XXVIII. CHAP. of Reader in that diocese was no new invention of our Bishop when he resorted to it in his latter years, to supply the dearth of ordained persons. Ballure Chapel appears again, with its Reader, in the records of 1712. It is there called Ramsey Chapel, and its Reader is no other than the eccentric schoolmaster, James Knipe, of whom something has been told before. Upon his petition, Bishop Wilson in consistory appoints wardens to see to the repairs of the chapel and the salary of the Reader, defaulters in the payment of their cess being sentenced to imprisonment. School, however, continued to be kept in the chapel down to 1741 at least, and it was otherwise desecrated and fell into decay. The Bishop of course set to work to supply so great a want in so important a place, and we have seen from time to time how much he had been thinking of it for many years. It was rebuilt on the same site, as we have seen by a letter from Mr. Murrey; probably with enlargement, certainly with such entire reconstruction, that there could be little doubt about consecrating it anew. And it was consecrated accordingly, and his son was there; for in Convocation two days afterwards an address of thanks was voted "to Dr. Wilson, now at Bishop's Court;" in which, after mentioning his other services,-touching the widows and orphans of the clergy, the royal bounty, the impropriation suit, the glebe purchased for Kirk Michael,—they add, "We praise God for prospering your labours in building the new chapel at Ramsey, now happily finished, and consecrated to the service of Almighty God." It follows from all this that Cruttwell's statement, copied by Mr. Stowell, "In 1753 he consecrated a new chapel at Ramsea, his son preaching the consecration sermon," is simply mistaken as to the date. No other mention indeed occurs, that I have seen, of the Doctor's visiting the island in 1747, but the evidence of the Convocation is decisive. The Bishop's not preaching may have been caused by bodily decay; the Charge of the same date shews what his mind was equal to ". See note (A) at the end of this chapter. "This chapel of Ballure St. Catherine having fallen again into disuse, has been lately restored once more by the exertions of the present incumbent of Ramsey, the Rev. W. Kermode, to whom the Compiler is mainly indebted NOTE A, p. 938. THE following letter, kindly communicated by the Ven. Archdeacon Moore, may have its interest, as shewing how carefully the Bishop balanced the claims upon him, and how pressing the case of Ramsey was. It refers plainly to some offer for the benefit of the Douglas school. It was written after the endowment of Jurby, and before the consecration of Ballure, i. e. between 1744 and 1747: "Friday Night. "Mr. Moore,-I have Mr. Coan's most generous proposal as much at heart as anybody can have, and shall not be wanting for making it effectual; but it cannot be expected that I can do much that way, considering what I have already done for the parishes of Kirk Braddon, German, Patrick, and Jurby, and what is at this very time expected from me with respect to the chapel of Ramsey, not to mention what the necessities of the whole Church and her poor members look upon as a constant debt, so that I cannot do much for one particular school, especially where so very many rich people and their posterity are like to reap a perpetual benefit. It will, therefore, be your business and interest to see what can be done amongst your own people to raise the £50 wanting to effect so good a work, for a perpetual security on your school and chapel incomes, and to convince that worthy gentleman that you have a true sense of his surprising bounty. I am, in some hurry, "Your affectionate friend and brother, "THO. SODOR AND MAN." СНАР. XXIX. CHAPTER XXIX. THE BISHOP'S DECAY AND DEATH. 1746-1755. WE are now come to the point from which the Bishop's biographers more distinctly date his decay. "From this time he does not seem to have been concerned in any other matters of a public nature, beyond the immediate duties of his bishopric, which he continued to execute to the latest period of his life." for the above information: a work welcome to all who would have things in the island be as Bishop Wilson desired, them to be. The chaplain at the time of the consecration was Thomas Woodes, CHAP. Thus Cruttwell; adding as an instance of the interruptions he experienced :— "March 6, 174, he writes to his son thus: "This is one of the first letters I have written since Ash Wednesday; when, being a cold day, I walked a little too fast to Kirk Michael Church,'" (more than a mile from his own house,) "which the night following brought on me a sharp fit of the gout, and confined me to my bed and chamber for three weeks past.'" Six years before it had been, "I have been as well as ever I can expect to be at this age (76). I was obliged last Sunday to preach at Peel,'" (about eight miles off,) “ride thither and back again on a most stormy day; and yet, I thank God, I am not the worse for it.'" He "continued to ride on horseback till 1749. In a very long letter dated Oct. 11, in that year, he says, 'I have at last got a horse, such as I could get, and now and then ride into the fields.'" One recognises in this the tone of an old horseman : although, as has appeared, he had now for many years condescended regularly to use a carriage, and his favourite airing ground in his old age is known by tradition; or rather the site of it is known, for itself exists no longer. It was in an interesting spot-Orrisdale-where the sort of glen in which Bishop's Court stands opens upon the north-western waters. But, as we are informed by one who saw it late in the last century,— "The level ground along the beach is a fine grassy turf, and extended a quarter of a mile farther in Bishop Wilson's time into the channel: for it was his favourite airing-ground, where he used to go out in his old chariot, as many people now living can well remember. It is now washed away." Formerly it had been a burying-ground; Townley thinks, of the Danes. "In proceeding along we saw several empty cells, and before we left the shore we were so lucky as to see one laid open to view by a fresh fall, but it still retained all its furniture. We found afterwards seven or eight graves in a regular range laid open by the sea." He mentions also an urn that he saw. In these excursions, in his garden walks, and by his fireside, the venerable man would chiefly depend for society upon the two brothers Moore, Edward and Philip; the one his Vicar-General, close to him at Kirk Michael, the other his trusted Chaplain at Douglas. To him the Bishop could CHAP. write such unreserved letters as the following: "March 26, 1745. "Kind Sir, I have the favour of yours and of the camlet this morning. For both I am thankful, and have by the bearer sent the price. "I am convinced that your observations about the poor are right: but at present we have no good laws nor regulations about the poor. They increase daily. As to what relates to myself, I do beg you will refuse none that are real objects of charity a line to me. Our Lord's maxim is to me an experienced truth, "Tis more blessed to give than to receive.' I have never to this day wanted sufficient for such occasions; but this to ourselves. I am glad you are all in the way of health. I pray God keep you so. My kind respects and thanks to Mrs. Moore. "I am your obliged friend and brother, With Philip Moore again he could freely express himself on delicate points of family history; for example:-It was "an old observation of your divine father's," (so writes Philip himself to Dr. Wilson, speaking of the Nunnery near Douglas,) "that these ecclesiastical estates seldom remain above three or four generations in the same family and name." And with him he could indulge in an amusement peculiar to aged dignitaries and life-annuitants, when they become aware that they are living longer than was expected of them. “I see by the papers," writes the same Philip, March 16, 1782, "bishops dropping off amongst you, like other poor folks, as well as bishops that would be..... It reminds me of your inimitable father, whom I have seen and heard recounting on his fingers his departed successors." XXIX. Moravians. In one only matter, at this time, his proceedings may The Bishop appear to some to savour of mental decay. I allude to his with the actually accepting an office tendered to him in the Unitas Fratrum, or Church of the Moravian Brethren. Ever since 1738 he had been deeply interested in the character and doings of their energetic leader, Count Zinzendorf, and had partaken of the favourable impression which that remarkable man had made-not least on our Bishop's own personal XXIX. CHAP. friends and coadjutors-during his visit to England in 1737. Zinzendorf (of whom God forbid that any Christian should speak but in tones of affectionate veneration, whatever extravagances he may have unguardedly countenanced,) had been led on from his first earnest vision of reform in the Lutheran body to a still grander vision of an Evangelical Alliance (so to call it) of all believing in Christ crucified: and in trying to realize this idea had been drawn especially towards the remnant of the old Bohemian Brethren; a colony of whom, driven by persecution from Moravia, had gathered around him, to form a point of union for similar establishments far and near. With these, as holding the Lutheran doctrine according to the Confession of Augsburg, but adding to it episcopal government by Apostolical succession,-not as essential, but as a precious and holy privilege, the noble missionary, a Lutheran by hereditary profession, had so cast in his lot, that he was now preparing to be consecrated Bishop among them. He had already been for ten years their superintendent, with two others; their provinces being assigned, not territorially, but according to the three several schools or sections into which, as they thought, all orthodox Protestants might be distributed. To each of these sections was given the somewhat fanciful name of Tropus, τрóжоs, for which sanction is supposed to be found in certain verses of St. Paul's Epistles. Thus they had the Lutheran Tropus, the Reformed Tropus, and the Tropus of the United Brethren or Old Episcopalians, as they accounted themselves. With such a scheme in his mind, it was almost a matter of course that Zinzendorf, on the eve of his consecration, should visit England, the citadel of the Reformed episcopate. He arrived just as General Oglethorpe returned from Georgia with good impressions concerning the Moravians there settled, and also just as news came of their missionaries in the Danish Island of St. Thomas-their success among the negroes, and their own loss of life by fever; the one exactly balancing the other. The result was that Dr. Bray's Associates, who were nearly the same body with the Trustees of Georgia, deputed Oglethorpe and another to wait on Archbishop Potter, suggesting the employment of Philip. i. 18; 2 Thess. iii. 16. |