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v OF THE LATE REV. 


ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER, M.A. 

Sometime Vicar of Morwenstow, in the Diocese of JExefer. 


COLLECTED, ARRANGED, AND EDITED 

BY 

THE REV. FREDERICK GEORGE LEE, D.C.L. 

n 

VICAR OF ALL SAINTS', LAMBETH. 



' Come to thy God in time ! " 

Thus saith the Ocean chime 

Storm, billow, whirlwind past, 
' Come to thy God at last." 

The Silent Tower of Bottrcau. R. S. HAWKER. 


Honlfon : 

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCAD.ILLY. 

1876. 

{All rights reserved.} 






"<*< 


TO 

THE WIDOW AND CHILDREN 

OF 
THE SUBJECT OF THESE MEMORIALS 

WITH HEARTY SYMPATHY FOR THEFR LOSS, AND 
WITH A PRAYER THAT 

GOD THE TRINITY 

MAY BE OVER, AND WITH THEM, BOTH IN SUNSHINE AND SHADOW,- 

AND THAT 

THE SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH 

MAY BE EVER ON THEIR SIDE. 


PREFACE. 

MOST conscious am I that I liave 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 slight 
Memoir from my pen, which appeared in the 
Morning Post of September 8, 1875. 

But, when a Priest has served Grod for nearly 
half a century, quietly ministering, by sacrifice, 
intercession and sacrament, to a flock, too long 


Tl PREFACE. 

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. 1 

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- 

1 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. 

" Sm, 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 
Times, 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 nay 
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 


et 


Vlll , PREFACE. 

secession from tlie 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. ]X 

and whose principles lie 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 
English 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 


Bishop of Chester, the Rev. W. Valentine, of 
Whixley, Yorkshire, to the Rev. J. 0. D. Yule, 
of Bradford Rector y, North Devon, to Mr. 
J. G. Godwin, 2 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. 


1 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 

PREFACE ........ 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 marries Miss I'Ans 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. MaskelFs description 
of the Scenery of North Cornwall Mr. 


Xll CONTEXT'S, 

J-AGE 

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 Wesleyanisni His Love of Animals 
Interest in public events -His Address to 
the Queen on her Majesty's Marriage His 
Poem on the Death of Cardinal Wiseman 
His Prayers on behalf of the Prince of 
Wales Death of Mrs. Hawker . . . 1-63 


CHAPTER IL 
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 Gentleman 's Magazine " Cornish 
Ballads and other Poems " " Footprints of 
Former Men in Old Cornwall " " Poem on 
the War between France and Germany" "On 


CONTENTS. - ' Xlll 

PAGE 

Science and F'aith " '.' Letters to Miss Louisa 
Twining "-Symbolism "A Canticle for 
Christmas " Mr. William Maskell's Opinion 
and Criticism . . . ' v . ' . . 64 1 1 o 

CHAPTER III. 
ALTERED CONVICTIONS AND DEATH. 

Appointment of Dr. Temple, Editor of Essays and 
Reviews, to the See of Exeter Triumph of 
Liberalism Dr. Temple's 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 importance and validity 
Mr. Hawker preaches at All Saints', Lam- 
beth, and his judgment of the Service 
Scheme for Restoring the Church of Mor- 
weiastow Mr. Hawker's Visit to London 
Want of sympathy of certain of the London 
Clergy Discussion regarding Archbishop 
Tait's Baptism The Spiritual 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 Missionary 
operations of the Church of England Doubts 
concerning the Validity of Baptism admi- 
nistered by Presbyterians The ca.?e of Arch- 
bishop Seeker Poem of "Aurora," contri- 
buted to " Lyrics of Light and Life " The 
Public "Worship Regulation Act, and its 


XIV CONTENTS. 


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 Koine in England His thoughts 
turn Homewards 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 


Pedigree of the Family of Hawker. To face page I. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1. Portrait of tbe Rev. It. S. Hawker, from a Photograph 

by J. Hawke, of Plymouth. To face title page,. 

2. South Porch, Morwenstow 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 Nos. 2, 3, and 4 are engraved bv Mi-. C. C. Irons. 


SISTERS they were, the fair and holy 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 

G-ladwise, their mother gave them love and life ; 
Virgins they lived and died O not in vain ! 

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 trace, 
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, remain. 

R. S. HAWKER. 


^H?" 


PEDIGBEE 


HAWKER, OF D 

(Compiled from Family Notes by tJie 


JAMES HAWKER, 

Surgeon and Alderman, of Exeter. 
Sheriff, 1742 ; Mayor, 1744. 


tHai 


Robert Hawker, only son, the celebrated : 
Calvinistic divine and preacher, 

born circa 1763. Matriculated 

May 27, 1778, at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. 

Clerk in Holy Orders. D.D. Edinburgh. 

Vicar for fifty years of Charles 

Chapel, Plymouth. 


Hnnn 

Adm 




eldest son, Clerk in wives, the daughter ' 2nd son, Clerk in Holy 
Holy Orders. and co-heiress of Orders, 1810. Vicar of Stratton, 
Had thirteen children an Oxford Clergyman. Diocese of Exeter, 
by his first wife, 
and two by his second. 

of Stephen Drewitt, daughter of 3rd son, born circa 1781. who 
of "Winchester, gentleman. Admiral Vincent, Matriculated at St. Edmund Hall, October 
afterwards of whose wife was Oxon, May 4, 1802, aged 21. at To 
Plymouth. Lady Boger. Clerk in Holy Orders. agec 
Hector of Tresham, co. Devon. 
Had nine children by 
his first wife and six by 
his second. 

Eev. Isaac Hawker, of 
St. Aidan's College, 
Incumbent of Charles 
Chapel, Plymouth, 
Living, 1875, 

1 ' 1 

daughter and eventual oldest son, Matriculated o,t 
heiress of Colonel I'Ans, Pembroke College, Oxon, April 28, 
of Whitstone House, near IJudc, 1823; Vicar of Morwenstow, Cornwall, 
co. Cornwall. 1836. JI.A. Magdalen Hall, 
Died Feb. 2, 1803. May 14, 1836. Died Aug. 
Buried at Morwenstow. 15, 1S75, aged 71. Buried in the 
M. I. in Churchyard, i Plymouth Cemetery. 

only daughter of Vincent Hawker, 2nd son, Hawker, gentleman, Hawker, gentleman, 4th 
Francis Kuezynski a surgeon, 3rd son, circa 1810 (godson of th 
(and Mary Newton, his wife), died in Emigrated and Rev. Claudius Origan, 
a Polish Nobleman. Australia. died abroad. Bishop of Sodor 
Married at Trinity Church, and Man), now of Pe 
Paddingtou, Dec. 21, 18B4. co. Cornwall. 


Morwenna 

Pauline 

Hawker, 

eldest daughter. 


Rosalind 

Hawker, 

2nd daughter. 


Juliot 

Hawker, 

3rd daughter. 


Mary Sloffgatt - 
Hawker, 
living, unmarried, 
1875. 

William Sloggafct 
Hawker, gentlem:in, J.P., 
jieut.-Colonel of the 
Battalion of the Duke 
of Cornwall's Volunteers, 
living, 1875. 

1 

Jane Eli 
Haw 
marric 
17, 1 


Gertrude 
Mary. 


EVONSHIRE AND CORNWALL 

Rev. Dr. F. G. LEE). 


nah, daughter of 
niral Baynos. 


2nd wife, 
5 died 
r 11, 1876, 
'otnes, 
3d 84. 


Charles Hawker, 

4th son, 
a surgeon. 


Mary Hawker, 
eldest daughter, 

married 

Thomas Hodson, 
gentleman. 
No issue. 


Anne Hawker, 

2nd daughter, 

died unmarried. 


Caroline Hawker, 

3rd daughter, 

married James Ball, of 

Plymouth, gentleman, 

deceased, and left issue 

five children. 


Sarah. Hawker, 

4th daughter, married 

Captain Bowdcn, H.N., of 

Plymouth, deceased, 

and left issue four 

children. 



| 


son, born 
10 Right 
, D.D., 
r 
enally, 

daughter of William Sloggatt, 5th son, Clerk in Holy Orders, 
of Penally, Boscastle, died, a youth, sometime Rector of 
Esq., J.P. at Stratford-le-Bow, Whitstone, co. Cornwall, 
co. Essex. son of the Rev. John 
M. I. at Kingdon, M.A. 
Stratford Church. 

eldest daughter, James, of 
living, 1875. Plymouth, 
merchant. 

Hawker, Dinham, Hawker, Uasebourne, Hawker, 
2nd Surgeon, 3rd daughter, gentleman, 4tli daughter, 
daughter, of Stratton, now living C. E. 
co. Cornwall, at Biido, v 
died circa 1875. 
1859. 


tizabeth 
rker, 
ctl Aug. 
18G9. 


John Sonun'ers 

James, of Plymouth, 

Merchant. 


Claudius 

Crif-an 

Hawker, 

deceased. 


obert 


Rev. Robert Hawker 
Kingdon, ordained 
Priest, 1855. Rector of 
Whitstone aforesaid, 1801. 


Emma. Anne. 


living 

unmarried, 

1875. 


John Sommors ; 

James, 

Of Plymouth, 

gentleman. 


- Jane Elizabeth, 


daughter of Claudius 
C. Hawker, of 

Penally, 
gentleman. 


Claude. 


Gertrude 
Mary. 


John Sommers. . 


Claude. 


MEMORIA 


| OF THE LATE 

I . " 


REV. R. S. HAW 


CHAPTER 

PERSONAL HISTORY AND MINI 

ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER, the 
memorials, born at Plymouth 
1804, was the eldest son of 
Stephen Hawker, Clerk in Hoi; 
Elizabeth, second daughter of 
of Winchester, gent., and was tl 
celebrated Calvinistic Divine, 
Hawker, D.D., who for fifty ye 

V 

of Charles Chapel, Plymoutl 

1 The accompanying Pedigree, t 
perfect, compiled from family recor< 


ORIALS 


HE LATE 


IAWKER, M.A. 


PTBR I. 

iND MINISTERIAL WORK. 

KER, the subject of these 
lymouth, December 3rd 3 
son of the Hev. James 
in Holy Orders, by Jane 
iter of Stephen Drewitt, 
d was the grandson of the 
Divine a the Bev. Robert 
nfty years was Minister 
ymouth. 1 Dr. Hawker 

digree, though anything but 
ily records, will be interesting 

E 


% MEMORIALS OF 

sprang from an old family of gentle-people long 
resident at Exeter, many members of which 
have served G-od and their neighbours as cler- 
gymen of the National Church. 

Mr. E.. S. Hawker married early in life, that 
is, in November, 1823, Charlotte Eliza Hawleigh 
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 Morwensto w. 

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. In 1792 he published " Sermons on the 
Divinity of Christ ; " in 1 794, " Sermons on the Divinity 
and Operations of the Holy Grhost." He became a kind of 
itinerant preacher, marvellously popular, in order to diffuse 
his own peculiar doctrines widely throughout the country. 


THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 3 

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 
friends were his from all quarters ; many of 
whom, however, were seldom personally greeted 

JB 2 


4 MEMORIALS 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 religious movement which 
has by God's blessing convulsed and changed 
considerably the religious 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 Misbelief, had not then chosen their motto, 
"If 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. JSTo 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. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 5 

respectful admirer of More and Fisher, the 
noble Laud, the saintly Charles, and the high- 
principled Bancroft, a hearty detest er of both 
the Oromwells, 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 literary gymnasts. 

Mr. Hawker was ordained Deacon by l)r. 
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 MEMOEIALS OF 

terbury, 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 Durham, where it won the deserved appro- 
bation of the futuie 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 barn, and in a state of almost utter ruin so 
bad that repair and restoration were impossible. 


THE LATE REV. R. 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 belief in the Catholic religion, his 


8 MEMORIALS OF 

high sacramental doctrine, Ms 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. 9 

" Barrows curve above the dead ; a stony cross 
stands by a mossed and lichened 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 G-od 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 Rome. 
Of' his many children he entrusted .his sons to 
the care of St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester; 
and having obtained her father's royal sanction, 
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 MEMOBIALS OF 

ledge of God and of His goodness, that he was 
ready to give her whatever she might demand. 
Then said Morwenna, " Sir, there is a stern 
and stately headland of thine appanage in the 
Tamar-land, withi a boundary rugged and tall, 
and it looks along the Severn Sea. . They call 
it the Haven'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 



SOITTH PORCH, MORWENSXOVF CHUBCH, CORKWAIX. 

[To face page 11. 


THE LATE EEV. 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 archaeologist as the well- 
known Norman work in Iffley Church, near 
Oxford, and quite as fresh and beautiful. As 
Mr. Hawker himself wrote : " There is one 
very graphic ' sermon in stone' twice repeated 


14 MEMORIALS OF ^ 

excellent order. The window itself, of three 
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 REV. 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 occurs, the 
north door of the nave opposite the font is 
always thrown , open, so that, as is believed, 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 archgeologist, 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 ! the only ground 
Wherein this weary heart hath rest : 

What years the 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 their faith, the ancient ba-nds, 
The wise of heart in wood and stone, 
Who rear'd with stern and trusting hands, 

- '*ai7 

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 pitch'd 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 1 beneath the ship we stand, 

The inverted vessel's arching side ; 
Forsaken when the fisher band 

Went forth to sweep a mightier tide. 


THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKEE, 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 forgiA r eness warm. 
And here, just where His mighty breast 

Throbb'd the last agony away, 
They bade the voice of worship rest, 

And white-robed Levites pause and pray. 


Mark ! the rich rose of Sharon's bowers 

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 bannei's, 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 G-od. 
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 .OS 

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 Vicarage-h.ou.se, built under Mr. Hawker's 
personal superintendence, is a picturesque, 
comfortable, and good-looking building near 
the 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 Vicar'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. 



( ' l r ^ 


THE LATE REV. 11. 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 G-ranville of Stowe), and other pieces of 
furniture at once curious and valuable. His 
collection of English, Delft and Oriental china 
was likewise considerable. Perhaps th& most 
curiousjpiece,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 

o.2 


20 , MEMOEIALS 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." 2 
'" Nothing," writes Mr. Maskell in his de- 
scription of the country near Morwenstow, 
* Standard, September 1, 1875. 


THE LATE KEY. E., 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 furze 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." 3 

" Odds and Ends." By W. Maskell. P. 31. London: 
J. Toovey, 1872. 


22 MEMORIALS OF 

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 mores 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 

tmdue egotism : 

" Morwensto-w, July 12, 1854. 

" " Allow 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. HAWKER, M. A. 23 

V 

read it : e The ancient spirit is not dead ; old 
times, methinks, are breathing here.' 

"But why in rhyineless verses? You, too, 
who can rule the sound so well. It may be 
that I rather eschew the metre 4 from horror at 
the false fame of that double-dyed thief of 
other men's brains John Milton, 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 
difficult 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 MEMOEIALS 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 scatter'd jasmine flowers upon a stream, 
Were clustering in the dark blue vault of Heaven. 

" Again : ' Levell'd the billows of G-en- 
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, 
* Hush ! be mute.' 

" But 

A.ngel forms, 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 e 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. HAWKEK, M.A. 25 

Church, girdled, was an exact copy of. the usual 
garments worn by angels when they communed 
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 Oruce tells the tale. Head it 
in the Bodleian. 

"Wings, moreover, are to me destructive of all 
poetry of motion from place to place. They 
imply effort. The angels 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 MEMORIALS OF 

portrayed tlie Annunciation in the Blessed 
Yirgin'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 : 5 and I con- 

5 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 nock'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 BEV. E. S. HAWKEB,' M.A. 27 

gratulate you, as a brother Prizeman, on that 
indelible 'white stone 5 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, 
Grazing 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 
Grleam 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 e Pompeii ' was carried by Mr. Philpotts 
to Stanhope in Durham, and to his father the 
Hector 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. 

(f 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 from 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 EEV. 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 o 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 Lundy 
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, C AU 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 dreadful 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 I saw Alick Kant, one of our crew, 
swimming past. I saw him lay his hand on a 
rock, and I sung out 6 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 climbed" 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 MEMORIALS OF 

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 English 
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 REV. E. S. HAWKER, M.A. 33 

its figure-head the form of Caledonia-^-was 
placed, and tlie 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 ware, 

Is guardian of their memory ! 
Stern is her look, but calm, for there 
No gale can rend, or billow bear. 

Stand, silent image, stately starid ! 

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 storm they found 
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 frequently 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 CHEW OF THE BRIG "CALEDONIA." 
DIED SEPTEMBER 8, 1842. 

THE NIG-HT 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. B. HAWKER, M.A. > 35 


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 still, 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 ! 

Concerning the frequent wrecks, these are 
his 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 


<f 

36 MBMOEIALS 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 line 

Sing from the chamber to, the grave, 

which commemorates a yery common Cornish 
custom, was evidently the fragment 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 listen'd as it went 

To music of the skies ! 


THE LATE REV. B. 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 below ! 

Sing from the threshold to 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 s 

Until the Judgment-day ! 

In the same churchyard 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 daysj 
No falsehood taints their tongue, 
wickedness their ways. 


38 MEMOKIALS 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 liad a most 
prepossessing and commanding appearance, 
always spoke with 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 belief 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. E. S. HAWKER, 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 
literary 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 
by 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 Aquio ; by the 


40 MEMORIALS OF 

light of whose almost inspired words lie 
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. 6 

Soon after his institution to Morwenstow, in 
accordance with the directions of the Prayer 
Book, he adopted certain distinctively sacer- 
dotal vestments for his public ministrations at 
the altar ; the alb of fine white linen, the 


6 Having 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 BEV. 'E. S. HA WEBB, M.A. 4l 

chief sacrificial garment of silk, and the 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 -communication 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 Church 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 lie 
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 e fight with wild 
beasts at Ephesus,' 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 expound them and plainly 
set them forth. The pitfalls of dissent and, 


THE LATE REV. R. 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 Church had been steadily circum- 
scribed, he always held to be one of grave 
practical difficulty. 7 The fathers had eaten sour 
grapes, and, as a consequence, their children's 
teeth were set on edge. Just as the Established 
Church, guided by crafty and designing politi- 

7 " Thank God ! " he wrote, " the promises which the 
Clergy inherit from their Founder cannot fail to be fulfilled. 
It was never prophesied that they should be popular or 
. wealthy, or successful among men ; but only that they 
' should endure uuto the end,' that * their generation should 
never pass away.' "Well has this word been kept." 


44 MEMOEIALS OF 

S 

cians under Queen Elizabeth, 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 Grod 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- sight edly weakened for mere 
political 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 

s 

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. HAWKEB, M.A. 45 

hensive border of our communion, alas ! 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-like faith 
had been undestroyed by schism and untainted 
by theological error were both true and deep. 
JSTothing 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 stern 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, M.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 all 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 
practical working of Wesley anism, and its varied 
offshoots, he put on record, in a letter to Mr. 


48 MEMORIALS OF 

John Gr. 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 
e 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 he 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 
Wesley an regions, seduction and infanticide are 
the badges of the meeting-house throughout the 


THE LATE REV. K. S. HAWKER, M.A. 49 

land. When our Lord said ' By tiieir 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 modern 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 cliffs above Morwenstow, especially " Break, 
break, break," where likewise some of the most 
striking of Mr. Hawker's own poetical works 
were produced. The wild beauty of the place 

E 


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, ai 
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 likings 
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. 55 8 

Though dwelling in a most remote home, Mr. 
Hawker took the deepest interest in all public 
events, specially in those bearing upon the 

8 Standard, September i, i 875. 


THE LATE BEV. E. S. HAWKER, 'M.A. 51 

well-being of Church or State. Not only did 
lie exercise tlie poetical faculty, with, wliich 
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 Ms 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 unchangeable 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 

T? 9 

El *5 


52 MEMORIALS OF 

> 

of the late Prince Consort, while loyal and 
profound in its terms and phrases, was full of 
fche 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. Hawker nor his critical 
friends saw any incongruity whatsoever in the 
composition of -a set of verses, to honour and 
welcome 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. E. 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 

$ 

time of restored common-sense and calm, wise 
politicians proposed its repeal, the instigators 
of the original panic shrank away in silence 
and shame. If the boast of " civil and 
religious liberty " means anything practically 
equitable, it. ,surely means that the K-oman 
Catholic communion shall experience its bless- 
ings, if blessings they are, in common with all 
the later multitudinous sects, with their con- 
flicting messages, newly-made theories, or 
dreary platitudes. This Mr. Hawker expressed 
with 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 
whom a garbled account had been forwarded, 
and whose literary shrieks, heard for some 
weeks afterwards, might have been more 
appalling had they been less confusedly wild 
and dismally incoherent. 


54 MEMORIALS OE 

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 flash'd with Heaven, no more is bright : 

The 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 lowlier men, the sons of earth, 

Bent with prone neck, to greet his conquering tread. 


THE LATE .BIS V. R. S. HAWKER, M. A. 5-5 


He! when the Sage's soul with doubt was riven, 
Smote the dull dreamers with the Prophet-rod : 

He call'd on Earth and Sea to chaunt of Heaven, 
And made the stars rehearse the truth of G-od ! 

Yea ! when the demons quell'd the bold and brave, 
And roused the nations with their fiendish mock, 

Unmoved he met the G-adarenes, 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, crown'd on high ? 

We cannot tell j 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 ! 


But if Anglican bishops and clergy may 
actively co-operate with the latest new Con- 
tinental sect the sect presided over by certain 
German Professors, or with the Dutch Jan- 
senists, and this not only without rebuke, but 
with praise surely a country clergyman with 
Catholic sentiments of the old tradition, believ- 
ing 1 that the Roman Communion is an important 
as it is a venerable portion of the One Family of 


56 MEMORIALS 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-Bngland 
people who presided over the rite, rated when 
another image of another anti-church Noncon- 
formist was recently unveiled (with weird 
ritualistic 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 
bow images of sinners could be suitably erected 
to their memory. 


THE LATE REV. IT. S. HAWKER, M.A. 57 

At the period of the Prince of Wales' s severe 
and most dangerous illness (A.D. 18 71), 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 : 

" O Lord Jesus Christ ! Thou second Person 
of the glorious and undivided Trinity! Thou 
Who wert once blended here upon earth thirty 
and three years with the visible form and 
nature of a man ! Hear us, Thou Healer of 
the Nations, hear ! In and by Thy manhood, 
built from an earthly Mother's veins, and taken 
into G-od, 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, 
6 Thy son liveth ! ' and in the same hour the 
fever shall leave Thy servant, our Prince, and 
he shall be made whole. Restore him, O 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 Nam, and of Her 
who won Thy latest love upon the Gross, 
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 BEV. K. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 59 

used constantly the following beautiful " Act 
of Thanksgiving : " 

" O Jesu Master ! my Lord and my Grod ! 
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 EDWABD, our Prince of 
the Royal House of England, in his perilous 
disease. Thou hast fulfilled our vows. In 
Thy mid-nature between Grod 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, O 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 Yoice and be Thine for ever. Blend 
him, O 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 


62 MEMORIALS OF 

Truth, in an age which is KCLT eoxf)v 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 affec- 
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. 63 

ever changes came over him in later years WGY& 
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. 

LITEEAEY LABOITBS. 

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 earliest 
volume, published at Plymouth in 1825, was 
entitled" Poetical First Buds. By Reuben 1 ." 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 REV. E. S. HAKWBB, 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 allies was Wil- 
liam Jacobson, the present Bishop of Chester. 

This slight juvenile volume was followed 
by his . Newdigate Prize Poem " Pompeii," 
printed in 1827, 1 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 wais 
remarked at the time of its recital that parts of 
it were very like 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- 

1 "Pompeii," recited June 27, 1827, republished by J. 
Koberts, of Stratton, in 1836. Dedication "To Arthur 
Kelly, Esquire of Kelly, 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." 

F 


66 MEMORIALS OF 

tained and more perfect production from Mr. 
Hawker's pen. 

The following 1 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 5 
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 Zove 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/ 7 a slender 
volume of 56 pages, was issued at Oxford in 
1832, by D. A. Talboys. The preface was 


THE LATE REV. R. 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 merry 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 ? 

P 2 


68 MEMORIALS OF 

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 Beville 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 REV. E. S. HAW-KBB, M.A. 69 

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 
et The Vicarage, Morwenstow, January 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 conies 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 tliee! 


.70 MEMORIALS OF 


in. 


Thou comest to link thee with a lofty soil, 
A land of graceful dames and stately men : 

f* 

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 slumber there. 


v. 


Bring princes in thy hreast 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. E. S. HAWKER, M. A. 71 

vnr. 

Rejoice, O Prince ! her father's faith is thine, 

One worship and one creed ye twain will share ; 

How many a solemn arch and cloister'd shrine 
Shall hail your blended names in English prayer ! 


IX. 

Love 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 holiest voice, 
Her towers amid the trees shall thrill- for thee. 


x. 

> 

'Tis net 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 cajne the mighty hearts of old, 
The men, of bounding steed and belted brand ; 

That which his vows have wtiri his arm shall hold, 
A fearless knight from the old German land. 


72 MEMORIALS OF 

XIII. 

The voice of welcome, Prince, I wake once more; 
Far from the glare of courts, of cities free, 

A lowly name, on Cornwall's rocky shore, 

I breathe this blessing for thy bride and thee. 

In the same year lie 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. Bivingtons. 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 EEV. E. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 73 


II. 


They glide along this lovely ground. 
When the first violet grows I- 
Their graceful hands have just unbound 
The zone of yonder rose. 

in. 

I gather it for thy dear hreast 

. 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 ^likewise sent forth. It is en- 
titled '" Reeds Shaken with the Wind," and was 
published in London by James Burns, 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 MBMOEIALS OF - 

and active Interest in the revival of synodical 
action, both local, diocesan, 2 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, 
jieed not be reckoned more secular or less sacred 
than those other discourses which we compose 
and deliver to the people in church. For my 


2 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. R. 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 
us, the image of that invisible shelter which 
has been our refuge from one generation to 
another ; that single sacred font, the memorial 
that we have all been baptized into One Body 
by One Spirit ; the simple and solitary Altar at 
which, century after century, so many ministers 
have 'said the same thing; 5 the silence of 
these 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 e 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 MEMOEIALS 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 as 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 Offertory; 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, 


THE LATE KEV. R. S. HAWKER, 'M. A. 77 

though, strictly confined to the point in dispute, 
were refused 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 Offer- 
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, e because thou hast 


78 MEMORIALS OF 

done this 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 religious 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 undistinguished 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." 3 

In the summer of 1845 Mr. Hawker was 
selected by his bishop to preach a Visitation 

3 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 deliver 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 pries fc and theologian . of the Society of 
Jesus. -The sermon 4 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 Rephidim, their memorial and their 

name live and breathe among us for example and 

* 

4 " The Field of Rephidim :" a Visitation sermon in the 
diocese of Exeter, written by the Vicar of Morwenstow ; 
delivered in the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Launceston, 
July 27, 1845, by T. N. Harper, BA., Curate of Stratton. 
8vo, pp. 16. London, Edwards and Hughes, 1845. 


80 MEMORIALS OF 

- 

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 honoiir 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, O 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. E. S. HAWKEU, 5I.A. 81 

- 4 

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 
unborn, 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 

\ 

Masters. It had a considerable sale, for Mr. 

X 

Hawker's name and powers were now known 
and appreciated far and wide. 

Four years afterwards, to generously aid Miss 
Sellon, who, in restoring the religious life 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 Month, and 
to Lydia their Lady in the Faith, ' whose heart 
the Lord opened.' By the Vicar of Mor wen- 
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 Greorgiana, 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 ! 

Nay ! 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 REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 83 

Daughter ! my spirit turns to thee : 

Here bj 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 - MEMORIALS OF 

She stood, the TDady Shechinah of Earth, 

A chancel for the sky ; 
Where woke, to breath and beauty, God's Own Birth, 

For men to see Him by. 

Round her, too pure 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 thrill'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 REV. B. 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 and 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." 5 

5 " The Quest of the Sangraal. Chant the First. By 
R. S. Hawker. 4to, pp. 46. Exeter : Printed for the 
Author," 1864. The dedication in memory of his "Wife, then 
recently departed, stands thus " To a vacant chair and an 
added stone, I chant these solitary sounds." Mr. John 
G-odwin thus writes to me : " * The Quest,' 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 of 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 over- 
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 delicate 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 line is full of pious thought, 
and fraught 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 REV. 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 unity 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 MEMORIALS OF 

Ha ! Sirs, had we been there, 
They durst not have assay 'd 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 quenched the wrath o-f 
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 very 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 corn 

And wine and oil : a granary of God ! 


THE LATE EEV. R. S. HAWKEB,. M.A. 89 

Young 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 Arirnathee." 

(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 ! vanish'd vase of Heaven, 

That held, like Christ's own heart, an hin of blood ! 7 

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 ! (P. 25.) 


90 MEMORIALS 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 REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 



2000 End of Dispensation 



r \ 


God the Trinity. The Hebrew Tetragram, sounded 
Yehhovah. 


Eternity. Tola simul et perfecta possessio interminabilis 
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 posterius habens : a measure of movement with a first 
and a last : a former and a latter. 



92 MEMORIALS OF 

the Godhead developed in the .wonders of the 
Natural world. Accordingly we discover in 
their 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 
modern interpreters entirely ignore. In prin- 
cipio, that is to say in Verbo, in Filio, in, by, 
through, the Second Person of the Trinity, 
Deus (Elohim) creavit, caused to exist, in the 
boundary of Space and Time, ccelum et terrafti, 
the spiritual and the material world. Here the 
mind must first attempt, the image of the Trine 
and boundless Godhead, existing before there 
was a visible or conceivable thing; Life, 
throughout Eternity, alone. ISfor is it im- 
possible for human thought to conceive a 


THE LATE EEV. E. S. HAWKEK, Iff. A. 93 

notion of that Eternal existence apart from the 
resting-points of Time and Space. We find the 
definition -JEternitas : Tota simul et perfecta 
possessio interminabilis vitce, 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 
Godhead acting by, and through, the Son, of 
Whom were all created things, measured out a 
part 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 pun eta et 
orbitas gerens, a limited and measured part of the 
presence of God, having within it fixed points 
and paths. 6 We may lawfully conceive the 

6 " 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 


MEMORIALS OF 

form and outline 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 Coelum 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 supernatural 
element which I have named ' Numyne.' The forefathers 
called it the spiritual or ethereal element, ccelum, from 
G-enesis i. 2. Within its texture the other and grosser 
elements of light and air ebb and flow, cling and glide. 
Therein dwell the forces, and thereof angels and all 
spiritual things receive their , substance and form." 


THE LATE BEV. E. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 95 

existence tliat which we call Time ? "We must 
again resort to the words of the interpreters. 
Our Fathers in the Faith have told us that 
s Tempus est mensiAra motus prius et posterius 
hdbens ' 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 
and 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 
children 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 " "Well of St. John," and the " Well 
of St. Morwenna ; " and is only deficient in a 


96 MEMOEIALS OF 

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 Year Round, 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 haying 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. GL 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., of 


THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, IT. 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 

t 

unalterable Catholic tradition will serve to 
secure to its author a fair and beautiful memory 7 
in the hearts and sympathies of all who hold 
that the highest type of poetry is religious, and 

7 "So long as men have any feeling or love for true 
English poetry, Morwenstow will ever be remembered as 
the home for many a year of the author of some of the most 
beautiful of modern ballads." 'Odds and Ends." By 
William Maskell. Article, " Bude Haven," p. 16. London : 
1872 

H 


98 MEMORIALS OE 

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 knoll in a moorland of the parish 
of Morwenstow; of beautiful CloveHy ; 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. 
Theckla, of St. Cecily, and of St. Madron, 
intermingling his varied poetical thoughts, and 
vivid word-pictures with the attractive memo- 
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 Corn- 
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. HAWKER, 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 
Rock;" "Black John;" " Thomasine Bona- 
venture;" "The Botathen Ghost;" "Cruel 
Coppinger;" "The Ganger's Pocket;" "The 
Light of other Days;" " Holacombe ;" "The 
Remembrances of a Cornish Vicar ;" "A Ride 
from Bude to Boss ;" and " The First Cornish 
Mole." 

The following brief but curious record of an 
exile 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 
stranger slept. None ever knew his nation or 
name. 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 


100 MEMORIALS OF 

foreign coinage, which he paid into the hands 
of his host with the solemn charge to coriceal it 
until he was gone thence or dead a request 
which the simple-hearted people faithfully ful- 
4 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. Equees & Ecsvl. 

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, 
]ucid, and scholarly, and the book itself full 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. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 10.1 

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, and for obvious reasons, lay with the 
former. A public utterance of the Prussian 
king 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 every one, 

And a Happy New Year's Day ! 
Thus saith the king to the echoing hall, 
" With, the blessing of God, we shall slay them all." 

" Up," said the king, " load, fire, and slay ! 

'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 . MEMORIALS OF 

" Starve, starve them all, till through the skin 

Yon 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 full 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 e put into one of my nut- 
shells ' the pith and marrow of the controversy 
which at this time pervades the English mind 


THE LATE REV. E. S* HAWKEE, -M.;\. 103 

as to the claims of Science and Faith. Let me 
try : The material universe so the sages allege 
is 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- 
domitable action, are adequate to account for 
all 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 ? c Nothing so difficult 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 unseen, 
Both "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. E. 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 
meagre 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 e 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 . MEMOlilALS OF 

Heaven ; and behold the angels of G-od ascend- 
ing and descending on it. And behold the 
Lord stood above it.' Genesis xxviii. 12. Tolle 
Lege, my dear nephew. 

" Your affectionate uncle, 

" E. S. HAWKER. 
" Morwenstow Yicarage, 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 6 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 REV> E. S. HAWKEB,- M.A. 107 

and the Angel of my own "baptism is never 
away." 

And again : 

" Once, in dreamy vision, a stately and 
solemn Person stood and said to me, ' Ephpliatlia 
is not so good a word as Amen. 3 I was ponder- 
ing the manner of the Real Presence in the 
Eucharist, and I understood him to rebuke me, 
and to say, ' It is better to acquiesce in a doc- 
trine than to see it clearly. Better say "Be as 
it is," 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 peaceful and symbolic sword. 

" I. Because of the Oracle of Jacob his 
ancestor, he was called in antique parch- 


? MEMORIALS OF 

ments, 'The Wolf of Benjamin.' Genesis 
xlix. 29. 

" II. At Tarsus, Ms native city, he 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 6 which was 
desert,' a Yoice smote him to the Earth. He 
fell, blind beaten into darkness by a flood of 
insufferable light. A saying of Syria, which 


THE LATE KEV. E. S. HAWKER, . M.A. 109 

the memory of tlie Lord Jesus had carried up 
into heaven, 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 
110 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 e shook restrained, 5 the Saint was pic- 
tured evermore with the e 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 alive, 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 ! 


cc 


Because of this mystic Hand, the pentacle or 
five-pointed (fingered) figure became the Sigil 
of Signomancy in the early ages. 8 There is one 
on a Boss in Morwenstow Chancel. 

8 " On this Seal, it is said that the four Hebrew letters 
which form the awful Name ffiiT were graven. Of this the 


THE LATE KEY. B. S. HAWKEE, M.A. Ill 


" The sliield of David is a figure with six 
angles (one for the manhood taken into Grod)." 

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 Child ; 
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 Maiy Mother undenled 
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 understood 
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, are 


. \ . 

THE LATE BET. E. S. HAWKEE,. M.A. 113 

not ^surpassed by the ballads of any living or 
modern writer. One or two of Edgar Poe's 
might be compared with them ; but whose else ? 
Edgar Poe, and Hawker, and Hood were born 
poets; not made better, as it were, up to a 

1 V 

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 c Quest J precedence in point of time. 9 

" You ask me, also, for a brief estimate of his 
character. I knew him for more than thirty 

8 This is not so. Mr. Hawker's poem was first published 
at Exeter in 1864, whereas the Poet Laureate's "Idylls of 
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. 


114 MEMORIALS OF " 

i 

years, and knew him well ; but there are cir- 
cumstances connected with .the last few hours 
of his life, 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 his 
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 Yicar 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. 


CHAPTER III. 

ALTEBED 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 latifcu- 
dinarian opinions, was, by Her Majesty, at Mr. 
Gladstone's recommendation, nominated to the 

-> 

seeof Exeter. 1 Condemnatory words, neither weak 

1 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 Reviews, and that since 
his elevation to the episcopate he has refused to allow his 
own essay to appear with the others ; and, furthermore, 
that the volume is now out of print. Many persons would 
be glad if the Bishop would publicly avow such a new and 
more creditable policy, especially for one who has become 
an official guardian in England of the Christian faith and 
traditions. 


MEMORIALS, ETC. 117 

nor unf orcible, 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. 2 But after all, what has happened ? 
While no single leader of the Oxford movement 
-at its origin so thoroughly Christian and 
Conservative in its every tendency has been 
elevated to the bench ; the Oxford tutor (him- 
self, on his own confession 5 an unbeliever in the 
Athanasian Creed), 3 who led a Liberal perse- 
cution of .Dr. Newman, and helped to drive him 

2 Though no names were given, and nothing very specific 
as regards individuals set forth, yet the John JBull (which, 
to its conductors' credit, attempted an agitation against the 
apppintment of Dr. Temple) was authorized by some of 
its episcopal supporters to declare that certain of the bishops 
would decline either to meet the person nominated in Con- 
vocation or to co-operate with him in work. 

3 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, 4 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, true 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 REV. 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. 5 

5 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, 
you did not mean to convey that the Church of England 
has ever by her practice or in her ordinal, authorized, 
sanctioned, or in any way encouraged, a constitution of the 
ministry 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 
Church of England has included, and has deliberately 
intended to include, within her limits both those who hold 
and those who do not hold the doctrine of the Apostolical 
Succession. She has accordingly most carefully provided 
that 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 MEMOEIALS OP 

FurtL.errD.ore, 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 will not, apparently, face existing 
difficulties. 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 palliated acts 

on the above is unnecessary. Such a declaration from his 
" Father in God," 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 H6tel de Bussie, 
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. 
Kivingtons, 1874. 


THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKEE, 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." 6 

I possess several letters dealing in vigorous 
language with this most dangerous shortcoming. 
In December, 1 8 70, Mr. Hawker wrote thus : - 
" You will have noted that neither Moberley 
the friend of Pusey and Keble, nor Mackarness 
until 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 all more and more, the frivolous and shallow 

6 " History of My Religious Opinions," by Dr. Newman. 
First Edition, p. 274. 


122 MEMORIALS" OF 

'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. 7 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, 


7 This may be illustrated 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 have 
been implied) , that the whole bench of bishops had accepted 
his Grace's opinion on the subject. 


THE LATE REV. R. 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 relin- 
quishing the use of the sacerdotal vestments] ; 
s John Bull, Sept. 18, 1875. 


124 MEMORIALS OF 

66 bowing nay 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 

s 

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 EEV. E. 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 
officers practically teaches no doctrine at allon 
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 " 9 is so practically 

9 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 eases have lately occurred in which 
sweeping and ruthless changes have been sud- 
denly effected on the death of some rector or 
vicar. 1 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." 

1 Now, in the Church of Rome, it is the system on which 
people rest ; in the Church of England it is the individual. 
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 BEV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 127 

accepted.it and strove to abide and benefit by 
Ms teaching. He died, as Grod '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. JST umbers, 
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 Rome. 2 


2 A friend, 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 ; 
and others may note the same point. But this is not so. 
Prior 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 MEMOEIALS OE 

Mr. Hawker saw and heard of tMs and similar 
cases ; and, surveying events from the calm dis- 
tance of a Cornish parish, with the keen and 
un dimmed 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 ab 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 believe this to have been the case. 


THE iATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 129 

same. And surely Protestants, whatever be 
their form of misbelief, who 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 well 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 un- 
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 
intention in consecrating Matthew Parker, 
troubled him sorely. 3 He felt astonished, too, 

3 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 

K 


130 MEMORIALS 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. 4 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 
nauch 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 

-V 

Consecration, which were universally regarded as valid, 
(and this without an exception,) should other forms have been 
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 ?'" 

4 See Appendix No. I. for the convictions of the Rev. N. 
Pocock, M.A., &c. 


THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWJKJSB, M.A. 131 

mutual friend Mr. J. Gv Godwin. I had 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 5 his old f orm 
and face returned again, and I had the pleasure 
of seeing before me, and affectionately 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 'my self 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 MEMORIALS 

with, care and dignity; and, at my special 
request, my venerated friend consented to ad- 
dress the 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 publisher has sent you a copy of 
my book, as I ordered him. You must hold it 
in memoriam [ ' Footprints of Former Men in Far 
Cornwall 5 ]. You have given me gold for lead 
in your noble volume on e 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. HAWKER, M.A. 133 


cc 


I shall take with me to the grave tlie 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 
God the Trinity give you a throne in your 
chancel for long and coming years ! " 

At this time I wrote several letters, on behalf 
of his scheme for restoring the Church of 
Morwenstow under some thoroughly competent 
architect, and tried to induce some of my 
clerical brethren in London to give him the use 
of their pulpits for appeals with this object. 
But I was not successful. As is very constantly 
the case, every one seemed to be so engrossed 
with his own parish and demands, that no 
result whatsoever came from my several appli- 
cations. In my own parish church the weekly 
offertory scarcely averages thirty shillings a 
week throughout the year: so it would have 
been 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' ' 5 [on Archbishop Tait 5 s Bill] . < What 
a forcible and incisive letter it is I 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 6 on 
April 28, 1874 : 

6 See Appendix No. III. 

I 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 BEV. 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. e The Thanes fly from me.' White, at 
St. Barnabas' s, would not see me, although he 
was at home when I called. His excuse was 
that he wanted all the offertories for himself. 
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 1. ; 

but I won 22L 18s. Qd 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 7 

7 On this point, the Morning Post, quite as plain-spoken as 


136 MEMORIALS OF 

[the Public Worship Regulation 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 
should 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 eminent 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 Government; and to this momentous 
subject he gave great and painstaking con- 


138 MBMOEIALS OF 

sideration. Mr. Hawker's was a mind which 
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." " Erastianism 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 EEV. 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 Grod. 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 c 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 MEMORIALS. 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 ! e Nobody 
in the least conversant with the history of 
opinion,' says the Pall Mall Gazette, f can 
doubt that the political creed of the Liberal 
party all over the world is, in its principal 
articles, descended from 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 KEV. K. S. HAWKER, M.A. 141 

useful lessons, that e Liberty to err is man's 
highest good, 5 and that immunity from error 
is the only real bondage. The Demon did not 
propose to the human race so imprudent a 
sophism till 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 

/ 

absurdity. He was too wise, after his fashion, 
to subvert the fabric of Authority prematurely. 
Fifteen ages of constant observation before he 
ventured .the final experiment of the Protestant 
Reformation. Only then, as his vast intellect 
perceived, was the World rotten enough to give 
it a chance of success. For, spite of much 
scientific culture, it had not hitherto furnished 
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 for his revolt. 
Henceforth he was boldly to maintain, suadente 
numine, that there is no such thing as either 
error or revolt. From that hour he has never 


142 MEMORIALS OJ? 

ceased to maintain it, both in the religious and 
political sphere. He is doing it now all over 
the world. e 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 Govern- 
ment impossible, supplanting order by chaos, 
and preparing the final dissolution of human 
society, ' is descended from the Protestant 
Reformation.' 

" Nor is it less plain that to restrain or inter- 
dict this * Bight 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 Bright of 


THE LATE BJBV. E. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 143 

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 licence 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 
Protestants, the burglar and the assassin, the 
Communist and the Bed Republican, easily 
detect the revolting inconsistency, and resent 
it accordingly. They claim in their * Theory 
of Social Science, 5 only the same unlimited 
private judgment, which one of our ablest 
journalists lately claimed for the Clergy of the 
National Church, and which they every day 
claim for themselves. ' The first security of 
every beneficed clergyman in England/ said 
the Spectator, in a benevolent defence of the 
rights and privileges which the Anglican 
minister derives from the Reformation, 6 is 
that . ... he does not in the pulpit represent 
his congregation or the Church, but is only 


144 MEMOEIALS 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 
Liberalism, our contemporary adds, should 
be resisted. e 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 Church 
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 under 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. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 145 

was right in "Ms 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 communion; though he felt 
that any day he might be called upon by con- 
science to do so. As I have said before, he haM 
lost heart ; not by the action of Roman Catholic 
controversialists, but because of the policy of 
our own Fathers in God. 

L 


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 hear of a noble gift, a generous 
succour, and they cry out, ' What a good man ! 
what a fine-hearted fellow IV 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 unopened 
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 could 


THE LATE BEV. B. S. HAWKER, M.A. 147 

have averted by a touch, jet 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 believe 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, e according to God's 
general command, but by the exercise of their 
own rational and reasonable power.' 

"If 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, 
6 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 glided 
away. I read this book of travels, and have 

often thought of it since. 

* * * * * * 

" 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 REV. E. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 149 

cliurcli 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. Glod 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, 5 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 little 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 MBMOEIALS OP 

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, issuing in weakness, paralysis, 
and discomfiture. He felt strongly that the 
Christian religion rested on ,the great principle 
of Authority. "Most of our disputes," he 
wrote, " arise from 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 disliked public meetings, the 
organization and action of party societies, the 
policy of rival missionary corporations as well 


THE LATJ3 "REV. E. S. HAWKER,- M.A. 151 

as clap -trap appeals to the ol TTO\\OL 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 friend; 
" 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 Catholics 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 Ms 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 are 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 REV. R. 8. HAWKER,' 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. 8 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 
fearful. Only establish 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 Archbishop 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 OE 

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 friend 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. E. S. HAWKER, M. A. 155 


tc 


Did I tell you that in my 'Aurora' 9 1 adopted 
a theory of the time of Origen that the scene 

9 I transcribe the following, in order that the theory in 
question may be duly considered : 

AURORA. 

i. 

Suufall, 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 ? 

Far, far away, where icy bulwarks lean 
Along the deep, in seas without a name : 
Where the vast porch of Hades rears its giant frame ! 

HI. 
The underworld of souls ! sever'd in twain : 

One, the fell North, perplex'd and thick with gloom ; 
And one, the South, that calm and glad domain, 
Where asphodel and lotus lightly bloom 
'Neath God's own Starry Cross, the shield of peaceful 
doom. 

JV. 
No quest of man shall touch 110 daring keel 

Cleave the dark waters to their awful bourne : 
None 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 Grates 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 offensive 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 5 , when 
he was Bishop of London; and if she attached 
any value to his office, would be very much dis- 
mayed by the discovery that he had laid on her 
the empty hands of a Pagan officer, f as one 
that beateth the air.' There is something 


Ay ! ever and anon the gates roll wide, 

When whole battalions yield their sudden breath ; 

And ghosts in armies gather as they glide, 

Still fierce and vengeful, from the field of death : 

Lo! lightnings lead their hosts, and meteors glare beneath. 

November 10, 1870. 


THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKER, 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 r.ecord of tKe Battle of the demons with 
the Battalions of the Living Grod. I hope to 
have a line from you soon. In these days it is 
something to receive a Sacramental Letter from 
a true man. Grod speed you in all your ways. 
I am always yours affectionately." 

Mr. Hawker's distress that the Public 
"Worship Begulation Bill should have been 
introduced by the Bishops * was as true and 

1 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, tinder 
the signature of " A L/ondon Clergyman," to The Morning 


158 - MEMORIALS OF 

deep as it was sincere. " Neither party of 
politicians would ever have dreamt of such a 
scheme," he wrote to myself, when the Bill had 
become law. " The Bishops 2 are the traitors 
of their Master." Those who, like Mr.- Hawker, 
love the " Catholic faith " better than their life ; 
those whom its gifts 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 

Post, the day after Archbishop Tait introduced it into the 
House of Lords, and was reprinted by all the Church 
newspapers. 

2 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, G-loucester 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 wei-e 
absent. The see of St. David's was vacant. 


THE LATE REV. R. 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 G-od 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 
surely be at once morally blind and deaf. If 
the law needed no alteration, why, in the name 
of common 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 tp have directly 
borrowed his phrase from a conversation with 
the Archbishop, declared in the House of 
Commons that the proposed Bill was expressly 
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 5 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 lias been altered. 3 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 

3 For a temperate, learned, and as yet unanswered state- 
ment of this fact, I refer my 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 III. 


THE LATE EEV. E. .S. HAWKEE, M.A. 161 

before the Bill in question became law. 4 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. 

4 The following is borrowed from Mr. Orby 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 unaffected by the Judicature Act, 
or by the renewed vitality infused into the Judicial Com- 
mittee of the Privy Council." P. 2. London : Pickering, 
1875. 

M 


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 believed 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- farther interference, he should take his 
stand at once, and sever himself from a Church 
which had-' neither authority nor doctrine. 5 e I 
will never consent to have my competency as a 


THE LATE KEV. R. 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-epis copal jurisdic- 
tion -little as I value that State Church which 
would niake Dr. Temple a Bishop. I will fight 
them here on the altar of my God.' I expected 
that he would, by his High Church ceremonies, 
and especially by his sermons that were most 
dogmatic and denunciatory of the Evangelical 
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 lie made. It 
is my impression, almost amounting to a cer- 
tainty, that, had his health permitted, he would 
not have joined the Church of Borne until he had 
first done battle with Dr. Temple." 5 

5 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. 6 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 intention, 
and, under other circumstances, would have been his public 
policy. F. Gr. TJ. 

6 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 under 
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 OP 

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. 7 

Such a conviction and conclusion is surely 
reasonable, logical, and just. He cannot be 

T -If justice had been done .the new enactment should only 
have affected those instituted to benefices after the passing of 
the Act, not those already occupying an assured and hitherto 
protected position. 


THE LATE KEY. B. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 1 67 

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 appalling than their actions. 
At the time of the Grorham 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 Public 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 OP 

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. K. S. HAWKER, M.A. 169 

chronicled; and without a doubt its presence is 
being increasingly felt. 8 Moreover, it has for 

8 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 
seeeders. It certainly deserves consideration by our rulers, 
both ID Church and State : The Rev. W. M. Hunnybun, 
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 Kevins, of 
Southampton; the Rev. H. J. Pye, Rector of Clifton-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 T 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, 
liigli 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 sis 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. Trevelyan 
Smith, M.A., Vicar of Cannock, Staffordshire; Rev. Wil- 
liam G-oldstone, 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 EEV. R. S. HAWKE.R, M.A. 171 

govern in the Church of Rome. 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 9 with which the late Arch- 

9 " 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 Bis 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. HAWKER, M.A. 173 

"A Prince shall reign from the Great Gregory's line ; 

A Prelate wield Augustine's mighty 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- 
munion, 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, 1 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 Rates, 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. 

1 It is a remarkable sign of the times, (and worthy of 
careful notice, if our Church, leaders noticed anythingj 
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 . MEMORIAL'S .OF 

papers and taint the land, the disastrous 
secularization 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 
punishment 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 "Modern 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 BEV. K. S, HAWKER, M.A. 175' 

mental operation. Thns the greatest danger 
for true Liberty which a few reflecting persons 
who think for themselves believe 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 

i 1 

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 ho 
higher will, no divine order, on which the 
mutual alliance with Churchmen to the State 
ought to be founded. That v which God the 
Trinity, in His highest perfections, is to the 
Churchman, such is the Non-Christian or Infidel 
State to the excogitators of " modern 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 MEMORIALS OF 

liave 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 shifted, 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 EEV. B. S. HAWKEE, M.A. 177 

I may here put on record that in the latter 
part of the year 1864, Mr. Hawker had married 
Pauline Ann, only daughter of Vincent Francis 
Kuczynski, 2 a Polish nobleman (by Mary 
Newton, his wife, an English lady), to whom 
the Vicar had been introduced by the Rev. 
William Yalentine, Vicar of Whixley, in York- 
shire (who owned a residence in the parish of 
Morwenstowj and often abode there), and with 
whom Miss Kuczynski resided. It has heen 
said that this accomplished lady and most 
devoted wife, was a Roman 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 

2 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 5th of April, 
1807, in Nieswiz, Government of G-rodno, 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 OE 


great truths of the Catholic Faith as a child un- 
born." 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, Bosalind, 
born within the octave of St. Rosa 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. 8 Also 
3 On a lofty rock near Bude Haven, there stood of old a 


THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKEK, M.A. 179 

may they 'breathe 'mid future hearts their 
father's name I'" 

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 
validity 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 

i 

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. 
4 See Appendix No. II. 

s 2 


180 MEMORIALS OJb' 

and practical position of the National Ghurcli 
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 narshly judged for 
dwelling upon the Church of England's present 
dangers, or for being painfully 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- 

? 

f essed themselves unable to govern their clergy 5 

6 That such was the impression made upon many, is evi- 
dent from the following statement of Mr. John Bright, 
M.P. : 


THE LATE REV. B. S. HAWKEK, M.A. 181 

are to be characterized as "blasphemous 
rogues and scoundrels," the choice language 
used in reference to Mr. Hawker by a Radical 
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 disputed He unquestion- 

"Men, who knowing very little of Dissenting Ministers, 
say 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 OF 

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 hundreds of our most devoted, learned, 
and self-sacrificing clergy* and thousands of our 
laity, to the ranks of the Church of Borne.* 

c Such assertions are very 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 Chureh-of-England de- 
fenders, and, in the long run, become rather a hindrance 
tiban a help, for they frequently cause secession. There is 
scarcely a family in England, amongst the . aristocracy -and 


, THE LATE REV. E. S. HAWKEB, M.A. 183 

Moreover, amongst lay-people, these contra- 
dictor y 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 Ellicott's case, they do not directly 
and openly recommend secession to Rome, 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 

Hill 

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 
Rome may not be reckoned up. 


184 MEMOBIALS OF 

him, as I know, night and day ; and constantly 
harassing a delicate and sensitive conscience, 
helped efficiently 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. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 185 

a change as that which was sealed at the last. 
Picturesque and graphic as are the verbal 
delineations 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 unmourn'd, the cataract cleaves the steep 
O river of the rocks, thy fate is mine ! 


186 MEMOEIALS OF 

Of his latter hours, which came so unex- 
pectedly, I know nothing but what has been 
courteously 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. R. S.' HAWKER,' M.A. 187 

of a lady who was educating Ms 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, 1875,) 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 

Plymouth again. He did not seem much 
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; 

r See the letter to myself, which stands as a note to this 
chapter, from the Rev. J. C. D. Yule. 


THE LATE REV. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 189 

lie 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. 8 I 
shall .never forget the scene. He looked so 
peaceful, and was so full of thankfulness, 

8 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 republicd deponere." 


190 MEMORIALS OF 

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. 
0. T. Comber, the Curate in charge of Morwen- 
stow, gives further interesting particulars as 
follows: "Until I could see Mr. Howe [of 
Stratton, the family attorney,] and tell him 
what I must now tell you, I thought it best that 
my further 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. 9 IsTo one converted him, as no human 

9 This might be a popular, but not an exact impression 
of Mr. Hawker's religious convictions. No doubt he was 
a Catholic ; but that he was a Roman Catholic is simply 


THE LATE EEV. 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 Morwen.stow, 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. 


194 MEMORIALS 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 VlCAR OF MORWENSTOW, 

WHO DIED IN THE CATHOLIC FAITH, 

ON THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION- OF OUR 

BLESSED LADY, 1875, 

AGED 71. 

> 

JSequiescat 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 Plymouth Cemetery for interment. ' 

1 Some may have reasonably desired his burial in G-od'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. R. S. HAWKER, M.A. 195 

Two carriages 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 

i 

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 realities 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. 

o 2 


196 MEMORIALS OF 

peace winch endures, and of an union which 
cannot be marred or broken, in a blessed day 
of blissful immortality ! 

The Rev. "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 
future wife, wrote 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. 5 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 REV. B. S. HAWKER, 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 2 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 f Chapel-house ' 
mentioned in Canon Kingsley's 'Westward- 
Ho, J 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 folio wing. May, when 
I returned alone for a few months to Whixley, 

a "To Eva Valentine, on her sixth birthday, May 16^ 
1864, "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 almost 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 
our long evenings together either at the Vicar- 
age or Chapel-house ; and there was scarcely 
an event in his life which he did not then and 
there recount to me. At first 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. R. 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 all his playful expressions, have 
ever led me to think differently 

tf 

" 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 faithfully (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 gifted with high poetical qualities, 
he made Ms 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 
his principles were true; and lie 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. firm believer in 
Historical Christianity, he was somewhat im- 
patient of the literary prigs and inquiring 
critics of these lt,cer shallow times. 

Long may his memory live 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 Icnow 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 REV. K. S. HAWKER, 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 first 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 Church, 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 which I am 
obliged to its writer, just as it reached me- 
leaving it to tell its own stor y : 

" Bradford Rectory, North Devon, 
" 7th October, 1875. 

" SIR* Having read in the Standard a report of your 
Address to your congregation, on Sunday last, on the death 
of the Rev. It. S. Hawker, with whom I was many years 
on terms of friendship, it has .occurred to me that some 
local information respecting the last act of his life, which 
has furnished the lamentable 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 REV. 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 othe'r 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 Rome?" 
" 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 MEMORIALS, ETC. 

accompanied by this servant, with whom I had some con- 
versation. He was a steady, middle-aged man, who seemed 
quite 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 has 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 Rev. Dr. Lee, 
Lambeth." 


APPENDIX No. I. 


THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 

IT is known that Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Cantei'- 
bury, was not only on principle an Erastiau ; but that, at 
the time of his consecration as Bishop, he unquestionably 
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 character, 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. Gatty 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 : 

" SIK, My attention has been only to-day directed by a 
friend to Dr. Gatty's censure on my lecture at Liverpool. 
A great many clergymen, 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 differing 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 
celebrate'd on the 9th Thermidor as a true Apostle of 
I/iberty 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, perjured 
themselves to no man. So far they stand on a higher moral 
level than the base traitors who were, and deservedly, exe- 
cutedblunder and folly as that execution was by Mary I. 
I should have compared them with Egalite 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 G-oode. 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 F. LITTLEDALE. 

" Cavendish Club, 307, Eegent-street, W. 
" May 16, 1868." 


208 APPENDIX. 

On the Reformers in general, the Rev. Nicholas Pocock, 
M.A., of Queen's College, Oxford, writes somewhat to the 
same effect in a lecture delivered at Bristol, May 13, 1875, 
and afterwards published by Pickering : 

"The Bishops who would not go along with Somerset 
were first imprisoned and then deprived ; and others, such as 
Ridley, Farrar, Poynet, Hooper, Coverdale, Scorey, Taylor 
and Harley, substituted in their places. I have no time 
now to prove to you 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). 2 

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 

2 "The Principles of the Reformation shown to be in Contradiction 
to the Book of Common Prayer : a paper read afc 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 alb, 
the tunicle, the pastoral staflj 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.) 

Furthermore : 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 siich-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 1 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," cdn\j 
taining the following : 

" 1. After Mr. Tait of Balliol had undergone the ceremony 

1 I am indebted to Mr. William Grant for a complete account and 
record of the controversy. In reply to a letter from me, he cour- 
teously wrote on October 28, 1875 : " Pray make any use of it you 
may think right." 


APPENDIX. 211 

of Confirmation by the late Bishop Bagot, the bishop having 
learnt from himself (as is said), that he had never even 
been baptized (except by 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 .... Ha 
was neither born 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. 

y* 

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 
bur 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 
asserted 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. James' Square, S.W., 
" Octolber 31, 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 paragraph, 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 do not think that I, as a suffragan of the Province of 
Canterbury, can with any propriety take any gtep 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 Guardian), 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 Guardian, 
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 
authorities, 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 nbt, 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 entry and attestation : 

(Copy) "Archibald Campbell Tait, was born on 21st 
December, 1811, and baptized on the 10th 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. 

" JATJIES 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'the./aetf 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, G-lasgow, 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." " II. What is the practice in the Roman 
Catholic Church in Scotland as to re-baptizing, conditionally, 
converts from the Presbyterian communions to that Church ? " 
Answer" 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 summarily 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 born and bred 
an English Churchman. Here is the proposed enactment : 
' If the incumbent 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 be deemed 
to be true.'' In Dod's ' Parliamentary Companion' the two 
Archbishops are j catalogued as ' Liberals.' Truly this is 
a e X/iberal ' 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. B y 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, rectors, 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 tmrebuked, 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 liominem argument, respectfully 
put to the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. In 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 ? Liter a scripta 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, you 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 Socinians are 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 enact- 
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 Regulation 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 consistory 
court of the diocese, from which there lay an appeal to the 
provincial court of the archbishop. In many cases,, indeed, 
the cause was removed by 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 affecting 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 : '-I. 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 and 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 
1 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, 1875." 


APPENDIX No. IV. 

AT MORWENSTOW, NOVEMBER 10, 1875. 

BY JOHN I). 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 

cither 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 hare 
come to see. 

To a pilgrim visiting- the footprints of Robert Stephen 
Hawker, Cornish bard, and for forty years Vicar of Mor- 
wens^ow, 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 ;'' 

or to break the spell that seems to hang about those dark, 
gloomsoine 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 








APPENDIX, 231 

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 dhurch 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 npwards 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 modern 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, griffins, 
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-column 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 modern 
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 r 
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 varied 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-r 
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 dbg 
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 their presence was not duly 
appreciated, such of the original benches belonging to 
Morwenstow Church being re-used. These seats are of early 
sixteenth-century date, finely carved with foliage, griffins, 
masques with curling tails, a bell, a spear with a heart 
npon 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 east end of the chancel lead to the altar. 

'.''-'. . R 


234 


APPENDIX. 



At the entrance of the church is an upright alms-box 
and a visitor's book, on the outside of which, in Hawker's 
large handwriting, is inscribed, " Thou shalt remember the 
Lord thy God : for it is He that giveth thee power to get 
wealth" (Deut. viii. 18). And near the modern south 
porch is a head^stone surmounted with a cross bearing this 
inscription,^-" Here rests until the Judgment the body of 
William St^tephens, whose soul went into the place of 
shelter e^f he 5tjii;jday of May, 1 844. The Lord grant unto 
him that^^cpa^^id mercy of the Lord in that day." 

The chu^^p;|ower is of late fifteenth- century date, 
capped witlifeo)|fagpnal turrets and parapets, but, being 
devoid of "anT^^%tresses, is less effective than many in the 

V - _ -'' f' * / 

; locality. The windows throughout the church are mostly 
^original windows, of very simple form without any 
rig. The roof of the church is covered with oak 
tingles instead of the customary slate, and now that it 
has aged by exposure, a peculiarly soft tone of colour 
is produced that harmonizes well with the grey of the walls. 
Returning for a moment to the parsonage, it is with 
regret that I observe the removal of the famed lines 
written by the late vicar and set over , the principal 

entrance : 

"A church, a glebe, a pound a day," &c. 

Although it may be yet too early to tell the life of Robert 
Hawker, and although there may be two opinions as to his, 
possession of heroic qualities, his claim to rank as one of the 
true poets of the nineteenth century is indisputable, and as 
such, the memorials of his Cornish home are of more than 
local importance, and should, in my opinion, be carefully 
preserved as far as possible as he left them. 


THE END. 


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and written with a spirit and in a temper deserving unqualified commendation." 
Catholic World (American). 


2. GLIMPSES OF THE SUPERNATURAL. In Two Vplumes. 
Price 15s. London : H. S. KIN& & Co. 

" We are certainly not aware of any work which affords so copious or well- 
-arranged an assortment of materials bearing on the subject." Saturday Revieiv. 

" Dr. Lee's book is thoroughly readable and well-written ; even those who, like 
ourselves, dissent from many of his conclusions, are still bound to pay a tribute to 
his undeniable earnestness and sincerity." Hour. 

"A scholarly and most attractive volume (written from a Christian standpoint), 
which is one of the certain successes of the season." Daily Post. 


3. RECENT LEGISLATION FOR THE CHURCH OF ENG- 
LAND, AND ITS DANGERS: A LETTER TO THE LORD 
. BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. Price 1*. London and Oxford : 
A. R. MOWBRAY & Co. 

"Dr. Lee's manly, vigorous, and outspoken Letter on the present crisis contrasts 
strikingly with the sad ominous silence preserved by those who ought to speak 
out." Daily Post. 

" A masterly analysis of the situation, most temperately and touchingly stated : 
only wanting, for its conclusion, a practical remedy." Leeds Intelligencer. 


T, 


%&- 


4. THE BIRECTQRIUM ANGLICANTJM. Fourth Edition 

(out of print) . Price 12s. ^ 

" The existence of one such work of credit and reputation must do something to 
diminish the varieties of .'Ritualism into which the taste or studies of independent 
explorers might lead tbem. : v. . . The book must Readmitted to stand without a 
rival in its own line and if there are few who are prepared to adopt its system as 
a whole, there are fewer still who might not gather from its pages some hints for 
the more decent and .orderly.nerforinance of their own public ministrations in 

~*'. -:', , --ti-*^'^ .Wji ! K>vCi^.- M u*nBBft- - * 

Church;" Guardi 



CLIJR'ICORUM : A GUIDE FOR THE 

AND DECENT CELEBRATION OF DIVINE SER- 
VICE, THE HOLY SACRAMENTS, AND OTHER OFFICES. 
Price 7s. 6d. London | HOGG & Co. 

i "Dr. Lee is so well known for his great knowledge of those ancient ritual 
,.arrangements which are \-gradualiy; -.being revived^that it would almost seem pre- 
. surnption '.-to -cntUuze -anything ^ th^t-he,may say on the subject; we will, therefore, 
; ; ;jfest Contented with c6ngratul>;tingour%l^the'd" correspondent not only on the 
v ; niethjp"d and , ; style of his?:last- work, uifcf%Iso on thjl very exhaustive manner in 
: whiic ; h.-each Service, as,,to its, ritual arrangements, is^lreated.''-^-.^*^^*' and Queries. 

";We can'haye.UQ-he'sitation-in saying, especially cwhen we bear in mind what an 
aiitho'iityion such : ;^%ubject -Dj is well calculated tcr 1 """' ~' f 

great seuvice to ''th^^^Moifl'efed-'^rrdesire.inf&jmal^Sn.of the kind which' it imj 



'&f pi-actised pen?iSf JDf":*Ji'-. i . 

''' the sad history tjf a- <3.p: 

s long series, of calamities 

are well known ;^nd they 
,,:,.. gracefully than i '' ' 
' ' ffii^|fe;!- The old is tp 
' latter' 'days,' bear in 



-VEESE,.;J 
ridon 


POEMS.. 
orS : -J". PARKER & C.o. 


Illustrated. 


"pmduced by the warm irb agination, and 
e. jjs f speeds rapidly from century to century,, tracing 
;fjuc&py:,' on whom ah act of desecration is visited 'by a 
rminating in extinction. Dr. Lee's tastes and sympathies 
if ever, been expressed more forcibly and 
and hates commerce, more especially 
'd, and both the men, ,and the practices of these 
the stamp of degjblaeracy. His faith, while it 
' 



looks forwardijiopefullyf to %lie?iuture;, looks back' also wistfully to the blessing of 
h". 11s, aird^allv'the yairied p l o;arp : Vf ancient worship. The. language in which he 
s:igriiatizesrhe removal of a city.^tfurch to make^way for a bank, is tob strong to 
l>c quoted abruptly : it.would^pf||^d;even sy in pathetic readers unless they had been 
pi-eviously caught by the full tid*5|o^l|e wrijei^^assion. .In ' The Bells of Botte- 
ville Tower.' Dr. Lee has undoubt^S^-ni^^^p^earnest, fervid, and really poetical 
expression both, of himself and his ^sn ' 


7. THE CHRISTIAN EOC^RIITE OF KEIAYER FOR THE 

DEPARTED. Second Edition. Price 10*. 6d. 'London : STRAHAN 
& Co.. ' ' ' ' ' 

"Dr. Lee's learned work is probably the most careful and complete on the 
subject -in modern divinity. It is distinguished by a calm aud fair statement of 
tlie writer's opinions, well-weighed-examination of, the witnesses, and- considerable 
Jiuiuaiiitance with the ancient liturgies aud pa'tristi'c wriiings." Sta?idurd. 


d 

A 


4. THE BIEECTOEITJM A^GIICANUM. Fourth Edition 

(out of print). Price 12s. 

" The existence of one such work of credit and reputation must do something to 
diminish the varieties of Ritualism into which the taste or studies of independent 

explorers might lead them The book must be admitted to stand without a 

lival in its own line ; and if there arc few who are prepared to adopt its system as 
a whole, there are fewer still who might not gather from its pages some hints for 
the more decent and orderly performance of their own public ministrations in 

... , ,, ,, ,. - --.: j.:;i*via>iiHSfcS&> L 

Church. 



5. THE:,]fHTJALE CLEEICOBUM : A GUIDE FOB, THE 

,,.-. .... REVERENT AND DECENT CELEBRATION OF DIVINE SER- 
VICE, THE HOLT SACRAMENTS, AND OTHER OFFICES. 
Price 7s. 6d. London : HOGG & Co. 

" Dr. Lee is so well known for his great knowledge of those ancient ritual 
arrangements which are gradually being revived,, that it would almost seem pre- 
sumption to criticize anything that lie may say on the subject; we will, therefore, 
jest contented with congratul. ting our learned correspondent not only on the 
method and style of his last work, but also on the very exhaustive manner in 
which each Service, as to its ritual arrangements, is treated." Nutms and Queries. 

"We can have.no hesitation in saying, especially when we bear in mind what an 
uuthoiity on such a subject Dr. Lee is, that the book is well calculated to .be. of 
C'reat service to those uho need or desire information of the kind which it imparts." 
Yorkshire Po*,t.~ 

6. THE 'SEEDS, : GF BOTTEVILLE TO WEB,: A GHRI3T- 
'*- 'MAS STofe' IN VERSE, AND 'OTHER POEMS, illustrated. 

Price 4s. 6d.- .,; London and Oxford : J. PARKER & Co. 

'Another' narrative fjfepem has been produced by the warm imagination and 
practised pen of Dr. F. (IRifLee. He speeds rapidly from century to century, tracing 
the sad history of a Cornish family, on whom an act of desecration is visited by a 
long series of calamities terminating in extinction. Dr. Lee's tastes and sympathies 
are well known; and they liav^.. seldom, if ever, been, expressed more forcibly and 
peacefully than now. He lwve"S; , medisevalism and hates commerce, more especially 
finance. The old is to hiih\ the good, and both the men, , and the practices of these 
latter days, bear in his judgment the stamp of degeneracy. His faith, while it 
looks forward hopefully to the- future, looks back also wistfully to the blessing of 
b. l!s, and all the varied pomp of ancient worship. The language in which he 
siigmatizes the removal of a city church to make way for a bank, is too strong t<> 
!<i- (j noted abruptly : it would offend even sympathetic readers unless they had been 
previously caught by the full tide of the writerV passion. In ' The Bells of Botte- 
viile Tower.' Dr. Lee has undoubtedly made^p. earnest, fervid, and really poetical 
expression both of himself and his subJQQt^^Zruardiun^ June, lc!74. 

7. THE CKRISTIAH DOCTBE5TE OF PHAYEB, FOE THE 

DEPARTED. Second Edition. Price IOs. 6d. London : STKAHAN 
& Co. 

" Dr. Lee's learned work is probably the most careful and complete on the 
subject in modern divinity. Jt is distinguished by a calm and fair statement of 
the writer's opinions, well-weighed examination of the witnesses, and considerable 
with the ancient liturgies and patristic writings.'''' Standard. 



2-12519 




UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO