one a thrilling Lady stands Whose voice might rescue sentenced lands. THE LATE BEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 83 Daughter I my spirit turns to thee : Here by the lonely Severn sea, I too have borne, years fierce and long. All hatred and rebuke and wrong ; And now thy truth shall soothe the sigh — The life I live — the death I die. At the end is the following paragraph of sound and excellent advice : — "I recommend the slanderers of God's servants, before they again presume to revile the imaged death-bed of the Lord, to read, carefully and thoroughly, the works of Gretser, published in Latin, in seventeen folio volumes, at Ratisbon, 1734-41. " Shrove Tuesday, 1849." In May of 1860 he wrote and circulated privately another poem, entitled " Aishah She- chinah " — on the Incarnation — which seems to many almost inspired : — A shape, like folded light, embodied air, Yet wreathed with flesh, and warm; All that of Heaven is feminine and fair. Moulded in visible form. G 2 84? MEMOUIALS OF She stood, the Lady Shechinah of Earth, A chancel for the sky ; Where woke, to breath and beauty, God's Own Birth, For men to see Him by. Bound her, too pilre to mingle with the day, Light, that was life, abode ; Folded within her fibres meekly lay The link of boundless God. So link'd, so blent, that when, with pulse fulfill'd, Moved but that Infant Hand, Far, far away. His conscious Godhead thriU'd, And stars might understand. Lo ! where they pause with inter-gathering rest, The Threefold and the One ; And lo ! He binds them to her Orient breast, His manhood girded on. The zone, where two glad worlds for ever meet, Beneath that bosom ran ; Deep in that womb the conquering Paraclete Smote Godhead on to man. Sole scene among the stars, where, yearning, glide The Threefold and the One ; Her God upon Her lap, the Virgin-bride, Her awful Child, Her Son ! Anything more theologically accurate or THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 85 poetically perfect could not be conceived. In the whole range of English religious poetry I know nothing at all to be compared to it. The mystery, beauty, and mercy of the Incarnation are sung with perfect simplicity as by the lips of the seraph ; while the divine art ^nd majestic music of every line and stanza strike and linger on the memory like a song from the angelic choirs. Mr. Hawker's poetical masterpiece, written in the year 1863, in his Summer-house or Hut, a rocky excavation overlooking the Severn Sea, is a poem in blank verse of about five hundred lines, entitled " The Quest of the Sangraal." * • " The Quest of the Sangraal. Chant the First. By R. S. Hawker. 4to, pp. 46. Exeter : Printed for the Author,*' 1864. The dedication in memorj of his Wife, then recently departed, stands thus — " To a vacant chair and an added stone, I chant these solitary sounds.*' — Mr. John Godwin thus writes to me : — " * The Qu^st,' at least all after the first few lines, was written at my urgent request and repeated solicitations. This was at a period of great sorrow and anguish to him, consequent on the loss pf his first wife. A great part of it was written in * The Hut,* a little cabin he had constructed on the side of one of the cliffs ovei- looking the Severn Sea ; and many days I repaired thither 86 MEMORIALS OF The Arthurian legends were carefully studied prior to its composition, and he gave the greatest consideration to every dehcate thought, due epithet and telling expression used through- out it. Full of the deepest meaning, yet never obscure nor spasmodic, but always musical, the verse seems to march on like the stately chant of an ancient bard ; while over every sentiment and sentence gleams the glory of the Cross of the Crucified. There is not a diffuse passage throughout : every hne is full of pious thought, and fi:*aught with lofty teaching: while the scriptural lore evidenced so continually, adds much to its devotional characteristics and obvious beauties. Deep Catholic instincts are apparent on every page. In it the scenery of with him whilst he was engaged in the composition of the poem. He was not at all surprised at its failure in a commercial point of view : but repeatedly stated to me his full belief that fifty years hence it would be understood and appreciated. He often remarked that he was thankful that he had been able to pen, and give to the world, these lines, so full of the sentiments of his maturer years, and to leave them on record.** — October 12, 1875. THE LATE EEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 87 Cornwall is pictured with graphic power and epigrammatic beauty. It may well claim a fore- most place amongst the Christian poems of the nineteenth century, as much for its sound practical teaching as for the uni^y of the author's purpose, the splendour and power of his pictures, and, as the late Bishop Phillpotts remarked, for "the masterly literary capacity evidenced throughout." On no page is there any affecta- tion of obscurity, and the lines are always musical, sweet, and scan-able. In truth, the more this poem is studied, and it needs patient and painstaking study, the more do its sterling ' beauties become manifestly appa- rent. Here is a fine passage, powerful and awful in description, and vigorous as well as religious in thought : — Ye know that in old days, that yellow Jew, Accursed Herod ; and the earth- wide judge, Pilate the Roman, doomster for all lands — Or else the judgment had not been for all, — Bound Jesu-Master to the World's tall tree. Slowly to die 88 MEMOMAJiS OF Ha I Sirs, had we been there. They durst not have assayed their felon deed, — Excalibur had cleft them to the spine ! Slowly He died, a world in every pang. Until the hard centurion's cruel spear Smote His high heart ; and from that sever'd tide Rush'd the red stream that quench'd the wrath of Heaven. Then comes a description of the work of St. Joseph of Arimathea, and a record of the origin of the Sangraal :— Then came Sir Joseph, hight, of Arimathee, Bearing the awful vase the Sangraal ! The vessel of the Pasch, Shere Thursday night : The self-same Cup, wherein the faithful wine Heard God, and was obedient unto Blood ! Therewith he knelt, and gather'd blessed drops From his dear Master's Side that sadly fell. The ruddy dews from the great Tree of Life : Sweet Lord ! what treasures ! like the priceless gems Hid in the tawny casket of a king, — A ransom for an enemy, one by one ! That wealth be cherish'd long ; his veiy soul Around his ark : bent, as before a shrine. He dwelt in Orient Syria : God*s own land : The ladder-foot of Heaven, — where shadowy shapes In white apparel glided up and down ! His home was like a garner^ full of com And wine and oil : a granary of God ! THE LATE BEV. R. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 89 YouDg men that no one knew went in and out, With a far look in their eternal eyes ! All things were strange and rare : the Sangraal As though it clung to some ethereal chain, Brought down high Heaven to Earth at Arimathee.'* (Pp. 4—6.) The search or " quest " is described in detail, and with most touching tenderness, deep spi- ritual power, and rational symbolism. The warning lesson to us as a nation, mystically but powerfully set forth, concluding the poem, stands thus : — 'Ah ! haughty England, lady of the wave !' Thus said pale Merlin to the listening king, * What is thy glory in the world of bliss ? To scorch and slay, to win demoniac fame. In art and arms, and then to flash and die ! Thou art the diamond of the demon crown Smitten by Michael upon Abarim, That fell, and glared, an island of the sea ! Ah ! native England ! wake thine ancient cry I Ho ! for the Sangraal ! vanished vase of Heaven, That held, like Christ's own heart, an hin of blood ! ' He ceased, and all around was dreamy night, There stood Dundagel throned ; and the great sea Lay, a strong vassal at his Master's gate. And, like a drunken giant, sobb'd in sleep I — (P. 25,) 90 MEMOEIALS OF In March, 1865, Mr. Hawker wrote and pub- lished the lines, given elsewhere, on the late Cardinal Wiseman's decease. They were issued anonymously, and signed " Karn-idzek." To the above may be here and now added a short essay printed verbatim concerning " Time and Space," which Mr. Hawker sent to me on August 30, 1865. The same characteristics mark this production which so eminently dis- tinguish his power in other writings, both prose and poetical, and deserve the careful considera- tion of the Christian philosopher : — "When we encounter some of the meta- physical discussions of our own day the question will naturally occur to us. In what manner were the mysteries of the material universe dealt with in the early ages of the Church ? Surely our Theological Ancestors could not have been devoid of the suggestions of the Paraclete on these mighty and majestic themes. Aidance, if not inspiration, could not have been denied to them when they approached such topics as the Nature and the Attributes of THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 91 a at £ 9 o 2000 End of Dispensation God the Trinity.— The Hebrew Tetragram, sounded YehhSvah. Eternity. — Tot a simul et perfecta possessio intermindbilis VitcB. The whole at once, and the complete possession of life, without beginning or end. Time. — That section of the circle dotted with dates is Time, i. e. Mensura motus prius et poster ius habens : a measure of movement with a first and a last : a foi*mer and a latter. Natural world. Accordingly we aibuo, uheir writings an accuracy of discernment and a wealth of definition which might well supersede the systems of theory and guess which charac- terize our own vague and dubitative time. A brief recurrence to the simple and settled per- suasions of these forefathers in the lineage of spiritual knowledge on Time and Space may not -be without interest and use. In that sublime oracle wherewith the Book of Inspira- tion begins, they discerned a sense which modem interpreters entirely ignore. In prin- cipioy that is to say in Verbo^ in Filioj in, by, through, the Second Person of the Trinity. Deus (Blohim) creavit^ caused to exist, in th' boundary of Space and Time, coelum et terran the spiritual and the material world. Here t' mind must first attempt, the image of the Tr and boundless Godhead, existing before tl was a visible or conceivable thing; throughout Eternity, alone. Nor is it possible for human thought to conce THE LATE BEV. B. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 93 notion of that Eternal existence apart from the resting-points of Time and Space. We find the definition — JEtemitas : Tota simul et perfeda possessio intermindbilis vitcBj i. e. the whole at once : the perfect and entire possession of life without beginning or end. Amid this conscious Eternity, it must be our next effort to ima- gine, that there came forth beneath the energy of Omnipotent Will, the tracery and outline of Space. The First and Second Persons of the <jodhead acting by, and through, the Son, of Whom were all created things, measured out a 3)art and a portion of the Divine Presence to be the boundary and abode of the future universe. That which we call Space was and is thus defined. Pars metata Prcesentice Dei puncta et orbitas gerenSy a limited and measured part of the presence of God, having within it fixed points and paths.^ We may lawfully conceive the • " Space," wrote Mr. Hawker elsewhere, "is that mea- sured part of God's Presence which is inhabited by the planets and the sun. The boundary of space is the outline of a cone, and the pathway of every planet is one of the sections of that figured form." And again : — " When the cone of \ 94 MEMORIALS 01' form and outUne of this vast but finite Figure to be a cone. A cone is a pyramid in revolved movement, and Motion is the Life of Matter. The Planets travel in the curves of a cone. Whatsoever is not God is finite : and Space is a limited creation. It holds and contains for our contemplation the Material Universe. Itself revolves with the Planetary World on its breast. Peopled with the stars and an orb in their midst, the outline of Space was pervaded with an ethereal Element. We have named it for convenience * Numyne ' : it is the woof and tissue of Spiritual action and life, the atmosphere, so to speak, of bodiless spirits, the Goelum of the Mosaic Record. Its nature and forces are next to Divine. But, when Space was so created and occupied, whence and how came into space had to be traced out and defined, the next act of creation was to replenish it with that first and supernatura element which I have named * Numyne.' The forefather called it the spiritual or ethereal element, caelum, fro ' 2. Within its texture the other and grosf -'r ebb and flow, clinsr and erl? THE LATE BEV. R. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 95 existence that which we call Time ? We must again resort to the w;ords of the interpreters. Our Fathers in the Faith have told us that ^Tempus est mensura motits^ prius et posterius habens ' is the accurate and only definition. It appertains to the created universe ; but it might be termed the clock of Adam, for its origin and existence are simply derived from the usage a.nd necessity of man. The contrast between Time and Eternity may be discerned from the Subjoined diagram, with its illustrations, which is one habitually used in parish schools. The cjhildren understand it, and therefore it may be Intelligible to others also." In the Gentleman^ s Magazine for March, 1867, "there appears a full and interesting account of Morwenstow from Mr. Hawker's pen, replete with learning, research, and piety. It gives a most valuable and accurate impression of the church and parish ; is illustrated with several engravings, including the Norman Font, an old Piscina, the " WeU of St. John," and the " Well of St. Morwenna ; " and is only deficient in a 96 MEMORIALS OP lack of some technical description of the archi- tecture and plan of the old Parish Church. Mr. Hawker frequently contributed to the Cornwall newspapers, as also to Household Words, to The Lamp, a Roman Catholic serial, to All the Tear Bound, and other secular publications. When I was its Editor, between 1863 and 1869, he obligingly wrote a few literary comments on new books for the Union Review, and took a warm and prac- tical interest in the object which that serial had been originally started to support and extend. It having been found that so many of Mr. Hawker's earliest volumes of poetry were out of print, and becoming exceedingly rare, he was induced by Mr. J. G. Godwin (whose experience and advice in literary matters he always greatly valued), to make arrangements for their republication in a single volume. This was done in the year 1868, and in the following* year " Cornish Ballads and other Poems " was issued by Messrs. James Parker and Co., o£ THE LATE EEV. K. S. HAWKER, M.A. 97 London and Oxford. This volume contains the whole of his chief and best-known poems, of which sixty-three remarkable examples are given, including " Pompeii," " The Quest of the Sangraal," and all his popular ballads and « lyrics. Several hitherto unpublished poems are also embodied in this book, — one of the most complete and attractive volumes ever issued. The " Notes " by which the poems are explained or illustrated are full of learning and ex- perience, wisely gathered and concisely set forth. A study of this volume — so thoroughly Christian from end to end, so full of true teaching, formed and founded on the old and unalterable Catholic tradition — will serve to secure to its author a fair and beautiful memoiy ' in the hearts and sympathies of all who hold that the highest type of poetry is religious, and ^ " So long as men have any feeling or love for true English poetry, Mor wens tow will ever be remembered as the home for many a year of the author of some of the most beautiful of modem ballads." — "Odds and Ends." By William Maskell. Article, " Bude Haven," p. 16. London : 1872 98 MEMOEIALS OP that the only religion worth having is the Catholic, In the various productions found in it, he sang of the Tamar Spring and the Tor- ridge, storied rivers of the West, which flow from a rushy knoU in a moorland of the parish of Morwenstow; of beautiful Clovelly; of the Blackrock, a bold, dark-pillared mass of schist, rising midway on the shore of Widemouth Bay, near Bude, reported to be the lair of the troubled spirit of Featherstone, a Cornish wrecker; of ancient legend, and deed of prowess; of St. ThecMa, of St. Cecily, and of St. Madron, — intermingling his varied poetical thoughts and vivid word-pictures with the attractive melno- rials and lore of a wild and beautiful land. In the year 1870 another of his most interest- ing and attractive volumes was published, en- titled, " Footprints of Former Men in Far Com- wall." It is a handsome book of more than 250 pages, and contains a variety of curious and most readable articles. Many of them had been previously published! in various magazines and serials; but some then appeared for the THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKEK, M.A. 99 first time. The volume is thus inscribed : "May, 1870. To my infant daughter, Juliot, I dedicate these pages." It contains thirteen papers, as follows : — " Morwenstow," a reprint of the article already referred to; "Antony Payne, the Cornish Giant}" "Daniel Gumb's Bock;" "Black John;'' "Thomasine Bona- venture;" "The Botathen Ghost;" "Cruel Coppinger;" "The Ganger's Pocket;" "The Xight of other Days;" "Holacombe;" "The Hemembrances of a Cornish Vicar ;" "A Ride fi-om Bude to Boss ;" and " The First Cornish 3M[ole." The following brief but curious record of an ^xile is taken from this volume : — " There is a bedstead of carved oak still in existence at Trevotter — a farm among the mid- ^land hills — ^whereon for long years an unknown istranger slept. None ever knew his nation or :xiame. He occupied a solitary room, and only emerged now and then for a walk in the even- ing air. An oaken chest of small size con- tained his personal possessions, and gold of H 2 100 MEMORIALS OF foreign coinage, which lie paid into the hands of his host with the solemn charge to conceal it until he was gone thence or dead — a request which the simple-hearted people faithfully ful- filled. His linen was beautifully fine, and his garments richly embroidered. After some time he sickened and died ; refusing firmly the visits of the local clergyman, and bequeathing to the farmer the contents of his chest. He wrote some words, they said, for his own tombstone, which, however were not allowed to be engraved, but they were simply these : — H De R. Bquees & Bcsvl. The same sentence was found after his death carved on the ledge of his bed ; and the letters are, or lately were, still traceable on the moul- dering wood." The style of the volume is excellent, clear, lucid, and scholarly, and the book itself fiill of the most picturesque descriptions of Cornish scenery. There is a force in the word-painting and an art in the construction of the interesting THE LATE REV. K, S. HAWKEE, M,A. 101 stories, which evince on every page the polished scholar and luminous writer of the English language. In the great war between France and Ger- many (A.D. 1870) Mr. Hawker's sympathy of course, arid for obvious reasons, lay with the former. A pubHc utterance of the Prussian Idng became the groundwork of the following vigorous and remarkable poem : — Hurrah ! for the boom of the thundering gun ! Hurrah ! for the words they say ! Here's a Merry Christmas to eveiy one, And a Happy New Year's Day ! Thus saith the king to the echoing ball^ " With the blessing of God, we shall slay them all." " Up," said the king, " load, fire, and slay I 'Tis a signal kindly given : However happy on Earth be they, They'll be happier in Heaven. Tell them, as soon as their souls are free, They'll sing like birds on a Christmas tree. " Down with them all ! If they rise again They will munch our beef and bread ; War there must be with the living men ; There'll be peace when all are dead ! This earth shall be our wide, wide home, Our foes shall have the world to come. 102 MEMOEIALS OF " Starve, starve them all, till through the skin You may count each hungry bone ; Tap, tap their veins till the blood runs thin, And their sinful flesh is gone. While life is strong in the German sky, What matters it who beside may die? " No sigh so sweet as the cannon's breath, No music like the gun ! Here's a Merry Christmas to War and Death, And a Happy New Year to none ! " Thus saith the king to the echoing ball, " With the blessing of God, we shall slay them all ! " The following remarkable letter, so fall of thought and Christian wisdom, was addressed to his nephew, Mr, James, of Plymouth. Bear- ing as it does most forcibly and directly on several subjects of scientific discussion, its reproduction here may serve to give an accurate idea both of Mr. Hawker's temper of mind and power of expression on topics of the greatest moment. Neither its teaching nor its warnings, as I well know, have been thrown away : — " You ask me to * put into one of my nut- shells ' the pith and marrow of the controversy which at this time pervades the English mind THE LATE BEV, B. S. HAWKEB, U.A. 103 as to the claims of Science and Faith. Let me try : The material universe — so the sages allege ^s a vast assemblage of atoms or molecules, * motes in the sunbeam ' of science, — ^which has existed for myriads of ages under a perpetual System of evolution, restricture, and change. This mighty mass is traversed by the forces electrical, or magnetic, or with other kindred names; and these, by their incessant and in- <iomitable action, are adequate to account for €ill the phenomena of the world of matter, and of man. The upheaval of a continent; the drainage of a sea ; the creation of a metal ; nay, the origin of life, and the development of a species in plant, or animal, or man ; these are the achievements of fixed and natural laws among the atomic materials, under the vibration of the forces alone. Thus far the vaunted discoveries of science are said to have arrived. Let us indulge them with the theory that these results, for they are nothing more, are accurate and real. But still, a thoughtful mind will venture to demand whence did these atoms 104 MEMORIALS OF derive their existence? and from what, and from whom, do they inherit the propensities wherewithal they are imbued? And tell me, most potent seigniors, what is the origin of these forces? And with whom resides the impulse of their action and the guidance of their control ? * Nothing so difl&cult as a beginning/ Your philosopher is mute ! he has reached the horizon of his domain, and to him all beyond is doubt, and uncertainty, and guess. We must lift the veil. We must pass into the border-land between two worlds, and there inquire at the Oracles of Revelation touching the Unseen and Spiritual powers which thrill through the mighty sacrament of the visible creation. We perceive, being inspired, the realms of surrounding space peopled by immortal creatures of air — * Myriads of spiritual things that walk uuhoou, C^ATl/ft^ liyuA^Cl4/u^^oth when we wake and when we sleep.' These are the existences, in aspect as * young men in white garments,' who inhabit the void place between the worlds and their Maker, and THE LATE REV. B, S. HAWKER, M.A, 105 their God, Behold the Battalions of the Lord of Hosts ! the workers of the sky ! the faithful and intelligent vassals of God the Trinity! "We have named them in our own poor and xneagre language *the Angels,' but this title merely denotes one of their subordinate offices — ^messengers from on high. The Gentiles called them *gods,' but we ought to honour them by a name that should embrace and in- terpret their lofty dignity as an intermediate army between the kingdom and the throne; the Centurions of the stars, and of men ; the com- manders of the forces and their guides. These are they that each with a delegated office fulfil what their * King Invisible ' decrees ; not with the dull, inert mechanism of fixed and Natural Law, but with the unslumbering energy and the rational obedience of Spiritual Life. They mould the atom ; they wield the force ; and, as Newton rightly guessed, they rule the World of matter beneath the silent Omnipotence of God. " * And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to 106 MBMOBIALS OF Heaven ; and behold the angels of God ascend- ing and descending on it. And behold the Lord stood above it.' — Genesis xxviii. 12. Tolle Lege, my dear nephew. " Your affectionate uncle, " R. S. Hawkee. " Morwenstow Vicarage, Cornwall." On this subject he wrote thus to Miss L. Twining : — "You refer to the MS. extracts which I transcribed for you some time since. Their history is this ; — I have kept on my table for many years a * Thought Book,' in which I write down every reference, question, and idea worth preserving, which may come to me in course of reading or meditation. The latter, which I practise in my Chancel alone, and often at night, is my most abundant source of in- struction. There mysteries are made clear, doctrines illustrated, and tidings brought, which I firmly believe are the work of angelic ministry. Of course the Angels of the Altar are there, THE LATE BEV. R, S. HAWKER, M.A. 107 and the Angel of my own baptism is never a^ay." And again : — • "Once, in dreamy vision, a stately and Solemn Person stood and said to me, ^Ephphatha is not so good a word as Amen.^ I was ponder- ing the manner of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and I understood him to rebuke me, »nd to say, * It is better to acquiesce in a doc- 'trine than to see it clearly. Better say " jBe as -it iSf^^ than " Let it be opened to me." ' " The following dissertation on the symbols of St. Paul the Apostle from Mr. Hawker's pen, is a good example of that curious and accurate archaeological knowledge for which he was so justly remarkable, and of which he owned such a store : — " The Apostle of the Gentiles is portrayed upon ancient glass in the thin and ethereal form ' and stature of the arisen dead, and, at his side, a peaceftd and symbohc sword. " I. Because of the Oracle of Jacob his ancestor, he was called in antique parch- 108 MEMORIALS OF ments, * The Wolf of Benjamin.' — Genesis xlix. 29. " II. At Tarsus, his native city, lie was Saul, the favourite disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel. He was famous in the art and usage of arms, and, as the custom of his nation demanded, he had learned a craft or trade and was a maker of tents from the rough skins of slain beasts. The animals themselves were offered upon altars there, and their skins from the days of the first man were evermore regarded as emblems of the sacrificial garniture of our exiled race. The labour of his hands, therefore, was a fitting type of his future priesthood. " III. Now it was this Saul who went forth from the gates of Jerusalem a strong Hebrew, a man-at-arms, with horse and sword and spear in the morning to ravin as a wolf ; and in the evening to divide the spoil. " IV. On the road to Damascus * which was desert,' a Voice smote him to the Earth. He feU, blind beaten into darkness by a flood of insufferable light. A saying of Syria, which THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 109 the memory of the Lord Jesus had carried up into hieaven, put Saul of Tarsus to shame, for he felt that it was in * vain for the ox to kick against the goad/ So it was, as it were, said to that armed man, * Thou shalt draw that sword no more.' " V. Thenceforth St. Paul went on his way to the war with the Dark Legions of the Air ; and, in the evening, in many a city he did divide the spoil. "VI. Therefore, in memory of that wilder- ness and of the day when this weapon of earthly battle * shook restrained,' the Saint was pic- tured evermore with the * Sword filleted ' of heraldry, in his faithful hand. His weapon, wreathed and bound, is there the symbol of his unavailing war with God. " VII. His text, a legend of his shield, for every Saint had one, is, *^He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My Name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel.' " His remarks on the Hand, and other signs and symbols, are also interesting and noteworthy : — 110 MEMORIALS OF " The Hand is the Symbol of Power. When wholly given as a symbol it meant the All- Might of the Godhead. With three fingers only extended, it signified the Trinity. " The Pentacle of Solomon, or five-pointed figure, was derived from his Seal wherewith he ruled the Genii. It was a Sapphire, and it con- tained a Hand alivey which grasped a small ser- pent also alive. Through the bright gem both were visible, the Hand and the * Worm,' as of old they called it. When invoked by the king, the fingers moved and the serpent writhed, and miracles were wrought by spirits who were vassals of the gem : — Hence all his might ; for who could these oppose ? And Tadmor thus and Syrian Balbec rose ! " Because of this mystic Hand, the pentacle or five-pointed (fingered) figure became the Sigil of Signomancy in the early ages.® There is one on a Boss in Morwenstow Chancel. • " On this Seal, it is said that the four Hebrew letters which form the awful Name n)rv were graven. Of this the THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKEB, 3I.A. Ill " The shield of David is a figure with six angles (one for the manhood taken into God)." The following privately-printed poem is a very beautiful specimen of Mr. Hawker's theological accuracy and rhythmical powers : — A CANTICLE FOR CHRISTMAS, 1874. Lo ! a pure Maiden, meek and mild, Yearns to embrace an awful Ciiild ; Those limbs her tenderest touch might win : Yet thrill they with the God within. She gazes ! and what doth she see ? A gleaming Infant on her knee ! She pauses ! can she dare to press That glory with a fond caress ? " Yes, 'tis her flesh — that Form so fair ! Her very blood is bounding there ! The Mother's Heart the victory won, — It is her God ! It is her Son ! rightful pronunciation is lost. The Rabbins say that if it were to be accurately sounded, even by chance, earthquakes would ensue, the foundations of the hills would be uprooted, and the ancient genii imprisoned there would come forth and appear to many. Yee-hah-ee-hah, a word entirely breathed, without usage of the tongue or teeth, appears to approach it. It should come forth from the throat and mouth as breath, sighed rather than syllabled." — Letter of Rev. R. S. Hawker to Miss Louisa Twining. 112 MEMORIALS OF Hers the proud gladness mothers know ; Without a thrill ; without a throe ; And Mary Mother undefiled Claims for Her Breast that awful Child ! The following remarks, in a letter to myself, from the pen of Mr. William Maskell, sometime Chaplain to the late Bishop Phillpotts, and now of Bude Castle — an old friend and a near neigh- bour in latter years of Mr. Hawker, will be read with interest : — " I can't think why you suppose that I under- rate Mr. Hawker's powers : certainly in quoting and in referring to him in the little description of *Bude Haven,' I wished to be imderstood very differently. I should not call him a great poet; his subjects, with one exception, were not great; but many of his ballads (not to mention the * Trelawny ') are admirable. Few men could have written * The Silent Tower of Bottreau,' * The Wail of the Cornish Mother/ * The Dirge,' or * The Croon on Hennacliffe/ These are simple, spirited, and beautiful ; they^ are what ballads should be, and, if equalled, THE LATE BEV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 113 not surpassed by the ballads of any living or modem writer. One or two of Edgar Poe's might be compared with them ; but whose else ? Edgar Poe, and Hawker, and Hood were bom poets; not made better, as it were, up to a. certain mark, by continual exercise and evident labour at writing poetry. So also I have always spoken in the highest terms of his * Quest of the Sangraal ;' the one attempt, and we must regret it is only a fragment, — ^upon a great subject. To my mind, it is far more true work of a real poet than the rival * Idylls ' of Tennyson. It may be a mistake, but there is a dim impression on my memory that Mr. Hawker used to claim for his * Quest ' precedence in point of time.* " You ask me, also, for a brief estimate of his character. I knew him for more than thirty * This is not so. Mr. Hawker's poem was first published at Exeter in 1864, whereas the Poet Laureate's "Idylls of [ y the King" first appeared five years previously, in 1859. \ Mr. Hawker sent a presentation copy of his " Quest " to Mr. Tennyson, which was acknowledged, not by him, but by his wife. He is said to have been annoyed that Mr. Hawker had taken the same subject. — F. G. L. V 114 ^ MEMORIALS OF years, and knew him well; but there are cir- cumstances connected with the last few hours of his Hfe, which make me hesitate to speak. Every one who had seen or corresponded with him for the last ten or twenty years must have been aware of his (what people call) * Catholic feelings and tendencies,' yet I was extremely surprised to hear that he had been received into the Church a few hours only before his death. I would not venture to offer any judgment, not even an opinion, upon an act of that kind ; it seems to me very presumptuous in any one to do so. Who can be justified in speculating (and it would be mere speculation) as to the possible or probable causes which prevented such a step in years gone by, or at last forced it to be taken when almost too late ? At present, therefore, I feel only this, that I dare not attempt to delineate his character. By-the-bye, don't forget his genial and kind manners, and Ids generous hospitality to all; likewise that he was a good letter-writer, and an excellent teller of stories." THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 115 In this slight and imperfect account of his writings — many of which have been but glanced at — sufficient has been written to show that the late Vicar of Morwenstow possessed, in many- ways, very remarkable powers. As a Christian poet he will be surely ranked amongst the fore- most of the present century, a century which has produced a Wordsworth, a Keble, a Faber, a Neale, an Isaac Williams, and a Miss Procter. :*-^ 1 2 CHAPTER m. ALTERED CONVICTIONS AND DEATH* Many of us remember the excitement which arose in the year 1869, when the author of the first of the " Essays and Reviews," an authori- tative printed manifesto of sceptical and latitu- dinarian opinions, — ^wag, by Her Majesty, at Mr. Gladstone's recommendation, nominated to the see of Exeter.^ Condemnatory words, neither weak * I am told by a trustworthy and well-informed corre- spondent, that the Bishop of Exeter has disclaimed all responsibility for any opinions expressed elsewhere than in his own contribution in Essays and BeviewSy and that since his elevation to the episcopate he has refused to allow hif own essay to appear with the others ; and, furthermore that the volume is now out of print. Many persons woul be glad if the Bishop would publicly avow such a new a? more creditable policy^ especially for one who has becoj an official guardian in England of the Christian faith t traditions. MEMORIALS, ETC. 117 nor unforcible, were used even by men of sedate calmness and picturesque platitudes; protests were numerous, and strongly-worded threats of what would happen in the future were doleful and dreary in their sound, and helped to conjure up a probable and immediate period of confusion and gloom.^ But after all, what has happened ? While no single leader of the Oxford movement — at its origin so thorougUy Christian and Conservative in its every tendency — has been elevated to the bench ; the Oxford tutor (him- self, on his own confession, an unbeliever in the Athanasian Creed),* who led a Liberal perse- cution of Dr. Newman, and helped to drive him * Though no names were given, and nothing very specific as regards individuals set forth, yet the John Bull (which, to its conductors' credit, attempted an agitation against the appointment of Dr. Temple) was authorized hy some of its episcopal supporters to declare that certain of the hishops would decline either to meet the person nominated in Con- vocation or to co-operate with him in work. ' We [the Archbishop and Bishops] do not — there is not a soul in this room who does — take the concluding clauses of the Athanasian Creed in their plain and literal sense." Speech of Archbishop Tait in Convocation, reported in the Guardian of Feb. 14, 1872. 118 MEMORIALS OF away/ was placed by a Tory Prime Minister in the chair of St. Augustine ; while a contributor to a volume formally condemned, as well by a majority of the Bishops as by Convocation, and declared to be unsound and heretical, succeeded Dr. Phillpotts, the most fearless and remarkable ecclesiastical statesman of the present century, in the see of Exeter. Passive contentment, if not active satisfaction, as we may each see, reigns on all sides. To a clergyman of Mr. Hawker's accurate knowledge, ti^ue Christian instinct, and sen- sitive soul, this appointment must have caused (as was certainly the case) the greatest con- sternation and pain. Henceforth, as he main- tained, it would be clear to all, that, although * Dr. Newman, the best of witnesses to this fact, thus wrote : — " The men who had driven me from Oxford were distinctly the Liberals, it was they who opened the attack upon Tract 90 " (p. 203). And, *< I found no fault with the Liberals ; they had beaten me in a fair field" (p. 214). — "History of My Religious Opinions," London, 1865. And elsewhere, " My battle was with Liberalism : by * Liberalism^ I meant the anti-dogmatic principle and its developments ^ ' (p. 120. Part IV. First Edition.) THE LATE BEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 119 the three Creeds were technically received as expressive of the theoretical faith of the Church of England, yet it was equally open to her nominal members to maintain that the principles of " Essays and Reviews " were alike honestly tenable in the Established Church ; for a con- tributor to that volume was now the Father in God of those of the faithful who dwelt within the confines of Devonshire and Cornwall.* ' The following Memorial was presented to Dr. Temple of Exeter in 1873, by communicants of the diocese ^— " We should be greatly relieved if your lordship can Assure us that in your Charge delivered lately at Plymouth, ^ou did not mean to convey that the Church of £ngland has ever by her practice or in her ordinal, authorized, ^Sanctioned, or in any way encouraged, a constitution of the xxiinistry of the Church upon any other basis than that of "the Apostolical Succession." The Bishop replied as follows, on July 16, 1873 : — " I have to observe that there can be no doubt that the Ohurch of England has included, and has deliberately intended to include, within her limits both those who hold Cind those who do not hold the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession. She has accordingly most carefully provided t;hat all her ministers shall have that succession as a matter of course. She has omitted from her Articles all mention of that succession as a matter of doctrine." In the face of the " Preface " to the Ordinal, comment 120 MEMORIALS OP Furthermore, Mr. Hawker was very much distressed that no party of action amongst the bishops could be formed to resist the recent bold and aggressive Erastianism of the two Primates. Our leaders wiU not, apparently, face existing diflBculties. This is only what Dr. Newman remarked, in the following terms, thirty years ago :— " Has not all our misery, as a Church, arisen from people being afraid to look diffi- culties in the face ? They have palUated acts on the above is unnecessary. Such a declaration from his " Father in Grod," in which the Church of England is by episcopal authority made to hold and teach no doctrine whatsoever on the Apostolical Succession, made, of course, a deep impression on Mr. Hawker, who remarked *' Our beloved Church, then, permitting contradictories, has no doctrine on the subject at all." Few condemned the late Dean Alford's vagaries, in conjunction with representatives of many of the latest and most unclean sects, thus recorded by himself: — " Sept 13, Sunday. — ^At nine a.m. we all went to the Hdtel de~ Russia, where about 150 English Christians of all denominations received the Communion together ; no form except the reading the words of institution — a thing I should imagine without parallel in the history of the Church." [And so should I.— F. G. L.] "Life of Dean Alford," p. 279^ Bivingtons, 1874. THE LATE KEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 121 when they should have denounced them. There is that good fellow Worcester Palmer, can whitewash the Ecclesiastical Commission and the Jerusalem Bishopric ; and what is the con- sequence ? that our Church has through cen- turies ever been sinking lower and lower, till good part of its pretensions and professions is a mere sham, though it be a duty to make the best of what we have received."^ I possess several letters dealing in vigorous language with this most dangerous shortcoming. In December, 1870,Mr. Hawker wrote thus : — " You wiU have noted that neither Moberley the friend of Pusey and Keble, nor Mackamess — imtil the eve of his consecration a member of the English [Church] Union — came forward to maintain and defend the most elementary prin- ciples of a true Church. At the Union they give talk abundant, in return for ill-spent sub- scriptions ; and in talk, as Experience teaches us aU more and more, the frivolous and shallow • " History of Mj Religious Opinions," by Dr. Newman. First Edition, p. 274. 122 MEMORIALS OP of the younger race seem to put their whole trust and confidence." And in January 1870, as follows : — " Tait claims to be a Pope, and his provincials allow it, without rebuke or protest. He acts, and they register his will, in unanticipated and shameful silence.' In Capetown, and India, and Canada, he actively interferes, without jurisdiction; and superior men bow the head as well as the knee. But he is a Pope, without Cardinals for councillors or Congregations for advisers. His beardless and unfledged chap- lains know nothing, and can advise nothing; save to grease the creaking wheels of the Establishmentarian coach well, and to sacrifice everything which concerns the World to come. ' This may be illusti'ated by a recent event When 483 English clergymen petitioned the bishops for advice, the Archbishop (without, as it is reported, consulting his co- provincial bishops), wrote and despatched the reply ^ implying in that answer (what ought certainly not to hav^ ^ been implied), that the whole bench of bishops had accepted^ his Grace's opinion on the subject. THE LATE EEV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 123 in order to make things more pleasant and comfortable for the World that is." To a Parish Priest who held closely to the Catholic faith as set forth in the Creed of St. Athanasius, however, this new and altered position must have been sorely perplexing. What sorrow it caused him is possibly known only to his Master. In conversation with his acquaintance, Mr. Christopher A. Harris, of Exeter, in the autumn of 1874, Mr. Hawker is reported to have said, " Much as I disapproved and was shocked at the nomination of the present Bishop of the diocese ; yet, when he was appointed to the episcopal bench, I was bound by my ordination vow to obey him, and I have obeyed him by discontinuing to wear vestments of which he disapproved. My conscience is my own."* About the same period he wrote to me to this effect : — " The open disobedience of the Ritualistic party is to myself a problem and a puzzle.- I obey" [in the question of reUn- quishing the use of the sacerdotal vestments] ; » John Bull, Sept. 18, 1875. 124 >IE\IORIALS OF ** bowing my head before circumstances, and throwing the whole responsibility on my Father in God. What else can a Christian priest do ? But I am getting paralyzed and stricken down with anxiety as to the future." What the Church of England set forth in the Prayer Books of 1549 or 1662 may have been, as Mr. Hawker admitted, the voice of the body enshrined in print and writing, spoken and recorded at those respective periods; but the pressing question is rather what does she say and teach, or what does she permit her breath- ing and speaking ministers to teach, at the present time ? As regards Baptism — a sacra- ment on which of all others she speaks so plainly in authorized documents that no doubt can possibly exist as to the obvious primary and literal sense of her recorded words — ^what is the doctrine of the Church of England ? What is her living voice? Some of her clergy, in accordance with her formularies, teach that regeneration is directly effected by baptism; others, in contradiction to them, that baptism THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 125 is simply an empty sign and spiritually useless act. Both licensed and authorized to teach, or instituted to livings by her Bishops, have full liberty, and not unfrequently in adjacent parishes, to maintain these their own contra- dictory opinions in her name ; each is duly and regularly authorized to be a teacher on her behalf. Neither public religious instructor is let or holden in contradicting his clerical neigh- bour. So that by consequence — and it needs but slender logical powers to draw the inevitable conclusion — ^the National Church, by her living oflBcers practically teaches no doctrine at all on this fundamental and momentous subject. This, ever since the Gorham judgment, (would that it were not so !) has been our exact position. And the moral danger of this anomalous position was, as I well know, a sore and constant source of mental perplexity to Mr. Hawker. Again, the same system of " wise comprehen- sion '* or " loving toleration " • is so practically * For these and similar well-worn expressions, see generally almost any episcopal '* Charge " for the last thirty 126 MEMORIALS OF known in the actual working of the Church of England that vast mischief, as he maintained, constantly arises from its presence and power. Several cases have lately occurred in which sweeping and ruthless changes have been sud- denly effected on the death of some rector or vicar. ^ I have one melancholy example very clearly in my mind, and forcibly before me as I write. A clergyman of High Church principles laboured quietly, patiently, and without rebuke for twenty-five years in a certain London parish. He taught his flock both in school and church the Catholic faith, and their duties ; and they, regarding him as an ambassador from God, years passim ; or particularly the Bishop of Chichester's recent Charge, in which he writes of " the comprehensive tolerance of the Church of England." * Now, in the Church of Borne, it is the system on which people rest ; in the Church of England it is the indivtdiial. The death of this priest or the other makes little or no difference in the first-named communion ; services and teaching go on just the same ; with ourselves, on the other hand, the changes are so great that two different and distinct religions are sometimes presented in succession to a dazed and confounded congregation. THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 127 accepted it and strove to abide and benefit by his teaching. He died, as God willed it ; and the patron, a high ecclesiastical dignitary, presented a clergyman of a school directly contrarient. Everything was changed, as far as it was possible to make a change. Numbers, saddened to the very heart's core, tried to bear the revolution in patience, and, for awhile, hoped against hope ; but, having common sense, and owning consciences, they could not long endure the alterations. A considerable number were scattered, some, as I know with sorrow, to bear the chill and curse of religious indiffer- ence ; others to become ecclesiastical outcasts, sceptics as to whether Almighty God has ever vouchsafed any revelation to mankind at all; and a few to the Church of Eome.* * A fnend, looking over these paragraphs, remarks that the case of All Saints', Lambeth, in 1867, was an example of such a similar change, though in an upward direction ; ^nd others may note the same point. But this is not so. I^rior to my coming (through circumstances which, I am informed) were altogether beyond the control of the previous vicar), the congregation had greatly dwindled away. In 128 MEMORIALS OF Mr. Hawker saw and heard of this and similar cases ; and, surveying events from the calm dis- tance of a Cornish parish, with the keen and undimmed eye of a fervent believer in Chris- tianity, who, amid present storms and per- plexities, looked out calmly — ^like a tempest-tost mariner for a sight of harbour, for the Heavenly City which he sought — was forced to the pain- ful conclusion that the apparently secure standing-point from which the old Church of England had been previously defended so efficiently by such eminent writers as Andrews, Bull, and Jeremy Collier, was gone, — buried in the quicksands of present rude and violent changes — ^its place knowing it no more. His opinion may be both questioned and lamented : but such a conscientious decision, if arrived at, ought at least to merit respect. For he who acts conscientiously himself, is usually the first to give others credit for doing the the previous year the average attendance at the Sunday morning services is said to have heen exactly sixteen adults, and I helieve this to have heen the case. THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 129 same. And surely Protestants, whatever be their form of misbelief, w:ho start with the principle that Private Judgment is a duty, as well as a right, ought especially to avoid con- demning those of their neighbours who may think weU to exercise it in a direction slightly different to that which they themselves have taken. But events must not be pre-considered. Early in March of 1874, Mr. Hawker did me the honour to apply to me for specific informa- tion regarding certain perplexing details bear- ing upon the validity of Church of England ordinations. The fact that direct and im- doubted evidence has not, as yet,, been dis- covered of William Barlow's consecration; coupled with the doubt, which will possibly always exist in some minds, as to Barlow's mtention in consecratiag Matthew Parker, troubled him sorely.* He felt astonished, too, • He wrote to me about that period thus : — " Another question which I cannot get answered is this : * Why, when our dear old Church possessed forms for Ordination and 130 MBMOfilALS OF that no canon or dignitary of any literary capacity or reputation (well paid, and with learned leisure) had come forward from his repose to defend the new and vigorous attacks which had been so adroitly and successfully made on the personal characters of several of the leading reformers.* And so he began to harbour a doubt as to whether the spiritual continuity of the old National Church had been certainly and duly secured: not being very much enamoured of the active agents and in- struments of the sixteenth-century changes, either as regards their personal characters, ecclesiastical policy, or public writings. On the evening of Easter Day, 1874 (April 5th), Mr. Hawker was brought down to my Parish Church, All Saints', Lambeth, by our ConsecratioDj; which were universally regarded as valid, (and this without an exception,) should other forms have heen substituted for them, which have been questioned ever since the dark day of change ? Did not the restoration and im- provements of 1662 come a century too late ?' " * See Appendix No. I. for the convictions of the Rev. N. Pocock, M.A., &c. THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 131 mutual friend Mr. J. G. Godwin. I liad not seen the venerable Vicar of Morwenstow for more than twenty-five years, since I, as a youth, was presented to him about the year 1847 or 1848, at Oxford ; and, at first sight, he appeared so altered that I should have scarcely recognized him ; but, by degrees, his old form and face returned again, and I had the pleasure of seeing before me, and afiectionately greeting, a Poet-priest, who, through evil report and good report — ever standing up for principle — had done so great a work in his Cornish parish; whose memory is deservedly respected wherever that work is known; and for whom, both as Priest and Poet, benevolent, refined, and courteous, I myself entertain so true and deep a regard. The well-filled church, adorned with flowers and in festal garb, was bright with Wax tapers. We took our way in procession, and with song, round the sacred edifice, each defiling, with orderly precision, into his appointed place in choir and sanctuary. The service was performed K 2 132 MEMOEULS OF mtli care and dignity; and, at my special request, my venerated friend consented to ad- dress tlie faithful. His sermon I shall never forget. He spoke most eloquently of the cer- tainty of the Resurrection, of the Faith and the Hope and the Joy of the Mother of God, and of the blessed end of our own enduring warfare here. His voice, melodious and of a wide compass, was as clear as a bell : his manner simple, dignified, and loving: his oratory perfect. The congregation listened with breathless attention, and were deeply struck by his remarkable powers. He addressed the following letter to me on April 10, 1874 :— " I hope my pubhsher has sent you a copy of my book, as I ordered him. You must hold it in memoriam [ * Footprints of Former Men in Far Comwair]. You have given me gold for lead in your noble volume on * The Validity of our Ordinations,' one that ought to have been the chief text-book of the Church of England in this Age of Doubt. THE LATE REV. R. S. HAW^R, M.A. 133 " I shall take with me to the grave the service in your church on the evening of Easter Day. I never felt more impressed than by the gleam of Paradise as we turned in from the dull lanes and streets of Lambeth, into your lighted Hall of God. It must be to you like an inspiration, to rule and reign in such a sanctuary. May Cjrod the Trinity give you a throne in your C5hancel for long and coming years ! " At this time I wrote several letters, on behalf of his scheme for restoring the Church of IMorwenstow under some thoroughly competent STchitect, and tried to induce some of my <3lerical brethren in London to give him the use of their pulpits for appeals with this object. IBut I was not successful. As is very constantly "the case, every one seemed to be so engrossed "^th his own parish and demands, that no Result whatsoever came from my several appU- ^ations. In my own parish church the weekly offertory scarcely averages thirty shiUings a ^^eek throughout the year : so it would have t>een of little use to have looked for aid here. 134 MEMORIALS OF My friend and former coadjutor, Archdeacon Dunbar, also interested himself in Mr. Hawker's success : but the responses he too received were, to say the least, disappointing. On April 26th the Vicar of Morwenstow wrote to me thus : — "Thanks, cordial thanks, for your letter to the Post " ' [on Archbishop Tait's Bill] . " What a forcible and incisive letter it is 1 You would have made a fortune at the bar. The ears of those with whom it deals ought to tingle as they read it. God be with you in the conflict, and grant us a triumph ! I myself am sad and doubting, and very low; for I believe we are losing the battle. Ever affectionately yours." In acknowledgment of my slender services on his behalf, Mr. Hawker wrote again ^ on April 28, 1874 :— • See Appendix No. III. • 1 print the above letter exactly as I received it, so that no doubt may exist as to the fact of Mr. Hawker's dis- appointment. Very possibly the clergy named had good and sufficient reasons for the reception they gave him. As in other matters, however, so in taste and manners, the World has changed considerably of late years. THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 135 " Thank you very earnestly, my dear Dr. Lee, for your kind efforts to obtain pulpits for me. But I regret to say that I have not been suc- cessful. * The Thanes fly from me.' White, at St. Bamabas's, would not see me, although he was at home when I called. His excuse was that he wanted all the offertories for himself. m Stuart saw and snubbed me. Liddell, of St. Paul's, whom I referred to his relative (the Dean of Christ Church) and others, wishes to appropriate all collections for an indefinite time to a Mission-chapel. Compton, of All Saints', has given no reply to a note which contained a letter of introduction from a friend of his own. The only sermon which I have been allowed to preach was at St. Matthias', Brompton. An evening offertory, usually meagre, under 51. ; but I won 221. 18s. Od Well, we shall soon, I infer, have neither churches nor ritual. Has Archibald Tait ever been baptized ? If he has, the exorcisms were omitted, if one may judge from the demonism of his measure ' " On this point, the Morning Post, quite as plain-spoken as 136 MEMOBIALS OF [the Public Worship Eegulation Bill.] I wish he and his could be induced to renounce the Devil in old age* One of your flock, whose name I do not know, followed me to Brompton because of my sermon at Lambeth. Was not this a compliment? My repulsion elsewhere, makes me more grateful to you. With kindest sympathy, yours always affectionately.*' At the close of April, 1874, he wrote again: — " I accept the omens. It is not from London that God intends the resources of my restoration shoidd be drawn. Nor are the doomed and selfish clergy of this earthly city to be my trusted allies in the humble warfare which I the Vicar of Morwenstow, wrote as follows : " It is simply impossible that the House of Lords — ^numbering as it does many emineDt jurists — can possibly permit so violent a departure from the plainest justice. The only marvel is that any prelate could have been found to propose it. If it be necessary to * put down Ritualists,' at least let them be put down fairly, and have the securities of those sound prin- ciples of law which from time immemorial have guarded the honour of our courts of justice. Space fails us before the subject is half exhausted ; but enough has been said to show that the Bill is unfairly conceived, carelessly drawn, and likely to create greater evils than it professes to cure. " THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 137 wage for the grey old shrine on the Tamar side." Amongst his last words to myself was the forcible expression of a solemn conviction that the utter inability of the Clergy of the Esta- blished Church to find any bond of united action for defending the Ancient Faith, of which they were at once the keepers and trustees, showed that such disunion was a well-merited punishment for the sins of our forefathers — sins of sacrilege, robbery, and faithlessness. How far the step he finally took was brought about by the perfect tranquillity with which the English clergy seemed, and seem, prepared to adapt themselves to the altered ecclesiastical circumstances of the present day, is one which I am wholly unable to solve. About this time the attention of the Vicar of Morwenstow was specially called, by public events both at home and abroad, to the re- lations between THe Spiritual and The Tem- poral in G o vernment ; and to this momentous subject he gave great and painstaking con- 138 MEMORIALS OP sideration. Mr. Hawker's was a mind whicli could compass and take in great principles with a perfect ease and sure completeness. Mere details and unimportant results, as well as peddling trivialities and obscure personalities, his soul abhorred. He saw clearly that the great struggle between the Spiritual and the Temporal in Germany and elsewhere could not do other than exercise a large and mischievous influence on the National Church at home; and remarked again and again, fearing a re- action, " we shall suffer in England from a similar conflict." " Brastianism is the same everywhere; and, now that we have disciples of the system in high offices within the Church, we are sure to feel their powers." " * Law * with Archbishop Tait," he wrote, " seems only another word for tyranny." A very vigorous and remarkable article on this subject, to which his special attention had been privately called, giving him much food for thought, added considerably to his distress of mind ; for he remarked to a friend, " Its THE LATE HBV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 139 principles are unanswerable." This was in September, 1874. I quote a portion of it, thus : — " The revived struggle in our own day between the Spiritual and Temporal Powers is only the reiteration of man's impotent re- solve to reign without God. But it presents a new character and asserts a new principle. In other ages men rebelled ; but they did not say that they had a right to do so. Even Pagan lawlessness stopped short of that. To thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, or even to jesters like Horace and Juvenal, such a pretension would have seemed exorbitant. It was re- served for the Protestant Reformation to pro- claim this definitive emancipation of the creature from the law of the Creator, and make him a law unto himself. The * supremacy of the individual conscience,' as a Bampton lecturer gaily observes, * and its complete independence of all external authority, date from that auspicious movement. It made man his own master, owing allegiance to none but himself. 140 MEMOEIALS OF The reign of Authority, which had always been a mere usurpation, was finally closed. The creature was at length free, or thought he was.' And this doctrine was quickly imported from the spiritual into the political sphere, with results of which we are all witnesses 1 * Nobody in the least conversant with the history of opinion,' says the Pall Mall Gazette^ 'can doubt that the political creed of the Liberal party all over the world is, in its principal articles, descended fi:om the Protestant Refor- mation.' Nothing could be more evident. If man could judge for himself in questions of the soul, a fortiori he could do it in everything else. Rationalism, Socialism, and Communism are systems, which, like national Churches, have their logical root in Protestantism. They are inconvenient, but inevitable results of the abolition of Authority, and the right of private judgment. ^The moment a man is accountable for his opinions only to his conscience, he may as well be one thing as another. The Pro- testant Reformation taught him, among other THE LATE EEV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 141 useful lessons, that * Liberty to err is man's highest good,' and that immunity from error is the only real bondage. The Demon did not propose to the human race so imprudent a sophism tiU he knew they were ripe to receive it. He is a good judge of times and seasons. He has also a large experience, as he told one of the saints, and possesses by this time a complete map of the whole field of human s,bsurdity. He was too wise, after his fashion, ^0 subvert the fabric of Authority prematurely. IFifteen ages of constant observation before he "rentured the final experiment of the Protestant ^Reformation. Only then, as his vast intellect 3)erceived, was the World rotten enough to give at a chance of success. For, spite of much ficientific culture, it had not hitherto fiirnished a suitable soil for such a plant. Man had often erred, but only to confess his error ; had re- volted, but only to ask pardon foy his revolt. Henceforth he was boldly to maintain, suadente "numiney that there is no such thing as either error or revolt. From that hour he has never 142 MEMORIALS OF ceased to maintam it, both in the reUgious and poUtical sphere. He is doing it now all over the world. * Schism is a sin/ said a writer the other day in the Church Review , *when unnecessary: but necessary schism is not a sin/ and of course they who commit it are the only judges of its necessity. It is evident, therefore, as a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette asserts, and the writer in the Church Review proves, that the principle by virtue of which Satan is destroying Authority, making Grovem- ment impossible, supplanting order by chaos, and preparing the final dissolution of human society, * is descended fi-om the Protestant Reformation.* " Nor is it less plain that to restrain or inter- dict this * Right of Revolt * is a function which cannot belong to those who use the same right themselves. Even the civil magistrate, if he is a Protestant, can only punish male- factors by contradicting himself and renouncing his first principle. Every sentence pronounced by him against those who use the 'right of THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 14o private judgment * against society as he uses it against the Church, and transgresses human laws as he violates those which are divine, is a confession that he dares not tolerate in the citizen the Hcence which he applauds in the Christian, and that though he denies the Authority of the Church, he will suffer no one to deny his own. And those more logical IProtestants, the burglar and the assassin, the Communist and the Red Republican, easily detect the^ revolting inconsistency, and resent it accordingly. They claim in their * Theory <)f Social Science,' only the same unlimited 3)rivate judgment, which one of our ablest journalists lately claimed for the Clergy of the INational Church, and which they every day claim for themselves. * The first security of «very beneficed clergyman in England,* said ihe Spectator, in a benevolent defence of the Tights and privileges which the Anglican minister derives from the Reformation, * is that .... he does not in the pulpit represent his congregation or the Church, but is only 144 MEMORIALS OF setting forth his own " views ^^^ and that he is authorized to teach what is in him to teach.' Any limitation of this delightful form of LiberaUsm, our contemporary adds, should be resisted. * All three divisions of the Church will feel it equally : the High Churchmen in their freedom of assertion, the Low Churchmen in their freedom of protest, the Broad ChurcTi in their freedom of exposition.' Is it possible to avow with more unconscious frankness that we have reached in England that hideous climax of disorder which three of the Apostles announced would spring from the sects of * the last days,' and which we did not need to be told by the Pall Mall Gazette, * is descended from the Protestant Reformation' ?" Considerations such as these exercised a great influence over Mr. Hawker ; and, whether wisely or the reverse, led him to doubt gravely whether the National Church imder present guidance would turn out to be any true portion of the Catholic fold. The rebellion which existed * amongst the Clergy, every man doing that which THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 145 was right in his own eyes ; the utter inability of the Bishops to curb the mutinous or to steer the vessel ; the contradictory faith and opinions amongst Bishops themselves and the clergy of the same communion ; their impracticable com- promises and insincere co-operation; the shallow and fruitless talk of Conferences, the babbling platitudes of Congresses; and more especially the feeble and insane appeal of our spiritual rulers to a non-Christian Parliament to help them in their ecclesiastical difficulties, all tended to work a great revolution in Mr. Hawker's mind. So much so that the services at his church began to become a heavy burden to him, and he looked with considerable distaste at having to perform them. Still he was not so convinced of the need of actual change as to leave the national commimion ; though he felt that any day he might be called upon by con- science to do so. As I have said before, he had lost heart ; not by the action of Roman Catholic controversialists, but because of the policy of our own Fathers in God. > 146 MEMORIALS OF In a letter addressed to Mr. J. G. Godwin, on September 21, 1874, from Morwenstow, Mr. Hawker wrote thus : — " The reason why success does not attend all these spasmodic efforts to bolster up the Anglican Body is that they are all hollow and selfish, and insincere. A mass of men see and he^* of a noble gift, a generous succour, and they cry out, * What a good man ! what a fine-hearted fellow ! ' An angel stand- ing by and looking into the man's mind, and discerning his motives, mocks his efforts, and glides away with God's benediction imopened in his hand. " The two worlds are nearer than we think, and the transactions between them are daily and graphic. A Bishop, in his place in Parlia- ment utters a defiant and rancorous speech God-ward. Soon after his horse stumbles, and the angel of his baptism holds aloof; and, un- succoured, he dies. Another Bishop apes the Apostle and the Martyr among the barbarous people of the Southern Seas. In peril 'an arrow or a club (which the least of God's angels coul THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKEE, M.A, 147 have averted by a touch, yet did not) slew him. Even I wondered until his episcopal * Life * was written and printed. Then saw I the cause of these things. The doctrines uttered by this man to the listening heathen were fallacious and untrue. He was Arian, Wesleyan, heretical ; and the messages he invented were not sent by God. So among the savages he was left alone. " I firmly beheve that the daily affairs of us all are discussed among spirits and angels, and are helped or hindered by them as usually as one earthly friend helps another. The angels hear what we say ; read what we write. One is looking over my shoulder now. And they are empowered to requite good and evil, not only, said St. Augustine, * according to God's general command, but by the exercise of their own rational and reasonable power.' " K you have seen my letter, you will under- stand the office they fulfil in the economy of the universe. " A traveller in Yorkshire, in 1852, encoun,- tered on a moor a person who seemed to him to L 2 148 MEMOEIALS OF be a pedlar carrying a pack. They sat down upon a rock. and conversed. Said the stranger, * In fifty years from this time the great mass of the English people will be divided into two armies, and their names will be Catholic and Infidel.' The traveller knew not whom the stranger might be, nor did he touch him so as to ascertain that he was really a man. Soon after (how he could hardly tell) he had ghded away. I read this book of travels, and have often thought of it since. * * * * Ik * ^ " I am conscious of symptoms very ominous and very depressing. I hope you will always be a faithful friend to my dear ones when I am not. .... I am very impatient for my [Sermon on] * Rural Synods.' I shall want it perhaps shortly for my defence to the Bishop. I expect to be soon assailed with calumny. My — ^ — did his best to ruin me, and he is doggedly attacking me now ; although his connexion with Morwenstow is severed. He was all grimace and strut and falsetto. He brought into my THE LATE EEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 149 church everything Roman that is there, and now accuses me of disloyalty to the Anglican Church. Do write me, I pray; for I am very forlorn. God bless you." And to myself, six weeks later, on All Souls' Day, he wrote the following : — : " It is not well, methinks, for the * Ritualistic party,' as they are called, that their cheap serial should be conducted by irresponsible persons — Radical parsons, as I hear— with neither parish charge nor ecclesiastical obligations; *free lances ' of an upstart and misleading band ; which, I am inclined to aver, has but Uttle in common with the grand and great men of God in Newman's day, whose sensitive refinement and deference to Authority contrast so mightily with the brag and bounce of vulgar anonymes and adventurous theorists, whose newspaper I cannot read and will not see. The guards little else than its proprietors' capital and financial interests. I take the Register^ because its foreign church news is always so good and interesting." 150 MEMOBIALS OF In truth the policy and principles of the so-called "Radical Ritualists" distressed Mr. Hawker deeply. He saw keenly and clearly enough the wide distinction between the sound and solid principles of the old Oxford school of Dr. Newman's time — ^honestly put into practice in the relations which the clergy of that day bore to their Bishops — before a demure Whiggism and afterwards a revolutionary Radicalism, had seized upon too many of the leaders of the High Church party, issuiug in weakness, paralysis, and discomfiture. He felt strongly that the Christian reUgion rested on the great principle of Authority. "Most of our disputes,** he wrote, " arise fi:om the manner in which men answer the questions, so often arising and as put to them, *Has the Almighty left any authority upon earth. Divine and unerring, which obviously represents Him; or are men left to be guides to themselves ?* " Mr. Hawker disHked public meetings, the organization and action of party societies, the policy of rival missionary corporations as well THE LATE BEV. K. S. HAWKER, M.A. 151 as clap-trap appeals to the oi voWoC for sensa- tional support and temporary aid, — because they seemed to him based on a thoroughly false and bad principle. "Missionary operations," he remarked to a friend, " ought to take either a diocesan or provincial form. One diocese, old-established, should aid another, in God's Name, to plant the Faith ; and your squabbling societies, riotous in dispute, should put up their shutters and die quietly and without any noise." And, on the same subject, to another fiiend ; " For God's sake, let us try to agree together at home, before we transplant our demoniacal dis-union to foreign lands. A National Church [acting] apart from foreign Cathohcs has never been able to retain its own flock, let alone the folding of others. Discord, the delight of demons, is the greatest foe to all English missioners, wheresoever or whatsoever they may be." Again, on his return to Morwenstow, he addressed me thus : — " When a man in a high ecclesiastical position is asked in good faith 152 MEMORIALS OF concerning the fact of his baptism — a sacra- « ment upon the due administration of which depends' the validity of the momentous acts — why should he be silent, or why should he not at once peaceably reply ? The very hesitation on his part adds to the doubt, if doubt there be. At all events the position of an archbishop is such that no doubt ought to remain idle for a day if it can be truly removed." He had previously sent to me another let- ter on the same subject, in the following terms : — "Morwenstow, Oct. 20th, 1874. "A doom seems to gather over us. The hour of the demons appears to prevail. But why ar^ the best avenues of attack deserted ? The very strongest hold (the more than doubt of Archbishop Tait's baptism) was assailed and then quietly closed. In all the oppor- tunities of a fair battle this was, and is, the best point of advantage over the foe, and no one mans the wall. I had meant to make onslaught, but when I asked the Editor [of the THE LATE BEV. B. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 153 Church newspaper, in which the subject was discussed,] to admit my MS. into his columns, he made no reply. " You of course know the case of Archbishop Seeker.® His baptism was found wanting, and the wrath evoked among the clergy whom he had invalidly ordained, and the confirmed upon whom he had laid his ineffectual hands, was fearfol. Only estabUsh Tait's unregeneracy, and he is at your mercy." In the early part of the November following I begged his acceptance of my book of verse, " The Bells of Botteville Tower," and at the same time solicited a contribution for a small volume of original poems, " Lyrics of Light and Life," compiled and edited by me, then in the • As yet I have been unable to find any particulars of this case of Arcbbisbop Seeker, who, it appears, was con- secrated at Lambeth, January 19, 1735, on his appointment to Bristol. Two years later he was translated to Oxford, and in 1758 was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. As archbishop he was the consecrator of ten bishops, viz. : — Philip Young, William Warburton, Samuel Squire, John Ewer, John Green, Thomas Newton, Charles Lyttelton, Frederick Keppel, Robert Lambe, and Robert Lowth. 154 MEMORIALS OF printer's hands, in acknowledgment of which came the following, dated Morwenstow, Nov. 5, 1874 :— "Thank you earnestly, my dear Dr. Lee, for your graphic and faithful book. I return you some fragments — dross for gold. The only one among them which may suit your themes is * Aishah Schekinah.' Say if it will do. The others are merely fragments of a broken mind. I write in haste, but always yours affectionately." I eventually accepted for my compilation a poem entitled "Aurora," of which five and twenty copies only had been privately printed by Mr. Hawker's Mend and neighbour, Mr. William Maskell, of Bude Castle, in the year 1873. It now stands last in my volume, "Lyrics of Light and Life," and, though mystical, has deservedly found, amongst competent judges, many cordial admirers. In a letter dated Morwenstow, Novem- ber 19, 1874, in reference to that poem, he asked : — THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 165 " Did I tell you that in my * Aurora' • I adopted a theory of the time of Origen that the scene • I transcribe the following, in order that the theory in question may be duly considered : — AURORA. I. Sanfall, and yet no night ! Fire floods the earth ! A molten rainbow flakes the northern sky ! The Polar gates unclose ; and gleaming forth Troop the wild flames that glide and glare on high. Tinged in their vaulted home with that deep ruddy dye ! II. Whence flash these mystic signals ? What the scene Where the red rivers find their founts of flame ? ^ar, far away, where icy bulwarks lean Along the deep, in seas without a name : Where the vast porch of Hades rears its giant fi-ame ! III. -^te underworld of souls ! sever'd in twain : One, the fell North, perplex*d and thick with gloom ; ^iid one, the South, that calm and glad domain, ^here asphodel and lotus lightly bloom *Neath God's own Starry Cross, the shield of peaceful doom. iv. "^^o quest of man shall touch — no daring keel Cleave the dark waters to their awful bourne : "^^one shall the living sepulchre reveal Where separate souls must throng, and pause, and yearn For their far dust, the signal and their glad return, 166 MEMORIALS OF of the Intermediate State is the hollow centre of the earth, and that the Northern Lights are flashed from the opening of the Gates at the Poles?" And then he went on to remark, — " I think that the dogged reticence of Dr. Tait as to his baptism is the most oflTensive fact in modern controversy. Could not an appeal to him for decision of doubt be made for signature by the persons directly involved? Mrs. Hawker was ostensibly confirmed by him at St. Pancras', when he was Bishop of London ; and if she attached any value to his oflBce, would be very much dis- mayed by the discovery that he had laid on her the empty hands of a Pagan oflBcer, * as one that beatetL the air.' There is something V. Ay ! ever and anon the gates roll wide, When whole battalions yield their sudden breath ; And ghosts in armies gather as thej glide, Still fierce and vengeful, from the field of death : Lo ! lightnings lead their hosts, and meteors glare beneath^ November 10, 1870. THE LATE EEV. B. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 157 almost demoniac in the way in which some mock at the grace of the Paraclete in all their functions. But the total history of our times is a record of the Battle of the demons with the Battalions of the Living God. I hope to have a line from you soon. In these days it is something to receive a Sacramental Letter from a true man. God speed you in all your ways. I am always yours affectionately." Mr. Hawker's distress that the Public Worship Regulation Bill should have been introduced by the Bishops^ was as true and * In June, 1874, in a letter to the Hon. Charles L. Wood, Dr. Hook, the late Dean of Chichester, only expressed in the following words what Mr. Hawker so keenly felt. The Dean wrote thus : — " I could dwell on the violation of principle when it is proposed to sweep away the episcopal jurisdiction in the first instance, or the enabling of any three people, whatever their principles may be, to disturb a parish. ... I am content to make these observations upon a measure which, by its haste and violence, renders its withdrawal at the present time a necessity to those who regard the Church of England, not as a sect, but as a branch of the Holy Catholic Church .... W. F. Hook."— An analysis of the Archbishop's Bill will be found in Appendix III. It was contributed by me, under the signature of " A London Clergyman," to The Morning 158 XEMOBIALS OF deep as it was sincere. "Neither party of politicians wonld ever have dreamt of such a scheme," he wrote to myself, when the Bill had become law. " The Bishops * are the traitors of their Master." Those who, Uke Mr. Hawker, love the " Catholic faith " better than their life ; those whom its giflbs and graces have cheered and gladdened for weary and clouded years; those who have not the remotest sympathy with religious indifference, will each and all allow that no strength of language, and Mr. Hawker's Po8t^ the day after Archbishop Tait introduced it into the House of Lords, and was reprinted by all the Church newspapers. * The prelates who voted for the Public Worship Regulation Bill on the crucial division, when the Duke of Marlborough declared by an amendment on going into Committee, the inexpediency of proceeding with the measure, were the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of Bangor, Bath and Wells, Carlisle, Chichester, Exeter, Gloucester and Bristol, Hereford, Llandaff, London, Manchester, Norwich, Peterborough, Ripon, Rochester, St. Asaph, Winchester, and Worcester. The only prelate who voted for the Duke of Marlborough's amendment was the Bishop of Salisbury. The Bishops of Lincoln, Lichfield, Chester, Oxford, Ely, and Durham were absent. The see of St, David's wm vacant. THE LATE BBV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 159 language is strong, can be too vigorous to apply to authorities, who, forgetting that their posses- sions both spiritual and temporal are only " trusts " from God for His Church, are appa- rently ready to sacrifice them (or at least the spiritualities) for a mere breath of popular approbation, which so soon passeth away and is no more known. Again : persons who have the hardihood to declare that the "Public Worship Regulation Act has not in any way altered the law " must fiurely be at once morally blind and deaf. If the law needed no alteration, why, in the name of conmion sense, was the Bill proposed ? And if, as Archbishop Tait pleaded, the Bill was so urgently required, how can it be honestly asserted, now that it has become law, that "the law has in no way been altered"? The Prime Minister, who is reported to have directly borrowed his phrase from a conversation with the Archbishop, declared in the House of Gonmions that the proposed Bill was espressly intended "to put down the Ritualists:" thus 160 MEMORIALS OF implying that the existing law could not do it ; in other words, that the existing law was in the Ritualists' favour, and in the archbishops' and bishops' opinion required to be altered so as to be made not in the Ritualists' favour. Thus no better nor further evidence can possibly be had than this assertion to prove conclusively that the law has been altered.^ But in truth there is not a beneficed clergyman in England and Wales who has not absolutely lost certain important legal rights by and through the passing of that Act. His old, and once secure position is gone. His benefice is no longer practically a freehold; for he may be turned out and ruined by the process and judgment of a court which, when he was legally instituted, had no existence, and by the decrees of a secular Parliamentary judge who was never heard of • For a temperate, learned, and as yet unanswered state- ment of this fact, I refer mj readers to a letter to the Editor of The Morning Post, from the able pen of the Rev. E. S. Grindle, in reply to a recent assertion in the Bishop of Peterborough's Charge (1875), to the effect that " the law has not been altered." See Appendix HE. \ THE LATE BEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 161 before the Bill in question became law- * To maintain, therefore, that " the law is not altered" is an insult to common sense as well as a falsehood of the first water. The whole foundations of ecclesiastical jurisprudence are removed ; and, by consequence, the old building, newly overweighted, may topple over and fall down at any moment. Perhaps those who are preparing to stand aside out of the impending danger, as Report maintains, are not so foolish or wanting in foresight after all. That Mr. Hawker thought and felt all this, towards the close of his lengthened career, I know. * The following is borrowed from Mr. Orbj Shipley's recent able pamphlet — " Ought we to Obey the New Court ? " " At the first vacancy in the Court of Arches the new Judge becomes ex officio its official principal. Every cause, there- fore, which would have come before the legitimate Dean of Arches will now come, either in the first instance, or in appeal, before the new Judge created by Act of Parliament. This is true, whether a clergyman be prosecuted under the provisions of the New Act of 1874, or of the old Church Discipline Act ; and is unafiected by the Judicature Act, or by the renewed vitality infused into the Judicial Com- mittee of the Privy Council." — P. 2. London : Pickering, 1875. \ 162 MEMOBIALS OF And it was known to others likewise. Many of his earnest remarks and forcible criticisms — summed up in a few epigrammatic and telling sentences to intimate friends, and sometimes to mere acquaintances — gave them food for thought and reflection for days. As public occurrences took place he applied the true and unchangeable Christian principles in which he so devoutly and enthusiastically beheved to the events and necessities of the present time. Thus especially was it on the topic under consideration. As the Standard wrote of Mr. Hawker, obtaining its information from Mr. Christopher A. Harris, of Exeter: — "In allusion to the Public Worship Regulation Act, Mr. Hawker said emphatically, and with calm determination, that if at the expiration of the year 1875 * the pernicious measure ' came into operation, with- out further interference, he should take his stand at once, and sever himself from a Church which had * neither authority noE doctrine.* * I will never consent to have my competency as a THE LATE EEV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 163 Minister of Christ called in question, or judged by a barrister of six years' standing, without reference to episcopal or archi-episcopal jurisdic- tion — little as I value that State Church which would make Dr. Temple a Bishop. I will fight them here on the altar of my God.' I expected that he would, by his High Church ceremojiies, and especially by his sermons that were most dogmatic and denunciatory of the Evangehcal doctrines now paramount in the Church, chal- lenge the * barrister of six years' standing,' and defend himself in the Court before which he was cited. I am certain that such was his intention ; that is to say, it was the immediate consequence which I deduced from his intimate conversation; and I might almost go further, and say that he intended that that should be the interpretation of the remarks he made. It is my impression, almost amounting to a cer- tainty, that, had his health permitted, he would not have joined the Church of Rome until he had first done battle with Dr. Temple."^ • Standard, August 28, 1875. — I, too, am positively con- M 2 164 MEMORIALS OF Furthermore, it should have been put on record that Mr. Hawker looked upon this unhappy and unjust measure — a measure which has effected a complete and total revolution — as a direct and distinct breach of faith on the part of the State — a breach of faith arranged by our Fathers in God the Bishops, and effected by Parliament.^ And he reasoned thus: — " Those of the clergy who were ordained in bygone years were ordained on certain specific conditions. For from them particular and explicit demands were made both as regards personal pledges as to belief and opinion, and due and reasonable safeguards against theolo- vinced that this was Mr. Hawker's distinct intentiou, and, under other circumstances, would have been his public policy.— F. G. L. • The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, preaching recently (October, 1875), spoke as follows. His Eminence's words are worthy of the careful consideration of all our Bishops: — ** The English Church which remains established by law, and endowed with property, is so divided and sub- divided by the internal conflicts of religious belief, that but (he other day it was necessary to invoke an Act of Parlia- ment to determine their conflicts — nay more — to settle how Almighty God is to be worshipped." THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 165 * gical error; while, on the part of the State, and in return, certain civil advantages and proper protection were practically promised, and various definite civil and religious rights and privileges formally bestowed. One was the priest's old and unquestioned right imder accusation and article to be judged, in the first instance, by the Bishop of the diocese, within the limits of the same, in accordance with the ancient Canons ; and with an appeal to the Provincial Court. To the Bishop canonical obedience — i. e. obedience in accordance with the Canons — was solemnly promised by the subject of ordination ; while the Bishop, on his part, was to do justice and to give judgment according to ancient Church law and recognized custom. And these mutual arrangements were not only of the nature of a contract, but made up a contract, obvious, equable, mutually bind- ing, and not to be determined without the formal consent of both parties to it. And yet, what has been done? Might has triumphed over Right, to the certain loss and eventual 166 MEMORIALS OF degradation of the whole clergy of England. One man is forced to taste the bitter dregs of the Erastian chalice to-day ; another to swallow its drastic dregs to-morrow." Here, of course, a very practical, legal and moral question at once comes up for considera- tion: — If one party to a contract forcibly breaks it, altering its conditions, and to all intents and purposes destroying its equity and validity, is the other party to it still bound by its original terms ? Many, no doubt, amongst the beneficed clergy will sooner or later put this question to their own consciences; and some may answer that, being a contract which no longer exists as of old, its new and altered terms are by consequence binding neither in morals nor in law/ Such a conviction and conclusion is surely reasonable, logical, and just. He cannot be ^ If justice had been done the new enactment should onlj have affected those instituted to benefices after the passing oj the Acty not those ah'eadj occupying an assured and hitherto protected position. THE LATE EEV. R. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 167 morally condemned who, in self-defence, takes up such a position. That there are dangers to be apprehended from the adoption of another policy — the policy of secession — ^is likewise apparent. It must, however, be admitted, as Mr. Hawker observed, that the threats of certain of the High Church leaders have ' long ago been too accurately appraised. Their language is often more vigorous and appaUing than their actions. At the time of the Gorham case, for example, hundreds threatened secession and what not ; but, with the exception of a limited few, all the rest subsided and settled down again, after their superabundant steam had been wisely turned off. And so it was on other great and more recent occasions of dispute ; and so, no doubt, it will be. If the Pubhc Worship Regulation Bill be tamely submitted to, a non-Christian Parliament may carry anything it chooses to decree ; for the only result will be the lofty talk and unimposing plati- tudes of the English Church Union ; a few me- lancholy and illogical speeches ; some grandiose 168 MEMORIALS OF protests ; and then, in a few weeks, every' theoretical confessor will duly sink down into superfine calmness, and we shall all go on again nobly doing our noble duty as if nothing remarkable had happened, or was ever likely to happen. The Church of Rome in England, however, stands forward to challenge the National Church on many points ; on jurisdiction. Church autho- rity and orders. Though some refuse to look at it, their act of closing their eyes or averting their gaze does not either efface its existence or blunt its controversial shafts. On all sides the glove is being thrown down ; and it is intellectually impossible that the utterly new basis, which has just been set out and planned by the Archbishop of Canterbury and his coadjutors, can long uphold the structural weight violently placed upon it by Parliament. The Anglo-Roman communion in England may be small, but it is certainly not uninfluential. The newspapers are full of its doings, and the sayings of its chief Bishops are carefully THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 169 chronicled ; and without a doubt its presence is being increasingly felt/ Moreover, it has for • We {Morning Post) fear that the boast which a Roman Catholic divine recently made with regard to secessions to Rome is not altogether without solid foundation. A well* informed correspondent, professing to supply us with facts and figures, provides the following list of thirty recent seceders. It certainly deserves consideration by our rulers, both in Church and State : — The Rev. W. M. Hunnybuu, M.A., and the Rev. Verney Cave- Brown-Cave, M.A., both of All Saints', Margaret-street; the Rev. J. R. Madan, M.A., President of the Missionary College, Warminster; the Rev. G. R. Burrows, B.A., of Liverpool ; the Rev. Alfred Newdigate, M.A., Vicar of Kirk Hallam, Derby, sometime Curate to Dean Bickersteth ; the Rev. Willis Nevins, of Southampton; the Rev. H. J. Pye, Rector of Cliffcon-Camp- ville; the Rev. George B. Yard, M.A. (brother of Canon Yard, just elected Proctor in Convocation) ; the Rev. John Higgins, B.A., Curate to Prebendary Clarke of Taunton; the Rev. Septimus Andrews, M.A., student of Christ Church and Vicar of Market Harborough; the Rev. C. H. Moore, M.A., student of Christ Church; W. M. Adams, B.A., Fellow of New College; Rev. W. C. Robinson, M.A., also Fellow of New College, Oxford; the Rev. F. Bown, and F. M. Wyndham, of St. George's East; the Rev. George Akers, of Mailing, Kent; the Rev. Gordon Thomp- son, of Christ Church, Albany-street; C. Moncrieff Smith, of Cheltenham; the Rev. Reginald Tuke, of St. Mary's, Soho; the Rev. W. Tylee, of Oriel College; the Very Rev. Dr. Fortescue (brother-in-law of Archbishop Tait); the Rev. W. Humphrey, of Dundee; the Rev. T. H. Grantham, 170 MEMORIALS OF its chief Pastor a prelate of singular gifts, high principle and unquestioned consistency ; it numbers amongst its priests the greatest and most intellectual Englishman of the age — Dr. Newman; and the words and works of its leaders, in other ways, fill the public eye. With us the feeblest men are frequently put into the highest command; while the actual leaders in the National Church — those who mould thought and guide their fellow-men — are placed neither in decanal stall nor on the episcopal throne — an arrangement of forces as detrimental to success in unity of work as it is dangerous in itself, and certainly very unlike the policy of those who dispose their men and of Slinfold; the Rev. Lord Francis G. G. Osborne, Rector of Elm; the Rev. Caithness Brodie, B.A. (sometime Curate of St. Stephen's, South Kensington); the Rev. J. C, F. Pope, M.A.; the Rev. Alfred Faukes, M.A., Balliol College, Curate of St Bartholomew's, Brighton; Rev. E. Trovelyaii Smith, M.A., Vicar of Cannock, Staffordshire; Rev. Wil- liam Goldstone, M.A., St. Michael's, Wakefield; Rev. R. T. Webb, M.A., Rector of Hambleton; and the Rev. H. Jones, B.A., Christ Church, Curate to Archdeacon Thorpe, of Kemerton. THE LATE REV. E. S. IIAWKEK, M.A. 171 govern in the Church of Eome. Moreover, the voices of the true leaders of ecclesiastical thought are louder, and their suggestions are sometimes less coherent than they might be, if those who owned them possessed the responsibility and discipline of place and position. It was not strange, therefore, that at this crisis, and at this time. May, 1875, Mr. Hawker's thoughts turned towards the Church of Rome. Whither else could he turn? Great men, dissatisfied with the triumph of the Temporal over the Spiritual in the English Communion, had before this shaken off the dust from their feet, and with alternations of sadness and hope had turned thither. Who that read them can forget the touching and sorrowful words ^ with which the late Arch- • "If these pages should find their way into any fair parsonage, where everything within and without speaks of comfort and peace, where sympathizing neighbours pre- sent an object to the affections, and the bell from an adjoin- ing ancient tower invites the inmates morning and evening to consecrate each successive day to God's service ; and, if the reader's thoughts suggest to him that it is impossible to unloose ties so binding, or to transplant himself from his 172 MEMORIALS OF deacon Wilberforce brought the Preface of his remarkable book, " An Inquiry into the Prin- ciples of Church Authority" to a close? What reader has been other than touched to the heart's core by the powerful " Apologia '* of the great and venerated Dr. Newman ? That Mr. Hawker contemplated the possibility of having to leave the Church of England is evident from the tone of the beautiful verses which, though almost a stranger to His Eminence, he ad- dressed to Cardinal Manning on his elevation to the purple. The cord which bound him to the National Church must then have been worn to a very slight proportion, and have become somewhat attenuated, ere he could have penned the following : — " Shout, happy England, for the sceptred Hand, The rod of Aaron 'mid the barren stems ; The Throne of Rock amid a quivering land, The brow to sway a thousand diadems ! ancient seat, when he is too old to take root in a new soil, let him be assured that such also have been the thoughts and feelings of the writer. And more painful still is the consciousness that such a step must rend their hearts and THE LATE REV. R. S. UAWKER, M.A. 173 " A Prince shall reign from the Great Gregory's line ; A Prelate wield Augustine's mightj name ; They live and breathe again, as though their shrine Gave back the buried Saints to life and fame." Expediency, which, in the National Com- :tnunion, rules so many, and Compromise which governs so many more, are poor substitutes for Principle, of whatever sort it may be. Now Principle, whether good or bad,^ is sure in the long-run to win the day. Bad principles, held so firmly by those who own them, have already brought about the disastrous abolition of Church Bates, the presence of the Divorce Court, the reports of' which sully the news- cloud the prospects of those who are as dear to men as their own souls." — Preface, p. ix. ' It is a remarkable sign of the times, (and worthy of careful notice, if our Church leaders noticed anything, which apparently they do not,) that a Conservative Govern- ment, with a majority of seventy in the House of Commons, is at the present time (1875) reported to be preparing to pass the Burials Bill, by which our churchyards are to be open to Dissenters' services. Of course, the churches will fall into the same position in a short time. For churchyard and church stand on an exactly similar footing. Let one go, and how can the other be retained ? 174 MEMORIALS OF papers and taint the land, the disastrous secularizatiod of our old Christian Universities, and that last certain curse — Parish Schools for the lower classes, from which God is deli- berately and completely banished. And a punishment for these, and such as these (if there be a righteous Judge, a God, and Chris- tianity be true), will be sure, swift, and sudden for our afflicted nation. Whether such a putiishment may not be hastened by the adoption of a new legislative principle for the clergy, borrowed from Germany, remains to be learnt by experience, either by ourselves, our children, or our children's children. The gospel of "Modem Thought " — as few can fail to note — tells men that the " law " is the public conscience, or in other words. Public Opinion ; and that the Judges, who are public servants, should never at any cost disregard its transitory and changing opinions, let the con- sequences be what they may. An appeal to the individual Christian conscience is at once characterized as an antiquated and absurd THE LATE EEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 175 mental operation. Thus the greatest danger for true Liberty — which a few reflecting persons who think for themselves beheve to be surely passing away from our national grasp — is the idea of attributing an absolute power and the highest authority to the State ; that is, to the representatives of a fluctuating majority. This is the wearisome burden of Archbishop Tait's laboured exhortations to the English Clergy. But such a doctrine plainly deviates from Christianity, because its adherents recognize no higher will, no divine order, on which the mutual alliance with Churchmen to the State ought to be founded. That which God the Trinity, in His highest perfections, is to the Churchman, such is the Non-Christian or Infidel State to the excogitators of " modem thought." With these latter the question may be put — what is " the law " ? Its response stands thus : — " The decision of certain politicians or their nominees, who have accidentally gained a temporary majority and a position of power, but whose opinions in private life would never 176 MKMOEULS OF have been refuted, for the simple and obvious reason that they never would have been thought worthy of notice." Before this so-called " law/' the " worshippers of Progress " and the Eras- tians bow down ; until in a few months ; or, at longest, in the revolutions of a few years, it is replaced by another political majority, and a fresh batch of authorities who are elevated, it may be, in order to set forth something ob- viously contradictory, itself equally " law " with that which is seen to be its direct antithesis. Mr. Hawker felt all this, and, from time to time, expressed it openly and fully to several friends. " It troubles me night and day," he wrote to an old Oxford ally ; " for the whole position seems to have shiftied, and to be changed. Where, and how, will the Bishops get men of position, independence, and cha- racter to become God's stewards ? — God's stewards indeed ! — Theological-college men, from St. Aidan's, and St. Bees', and Lampeter are all that they can look for; learned and honest men will go elsewhere." THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 177 • I may here put on record that in the latter part of the year 1864, Mr. Hawker had married PauUne Ann, only daughter of Vincent Francis Kuczynski,* a Polish nobleman (by Mary Newton, his wife, an Bnghsh lady), to whom the Vicar had been introduced by the Rev. William Valentine, Vicar of Whixley, in York- shire (who owned a residence in the parish of Morwenstow, and often abode there), and with whom Miss Kuczynski resided. It has heen said that this accomplished lady and most devoted wife, was a Eoman Catholic at the period of her marriage ; but the statement is altogether incorrect. She was evidently a Pro- testant member of the Established Church ; and nothing more. "When I was married," she kindly writes to me, " I was as ignorant of the ' I am indebted to Mrs. Hawker for the following genea- logical note : — "Vincent Kuczynski was born of noble parents, Paul and Josephine (born Karczewska), on the 6th of April, 1807, in Nieswiz, Government of Grodno, circle of Norvo- grod. Up to the twenty-third year of his age he resided^ in Wilno, where he also received his education/' N 178 MEMORIALS OF great truths of the Catholic Faith as a child un- bom/' What she learned her husband taught her. By this marriage Mr. Hawker had three children, 1, Morwenna Pauline; 2, Rosalind; and, 3, Juliot. Of herself and them Mrs. Hawker wrote to me quite recently, on October 21, 1875 :— " On the Feast of All Saints, I hope with my children to return in verity to the Faith of my forefathers in Poland. My little daughters — our little daughters — ^have no his- tories at present, except in their names. "1, Morwenna — you know her story, and how my husband brought back her memory to the Station at the Tamar Source. 2, Eosalind, bom within the octave of St. Eosa di Lima. 3, Juliot, after a Cornish Saint, whose Church and Station are near Boscastle. I have only this ambition for them — that they may grow up (God willing) good Catholics, and do what they can to spread the Faith in this tardy and deso- late Western Land ; the last to leave their faith I have heard, and the last to return.' Also * On a lofty rock near Bude Haven, there stood of old a THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 179 may they * breathe 'mid future hearts their father's nam© 1'" For myself, and of my own knowledge, I may say that the deep and earnest interest which Mr. Hawker took in the subject of the vaUdity of our ordinations, so lately as last year ; the keen anxiety he felt and expressed when the fact of Archbishop Tait's baptism was publicly questioned, and never adequately settled;* the earnest wish he held to see the old church of his deeply-loved parish restored by some competent architect, and his endea- vours, though with failing physical powers, to make a beginning — all prove to myself, that however much his faith both in the theoretical chapel, dedicated to Almighty God, in honour of the Arch angel St. Michael ; and it is traditionally maintained that Mass, according to the Salisbury Use, was celebrated there last of all the churches in England — possibly late into the reign of King Charles I. There are one or two churches, however, one in Berkshire (if I am not misinformed), and another at Stonor Park, Oxfordshire, the seat of Lord Camoys, where Mass is reported to have been said without any break for generations. * SeQ Appendix No. II. 180 MEMORIALS OF and practical position of the National Church may have been shaken by the recent policy of Parliament, at the express request of our epis- copal rulers ; yet that he still undoubtedly re- mained a member of the Church of England, and was not so completely and conscientiously con- vinced that it was a purely human institution, as to have deserted it for any other communion. In so momentous a change, no one should act in haste, nor without patience or due considera- tion. Yet no one can be harshly judged for dwelling upon the Church of England's present dangers, or for being painfuUy anxious as to its immediate future. If all who are " feeble and sore-smitten " because of the recent revolutionary proceedings of the Episcopal bench — not, be it noted, originated by statesmen, but pressed upon their unwilling consideration by timid and unstatesmanlike bishops, who weakly con- fessed themselves unable to govern their clergy * * That such was the impression made upon many, is evi- dent from the following statement of Mr. John Bright^ M.P. :— THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 181 — ^are to be characterized as "blasphemous rogues and scoundrels," — the choice language used in reference to Mr. Hawker by a Eadical Church newspaper, such will have to be applied to a very large and not decreasing class. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding this, that Mr. Hawker's religious convictions were seri- ously and considerably altered in his latter years is a matter of certainty, and not in the least degree a subject for dispute. He unquestion- "Men, who knowing very little of Dissenting Ministers, saj that, in opposition to Dissenting Ministers, the Clergy- men of the Church of England are gentlemen. They declare that they are the sons of gentlemen ; that they have been educated at our great universities ; that there they have been accustomed to associate with the great wealth and high blood of the Peerage ; and they point out to us, as we know, that they are set over us by the State, as instructors in religion and morality. And yet their own friends, their own chiefs. Archbishops and Bishops, tell us in language that cannot possibly be misunderstood, and blazon it forth to the public, through the House of Lords, that their con- duct is so lawless, — they are such dangerous transgressors of the law, — that it is absolutely necessary (as in the case of publicans, garotters, and maniacs), to have special legislation to keep them in order." — Mr.Bright's Speech at Birmingham, in the autumn of 1874, copied from the local Gazette. 182 MEMOEIALS OP ably lost heart in the Church of England, and took only decreasing interest in her services. There is no shadow of doubt on the point, and perhaps the Vicar of Morwenstow may have been anything but singular in his change. Others have had change unwillingly forced upon them by the blundering, purblind policy of those riding rough-shod over us who wield for awhile, without let or hindrance, the power to alter, upheave, and rudely destroy. The various powerful and telling blows which the Esta- blished Church has received, since the rise of the Oxford movement, from the Law Courts and their judgments, have shaken the faith of thousands, and sent himdreds of our most devoted, learned, and self-sacrificing clergy, and thousands of our laity, to the ranks of the Church of Rome.® " Such assertions are yerj distasteful and disagreeable to many, but their sting lies in their truth. Some recent con- troversies with Roman Catholics, as I chance to know, are not altogether to the credit of our Church-of- England de- fenders, and, in the long run, become rather a hindrance than a help, — for they frequently cause secession. There is scarcely a family in England, amongst the aristocracy and THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 183 Moreover, amongst lay-people, these contra- dictory and unjust judgments have compelled them still more, by the elementary natural law of self-preservation, to reconsider the tenability of their new ecclesiastical position, and either to obtain, or contemplate as possible, personal intercommunion with the Apostolic See. The Bishops of the Established Church, even where, as in Bishop JJUicott's case, they do not directly and openly recommend secession to Eome, are, by their support of Dr. Tait's policy, surely assisting to put before Englishmen the severe alternative of " Infallibility or Infidelity." These thoughts and considerations, and such as these, troubled Mr. Hawker sorely. But, from my own knowledge, I do not believe that he altogether lost hope, until the final passing of the Public Worship Regulation Bill. That, I feel confident, was to him the last straw which broke the camel's back. The changes effected by it were, in all their naked ugliness, before gentry, in which one or more converts to the Church of Eome may not be reckoned up. 184 MEMOEIALS OF him, as I know, night and day ; and constantly- harassing a delicate and sensitive conscience, helped eflficiently to further weaken an already weakened frame. The end was drawing nigh. Want of sym- pathy, isolation; a perusal of undigested statements resulting from a prolonged inquiry into the character and motives of the "Reformers," entirely overthrowing ordinary and old-fashioned Anglican traditions, came upon him like a shock ; while doubts about the validity of our English Ordinations, coupled with the discussion which arose concerning the validity of Archbishop Tait's baptism, added efficiently to his difficulties. Moreover, he saw, or thought he saw, in the future the certain triumph of an already too-triumphant and ever- encroaching Erastianism, disestablishment, dis- endowment, disruption, and confusion. And so his soul was low. In his expressive and beautiful poem " The Token Stream of Tidna-Combe," there seems to run an under-current of thought indicating such THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 185 a change as that which was sealed at the last. Picturesque and graphic as are the verbal dehneations of the " source of gentle waters, mute and mild," yet the interwoven record of hopes and fears, like straws on the surface of the current, or blossoms fallen and faded from overhanging flowers, strikes the eye, and smites the heart. The poem— stately, sweet, and melancholy — thus concludes : — Come, then, sad river, let our footsteps blend Onward, by silent bank, and nameless stone : Our years began alike, so let them end, — We live with many men, we die alone. Why dost thou slowly wind and sadly turn, As loth to leave e'en this most joyless shore ? Doth thy heart fail thee ? do thy waters yearn For the far fields of Memory once more ? Ah me ! my soul, and thou art treacherous too, Link'd to this fatal flesh, a fetter'd thrall : The sin, the sorrow, why should'st thou renew ? The past, the perish'd, vain and idle all ! Away ! behold at last the torrent leap, Glad, glad to mingle with yon foamy brine ; Free and unmoum'd, the cataract cleaves the steep — O river of the rocks, thy fate is mine I 186 MEMOBIALS OF Of his latter hours, which came so unex- pectedly, I know nothing but what has been 3ourteously and kindly vouchsafed to me by his relations and friends. So much as is needful to set forth facts is here set forth in the exact words of others. I am unable to determine many points and questions which have been raised. What is now put on record must be left to the judgment and consideration of the reader, — ^facts and probabilities being each duly considered. Mr. Claude Hawker wrote to me thus con- cerning his brother, on September 11, 1875 :— "He came down from Morwenna to see me [early in August]. I was then ill in bed at Penally, Boscastle. He was himself very ill, and I saw that he was death-struck. I advised him to go home. He promised to do so, but his wife induced him to go by way of Plymouth. He never intended to go that way, but to go home and die, and be buried in the Saxon shrine he loved so well and long." An account of his last illness at Plymouth, just referred to, will now be given from the pen THE LATE EEV. B. 8. HAWKEE, M.A. 187 of a lady who 'was educating his children ; and who, accompanying Mr. and Mrs. Hawker thither at the period referred to, witnessed his last sufferings and death : — " I did not think seriously of him before we left Morwenstow, but felt that he wanted a change and rest, and hoped we should soon see him much better again After we got to Plymouth he was more quiet. I could then see that he was really ill. He was much less dis- tressed in mind, and I from the first thought it owing to the fact that he was so near to the goal where he would be. At times his breathing was most painful, but his distress after dinner was alleviated in a great measure by the doctor. He also slept better. On the whole he seemed better than when we went to Plymouth. When we were about to leave, we were all packed on the Monday (i. e. August 9th, 1876,) ready to start on the Tuesday, when we were stopped at about seven in the evening. We then hoped that we might leave in a few days; but the doctor said that Mr. Hawker would never leave . 188 MEMORIALS OF Pljrmouth again. He did not seem mucli worse, but Mr. Square said that one of the arteries of the left arm with the pulse had stopped. On the Wednesday for some hours he had great difficulty in speaking, though at the worst time, when Mr. and Mrs. James were in the house, and I went to stay with him while Mrs. Hawker was with them, he expressed his desire that I would help nurse him. This of course I did, and stayed up until about twelve o'clock that night. On Thursday his pulse was weaker, and Mrs. Hawker then sent for John Olde (his ^man-servant) ' as we found it very difficult, as he got weaker, to move him. . . . On Friday John came. Mr. Hawker expressed his joy at seeing him, and thanked him in his own words. On that same evening he had a visit from young Dr. Square, knew him perfectly, and talked to him. That night I went to bed at about twelve o*clock, and slept until about six in the morn- ing. I saw and stayed with him for some time; ^ See the letter to myself, which stands as a note to thiB ehapter, from the Rev. J. C. D. Yule. THE liATE BEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 189 he was quite conscious ; knew everything and each of us who attended to him. On the Saturday morning I was present when he was told that Canon Mansfield (one of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Cathedral) was coming that evening to receive him into the Church.* I shall never forget the scene. He looked so peaceful, and was so fiiU of thankfulness, ' Those who blame Mr. Hawker for having delayed his change until the eleventh hour, should be reminded that it was his plain duty not to make any change at all, unless he was perfectly and completely convinced, without any re- maining doubt, of its absolute necessity. God Almighty had placed him in a particular official position, and he was bound to remain there as long as he conscientiously could do so. Perhaps when he approached the Valley of the Shadow of Death his spiritual vision grew keener. The late Archdeacon Wilberforce took much time to consider his own difficulties, and wrote thus in 1854 : — " The prepara- tion of the present volume [* On Church Authority '] has brought to a head difficulties, by which I have been per- plexed for four years. Some may think me dilatory, and others hasty ; but the mind, like the body, has its time of crisis, which is not altogether in our own power to regulate. Those who know what it is to break through the associa- tions of nearly half a century, will not wonder at my ex- periencing that which Cicero speaks of in a less arduous case — Quam difficile est sensum in repuhlicd deponere,^ 190 MEMORIALS 01* released from the burden which I had so often heard him say was greater than he could bear. .... Just before eight a.m. (on Sunday morn- ing, August 15,) he sat up on the side of the bed, and took a cup of tea with bread and butter dipped into it. We then laid him back comfortably, and he passed away most peacefully at twenty minutes past eight a.m." Mrs. Hawker herself, in a letter to the Rev. C. T. Comber, the Curate in charge of Morwen- stow, gives further interesting particulars as follows : — " Until I could see Mr. Rowe [of Stratton, the family attorney,] and tell him what I must now tell you, I thought it best that my farther news should not reach Morwenstow. " It will, I am aware, shock and pain you more than the announcement of Mr. Hawker's death. " For, I suppose, thirty years at least, my dear husband has been at heart a Roman Catholic' No one converted him, as no human ' This might he a popular, hut not an exact impression of Mr. Hawker's religious convictions. No douht he was a Catholic ; hut that he was a Roman Catholic is simply THE LATE BEV. R. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 191 being influenced him in the smallest degree. He quietly, during the first years of his having Morwenstow, read himself into his convictions, and embraced all the tenets of the Roman Catholic faith, and his heart yearned for com- munion with them ; but he looked around and he saw a wife many years his senior, not hold- ing what he held, and dependent upon him for a hearth and home. He saw also great complication of monetary trouble, insurances made in earlier days, which, in honour to his creditors, must be kept [up], so he bowed himself to the will of God; and those who thought that Morwenstow with its fair acres of land was a joy and delight to him little knew how they hung like a millstone round his neck. But he set his back to the burden, and said, * I will consider the poor and needy, and him that impossible. Had he been a Roman Catholic he could not have remained at Morwenstow, nor would he have been received into that communion on his death-bed. The very fact that he joined that Church in extremis proves that until that act he was certainly and assuredly not a member of it. 192 MEMORIALS OF hath no helper, and I will teach them in all simplicity the truths of the gospel. Then shall the Lord say, "Inasmuch as ye did it imto one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me." ' When they hungered he fed them; when they thirsted he gave them drink. Yea, the half of his goods he gave to the poor. With his charity, then, and kindliness, with God in it, let the people remember him. " You must have guessed what is the sequel to all this. On Saturday night, twelve hours before his death, he was received into the Catholic Church, and the last rites and cere- monies of that communion were administered to him by Canon Mansfield. His reason returned at the moment when, in the morning, I told him [that] a priest should see him in the evening. He broke forth into the jubilant antiphon, the Gloria in excelsis^ Te Deum^ and other canticles of praise. " His devotion to our Blessed Lady was the feature of his life, and I have not in my own mind the slightest doubt [but] that she obtained THE LATE BEV. B. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 193 for him the grace to die on the feast of her own assumption into heaven. It was most distinctly put into my mind that he would do so, and as early as Thursday morning I told Miss Savage that he would die on Sunday. There are many more things equally remarkable about his death : one was that he expired the very moment when Our Lady's Mass at the Cathedral here was concluded. " His body will rest to-night in the Cathedral, in accordance with a remark made by my dear husband the first Sunday evening after attend- ing the Benediction Service, * How much I should hke to pass a night in that Cathedral!' A Requiem Mass will be sung at ten, and at half- past eleven the interment will take place in the Plymouth Cemetery. " I feel it my duty to inform you of times and places. At the same time, naturally, you are relieved from the necessity of attending the funeral. Should you have no scruples in doing so, there will still be time. ... I hope to be at the Vicarage on Saturday night." / 194 MEMOBIALS OF The body of the deceased clergyman was, as report says, dressed in cassock, surplice, and stole, and placed in the coffin of oak with a plain cross on the lid, upon which the following inscription was engraved : — ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER, FOR 41 TEARS ViCAR OP MORWENSTOW, WHO DIED m THE CaTHOLIC FaITH, ON THE Feast op the Assumption op Our Blessed Ladt, 1876, AGED 71. Requiescat in pace. After the ancient and consolatory services of the Roman Catholic Church had been duly celebrated in the presence of a considerable congregation — services which relate mainly to the departed, and not (like our own) merely to the survivors, the body was taken in a hearse to the Pljrmouth Cemetery for interment. * ^ Some may have reasonably desired his burial in God's acre of his dearly- loved Morwenstow : but, as the mother of his children was to make her future home at Plymouth, who could say " nay " to her having his remains near her ? Moreover, the cord which had bound him to Morwenstow for THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 195 T wocarriages followed, containing Mrs. Hawker, her three children, and others. The mourners were dressed, not in black, but in dark purple and violet, — for, as has been before remarked, Mr. Hawker greatly disliked black, — and the undertaker's attendants wore violet gloves. Many spectators, not a few in tears, were gathered round the grave. Prayer for mercy and everlasting rest in the land of light and the living, ascended upward to the throne of the Eternal ; and many a soft and sincere " Amen " was whispered by the by-standers, when, with care and solemnity, all that was mortal of a loved and venerated man was left in that sleep- ing-field to await his Master's coming. If earth be a place of sorrows and separations — as it merely is, so that to some shadows seem to be realities, and reaHties appear to be but shadows — ^may the grave and gate of death become to all of us the bright morning of a so long had been snapped ; and, had he lived, Morwenstow must, by consequence, from his new standing-point have seemed a spiritual desolation and a desert. 2 196 MEMORIALS OP peace which endures, and of an union which cannot be marred or broken, in a blessed day of blissful immortality 1 The Eev. William Valentine, M.A. Oxon, Vicar of Whixley, Yorkshire — a clergyman who, as I have already stated, resided occasionally at Morwenstow, and who first introduced Mr. Hawker to the lady who was to become his fiiture wife, witote as follows, on September 22, 1875 :— " As for his having been a Papist at heart for so many years, I have told Pauline [i. e. Mrs. Hawker] I never will believe it. If so, why had he not taken his departure to Rome when his [first] wife died ? There was nothing then to prevent his going. But I never heard a word of such intention. Again and again he used to say, * Whatever could have brought you into this place? God sent you here to bury me.' And he told me where to bury him. The letter you have so kindly forwarded me to read, the one to Mr. Comber, evidently proves whom we have to thank for this most unhappy ending.** THE LATE BEY. B. S. HAWEEB, M.A. 197 Another letter from this same clergyman to myself, in answer to certain inquiries, I took the liberty of making from him, must also appear, for it contains a deliberate opinion of a friend and neighbour. It was written in October, and stands thus : — "The verses you inquire about* were ad- dressed respectively to our daughters on their birthday, and written by the dear old Vicar of Morwenstow whilst we were residing there. In 1863 I purchased a small property in his parish, connected with the old * Chapel-house ' mentioned in Canon Kingsley's *Westward- Ho,' and situated about a mile and a half from the Vicarage. Thus it was that I first made Mr. Hawker's acquaintance, and I can indeed say that we fraternized at once. From Sep- tember in that year to the following May, when I returned alone for a few months to Whixley, •"To Eva Valentine, on her sixth birthday, May 16, 1 864," and " To Matilda Valentine on her birthday, July 17, 1864."— "Cornish Ballads, and other Poems," pp. 164 — 166. London : Parker aud Co., 1869. 198 MEMORIALS OF we were in the habit of riding or driving about together ahnost daily, and our acquaintance soon gave place to the closest intimacy, which deepened into an abiding friendship and won- derful love, which ceased only with his conscious moments. His unceasing kindness all this time to my wife and family were daily occurrences. During those months he and I invariably spent oiu* long evenings together either at the Vicar- age or Chapel-house ; £|<nd there was scarcely an event in his life which he did not then and there recount to me. At j&rst I heard little else than allusions to his recently-deceased wife ; and his groanings about ^ Charlotte ' were at times most lamentable. Then came the oft-repeated expression of his firm persua- sion that God had sent me to Morwenstow to bury him ; and the place where he wished to be laid was duly pointed out to me, and 'the sub- ject again and again reverted to in after-years. But when the first weeks of our acquaintance were over he recovered somewhat his spirits, and soon became, and continued to be, a most THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 199 delightful and enchantingly-entertaining com- panion and story-teller. "I know well what his religious thoughts were then, and I feel sure they were strictly within the teaching of our branch of the Catho- lic Church ; and not one of his letters nor any of the subsequent conversations I have had with him, in spite of aU his playful expressions, have ever led mp to think difEerently. " And, therefore, when you ask me to throw a light on his latest change, all I can reply is that, really and truly I have yet to learn that he ever did change." I have written enough to have sketched feebly but faithfiilly (too feebly, I know, but faithfully I believe), the character of my deceased friend. A gentleman and a priest, a scholar and a poet ; with great personal attrac- tions, considerable theological and literary powers, and giffced with high poetical qualities, he made his sure mark upon those amongst whom he dwelt, as well as on the general public and those who knew him well and 200 MEMORIALS OF intimately. His convictions were as deep as lus principles were true; and he was never ashamed of either. Outspoken and brave in his utterances, brilliant and sometimes sarcastic in his conversation, he was ever leal and tender in friendship, and noble both in his thoughts and actions. A j&rm believer in Historical Christianity, he was somewhat im- patient of the Uterary prigs and . inquiring critics of these lifter shallow times. Long may his memory Uve in his own native Cornwall, as a man of sound principle and singular ability ; whose learning, charity, kind- liness of heart, and generosity of sentiment are known and treasured by not a few ! And now, having little more to say, I pre- pare to lay down my pen. As regards Mr. Hawker's reception into the Roman Catholic Church . on his death-bed, none can know any- thing but those who were with him, and his wife nearest to him. She, doubtless, knew most accurately his wishes, and the inmost desires of his heart. For myself, of course, I THE LATE fiEV. E. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 201 have written only of what I know. As I have already said in public, though no one more deeply laments it. I am not surprised at his change; and in the previous pages of these Memorials, reasons for my conviction are, here and there, abundantly set forth. They may not satisfy all — they cannot satisfy the anony- mous writers, some calling themselves his "friends," who have so harshly and cruelly maligned his memory; but if they serve the two-fold purpose I have had in setting them forth — j&rst to do justice to a venerated priest, who, having been called home, cannot now speak for himself; and secondly to warn our ecclesias- tical rulers how dangerous is their policy which has made a non-Christian Parliament, repre- senting Public Opinion, and a Lay-Judge created for the purpose, the interpreter for the National Chur-ch, of the Will, the Revelation, and the mode of worship of Almighty God, — I shall be convinced and satisfied that my labour of love will not have been altogether in vain. 202 MEMORIALS OF I print the following letter, for whicli I am obliged to its writer, just as it reached me — leaving it to tell its own story : — " Bradford Bectory, North Devon, " 7th October, 1875. " Sir, — Having read in the Standard a report of yonr Address to your congregation, on Sunday last, on the death of the Rev. R. S. Hawker, with whom I was many years on terms of friendship, it has occiin*ed to me that some local information respecting the last act of his life, which has furnished the lamentahle occasion of so much disputa- tion, may not be unacceptable to you. ^^ I may premise that having frequently visited him at his hospitable vicarage, and met him at our annual Visitations, when we always conversed together on professional topics, I believe I knew him sufficiently well to be able to express with some confidence the opinion that, though entertaining what we termed very High Church views, and from his very nature devoted to Symbolism, he yet regarded the Church of Rome not as the mother entitled to our obedience, but as a sister^ with whom we should cultivate kindly and Christian offices. '' I think this, which will help to explain much that has been said and written to his prejudice, will be confirmed by what was told me by a very respectable and intelligent yeoman, Mr. Hawker's nearest neighbour and church- warden, whom I met a short time ago in our local market. " Our conversation naturally turned upon his late Vicar. * I am disgusted,' he said, ' with the rubbish that is circu- lated through the country about him ; I am sure there is scarcely a word of truth in it. I have been Mr. Hawker's churchwarden a good many years, and knew him perhaps THE LATE EEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 203 better than most people ; for our farms adjoined, and we used to meet generally three or four times a week, and always had some talk together, and very often about church matters ; and therefore I believe that what is said about his becoming a Roman Catholic is false, I have often heard him express himself in this way: — " Our Church is derived from a pure British source, and though its stream was fouled by the dirt of Rome, it has become cleansed and purified again, and is the same Church as at the first." ' '' Speaking of his alleged conversion to, and reception into the Romish Church, he said, ' I had some conversation the other day with Mr. Hawker's man-servant, who had long been his familiar and confidential attendant, and was with him at Plymouth at the time of his death; and I asked him what state of mind he was in before and at the time when this took place ? He said, " Tho' master knew me and Mrs. Hawker, he was quite past all power of dis- tinguishing between one thing and another, such as the Church of England and the Church of Rome, for some time before his death." " Were you present ?" I asked, " when he was what they call received into the Church of Borne?** " No," he said, " I had been watching by his bedside a good many hours, and was desired to go down and take some refreshment, and while I was absent for perhaps half an hour, whatever it was, was done,'* " * This was the first of our conversation. I asked my in- formant if he wished me to regard it as confidential. " No," he replied, " you may make any use of it that you may think proper. It is the truth, and I wish it to be known." ' "I happened to be at Plymouth the day after Mr. Hawker's death, and returned from thence in the railway carriage with Mrs. Hawker and her children, who were 204 MEMOBIALS, ETC. accompanied bj this servant, with whom I had some con- yersation. He was a steady, middle-aged man, who seemed qnite to possess the confidence of his mistress, and from what I saw of him, I should be fully impressed with the opinion that any statement of his on such a subject would be worthy of credit. '' I regret that this communication had not reached you in time to be of use to you on the occasion which has brought your name before me as Mr. Hawker's friend. I would gladly have given what was told me by my friend the churchwarden of Morwenstow the publicity which he seemed to desire, but knew not how to do so in a quiet and unostentatious way. I have not seen much of the ' rubbish ' which I am informed h^s appeared upon the subject, and shall be glad if, in the interests of Truth, you will com- municate this letter in any quarter in which you think it may assist in dispelling the cloud which overshadows the last hours 'of the Vicar of Morwenstow, and seemed to afford to Rome a triumph, though at the best a poor one, " 1 am, Rev. and dear Sir, " Truly yours, "John C. D. Yule. The Eev. Dr. Lee, Lambeth." APPENDIX No. I. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. It is known that Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canter- buiy, was not onlj on principle an Erastiau ; but that, at the time of his consecration as Bishop, he nnquestionably perjured himself. Any reliable history (Bishop Burnet's is false and misleading from beginning to end) provides full particulars and details of this latter immoral and dis- graceful act. Jeremy Collier, the most high-principled and trustworthy of English Church historians, states truly enough, for example, that " Cranmer was obliged to take a customary oath to the Pope :" and then adds how, at the same time, he privately repudiated it. "By this expe- dient he was to save his liberty and renounce every clause in the oath." It is also known that Cranmer formally denied the necessity of any consecration to the office of bishop or priest, and maintained that the bare nomination by the sovereign without further act, gave all necessary powers. These facts, with others of a similar chamcter, were set forth in a Lecture on the Reformers delivered at Liverpool, about eight years ago, by Dr. Littledale ; who challenged all who might be scandalized by his statements, to disprove them. That challenge, as far as I am aware, has hitherto 1 Collier's Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 207. London : 1845. 206 APPENDIX. remained unaccepted. Dr. Gattj made some strictures on the lecture in question, in the columns of the Guardian, but brought forward no facts to maintain them. To these strictures Dr. Littledale wrote the following reply : — " Sir, — My attention has been only to-day directed by a friend to Dr. Gatty's censure on my lecture at Liverpool. A great many clergjrmen, whom I believe to be honest men, have written to thank me for what I then said, and to urge the reissue of the lecture as a pamphlet. I am thus not alone in my opinions. " I may remark (though, being far from irritable, I do not complain) that if I have likened men who were agents in gigantic crimes to the chiefs of the Left in 1793, Dr. • Gatty has compared me to the Manchester and Clerkenwell assassins. Consequently he has put himself out of court as a censor of language. Now as to facts. '' I have again and again to note with wonder the amazing ignorance of the educated classes. The letter of Dr. Gatty is a case in point. He is evidently unaware that the view that the Reformation and the French Revolution are not merely like, but are actually successive scenes of the same ethical and historical drama, is now a commonplace of the philosophy of History. That being so, there is nothing very monstrous in finding parallels in the agents of both. If Dr. Gatty had read carefully the history of either event, he would not have been shocked. His words convince me that he is not familiar with either 1550 or 1793. It is quite possible for men to take very widely difiering views as to the Reformation itself in its character and results. Some may look on it as a Pentecost. I look on it as a Flood, an act of Divine vengeance, not of Divine grace ; a merited chastisement, not a fresh revelation. '' But the other view is tenable. On the other hand, I APPENDIX. 207 gravely assert it to be absolutely impossible for any just, educated, and religious men, who have read the history of the time in genuine sources, to hold two opinions about the Reformers. They were such utterly unredeemed villains, for the most part, that the only parallel I know for the way in which half-educated people speak of them amongst us, is the appearance of Pontius Pilate amongst the saints of the Abyssinian Kalendar. " Dr. Gatty cannot know the facts, or he would say as I have done. But I admit my parallel with the Jacobin leaders was somewhat harsh and unjust — to them. Robe- spierre (who, by-the-bye, is counted as a martyr, and celebrated on the 9th Thermidor as a true Apostle of Liberty here in London still, as I know), Danton, Marat, &c., betrayed no trust, were not sharers in the particular iniquity they overthrew, crouched to no tyrant, peijured themselves to no man. So far they stand on a higher moral level than the base traitors who were, and deservedly, exe- cuted — ^blunder and folly as that execution was — ^by Mary L I should have compared them with Egalit^ Orleans and St. Huruge, the basest of that bad eighteenth century. These are no hasty sentiments. They have been slowly built up by years of careful reading ; and I would close with the words of a foreign scholar, a member of the Russian Church, to Dean Groode. The Dean cited some Reformers against him. He replied, * Anything you say of yourself will have its due weight with me, for I believe you to be a Christian and a gentleman ; but I know the Reformers were neither one nor the other, and there is no use in quoting them to me.' "Richard P. Littledale. " Cavendish Glnb, 307, Begent-street, W. " May 16, 1868.*' 208 APPENDIX. On the B^formers in general, the Bey. Nicholas Pocock, M.A.9 of Qaeen's College, Oxford, writes somewhat to the same effect in a lee tore delivered at Bristol, Maj 13, 1875, and afterwards pnblished bj Pickering : — '^ The Bishops who would not go along with Somerset were first imprisoned and then depriyed ; and others, sach as Ridley, Farrar, Poynet, Hooper, Coverdale, Scorey, Taylor and Harley, substitated in their places. I have no time now to prove to yon the infamous character of some of these men ; nor could I in a short space, draw out the account of the extreme opinions as to the Sacraments adopted by most of them. It will be sufficient, generally to say that Ridley was guilty of high treason, and would probably have been hanged, if he had been indicted for treason instead of heresy ; Poynet an adulterer, and was condemned in an Ecclesias- tical Court ; Scorey, a consummate hypocrite ; that Cover- dale had the reputation of a drunkard ; that Hooper wrote in favour of divorce and allowance of re-marriage. The last two, Taylor and Harley, are too insignificant to have left any mark on the page of History " (pp. 8, 9).' Again, after explaining how the appointment of Bishops by Letters Patent had been instituted for the old mode of Election ; first with the view of preventing objections on the part of deans and chapters, and secondly with the further intention of sweeping away deans and chapters altogether, he proceeds thus : — '' Having secured this point, the next step was to make a new Ordinal, in which, though a great deal of the ancient ceremonial was dropped, a good deal was also preserved ; and from this book it appears that the use of the Church 3 " The Principles of the Reformation shown to be in Contradiction to the *Book of Common Prayer : a paper read at Bristol, May 13 1875/' by Nicholas Pocock, M.A. London : B. M. Pickering, 1875. APPENDIX. 209 of England, as regards ornaments of the Church and the ministers, was in the third year of Edward VI. : the alh, the tunicle, the pastoral staff, and the cope and vestment, i. e. chasuble, being specially mentioned by name. These came out in print in March, 1550, exactly a year after the publication of the Prayer Book, and it was a distinct advance in the way of getting rid of ancient custom, though it may seem surprising that people who, as was afterwards proved, did not believe in any grace of Ordination, should have so strenuously asserted the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons in nearly the same words which are used on the preface in our present Ordinal." — (Pp. 23, 24.) Furtheimore : as to the belief, or rather unbelief of these so-called "Reformers," Mr. Pocock further writes, as follows : — " It is certain that the compilers of this second Prayei Book [which continued in use from 1552 until 1662] neither believed in the efficacy of Baptism nor of Confirma- tion, nor in the grace or order, nor in an apostolical suc- cession ; nor in the distinct character of Priest and Bishop ; although they were forced by the spread of Anabaptist opinions to retain a Baptismal Service, and an Ordinal which countenanced those doctrines." — (P. 30.) I need only now add that these and such-like statements, substantiating Mr. Hawker's own personal inquiries (for he was a most careful and impartial student of history), helped most materially to confirm his already altered ideas of the Reformation and its agents. When, before his eyes, an Erastianism equal to that of Cranmer was energizing under the action of the living occupant of the See of Canterbury, no wonder that he wrote, *' My soul is low." APPENDIX No. II. ARCHBISHOP TAIT'S BAPTISM. The recent controversy* on this subject thus arose, as far as my observation goes : — On July 1st, 1874, a letter signed "Junius" appeared, making inquiry as to the fact of Arch- bishop Tait's confirmation. On the 8th of July, Mr. William Grant, of 13, Clifton Square, Peckham, published in the same paper a copy of a letter which he had addressed personally to the Archbishop, containing the following in- quiry; — " My Lord Archbishop— Since it is very currently reported in certain circles (and the report freely alluded to in the public prints) that your Grace has not received the Holy Ordinance of Confirmation at the hands of a Bishop — and as the report, remaining uncontradicted, causes con- siderable anxiety in the minds of Churchmen, might I beg the favour of a reply to the question, Has your Grace been confirmed ? " Then there appeared a letter in the same newspaper, that for September 23, 1874, signed " A Looker On," con- taining the following : — " 1. ^-fter Mr. Tait of Balliol had undergone the ceremony ^ I am indebted to Mr. William Grant for a complete acconnt and record of the controversy. In reply to a letter from me, he conr- teonsly wrote on October 28, 1876 : — " Pray make any nse of it yon may think right." APPENDIX. 211 of Confirmation by the late Bishop Bagot, the bishop having learnt from himself (as is said), that he had neyer even been baptized (except bj an old and ignorant Scotch nurse, when he was an infant and in danger of death), said to him, * Mr. Tait, Confirmation cannot be duly given to any one who has not been validly christened. I have confirmed you in ignorance. Go and be baptized for security's sake, and then come again to my next Confirmation.' " I had this information from a bishop of the Church of England, who was on intimate terms with the late Bishop Bagot, and who told me that he had had it from him. " Again : a near relation of Archbishop Tait quite recently admitted, in my hearing, that he had never been christened at all except in the uncertain and unsatisfactory mode above described. He had never even been baptized by a Pres- byterian preacher, an Episcopalian Presbyter, or a Church of England clergyman. So that his so-called * Confirmation ' by Bishop Bagot was most probably null and void ; for, if unbaptized, he was no fit subject for Confirmation. " Now it is a very serious thing for the Church of England that such a gentleman should have been first made a Bishop and then an Archbishop of Canterbury, as the validity of so many recent consecrations, ordinations, &c., depend on the Archbishop's valid baptism. " 2. It is obvious that young Mr. Spooner, his Grace's chaplain, who wrote so confidently to you, can know nothing about the question. He may have heard this, that, or the other, on report, by second-hand testimony, through tradition ; and have accepted it by faith ; but of knowledge he can have none. He is but recently ordained .... He was neither bom nor thought of when all this occurred. " 3. If the Archbishop took Bishop Bagot's advice — which the late Bishop of Winchester said he did not — all well and p 2 212 APPENDIX. good ; but if he did not, the matter becomes very serious ; and the Church ought to have page, date, and facts with regard to the momentous point raised. The Archbishop, as an honourable man, is bound to explain, and at once." In the number of the Church Herald for September 30, 1874, are two letters on the subject, one from Mr. William Grant, embodying another letter to Mr. Spooner, the Arch- bishop's secretary j and a second from a ^' A Bewildered Anglican." In that for November 4, 1874, there is a letter from " Anglo-Scotus," to the following effect : — " It will be a melancholy satisfaction to some of your correspondents to be informed that some friends of the Archbishop, during his recent sojourn in Scotland, endeavoured to find any authentic record of his baptism ; but were wholly unsuccessful and failed to do so. On this both they and you may rely. A sadder or more fearful position for about three hundred of our clergy, and six or seven thousand of our laity (who fondly think that they have been respectively ordained and confirmed) could not be conceived. What can be done ? " Another correspondent also writes thus : — " During the years intervening from 1808 to 1872, no less than forty- eight clergymen in the province of Canterbury, have been ordained without producing their baptismal certificates. . . . A certificate is always expected if it can be had. But, again and again declarations written out and signed are frequently accepted instead, and in Ireland the case is the same. Many persons, now priests, have been supposed to have been baptized privately, and no entry made in the public register of the fact." As Mr. W. Grant was, apparently, unable to get any solid information, with date, person, and place, from Lambeth, he wrote a long letter to his own diocesan. Dr. APPENDIX. 213 Harold Brown, Bishop of Winchester, recapitulating the facts, and asking the Bishop's help in what Mr. Grant asseii;ed had become a ^* serious matter." His Grace's chaplain, the Rev. H. M. Spooner, apparently at the request of his Grace, replied that " he knew, as a fact, that the report that the Archbishop had not received confirmation was utterly without foundation." '^ On this reply being made public the doubt was reiterated, and the fact pointed out that Mr. Spooner could not, by reason of his age, know, except by hearsay, anything of the matter. I then further requested to be informed, * When, where, and by whom * Confirmation had been bestowed ? but no reply was granted." To the above was sent the following reply : — << Winchester House, St. J^mes' Sqnare, S.W., " October 81, 1874. " My dear Sir, — I do not think it would be right that I should cross-question my Metropolitan as to his baptism on the ground of anonymous aspersions on him in a newspaper, qualified even there with ^ as is said.' ^' It being an undisputed fact that the Archbishop was confirmed by Bishop Bagot, there is every presumption that he was validly baptized. If Bishop Bagot ever repented of having confirmed him, and had good grounds for his re- pentance, some one should state this on his own knowledge, and! like a man ; not in an anonymous pai*agraph, like an assassin. If, however, the statement be true that the Arch- bishop in his infancy was baptized by a nurse, he being in danger of death, even that would not prove that his baptism was invalid ; because the .Western Church has always admitted the baptism of laymen, and even of midwives in such cases. " I do not deny that the subject may be one of interest to Churchmen ; but those who attack the Archbishop on this 214 APPENDIX. ground are bound to do so openly and with their names, and I ao not think that I, as a suffragan of the Province of Canterbury, can with any propriety take any step in the matter. '* I am, my dear sir, your very faithful servant, " E. H. WiNTON." In the Church Herald for November 18, 1874, there are other letters on the subject ; the first from " J. M. L. — Banks of Don," a Presbyterian ; another from " A Canter- bury Christian," dated from " Bromley," and a third point- ing out that Bishops Lord Arthur Hervey, Temple, Wood- ford, Atlay, Wordsworth, Mackarness, Magee, Moberley, and Hughes, have been probably invalidly consecrated. In the Church Herald a second letter from the Bishop of Winchester (originally addressed to the Ouardian), is printed, containing the following : — " The Archbishop naturally did not wish to be catechized by strangers as to his claim to be a member of the Christian Church ; and I, as one of the Bishops of his province, did not think it would be dutiful or becoming in me to cross-question him ; but his Grace, seeing the paragraph in the GuardiaUy kindly wrote to me a private letter, in which he denied the truth of both the statements ; viz. that which ascribes his baptism to a nurse, and that which makes Bishop Bagot as having expressed regret at having confirmed him. When the Archbishop was elected to a scholarship at Balliol, the evidence of his baptism was deposited with the college auihorities, and the Archbishop does not doubt that any one who is curious might find it still among the college docu- ments. You will perhaps kindly allow this letter to appear in your next impression ; as, though lay, or even female baptism would not, as I believe, invalidate the episcopal APPENDIX. ' 215 acts of the Archbishop, there may naturally be some desire on the part of many to be assured that the doubts raised are without foundation. " E. H. WiNTON. " Winchester House, November 16, 1874." Afterwards, in the Church Herald of November 25 ^ 1875, there appeared a letter from " E, B. Finlay " of Folkestone, who produced the following entiy and attestation : — (Copy) "Archibald Campbell Tait, was bom on 2 1st December, 1811, and baptized on the 1 0th February, by the Rev. Dr. MacKnight." " The above is copied by me from the Family Bible of my father, Crawford Tait, of Harviestoun, Esq. — my father and the Archbishop's. It was inserted in the Family Bible by our mother, who died on the 3rd January, 1814, and who entered in it the birth and baptisms of all her children as they occurred. " JjCMES Campbell Tait. " 13, Great Stuart Street, Edinburgh." Below this stands a communication from " Scotus," from which the following is quoted : — " It was said in Oxford many years ago, that Dr. Jenkins (Master of Balliol), whether entertaining any doubt of the validity of lay baptism, or suspecting that the ordinance might not in all cases have been duly administered, was accustomed in every case of a Snell scholar, son of Presbyterian parents, to desire him on his appearance to go and be conditionally baptized. Such was considered the rule, and acted on. One man objected and positively refused, referring to certain persons of Social position in Scotland who would support him in his refusal. He carried his point, and the con- ditional baptism of subsequent Snell scholars was not insisted on. Mr. Tait was the next scholar, and possibly 216 APPENDIX. as the old rule of conditional baptism (which would have rendered a previous certificate needless) had only for the second time been departed from, the evidence which Dr. Robinson and others think was always forthcoming might not have been demanded." In the above various letters it cannot be denied that there is much that is extraordinary and irreconcilable with fact. The various reports sometimes contradict themselves, and are otherwise very conflicting. 1. As to ihefact of Mr. Tait's baptism there is certainly some evidence before us, though it is not easy to under- stand why it was not produced earlier, or why Mr. Spooner did not refer to it, and the Bishop of Winchester set it forth. The Bishop, on the other hand, seems in each of the letters to uphold the theory that a woman had ministered the sacrament in the Archbishop's case. The Rev. Dr. Thomas MacKnight referred to in the above entry — son of the Dr. MacKnight who wrote a ** Harmony of the Gospels," and died in 1800 — was ordained Minister February 17, 1791, to the second charge of South Leith Parish, but was translated to Trinity College Kirk in June 1804. He was afterwards promoted to St. Giles' Kirk ; and was Moderator of the General Assembly in 1820. He died circa 1830. 2. As to the validity of Presbyterian baptisms, the opinion of Dr. Jenkins, some time Master of Balliol, and Dean of Wells, that they were at the best doubtful, seems to be more than probable. His custom, therefore, of insisting on conditional baptism was an excellent safeguard against error or nullity, or invalidity of subsequent ordination. I myself, during a residence of some years in Scotland, witnessed APPENDIX. 217 several public baptisms of Presbyterians ; and in no case could I testify that they had been validly performed. A friend of my own (the son of a Presbyterian clergyman), but for some time a member of the Church of England, bears me out in this experience. He was present in 1868 at St. Paul's Established Church, Glasgow, when a certain Mr. McAuslane (baptizing on behalf of the regular minister, Dr. Jamieson) used the invalid formula, *^ I baptize thee in the Name of the Lord Jesus." I am told that a large majority of the Scotch Episcopal Clergy invariably baptize conditionally, all converts from the Presbyterian com- munities. With a view to further inquiry, I took the liberty of putting two questions on the subject to my friend, the Right Rev. John Strain, D.D., R. C. Bishop of Edinburgh, as follows: — " I. In your Lordship's opinion are the baptisms performed by the Ministers of the Scottish establishment ministered duly and validly?" Answer — "We consider it doubtful." "IL What is the practice in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland as to re-baptizing, conditionally, converts from the Presbyterian conmiunions to that Church ? " Answer — r" The practice is to re-baptize conditionally in every case." These, and such-like statements, must be left to tell their own story. They are known to have affected Mr. Hawker seriously. APPENDIX No. III. THE PUBLIC WORSHIP REGULATION ACT. The following criticism of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Bill appeared in the Morning Post of April 24, 1874 : — {To the Editor of the '^Morning Post:') " Sir, — Threatened as we are by the proposed * Public Worship Regulation Bill ' with dangers which are at once only half disclosed and yet very considerable, I crave your permission to make the following remarks on it: — "1. As to the constitution of the new tribunal. The assessors of the bishop are all appointed by the bishop. Now, this provision only apparently shifts the bishop's re- sponsibility on to the shoulders of his own nominees. Their judgment, in fact and reality, would be his. How would it fare, for example, under this machinery, with any High Churchmen in the diocese of a Low Church bishop ? It is clear that the bishop, if he set about it, could get rid of all, and this under the guise of * carrying out the law,* should this extraordinary measure pass. No clergyman with a spark of self-respect or independence would remain in a diocese where certain temporal ruin must ensue to a conscientious man who chanced to be poor, and of another school to that of his bishop. In fact, a vicar or rector could, under this proposed Act, be got rid of absolutely APPENDIX. 219 with far greater ease, privacy, and more sumno aril j than any licensed curate. *' 2. By including cathedrals with parish churches, all the old traditions and customs of the former which have come down from time immemorial, practically and by living usages explaining the meaning of our present rubric, * The chancels shall remain as they have done in times past,' might be ruthlessly swept away, at the dictation of any nominal Churchman or political Dissenter in a cathedral city. We have all heard of Dean Stanley's delightful friend, ' the Nonconformist member of the Establishment.' " 3. Under the * rules of procedure ' a dean, rector, or vicar charged with a breach of the law is actually bound to criminate himself — a course of proceeding which hitherto has been unknown to English jurisprudence ; and is not likely, in the long run, to be approved by Englishmen. It is unfortunate that Archbishop Tait was not bom and bred an English Churchman. Here is the proposed enactment : * If the incumhent shall not transmit an answer, or shall not in his answer deny the truth of any statement of fact made in the representation, such statement shall he deemed to be true.'' In Dod's * Parliamentary Companion ' the two Archbishops are .. catalogued as * Liberals.* Truly this is a ' Liberal ' enactment. Truly this is justice indeed ! " 4. Again, the person complaining against a clergyman need not even be present at the court of inquiry. If he is present by an agent, that is sufficient. Nor can he himself be cross-examined {vide Section 11). So that while the silence of the incumbent is to establish the truth of any complaining person's allegations and charges, such person making a charge may stay away and leave the conduct of his case to a professional agent. Is this, again, even-handed justice ? 220 APPENDIX. " 5, By the same section the bishop has the power to pack the court and exclude all sympathizers and friends of the person charged with an offence. Here are the provisions for effecting this : — * The bishop shall have power to make such rules as he may think proper as to the admission of persons during the consideration of a representation.^ This quaint conception of what is equitable goes beyond anything recorded of the Star Chamber. ** 6. The question of the costs of a suit is wholly in the hands of the bishop, from whom, as the Bill stands, there is no appeal on this point whatsoever. One suit per month against an unpopular rector — no impossible event — would be a serious item in his year's expenditure. And if he had to pay the presenter's costs as well (as is the case with the vicar of Tottenham and his faculty, opposed solely by Dissenters and non- worshippers of the Church), ruin might very speedily stare him in the face. " 7. Appeals to the archbishop or to the new court of appeal could only be made by clergy who have large private means ; others would have to submit to the decree of the * Court of Closed Doors,' secured by nominal Churchmen in the face of, and in opposition to, the wishes of those who use, and are satisfied with, the Services of the Church. " 8. Again, contrary to English law and to justice every- where, a sentence of an inferior court is to take effect even though appealed against, and while under appeal (Section 15). So that if any bishop's sentence were to be reversed by the archbishop, and that of the archbishop in turn re- versed again, there might be three important and irritating changes effected in the mode of conducting service where one would have served. " 9. By the 20th section the safeguard of a formal faculty is absolutely swept away. Thus partisan bishops, under APPENDIX. 221 pretence of * enforcing the law,' may * become a law unto themselves,' and faculties openly granted by one bishop, at considerable cost to a parish, may be rendered absolutely null and void by the private * Star Chamber policy * of another bishop, his successor, who may belong to an opposite theological school. " 10. Furthermore, under this proposed enactment there may be as many different legal decisions as there are dioceses in England. What may be * law ' under Bishop Mackar- ness, for example, in Oxfordshire, may be absolutely illegal in Durham under Dr. Baring. ' Our unhappy divisions ' may hereafter have known geographical and territorial boundaries assigned to them through the novel and bene- ficent legislation of Archbishop Tait. '^ Let it be here noted that no provision whatsoever is made for the due observance of Church rules and rubrics by the bishops themselves. While. deans, rectoi's, and vicars are having a hempen cord prepared for their necks, bishops and archbishops are to be amenable to no earthly authority. Each one is to do as he pleases without let or hindrance. Yet, as a rule, the bishops are by no means free from blame; for ' scamped confirmations,' as Bishop Wilberforce used to term them, were quite lately the rule, and not, as now, the exception. " Of course the Purchas and Mackonochie cases were plainly contradictory. In one a man was punished for not standing before the Holy Table ; in the other, another man was punished, by the same authority, for standing before the Table ; while as to the use of the Eucharistic vestments, every liturgical writer, from Overall to Wheatley, main- tained their strict legality ; and if the present rubric does not enjoin their use, language has altogether lost its meaning. Judgments such as have recently been given, being intrinsi- 222 APPENDIX. cally immoral, command no respect, and certainly bind no one's conscience. The passive attitude which, under deep provocation, the High Church party has hitherto maintained may possibly be altered now it is seen that this measure is being brought to bear on them alone. High Church laymen (a very considerable class) may become active. For Evangelicals and Broad Churchmen are left alone. Bishops do not touch nor rate them. Aggrieved parishioners under such have not the ear of their superiors. I myself have heard clergymen in the diocese of London, in sermons, openly deny the doctrine of the Atonement, the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour, the Inspiration of Scripture, and the Resurrection of the body, yet they are permitted to go on unrebuked, unchecked, and not legislated for — some of them honoured and rewarded. Let the bishops begin to do justice and act righteously, and then the clergy will not even seem to disregard authority, and let them give up this one-sided and scandalous Bill. " I will conclude with an ad hominem argument, respectfully put to the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. Li his Grace's diocese many beneficed clergymen (some promoted by him) invariably omit the Athanasian Creed. Let such be presented. There can be no doubt as to what the Prayer Book (statute law) enjoins. What could the Arch- bishop say ? What has he said ? Litera acripta manet : — * Is it, or is it not, true that if any complaint were made to any one of your lordships against a clergyman for omit- ting the Athanasian Creed, you would not proceed against him for violating the Act of Uniformity ; and if you thought it necessary to take notice of what he had done, yo%i would do it in the lightest form which the law allows.' — (Speech of Archbishop Tait in Convocation. Guardian, February 14, 1872.) APPENDIX. 223 ** Thus Arians and Sociuians arc to be protected, while High Churchmen are to be cast out by a special and stringent enactment. I venture to doubt if this new attempt at one- sided, adroit, and un-English legislation, when carefully examined, will find favour either with Lords, Commons, or Convocation. It is obvious why its promoters are in such an unusual hurry to pass it. When known it will be execrated. " Anyhow, an Established Church in which such an enactv ment became law would not find me, and possibly some few others, as now, amongst its list of beneficed clergymen. The life of a toad under a harrow would be paradise in comparison with the blessed state of varying happiness which the Archbishop desires to provide, by the machinery of his enactment, for all English clergy under the order of a bishop. " I have the honour to be. Sir, your obedient servant, "A London Clergyman. " April 23." [i.e. Frederick George Lee.] {To the Editor of the Morning Post) " Sir, — The Bishop of Peterborough, in his Charge [a.d. 1875], says of the Public Worship Eegulation Act that * it neither added to, took away from, nor interpreted any of those laws,' i. e. laws of the Church. There is a certain ambiguity in the phrase * the laws of the Church ' when used by Erastian divines ; it never clearly appears whether they mean rubrics, canons, or statutes of the land, or all of these together ; but in whatever sense the expression was used, tried by any standard of law, I beg to join issue with his lordship as to the fact which he states, and to assert that, whether rightly or wrongly, the Public- Worship Regulation Act has added very much that is new to the 224 APPENDIX. statute law of the land, and has taken away very much that is ancient from the canon law and curial organiza- tion of the Church, considered as a divinely founded society. '' Previous to the passing of the Act in question, ecclesias- tical suits were heard in the first instance in the consistoiy court of the diocese, from which there lay an appeal to the provincial com*t of the archhishop. In many cases, indeed, the cause was removed hy letters of request to the provincial court, but the hearing was, in theory at least, and might have been also in practice, before the court of the bishop of the diocese first, and then before that of the archbishop, according to the ancient canonical mode of procedure, which in substance and principle was as old as Christianity itself The judges of the consistory courts have been from the very first appointed by the free irresponsible choice of the diocesan ; and in the case of the provincial courts, each province had, agreeably to the ancient and continuous organization of the Church, its own court of appeal, pre- sided over by an official principal who owed his appointment to the free, irresponsible choice of the archbishop' of the province. Up to the year 1874 no statute had ever been passed by Parliament afiecting the appointment of these ecclesiastical judges, who were distinctly Church officers representing the bishop or archbishop of the see to which their court belonged. All this has been changed by the Public Worship Regulation Act ; that Act, in the new scheme of ecclesiastical discipline which it provides, has altogether superseded the consistory court of the diocese ; it has, not only for suits arising under it, but for all suits, in doctrine as well as in ritual, destroyed the two provincial courts of Canterbury and York. For the first time since England became a Christian country the two archbishops APPENDIX. 225 have been controlled and limited by statute in their choice of the individual whom they would select as official principal of their respective courts. While in the Act a show is made of leaving the appointment of judge under the Act in their hand, the real character of an official principal, and their free choice in his appointment, are really abrogated by the four conditions prescribed by Section 7 of the Act, which are these : — 1 . They must appoint a barrister (no statute is ever passed now without providing for the interests of the barrister of seven years' standing). 2. They appoint 'subject to the Queen's approval.' 3. They must agree in the choice of the same individual for both provinces. 4. They must appoint in a given time, or the Crown appoints in their stead. ** Now, sir, I am not going into the question which of these two systems is the best, the cheapest, the more consonant with the idea of the Church as a Divine institution ; all I protest against is the misrepresentation of fact contained in the statement that the Public Worship Regulation Act has made no change in the laws of the Church of England. If, sir, the canons of 1603 are * laws of our Church,' and I challenge the Bishop of Peterborough to say that they are not, then some of those' canons are absolutely repealed, superseded, abrogated (or whatever may be the right term) by the requirements of the Public Worship Regulation Act. I repeat, sir, I do not wish to initiate any discussion or com- parison as to the respective merits of the old courts Christian and the new court Erastian ; all that I ask is, that those who, like the Bishop of Peterborough an4 others, had a chief hand in destroying the ancient curial system of the Church, should not use the influence of their position to try and persuade the public that no change has been made, when nothing short of a revolution has been accomplished. Q 226 APPENDIX. It looks as if they were ashamed or afraid of their handi- work. The Bishop of Peterborough is not the only eminent person who has thus attempted to minimize the character of the Public Worship Act. The statement that this Act made no change in the existing law has been repeated in high quarters with a pertinacity which would have been im- possible but for the great ignorance which prevails on the subject of ecclesiastical courts, their nature and history. " If I have not trespassed too much upon your space, I should like to deal with one other fallacy which pervades the Bishop of Peterborough's charge on this subject. The Act, he says, provides ' for the cheaper and speedier inter- pretation and enforcement of the laws of our Church respecting ritual.' The Act, sir, does nothing of the kind. It provides, and herein lies the grievance, for the cheap and speedy enforcement, by a purely secular court, of any par- ticular decision which half a dozen persons, no doubt eminent, in Downing-street may be pleased to give respect- ing ritual. Within the last twenty years the Judicial Committee has once decided that the ornaments rubric prescribes the vestments, and once it has decided that it does not. In the face of such a fact (apart from abstract arguments) it is marvellous that any one should take the * decisions of the Judicial Committee * and * the laws of our Church ' to be equivalent and convertible expressions. The bishop goes on to lament that * the Church was fast passing away from the paralyzed hands of her legitimate rulers into the hands of powerful but irresponsible associa- tions of private individuals.' . . . No, sir, the Church Association is not so powerful as all that ; it could not really have hurt one parish priest or one tiny flock, had the bishop not given it recognition and opportunity. That ' the Church has passed away from the paralyzed hands of APPENDIX. 227 her legitimate rulers ' is true, but she has passed from her legitimate rulers into the hands of Lord Penzance and the Judicial Committee. Bishops and priests have been replaced by judges and barristers ; henceforth what half a dozen law lords choose to impose as the correct interpretation of the Prayer Book, whether it is so or not, must be accepted by the Establishment ; and if all the archbishops and bishops disapprove of their interpretation, they cannot alter or prevent its being imposed and recognized as the voice of * our Church.' But, then, whose is the fault ? who sprang the Public Worship Act upon an unsuspecting clergy ? who for the last eight or ten years have made it their especial mission to persuade the British public that the utterances of the Judicial Committee were the voice of the Anglican communion ? " I am, sir, your obedient servant, '* Edmund Samuel Grindle. « Brighton, October 20, 1876." Q 2 APPENDIX No. IV. AT MORWENSTOW, NOVEMBER 10, 1875. By John D. .Sedding, Architect. A CHILL November day, with low, grey, threatening clouds overhead, a monotonous drive across bleak Cornish moor- lands, unrelieved by any points of interest, and lined only by bare hedges, naturally set one's thoughts in a minor key that befitted the purpose of my journey. Although what Murray calls " the wretched hamlet of Morwenstow " is bounded by the Bristol Channel, it is not until you have passed the brow of a hill close to the coast that '^ the Severn Sea '' comes in sight, and at the same time before you is the lonely grey church tower set among the trees. Alighting here, a striking scene presents itself that would alone make the place worthy of a visit. A deep valley or combe running precipitately down to the sea, has for its northern boundary, facing you, a stately headland clad with patches of dark furze, that even on this wintry day yields its hardy bloom of golden flowers. Nearing the shore, the hillside breaks suddenly into lofty cliffs, whose bases are washed by the sounding waves of the Atlantic ; as report says, the scene of disaster and wreck, where many a brave man's life has been beaten out of him. The APPENDIX. 229 other face of the valley, forming, as far as can be seen, a slope of green turf, is of gentler aspect, and, lying sheltered in a hollow in its side, is the church and parsonage I have come to see. To a pilgrim visiting the footprints of Robert Stephen Hawker, Cornish bard, and for forty years Vicar of Mor- wenstow, the scene could not fail to impress one with the keenest interest. How often must the picturesque figure of the interpreter of the scenery, life, and character of far Cornwall have stood in this spot to survey that which was the whole world to him; and how much of the fresh imagery and quaint fantasy of his pages must have been indebted to familiarity with this and the like scenes ! At our feet is the house he built and so long tenanted, and left only to die. A deserted house is always a suggestive, and sometimes even a pathetic sight, and there is nothing just now in the aspect of the local surroundings or in the mood of nature, to disturb the sense " Of one mute shadow watching all ;'* ft or to break the spell that seems to hang about those dark, gloomsome walls. But for the sea's " listless chime," the plaintive cry of the sea-gull, and the occasional clamour of Hawker's loved birds — the rooks that gather about the chimney-tops or turn mad somersaults in the air — not a sound is to be heard. The house, his own design, is perched on a small platform a little to the east of the church, and distant about a quarter of a mile from the cliffs. Although, as is but natural, one traces the hand of an amateur in its design, the house bears the impress of genius. It forms a good block of building of the sixteenth- century style, well adapted to the site, picturesquely gabled and adorned with emphatic chimneys. These chimneys are r~ -1 I APPENDIX. ^31 indeed its chief feature, for on them is lavished the only ornamentation about the house ; and, it is said, their whim- sical designer intended them to commemorate the principal church towers in the country, a large, squat twin-chimney standing for the two Norman towers of Exeter Cathedral, Their forms are slightly varied, but, generally speaking, they have heads with small stepped battlements, in appear- ance like an Irish church tower in miniature. The church- yard, which adjoins the vicarage grounds, is skirted by trees that are old, grey, stunted and withered, the victims to the storm-blasts that beat up the valley, their tops being as flat as a table, but slanting upwards in proportion to their distance from the churchyard | wall. Just inside the lychgate is an upright grave cross of Cornish type, the " added stone,*' as the late Vicar called it, to the memory of his first wife. The church itself has been described by Hawker in the characteristic style of the poet, mystic, and antiquary ; and it only falls to my lot to give a prosaic, ungarnished version of the building as I found it. Apart from its associations, the church is a most interesting fabric, and of so venerable an appearance, that on entering its walls the most careless person must instinctively lower his voice to a whisper. The plan consists of nave, chancel, north and south aisles, western tower, and a modem south porch. The nave has an arcade of five bays on either side, the date of whose erection differs widely. To take the various features chronologically, they would stand thus : — The three westernmost arches on the north side, with the south doorway, are of Norman work of the Transitional period, probably dating from the twelfth century ; they are ornamented profusely with chevrons and beakheads, and are peculiar in having large projecting heads of men, griflSins, and a horned ram at the crown of the arches, all grotesquely 232 APPENDIX. delineated, as one need hardly say. The easternmost of these three arches has a half-colamn and respond, and the label-moulding to the arch is carried along it horizontally in the form of a string-course, indicating that originally the arcade was completed at this point. The font, which is boat-shaped and girt with a cable moulding round its centre, is also of the Norman period. The two easternmost bays of the north arcade, together with the chancel, are of thirteenth-century work. These arches are pointed, and, together with those aforementioned, rest on plain cylindrical pillars of large dimensions. The chancel has a modem east window, but a lancet window is discernible from the exterior of the church on either side, both being at present blocked up. The south arcade and western tower are of late fifteenth-century work. This arcade is of elegant pro- portions, one half of it being built of Polyphant stone, and the other half of granite. The capitals of those arches which are formed of the more tractable Polyphant stone being enriched with delicate mouldings and carved cresting and rosettes ; the others being of simpler detail. The roofs form an interesting feature of the church, they are throughout of fifteenth-century date, and of the cradle or barrel form, having principal rafters about five feet apart, with purline ribs that divide the curved space into square panels. The principals and purline ribs are enriched with mouldings and carved rosettes, and there are bosses of various devices at the intersections of the ribs. The chancel roof is of a less ornamented character than the rest, but the bosses are more vai*ied in type. The wall-plates through- out are adorned with the usual ornament of foliage and fruit, and at the feet of the principal rafters are rudely carved angel figures bearing shields. In the brief allusion to Morwenstow Church in Murray's APPENDIX. 233 Guide to Cornwall, the chancel screen is described as " an elaborate screen;" and Hawker, in his paper on the sub- ject, eloquently dilates upon the symbolism of its various parts. It is a pity to spoil brilliant theories by a plain array of facts, but the " scroll of rich device across it, wherein deer and oxen browse," is not fairly described ; there are more birds than deer, and an unmistakeable dog crops out, " neither is it of this countree," for part is of cast-iron, and the rest imported from the Midland counties ; while the elaborate lattice- work is also of cast-iron, making sixteen large traceried panels in all, of true Brummagem stuff, set in a decent but plain frame of wood. In spite of this and other small subterfuges about the building, which are easily detected by the professional eye, due praise must be given to the late vicar for real good work accomplished in the Church Restoration. Twenty years ago the high pews were removed to make way for finely carved bench-ends, mostly purchased from neigh- bouring churches where theh' presence was not duly appreciated, such of the original benches belonging to Morwenstow Church being re-used. These seats are of early sixteenth-centuiy date, finely carved with foliage, griflSins, masques with curling tails, a bell, a spear with a heart upon it, a crowned Tudor rose, initials and flowing tracery. The chancel has a very bare appearance. Of seats there is but one low form, less than five feet long, with an upright bookstand for the minister. An early edition of ** Hymns Ancient and Modern," inscribed in Hawker's handwriting, '' William Olde, senior, Morwenstow Choir," implies, how- ever, that the parish choir had at least one representative. The altar, of oak, is small. Upon the super-altar is a cross Calvary of oak, and two candlesticks of serpentine. Three steps at the cast end of the chancel lead to the altar. B '<'^»a^^^i^M; ;m^^^^%: ■■^.A^iiv,'