You will say that I have justified my statement that Bishop Wilson was the bitterest of tyrants. Let me now establish my opinion that he was also the serenest of saints. I have told you how low was the condition of the Church, how lax its rule, how deep its clergy lay in sloth and ignorance, and perhaps also in vice, when Bishop Wilson came to Man in 1698. Well, in 1703, only five years later, the Lord Chancellor King said this: “If the ancient discipline of the Church were lost elsewhere it might be found in all its force in the Isle of Man.” This points first to force and vigour on the Bishop’s part, but surely it also points to purity of character and nobility of aim. Bishop Wilson began by putting his own house in order. His clergy ceased to gamble and to drink, and they were obliged to collect their tithes with mercy. He once suspended a clergyman for an opinion on a minor point, but many times he punished his clergy for offences against the moral law and the material welfare of the poor. In a stiff fight for integrity of life and purity of thought, he spared none. I truly believe that if he had caught himself in an act of gross injustice he would have clambered up into the pillory. He was a brave, strong-hearted creature, of the build of a great man. Yes! In spite of all his contradictions, he was a great man. We Manxmen shall never look upon his like again!
THE GREAT CORN FAMINE
Towards 1740 a long and terrible corn famine fell upon our island. The fisheries had failed that season, and the crops had been blighted two years running. Miserably poor at all times, ill-clad, ill-housed, ill-fed at the best, the people were in danger of sheer destitution. In that day of their bitter trouble the poorest of the poor trooped off to Bishop’s court. The Bishop threw open his house to them all, good and bad, improvident and thrifty, lazy and industrious, drunken and sober; he made no distinctions in that bad hour. He asked no man for his name who couldn’t give it, no woman for her marriage lines who hadn’t got them, no child whether it was born in wedlock. That they were all hungry was all he knew, and he saved their lives in thousands. He bought ship-loads of English corn and served it out in bushels; also tons of Irish potatoes, and served them out in kischens. He gave orders that the measure was to be piled as high as it would hold, and never smoothed flat again. Yet he was himself a poor man. While he had money he spent it. When every penny was gone he pledged his revenue in advance. After his credit was done he begged in England for his poor people in Man—he begged for us who would not have held out his hat to save his own life! God bless him! But we repaid him. Oh yes, we repaid him. His money he never got back, but gold is not the currency of the other world. Prayers and blessings are the wealth that is there, and these went up after him to the great White Throne from the swelling throats of his people.
THE BISHOP AT COURT
Not of Bishop Wilson could it be said, as it was said of another, that he “flattered princes in the temple of God.” One day, when he was coming to Court, Queen Caroline saw him and said to a company of Bishops and Archbishops that surrounded her, “See, my lords, here is a Bishop who does not come for a translation.” “No, indeed, and please your Majesty,” said Bishop Wilson, “I will not leave my wife in her old age because she is poor.” When Bishop Wilson was an old man, Cardinal Fleury sent over to ask after his age and health, saying that they were the two oldest and poorest Bishops in the world. At the same time he got an order that no French privateer should ever ravage the Isle of Man. The order has long lapsed, but I am told that to this day French seamen respect a Manxman. It touches me to think of it that thus does the glory of this good man’s life shine on our faces still.
STORIES OF BISHOP WILSON
How his people must have loved him! Many of the stories told of him are of rather general application, but some of them ought to be true if they are not.
One day in the old three-cornered market-place at Ramsey a little maiden of seven crossed his path. She was like sunshine, rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, bare-footed and bare-headed, and for love of her sweetness the grey old Bishop patted her head and blest her. “God bless you, my child; God bless you,” he said. The child curtseyed and answered, “God bless you, too, sir.” “Thank you, child, thank you,” the Bishop said again; “I dare say your blessing will be as good as mine.”
It was customary in those days, and indeed down to my own time, when a suit of clothes was wanted, to have the journeyman tailor at home to make it. One, Danny of that ilk, was once at Bishop’s Court making a long walking coat for the Bishop. In trying it on in its nebulous condition, that leprosy of open white seams and stitches, Danny made numerous chalk marks to indicate the places of the buttons. “No, no, Danny,” said the Bishop, “no more buttons than enough to fasten it—only one, that will do. It would ill become a poor priest like me to go a-glitter with things like those.” Now, Danny had already bought his buttons, and had them at that moment in his pocket. So, pulling a woful face, he said, “Mercy me, my lord, what would happen to the poor button-makers, if everybody was of your opinion?” “Button it all over, Danny,” said the Bishop. A coat of Bishop Wilson’s still exists. Would that we had that one of the numerous buttons, and could get a few more made of the same pattern! It would be out of fashion—Danny’s progeny have taken care of that. There are not many of us that it would fit—we have few men of Bishop Wilson’s build nowadays. But human kindliness is never old-fashioned, and there are none of us that the garment of sweet grace would not suit.
QUARRELS OF CHURCH AND STATE