Yours faithfully,
R. S. Hawker.
It is painful to record this side of the vicar’s character; but without it this would be but an imperfect sketch. He was, it must be borne in mind, an anachronism. He did not belong to this century or this country. His mind and character pertained to the Middle Ages and to the East.
He is not to be measured by any standard used for men of our times.
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.