Notwithstanding these drawbacks, and despite the fiascos which resulted from our unfortunate attempts to properly render the appointed hymns, it was nevertheless refreshing to hear the grand old service once again and have the recollection of one’s early days brought back, even amidst such inharmonious concomitants.
The Rev. Canon Doxat was the first clergyman of the Church of England who took general charge of the diggings, and until his health gave way and he returned home invalided in 1877, both here, and in later years at Barkly, he was indefatigable in his work, whether as parish priest, attendant on the sick, or instructor of the young. The Rev. W. Rickards succeeded him at the dry diggings in 1871. During his rectorship a raw-brick structure, now a store, was erected in place of the canvas building which hitherto had done ecclesiastical duty, the congregation meanwhile growing rapidly in numbers and influence. During the whole of this period Mr. Rickards was also assiduous in pushing forward the cause of education, which had been much neglected. After this working minister’s leaving for England, three clergymen, the Revs. Messrs. Maude, Borton and Hanbury successively held the rectorship. During the incumbency of the first gentleman a new and larger church, of corrugated iron, was built in a more central part of the town, which, just on nearing its completion in 1879, was blown to the ground, a complete ruin, but it was quickly rebuilt, and opened for worship in 1880.[[90]] The church and schools during the incumbencies of these gentlemen gradually increased in numbers under the organization of the Right Rev. Allan B. Webb, D. D., bishop of Bloemfontein, under whose spiritual jurisdiction the English Church in Griqualand West was then placed. Bishop Webb, however, later on in 1882, resigned his see, and after an interval of three years the Rev. G. W. H. Knight-Bruce was appointed, last year (1886), to fill the vacant bishopric.
At the present time the Rev. Canon Gaul, who is rector of St. Cyprian’s and rural dean of Griqualand West and Bechuanaland, with four assistant priests, conducts the services of the church in Kimberley and Beaconsfield, while two native mission churches, one in Kimberley and one at Phokoane, in Bechuanaland, are ministered to by faithful and devoted clergy. I may add that several new churches and buildings are projected, but although the amount of money raised for church purposes during the year ending Easter, 1885, was £6,815, yet the church’s present financial condition still requires a zealous effort to be made by its supporters to clear it from the burden of debt.
The services, both at St. Cyprian’s, Kimberley, and at All Saints, Beaconsfield, may by some be considered of a High Church, if not ritualistic character, but although a tendency in that direction may exist, I am glad to state that these services are not conducted by High Church clergymen of an emasculate or hysterical type, men indulging in man millinery or ritualistic playthings, but by earnest, honest workers, in genuine sympathy with their fellow creatures.
Turning to the Roman Catholics, I am only doing justice to the memory of Father Hidien, the first Roman Catholic priest who visited the Fields, in stating that he was the leading figure in the religious world of the early days. Not only was he beloved by the members of his own faith, but a kindly disposition, never weary in well doing, and a boundless, practical charity, caused him to be revered by the members of every denomination. Dr. Allard, then bishop of, and who at the time visited the diggings, placed the Catholics on the Diamond Fields under his care, but this charge he did not long retain, for the summer of 1871, among its many victims, snatched away the good father from his work. Father Le Bihan, who had worked for several years among the natives of Basutoland, then came to take Father Hidien’s place. At that time the Catholics of Du Toit’s Pan, like the Hebrews of old in the desert, assembled for divine worship in a tent, while their priest, living in a tent wagon close by, was ready to follow his congregation wherever a new Rush might draw them.
When Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley mine) developed into a permanent digging, Father Le Bihan followed, and it was here through his instrumentality that a permanent church of wood and iron was erected. When this was out of debt, Father Le Bihan turned his attention to education, and built in an incredibly short space of time the three first schools in Griqualand West, one for boys, one for girls, and the third for infants. Just at this juncture Bishop Rickards paid the Fields a visit from Grahamstown, and at a banquet which was given in his honor on that occasion, I recollect that Mr. R. W. Murray, Sen., the vice-chairman, telling the company “that his experience of the Catholic church in South Africa was, that wherever the Catholics erected churches, schools at once followed, of which Kimberley was an instance in point.” The truth of the vice-chairman’s observations was felt by all. Later on the same evening the bishop responding to the special toast of “Education,” which had been entrusted to me, gave the first public intimation of his intention to introduce Trappist monks from a monastery in Algeria into South Africa, saying: “These would teach the sanctity of labor, and prepare the natives to receive the great truths of Christianity.” This scheme the bishop afterward endeavored to carry out, but the work at Dunbrodie, near Port Elizabeth, led to disappointment, the climate, drought and heat not favoring the efforts of the monks. Subsequently they removed to Mariann Hill, near Pinetown, in Natal, where every success is following their work.
Bishop Jolivet, however, soon discovered that Father Le Bihan’s labors could not longer be spared from the scene of his former triumphs, and Father Walshe took his place here in 1876, and entering at once heart and soul into the work of his predecessor, remained until the beginning of 1878. Then leaving he became a soldier of the cross in more senses than one, his tall form familiar alike to sick persons and young children and to prisoners and captives, his genial, happy disposition and his wonderful influence being transferred to scenes where his courageous devotion and his readiness at the call of duty could perhaps be even more appreciated than with us—as military chaplain during the Zulu war, the Sekukuni campaign and the Transvaal outbreak. He also was chaplain in the perhaps unnecessary, and to a certain section annoying, because bloodless, Bechuanaland expedition. He seemed to possess a charmed life. It mattered not to him whether he was cheering the wounded at Ulundi, regardless of the bullets raining around, or whether he was tending the sick in the beleagured fort of Lydenburg, duty was ever paramount, and he was indeed one of those
“Quos non profani tessera proclii
Duxit in bellum.”
It was my melancholy lot to see him (in consultation) during his last illness, bravely struggling for life against a severe attack of lung inflammation, which carried him off on Sept. 12th, 1885.