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!”
More than a thousand years ago St. Morwenna came from Wales, from Brecknockshire, where was her father’s palace: she loved the things of God more than the things of men.
And then the wild Atlantic rolled against these cliffs as now, and the gorse flamed over them as now, and the little brook dived through fern, and foamed over the rocks to join the sea, as now. And there were men and women where you dwell, as now; and there were little children on their knees, as now. But then there was no knowledge of God in the hearts of men, as there is now. There was no church, as now; no Word of God preached, as now; no font where the water was sanctified by the brooding Spirit, as now; no altar where the bread of life was broken, as now. All lay in darkness and the shadow of death.
And God looked upon the earth, and saw the blue sea lashing our rocks, and the gorse flaming on our hills, and the brook murmuring into the sea, and men and women and children lying in the shadow of death; and it grieved Him. Then He called: “Who will come and plant a church in that wild glen, and bring the light of life into this lone spot?” and Morwenna answered with brave heart and childlike simplicity, “Here am I!”
And Morwenna came. She built herself a cell at Chapelpiece, where now no heather or furze or thorn will grow, for her feet have consecrated it for evermore; and she got a gift of land; and she built a church, and dedicated it to God the Trinity, and St. John the Baptiser, who preached in a wilderness such as this. And she gave the land for ever to God and His Church; and wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.