The Vicar of Morwenstow: Being a Life of Robert Stephen Hawker, M.A.Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
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The Vicar of Morwenstow: Being a Life of Robert Stephen Hawker, M.A.
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Hawker, Robert Stephen, 1803?-1875
The text of the sermon that day demands its history. Some time
before, a vessel, _The Hero_, of Liverpool, was seen in distress, in
the offing of a neighbouring harbour, during a storm. The crew,
mistaking a signal from the beach, betook themselves to their boat.
It foundered; and the whole ship’s company, twelve in number, were
drowned in sight of the shore. But the stout ship held together, and
drifted on to the land, so unshattered by the sea, that the
coast-guard, who went immediately on board, found the fire burning
in the cabin. When the vessel came to be examined, they found in one
of the berths a Bible, and between its leaves a sheet of paper,
whereon some recent hand had transcribed verses, the twenty-first,
twenty-second and twenty-third of the thirty-third chapter of
Isaiah. The same hand had also marked the passage with a line of ink
along the margin. The name of the owner of the book was also found
inscribed on the fly-leaf. He was a youth of eighteen years of age,
the son of a widow; and a statement under his name recorded that the
Bible was “a reward for his good conduct in a Sunday school.” This
text, so identified and enforced by a hand that soon after grew
cold, appeared strangely and strikingly adapted to the funeral of
shipwrecked men; and it was therefore chosen as the theme for our
solemn day. The very hearts of the people seemed hushed to hear it;
and every eye was turned towards Le Daine, who bowed his head upon
his hands and wept. These are the words: “But there the glorious
Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein
shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ships pass
thereby. For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the
Lord is our King; He will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed; they
could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the
sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the
prey.” Shall I be forgiven for the vaunt, if I declare that there
was not literally a single face that day unmoistened and unmoved?
Few, indeed, could have borne without deep emotion to see and hear
Le Daine. He remained at Morwenstow six weeks; and during the whole
of this time we sought diligently, and at last we found the whole
crew, nine in number. They were discovered, some under rocks, jammed
in by the force of the water, so that it took sometimes several
ebb-tides, and the strength of many hands to extricate the corpses.
The captain I came upon myself, lying placidly upon his back, with
his arms folded in the very gesture which Le Daine had described as
he stood amid the crew on the main-top. The hand of the spoiler was
about to assail him, when I suddenly appeared, so that I rescued him
untouched. Each hand grasped a small pouch or bag. One contained his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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