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
MORWENSTOW, July 24, 1857. _My dear Mrs. M——_,—All my pets are dead,
and I cannot endure my lonely lawn. I want some ewe lamb, “to be
unto me a daughter.” T—— is a parish famous for sheep: are there any
true Church farmers among the sheep-masters, to whom, with Dr. C——’s
introduction, I could write, in order to obtain the animals I seek?
I want to find a man, or men, who would deal honestly and sincerely
by me, and in whom I could trust. Will you ask your father if he
would have the kindness to instruct me hereon? I want soft-eyed,
well-bred sheep, the animal which was moulded in the mind of God the
Trinity, to typify the Lamb of Calvary.
Yours always,
R. S. HAWKER.
He had the greatest objection to hysterical religion. “Conversion,” he
said, “is a spasm of the ganglions.” “Free justification,” was another
of his sayings, “is a bankrupt’s certificate, whitewashing him, and
licensing him to swindle and thieve again.”
“There was a young Wesleyan woman at Shop” (this is one of his stories)
“who was ill; and her aunt, a trusty old Churchwoman, was nursing her.
The sick woman’s breast was somewhat agitated, and rumblings therein
were audible. ‘Aunt,’ said she, ‘do you hear and see? There is the clear
witness of the Spirit speaking within!’—‘Lor’, my dear,’ answered the
old woman, ‘it’s not that: you can get the better of it with three drops
of peppermint on a bit of loaf-sugar.’”
On the occasion of a noisy revival in the parish, he wrote the following
verses, to describe what he believed to be the true signs of spiritual
conversion—very different from the screeching and hysterics of the
revival which had taken place among his own people, the sad moral effect
of which on the young women he learned by experience.
When the voice of God is thrilling,
Breathe not a sound;
When the tearful eye is filling,
Breathe not a sound;
When the memory is pleading,
And the better mind succeeding,
When the stricken heart is bleeding,
Breathe not a sound.
When the broad road is forsaken,
Breathe not a sound;
And the narrow path is taken,
Breathe not a sound;
When the angels are descending,
And the days of sin are ending,
When heaven and earth are blending,
Breathe not a sound.
A Dissenter at Bude considered this sentiment so unsuited to evangelical
religion, and so suitable for the dumb dogs of the Established Church,
that he had it printed on a card, and distributed it among his
co-religionists, in scorn, with a note of derision of his own appended.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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