The Vicar of Morwenstow: Being a Life of Robert Stephen Hawker, M.A.Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
General
The Vicar of Morwenstow: Being a Life of Robert Stephen Hawker, M.A.
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Hawker, Robert Stephen, 1803?-1875
They dreamed not in old Hebron, when the sound
Went through the city, that the promised son
Was born to Zachary, and his name was John,—
They little thought that here, in this far ground
Beside the Severn Sea, that Hebrew child
Would be a cherished memory of the wild!—
Here, where the pulses of the ocean bound
Whole centuries away, while one meek cell,
Built by the fathers o’er a lonely well,
Still breathes the Baptist’s sweet remembrance round.
A spring of silent waters with his name,
That from the angel’s voice in music came,
Here in the wilderness so faithful found,
It freshens to this day the Levite’s grassy mound.
MORWENSTOW, Sept. 20, 1850. _My dear Mrs. M_——,— ... I have but a
sullen prospect of winter tide. I had longed to go on with another
window. But my fate, which in matters of _l._ _s._ _d._ is always
mournful, paralyses my will. A west window in my tower is offered me
by Warrington for the cost of carriage and putting together.
But—but—but. Fifteen years I have been vicar of this altar; and all
that while no lay person, landlord, tenant, parishioner or steward,
has ever proffered me even one kind word, much less aid or coin.
Nay, I have found them all bristling with dislike. All the great men
have been hostile to me in word or deed. Yet I thank my Master and
His angels, I have accomplished in and around my church a thousand
times more than the great befriended clergy of this deanery. Not one
thing has failed. When I lack aid to fulfil, I go to the altar and
ask it. Is it conceded? So fearfully that I shudder with
thanksgiving. A person threatened me with injury on a fixed day. I
besought rescue. On that very day that person died. A false and
treacherous clergyman came to a parish close by. I shook with dread.
I asked help. It came. He entered my house five days afterwards to
announce some malady unaccountable to him. He went. It grew. He
resigned his cure last week.
And these are two only out of forty miracles.
Yours faithfully,
R. S. HAWKER.
It is painful to record this side of the vicar’s character; but without
it this would be but an imperfect sketch. He was, it must be borne in
mind, an anachronism. He did not belong to this century or this country.
His mind and character pertained to the Middle Ages and to the East.
He is not to be measured by any standard used for men of our times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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