audible anywhere but the deep rumble of the waves' bellow, or the chirp
of the birds overhead, or, perhaps, when the wind was southerly, the
church bells on Sunday morning. Never have I looked upon such lonely
penury, and yet there, even there, these forlorn women kept their souls
alive. "Yes," they said, "we're working when we can get the work, and
trusting, trusting, trusting still."
I have lingered too long over this poor adventure of losing my way to
Glen Rushen, but my little sketch may perhaps get you close to that side
of Manx life whereon I wish to speak to-day. I want to tell the history
of religion in Man, so far as we know it; and better, to my thinking,
than a grave or solid disquisition on the ways and doings of Bishops or
Spiritual Barons, are any peeps into the hearts and home lives of the
Manx, which will show what is called the "innate religiosity" of the
humblest of the people. To this end also, when I have discharged my
scant duty to church history, or perhaps in the course of my hasty
exposition of it, I shall dwell on some of those homely manners and
customs, which, more than prayer-books and printed services, tell us
what our fathers believed, what we still believe, and how we stand
towards that other life, that inner life, that is not concerned with
what we eat and what we drink, and wherewithal we shall be clothed.
THE DRUIDS
And now, just as the first chapter of our Manx civil history is lost,
so the first chapter of our church history is lost. That the Druids
occupied the island seems to some people to be clear from many Celtic
names and some remains, such as we are accustomed to call Druidical,
and certain customs still observed. Perhaps worthy of a word is the
circumstance that in the parish where the Bishop now lives, and has
always lived, Kirk Michael, there is a place called by a name which in
the Manx signifies Chief Druid. Strangely are the faiths of the ages
linked together.
CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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