Types of the total earth, they hailed The signal’s starry frame: Shuddering with second life, they quailed At the Child Jesu’s name. Then slow the patriarchs turned and trod, And this their parting sigh,— “Our eyes have seen the living God, And now—once more to die.” We began this chapter with stories illustrating the harsh side of Mr. Hawker’s character. We have slided insensibly into those which show him forth in his gentler nature. There was in him the eagle and the dove: it is pleasanter to think of the dove-like characteristics of this grand old man. And naturally, when we speak of him in his softer moods, not when he is doing battle for God and the Church, and—it must be admitted—for his own whims, but when he is at peace and full of smiles, we come to think of him in his relations with children. When his school was first opened he attended it daily; but in after-years, as age and infirmities crept on, his visits were only once a week. He loved children, and they loved him. It was his delight to take them by the hand and walk with them about the parish, telling them stories of St. Morwenna, St. Nectan, King Arthur, Sir Bevil Grenville, smugglers, wreckers, pixies and hobgoblins, in one unflagging stream. So great was the affection borne him by the children of his parish, that when they were ill, and had to take physic, and the mothers could not induce them to swallow the nauseous draught, the vicar was sent for, and the little ones, without further struggle, swallowed the medicine administered by his hand. A child said to him one day: “Please, Mr. Hawker, did you ever see an angel?” “Margaret,” he answered solemnly, and took one of the child’s hands in his left palm, “there came to this door one day a poor man. He was in rags. Whence he came I know not. He appeared quite suddenly at the door. We gave him bread. There was something wonderful, mysterious, unearthly, in his face. And I watched him as he went away. Look, Margaret! do you see that hill all gold and crimson with gorse and heather? He went that way. I saw him go up through the gold and crimson, up, still upwards, to where the blue sky is, and there I lost sight of him all at once. I saw him no more; but I thought of the words, ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’” A good idea of his notions about angels, and their guardianship of his church, may be gathered from a remarkable sermon he preached a few years ago, on St. John the Baptist’s day, in his own church. It was heard by an old man, a builder in Kilkhampton; and it made so deep an impression on his mind, that he was able to repeat to me the outline of its contents, and to give me whole passages. His text was 1 Sam. iii. 4, “_Here am I!_”