Vestry meeting after vestry meeting was called on this matter; one of the landowners remonstrated, but all in vain: Mr. Hawker remained unmoved; a shingle roof he would have, or none at all. A gentleman wrote to him, quoting a passage from Parker’s _Glossary of Architecture_ to show that anciently shingle roofs were put on only because more durable material was not available, and were removed when lead, slate or tiles were to be had. But Mr. Hawker remained unconvinced. “Our parson du stick to his maygaims,” said the people shrugging their shoulders. He was very angry with the opposition to his shingle roof, and quarrelled with several of his parishioners about it. He managed to collect money among his friends, and re-roofed the church, bit by bit, with oak shingle. But old shingle was made from heart of oak cut down in winter: the shingle he obtained was from oak cut in spring for barking, and therefore full of sap. The consequence was, that in a very few years it rotted, and let the water in as through a colander. Enough money was thrown away on this roof to have put the whole church in thorough repair. I pointed out to the vicar some years ago, when he was talking of repairing his church, that the stones in the arches and in the walls were of various sorts—some good building-stones, some rotten, some dark, some light—giving a patchwork appearance to the interior. I advised the removal of the poorer stones, and the insertion of better ones for the sake of uniformity. “No, never!” he answered. “The Church is built up of good and bad, of the feeble and the strong, the rich and the poor, the durable and the perishable. The material Church is a type of the Catholic Church, not the type of a sect.” In many ways Mr. Hawker was before his time, as in other ways he was centuries behind it. He was the first to reinstitute ruridecanal synods which had fallen into disuse in Cornwall; and, when he was rural dean in 1844, he issued the following citation to all the clergy of the deanery of Trigg-Major:— In obedience to the desire of many of the clergy, and with the full sanction of our Right Reverend Father in God, the lord bishop of this diocese, I propose, in these anxious days of the ecclesiate, to restore the ancient usage of rural synods in the deanery of Trigg-Major. I accordingly convene you to appear, in your surplice, in my church of Morwenstow on the fifth day of March next ensuing, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, then and there, after divine service, to deliberate with your brethren in chapter assembled. I remain, reverend sir, your faithful servant, R. S. HAWKER, _The Rural Dean_. FEBRUARY, 1844.