Chapter IX: Part 9

No lawyer that I know of has ever suggested that a witness or juror must kiss the Book. Nor, on the contrary, has any lawyer sought to forbid a man to kiss the Book. I take it that any reverent and decent use of the Book as a voluntary addition to the oath would be allowed. The general rule of English law is that all witnesses ought to be sworn according to the peculiar ceremonies of their own religion, or in such manner as they deem binding on their consciences. If, therefore, a Christian wishes to kiss the Book he may do so, but the only formality that need be legally observed is the laying of hands upon the Book. As Lord Hale says, “the regular oath as is allowed by the laws of England is _Tactis sacrosanctis Dei Evangeliis_.” Lord Coke, too, says “It is called a corporal oath because he toucheth with his hand some part of the Holy Scripture.” Modern antiquarians have sought to show that the word corporal was used in connection with the ritual of an oath, and referred to the “Corporale Linteum” on which the sacred Elements were placed, and by which they were covered. Some suggest that the word comes from the Romans, and draws a distinction between an oath taken in person and by proxy. But for my part I think Lord Coke knew as much about it as any of his scholarly critics, and is not far wrong when he says a corporal oath is an oath in which a man touches the Book.

This form of oath was practised by the Greeks and Romans, and is of great antiquity. Hannibal, when only nine years old, was called upon by his father to swear eternal enmity to Rome by laying his hand on the sacred things. Livy, in describing it, uses the words _tactis sacris_, the very expression that passed into the University and other oaths of modern England. Izaak Walton, in his “Life of Hooker,” sets down a bold but affectionate sermon preached to Queen Elizabeth by Archbishop Whitgift, in which he reminds the Queen that at her coronation she had promised to maintain the Church lands, and then he adds: “You yourself have testified openly to God at the holy altar by laying your hands on the Bible, then lying upon it.”

That this is the real form of an English Christian oath, and that kissing the Book is purely a voluntary ceremony is, I think, made clear in a curious little volume, entitled, “The Clerk of Assize, Judges Marshall and Cryer, being the true Manner and Form of the Proceedings at the Assizes and General Goale Delivery, both in the Crown Court and Nisi Prius Court. By T.W.” This was printed for Timothy Twyford in 1660, and sold at his shop within the Inner Temple Gate. It is probably the book Pepys refers to when he notes in his diary: “So away back again home, reading all the way the book of the collection of oaths in the several offices of this nation which is worth a man’s reading.”

I am quite of Pepys’ opinion, and a man may read it after two hundred and fifty years with as much profit as Pepys did. It is a quaint little book, and in the preface T. W. writes that “the Government of this nation being now happily brought into its ancient and right course, and that the proceedings in Courts of Justice to be in the King’s name, and in Latine and Court-hand (the good old way), I have set forth and published the small Manuel,” for the benefit of the new officers who may here “find all such Oaths and Words as are by them to be administered.” In the rubric attached to the jurors’ oath is the following:—“Note that every juror must lay his hand on the Book and look towards the prisoners.” In the same way in the oath to the foreman of the grand jury, T. W. writes: “The foreman must lay his hand on the Book.”

Although it seems probable that kissing the Book was customary at this date, T. W. would, I think, certainly have pointed out that it was necessary if he had so considered it, and the absence of any reference to kissing the Book in a “manuel” published for the very purpose of explaining to the ignorant the correct manner in which to administer the oath, shows that the author did not consider that part of the ceremony a necessary one. The references to the form of oath in old law books are very few. There is a case reported, in “the good old way” of law French, in Siderfin, an ancient law reporter, in Michaelmas Term, 1657. Dr. Owen, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, refused to take the oath _en le usual manner per laying son main dexter sur le Lieur et per baseront ceo apres_. The doctor merely lifted up his right hand, and the jury, being in doubt, asked Chief Justice Glin whether it was really an oath. The Chief Justice said, “that in his judgment he had taken as strong an oath as any other witness, but said if he was to be sworn himself he would lay his right hand upon the Book.” There is another curious decision upon the necessity of kissing the Book mentioned in Walker’s “History of Independency,” in the account of the trial of Colonel Morrice, who held Pontefract Castle for the King. The colonel wished to challenge one Brooke, foreman of the jury, and his professed enemy, but the Court held, probably rightly, that the challenge came too late, as Brooke was sworn already. “Brooke being asked the question whether he were sworn or no, replied ‘he had not yet kissed the Book.’ The Court answered that was but a ceremony.”

The whole matter was very much discussed in 1744, when, in a well-known case, lawyers argued at interminable length as to whether it were possible for a person professing the Gentoo religion to take an oath in an English court. Sir Dudley Rider, the Attorney-General, says in his argument “kissing the Book is no more than a sign, and not essential to the oath.” He seems to think that touching the Book is not essential; but the true view seems to be laid down by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who says that the outward act is not essential to the oath, but there must be some external act to make it a corporal act. That is to say, that the kind of external act done may be left to the taste and fancy of the person taking the oath. The laying the hand on the Book is convenient, and is the recognised form, but a salute or act of reverence towards the Book would be sufficient, as Dr. Owen’s case seems to show.

Apart altogether from the forms and ceremonies of oaths, it is surely well worth considering whether the practice of oath-taking in courts of justice should not be discontinued. Although many good and learned men have argued with great ability that a man taking an oath does not imprecate the Divine vengeance upon himself if his evidence is false, yet the whole history and practice of oath-taking is adverse to their amiable and well-meaning philosophy. The gist of an oath is, and always has been, that the swearer calls upon the Almighty to inflict punishment upon him here or hereafter if he is false to his oath. In early days oaths were only taken upon solemn occasions, and in a solemn manner. In modern life they have been multiplied, and become so common that little attention is paid to them. Even in this country prior to Elizabeth there was no statute punishing perjury, and the oath was the only safeguard there was against the offence. The statute then passed shows of what little use the oath was even in those days as a preventive of perjury. But then few people could give testimony in courts, and there may have been some semblance of a religious ceremony in the affair. To-day that is gone, and necessarily gone.

All writers who have seriously considered the matter condemn the multiplicity of oaths on trivial occasions as taking away from the ceremony any practical value it may have. Selden, in Cromwell’s day, says: “Now oaths are so frequent they should be taken like pills, swallowed whole; if you chew them you will find them bitter; if you think what you swear, ’twill hardly go down.” What would he think of our progress to-day in this matter? Defoe, at a later date, lays down the principle that “the making of oaths familiar is certainly a great piece of indiscretion in a Government, and multiplying of oaths in many cases is multiplying perjuries.” England has been called “a land of oaths,” and familiarity with oath-taking has always bred contempt of the oath. In the old days of the Custom House oaths it is said that “there were houses of resort where persons were always to be found ready at a moment’s warning to take any oath required; the signal of the business for which they were needed was this inquiry: ‘Any damned soul here?’”

Without suggesting that there is a great amount of perjury in English courts, for Englishmen respect the law and have a wholesome dread of indictments, we cannot pride ourselves on a system that uses what ought to be a very solemn ceremony on every trumpery occasion. In the County Courts alone a million oaths at least must be taken every year in England. And upon what trifling, foolish matters are men and women invited by the State to make a presumptuous prayer to the Almighty to withdraw from them His help and protection if they shall speak falsely.

Two women, for instance, have a dispute over the fit of a bodice; each is full of passion and prejudice, and quite unlikely to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Is it fair to ask them to take an oath that they will do so, and, in the language of Chaucer, to swear “in truth, in doom and in righteousness,” about so trivial a matter? Or, again, in an arbitration under the Lands Clauses Act, is it fitting that six land surveyors should condemn themselves to eternal penalties when everyone knows that, like the barristers engaged in the arbitrations, they are paid for services of an argumentative character rather than as witnesses of mere fact? As Viscount Sherbrooke said in an excellent essay on the oath, written at the time of the Bradlaugh case, “If you believe in God it is a blasphemy; if not, it is a hollow and shameless cheat.”

Any practical, worldly scheme to prevent perjury is of more use than a religious oath, and one might quote many historical instances in proof of this. Two widely apart in circumstance and period will show my meaning. The Ministers of Honorius on a certain occasion swore by the head of the Emperor, a very ancient form of oath. (Joseph, it may be remembered, swore “by the life of Pharaoh,” and Helen swore by the head of Menelaus.) The same Ministers, says Gibbon, “were heard to declare that if they had only invoked the name of the Deity they would consult the public safety (by going back on their word), and trust their souls to the mercy of Heaven; but they had touched in solemn ceremony that august seal of majesty and wisdom, and the violation of that oath would expose them to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion.” In like manner I remember a Jew, annoyed by apparent disbelief of his oath, saying before me in a moment of irritation, “I have sworn by Jehovah that every word I say is true, but I will go further than that: I will put down ten pounds in cash, and it may be taken away from me if what I say is not true.” What sane man will say that the oath, as an oath, is of practical use when for centuries we find instances such as these of the way it is regarded by the person by whom it is taken. But it will be said that if a man pleases he can to-day affirm. Undoubtedly that is so, but the average Englishman has a horror of making a fuss in a public place, especially about a matter of everyday usage. The other day I suggested to a man who was suffering from cancer in the tongue that he might take the Scotch oath instead of kissing the Book. He did it reluctantly, as I thought. Once, too I made the same suggestion to a witness at Quarter Sessions who was in a horrible state of disease, but he preferred to kiss the Book—which was afterwards destroyed.

The average man is like the average schoolboy, and would any day rather do “the right thing” than to do what is right. All of us have not the courage of Mrs. Maden, who was refused justice in a Lancashire county court as late as 1863 because she honestly stated her views on matters of religion. As Baron Bramwell pointed out in deciding the case, the judgment he was giving involved the absurdity of ascertaining the fact of Mrs. Maden’s disbelief by accepting her own statement of it, and then ruling that she was a person incompetent to speak the truth. Truly no precedent in English law can be over-ruled by its own inherent folly.

Later on, too, in our own time, we can remember the fate of Mr. Bradlaugh in his struggles with Courts and Parliament, and we can read in history the stories of George Fox and Margaret Fell. The cynic may say that these people made a great deal of fuss about a very unimportant matter; but, after all, the attitude of George Fox on the question of the oath was a very noble one.

“Will you take the oath of allegiance, George Fox?” asks the
Judge in the Court of Lancaster Castle.

_George Fox_: “I never took an oath in my life.”

_Judge_: “Will you swear or no?”

_George Fox_: “Christ commands we must not swear at all; and
the apostle: and whether I must obey God, or man, judge thee, I
put it to thee.”

And having read many volumes of man’s answer to George Fox, I am content for my part to think he still has the best of it, and that “Swear not at all” is as much a commandment as “Thou shalt not steal,” or “Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor.” Whether in a work-a-day world of timid people, who cling to the bad habits of their prehistoric ancestry, it is possible to live up to the ideals of these commandments is quite another matter, and I should be the last in the world to throw stones at others in this matter.

I must confess that on the few occasions I have given evidence I have dutifully “kissed the Book” like any other witness. Whether I should do so again I am not so sure. Probably literary pride would overcome the natural shyness of my disposition, and I should propose to read what I have written here to a long-suffering judge, and claim as of right to take the oath “tactis sanctis,” with no ceremony of kissing.

For the more I see of the ceremony the more it jars upon me as a mere matter of reverence to holy things, and the more I read of the matter the more convinced I am of its superstitious origin. When, too, I feel sure that it is of no practical purpose and is as useless as it is insanitary, I begin to think that the hour is approaching when we may, without impiety to the shades of our ancestors, adopt some more reasonable ceremony of commencing our evidence in the law courts than that of kissing the Book.

A WELSH RECTOR OF THE LAST CENTURY.

“E’en children follow’d with endearing wile,
And pluck’d his gown to share the good man’s smile.”

—_Oliver Goldsmith._

“I must tell you this indeed,” as the Reverend John Hopkins, Rector of Rhoscolyn, always began his stories; but I wish I could tell you what I have to tell in his own delightful accent. For the form of words, “I must tell you this indeed,” was only, I think, a trick of speech he used in order to give himself time to translate his Welsh thought into the English tongue, and his English tongue, when it spoke, gave something of the rhythm and music of the Welsh to the foreign language he was using. His was a curious Welsh accent, unlike any I have heard. For though he had lived in the pure and bracing atmosphere of Anglesey—where, as in all the Welsh counties I have been in, they assure me the most classical Welsh is spoken—yet the rector did not speak with the Anglesey tongue, being a South Wales man himself, a “Hwntw” in the phrase of the North, or “man from beyond.” And the beyond he had sprung from was, I believe, in the neighbourhood of Merthyr. He was a son of the soil and of the school of Lampeter, and—the rectory of Rhoscolyn being in the gift of the Bishop of Llandaff—he had, when I first knew him, been sent some twenty years ago to minister on this out-of-way rock, and there he remained to the day of his death. The rector’s duties included ministering in two distant chapels, Llanfair-yn-Neubwll and Llanfihangel-y-Traeth, which was performed by deputy, but wholly or partly at his cost. In the days of Elizabeth, the whole of the duties were performed for ten pounds five shillings; nowadays, I believe, the living is worth nearly two hundred pounds.

But though, as I said, there was the song in his words that there is in all right-spoken Welsh, and the high note lovingly dwelt on towards the end of the sentence, which only a Welshman can produce without effort, yet I am not artist enough to describe to you in words the difference of the rector’s speech from that of his neighbours, only, “I must tell you this indeed,” that so it was and always is, I am told, with the “men from beyond.”

The Rector of Rhoscolyn was a bachelor, a man of stout build and middle stature. He had the air of a Friar Tuck about him. His eyes were merry and kindly. If he had changed his long rusty black coat and clerical hat for a cassock and cowl, he would have been a monk after Dendy Sadler’s own heart. He loved his pipe and his glass, when the day’s work was done, and the talk of books and men, with those who had lived in the outer world, was to him the rarest and most delightful of pleasures. He was outspoken, simple, and generous, an earnest believer in his creed and his Church, a lover of music, and above and beyond all, a man who attracted to himself animals and little children as if by instinct, and gained their love as only those who suffer them to come without affectation can do. He seemed, as far as I could see, to have no enemies. I think it was a weakness in his character—a Christian weakness—that he shrank from causing annoyance or hurt to anyone’s susceptibilities. I was his neighbour for some seven summer weeks, and five evenings out of seven we smoked our pipes together, and he poured out to very willing ears the tales of his lonely parish, but I scarce remember an unkindly story among them all. If there was a tale that he feared might give pain in the repetition, it was always prefaced by a smile of great candour, and as he began, “I must tell you this indeed,” he placed his fore-finger on his broad nostril and said in a sly merry whisper, with a great rolling of the letter “r”: “This is _inter-r-r nos_.” That is why some of his best stories cannot be set down here.

But, to understand the man and his ways, you must know how and where he lived. For the surroundings and the man were as if Nature had designed the one for the other, and he was as much in his place in his rectory, on the side of the Mynydd Rhoscolyn, as the Sarn Cromlech is on the slopes of Cefnamlwch. Rhoscolyn is a typical Anglesey parish. No doubt, when Mona was one of the Fortunate Islands, it had a Druid temple and a Druid priest, and if the latter had come back to the site of his temple he would have found little of change. A church, a plâs, a post-office, a rectory, a life-boat, and a few farmhouses in sheltered corners; but the rest is as it always was. The eternal rocks, the restless waves rushing up into the black water caves, the steep cliffs crumbling a little day by day, the cruel, sharp island rocks hidden at high water and marked by the spray and swirl of the tide as it sinks away from the shore, the purple heather and yellow gorse clothing the cliffs to the edge of the sky, the samphire finding a fearful footway between earth and sea, and, above all, the wild bees humming their eternal summer song, and the fresh breezes, always pure, always sweet, always sweeping backwards and forwards across the promontory. Those things were there in the day of the Druids and they are there to-day.

And in Roman times Rhoscolyn was of more note than it is now, for some say that the name of it is derived from a Roman column that was placed here to signify the utmost bounds of Roman victories. Whether this be true or not, we have in the name Bodiar—which is still the squire’s house—the governor’s habitation, and in the neighbouring Prieddfod the Præsidii Locus; or, at least, this is what antiquaries tell us, and it is comfortable to believe these things. Telford and his new road thrust Rhoscolyn further away from civilisation, and the railway brought it no nearer as it sneaked into Holyhead, across the Traeth-y-grubyn, behind the shelter of the road embankment. For Holyhead is on an island, and the old main road, with that instinct for the line of least resistance which in old highways tends to such picturesque results, kept south of the wide marsh and crossed the water at Four Mile Bridge—Rhyd-y-bont Pennant calls it, and he rode over it, and knew at least as much of Wales as an ordnance surveyor of to-day. There you can see the most beautiful sunset views of the Holyhead Mountain, at the head of the open water, when the tide is high; and if you turn your back to the town, you will find Rhoscolyn within a couple of miles of Four Mile Bridge and six miles south of Holyhead.

The rectory stands on the slope of the Rhoscolyn Mountain—there are no hills in Wales to speak of, for we speak of them all as mountains. It is four-square, whitewashed, and has a slate roof. There are no trees round it. The only trees in Rhoscolyn are an imported plantation at the plâs. There are a few thorn bushes in the hedgerows, but the wind has carved them into finger-posts, pointing consistently eastward, and they scarcely look like trees at all. The rectory is surrounded by substantial farm buildings, for the rector is a farmer. His old mare, Polly, and the low gig are well-known figures in Holyhead market, and he tells you with a farmer’s pride that all through the winter his evening supper is oatmeal porridge and milk, the produce of his own farming. He had no relish, he told me, for oatmeal that was bought at a shop, for he had a countryman’s delight and belief in the home-made. His was a good herd of cows, and he knew each by name, and, like all true Welshmen, could call them to him as he walked through his fields. Different Welsh districts seem to have different calls for their cattle, and the real Nevin call, for instance, is another thing altogether from the Rhoscolyn call. These things are a mystery, and are well understood by the cows themselves, who will shake their heads contemptuously at the Saxon imitator.

The church is a pretty modern building, with a belfry, standing on an eminence away from other buildings. The post-office where I was living is its nearest neighbour. There are no streets in Rhoscolyn, nor has it any centre square. It is a parish rather than a village, and its few hundred inhabitants live in scattered farms and cottages. There are generally a few artist visitors, for Rhoscolyn is almost another Sark for the rock-painter, and one or two families find summer homes in the neighbouring farms. There is bathing out of your tent, which you leave on the grass at the edge of the tiny bay, at the mercy of the winds and the little black bullocks that roam about in the flat marshes inland. There are rambles among the cliffs and the heather. An ideal place for a holiday for those who really want a holiday and are content with oxygen and rest.

I think, perhaps, I should have found seven weeks of Rhoscolyn more than enough, if it had not been for the rector. I had met him casually on an earlier visit, and looked forward to meeting him again. One evening, soon after I had arrived, I was walking for some distance behind him. He was in company with a Nonconformist minister, and at a turn in the road the two parted very amicably with a kindly shake of the hand. It is not always so in Wales. I ventured, when I got up to the rector, to make some remark to this effect. He did not at that time know whether or not I had any ecclesiastical leanings, and with great simplicity he remarked, “I must tell you this indeed, Judge Parry: we must be charitable, you know, even to Dissenters.” I have often wondered whether the phrase would be acceptable to the authorities if it were inserted in the Welsh Church Catechism. As it was uttered and acted upon by the Rector of Rhoscolyn, it could give offence to no one who had the least charity and sense of humour.

The post-office was between the rectory and the outer world, and so the rector came in that evening, and many another evening afterwards, and I was always glad to hear the heavy scrunch of his boots on the loose gravel in the front of the door. Seated in an armchair with a pipe, he would proceed to discourse at length of the affairs of the world and his parish with great simplicity and humour.

The recent Disestablishment Bill of Mr. Asquith had troubled him very much. “I must tell you this,” he said: “it has given rise to a great deal of ill-feeling. Very wicked things have been said indeed, and the pulpit has been used in chapels on the Liberal side.”

I was glad to meet a clergyman of the Church of England in Wales who did not approve of this use of the pulpit, and asked him the kind of thing that had happened. “I must tell you this indeed, though you will hardly believe it,” he began. “There was a preacher at the Calvinistic Methodist Chapel at Llan——, who, on the eve of the election, told his congregation this. He said he had once been at a hanging—I suppose,” said the rector with a pleasant smile, “that was the hanging of a late member of his congregation, but I do not know—and he went on to say it had been a terrible ordeal for him, and had made him very sick and ill. But he told his congregation quite solemnly that, if he knew any of them on the morrow were going to vote for the Conservatives, he would not only go to his hanging with pleasure, but he would be there to pull his legs.”

I am afraid I was more amused than shocked, for he added quickly, “I must tell you it was terrible, and it sounds very much worse in Welsh indeed.”

I dare say the story had little foundation in fact; but, like all these election stories, each side firmly believes them for the moment, and as the rector said, “it makes it very difficult not to be angry.”

The bitterness of the election seemed, however, to have quite passed away. By nature, the Welshman is Conservative, almost to the point of bigotry. This is particularly noticeable in his methods of agriculture, horticulture, and sanitation. When he is emancipated, and, like the Jew and the Catholic, his grievance is gone, it will be very interesting to note his further political development.

The rector was a great theologian, and enforced his views with liberal quotations from the Greek Testament, which he could recite in great quantity. He took a simple pride in his knowledge of the Greek, and used it on occasions, I must say, in a somewhat unsportsmanlike manner. He had much sympathy with the Baptists, and was an upholder of the ceremony of total immersion. He told me, more in sorrow than in anger, of the wicked outburst of a Particular Baptist whom he had encountered in a third-class carriage between Holyhead and Bangor.

“I must tell you this, Judge Parry—for you know I have a great weakness for the Baptists, and I should see no objection to the ceremony of total immersion being performed in our Church; well, to-day I met an old gentleman, a grave reverend man, with a white beard, in the train, and he asked me what views I had about baptism. Well, I told him, and then I found he wanted to speak very evil things about the ceremony of baptism in the English Church. So I quoted the Greek Testament to him to explain it, and I could see he did not understand it, so then I quoted a whole chapter to the fellow in Greek, and he got in a terrible rage and jumped up and shook his fist in my face, and said, ‘I will tell you what you are! You are nothing but a damned sprinkler. That’s what you are!’ Dear me, it was terrible for a reverend old gentleman with a white beard to use such language to a rector, was it not?”

I asked him if he had ever performed a ceremony of total immersion as a minister of the Church of England, and he told me he had not, but he was very near it on one occasion. “I must tell you this,” he continued; “it was when I was curate in Glamorganshire, a fellow, named Evan Jones, came to me and wanted to be baptized. Well, I knew he was a poacher and a bad fellow, and a Presbyterian, but he said he had never been baptized, so I said I would baptize him.

“‘But I want to be baptized like the Baptists do it,’ says he.

“‘Total immersion, you mean,’ says I. ‘Well, I will do it then for you, if my vicar will let me.’

“‘Where will you do it?’ asked Evan.

“‘It would be good to do it at the pond in the middle of the village on a Saturday afternoon, when the school children are there to see, and we can have a hymn,’ said I.

“Well, Evan did not like that idea at all, and wanted me to go up to a pool on the hills by a little bridge on the old mountain road; and I did not care to go up the hills with him alone, for he was a bad fellow. But he did not want anyone to come with us, for his wife objected to him being baptized, and he was afraid she might get to hear of it and cause a disturbance. Well, I decided it was my duty to go with the fellow, and I told him I would do so if my vicar would allow me. Now my vicar was a very shrewd, wise old man, and I was very eager to do this if it was for the good of the Church, so I went to him at once.

“‘What is it, Hopkins, my boy?’ he said, looking up from a sermon he was writing.

“‘Evan Jones wants to be baptized.’

“‘Who is Evan Jones?’ asked the vicar.

“‘He is a poacher and a Presbyterian, and has never been baptized,’ I said.

“‘Well baptize him then,’ said the vicar.

“‘But he wants to be immersed.’

“‘Oh, indeed,’ cries the vicar; ‘Well, why not? Immerse him, if you like.’

“‘But he wants me to go up on the hills and baptize him all alone in the pool by the bridge.’

“‘What does he want that for?’

“‘I don’t know,’ said I.

“‘But I do,’ said the vicar. ‘He will just be drowning you in the pool, and we shall have all the Dissenters going about saying Hopkins fell in the pool late at night, when he was coming home drunk, and that will be a very bad thing for the Church. No, I will have none of it at all.’

“‘But what shall I tell him then?’ I asked.

“‘Tell him to go to—the Presbyterians,’ says the vicar, and I knew well what he meant.”

You rarely saw the rector going through the lanes without a few of the children of the parish at his heels. For they all loved him. He stuffed the pockets of his long black coat with sweets, and was never in too much of a hurry to have a chat with his young parishioners and hear the news of their families, and listen to the recital of a text from the Welsh Bible. He knew even more of his Welsh Bible by heart than his Greek Testament and would correct the least slips in the recital. But when the text was said, it was duly rewarded by bull’s-eyes and toffee, and a few kindly words of encouragement. I heard that, when he was dying, several of the shyest and wildest lads in the place used to haunt the rectory for news of their friend, and when the end came they would not believe that he was gone until they saw the coffin being carried from the house, and then they burst into a dismal howl of mourning and despair. Certainly, the Rector of Rhoscolyn was a friend to all the children under his care.

He did not shine as an English preacher, for to him it always remained a foreign language, though he was a great student of the English classics and always seeking to improve his English. Milton was a favourite author. His idea of winter happiness was to draw by the fire after his porridge supper and read Milton. As a Welsh preacher he was sought after and I have heard the chanting song of his eloquence through the open windows of the church, as I sat upon the hillside, many fields away, on a still summer evening. He read the service in English fairly well, with some curious tricks of pronunciation, and I remember that we “hurried and strayed from thy ways” rather than “erred,” which in these modern days sounded a very reasonable reading. But in a sermon, the foreign tongue with which he wrestled bravely and visibly sometimes threw him, and one still remembers with a smile phrases such as “I must tell you this, said St. Peter,” and “Excuse me”—another favourite form of words to gain time for translation—“Excuse me, but we are all mortal.” I think, in the use of the last phrase, there was an expression of his constant desire not to give pain, and perhaps a feeling that the well-dressed West-End English congregation that filled his little church from many miles round in the summer holidays were unused to hear these home truths in their own elegant tongue.

But the great charm of the service was the welcome he gave you. The Welsh service was ended, and the English service started at half-past eleven. The rector stood at the door of his church in a prehistoric but very square and dignified top-hat, shaking hands with all as they arrived. He used to scandalise the stricter brethren somewhat by his greeting to me. “Good morning Judge Parry, I am glad to see you. I saw you going down to bathe. I was afraid you would not be back in time for church. How was the water this morning?”

I think he was—like many another good man—at his very best in his own home. Many a visitor to Rhoscolyn will have taken part in one of his picnic cricket matches. We played in a field in front of the rectory, from which the grass had been recently mown with scythes. The pitch was of the nature of rough stubble; but as everyone played between the ages of two and seventy, without restraint of sex, there was, of course, no swift bowling, and the science of the game as we play it in the east was neither wanted nor missed. For there was great excitement and enthusiasm, and the heartiest cheering when the rector thundered across from wicket to wicket, and this was redoubled when, at length—having been technically out on several occasions—he gave up his bat from sheer fatigue, and hurried off to look after the preparations for his tea. His anxiety that the buns should arrive in time from Holyhead, and that the butter should be put on thickly, and that the tea should be well-brewed, makes his feasts more memorable to me than many an important banquet I have assisted at.

But in his own study, when two or three were gathered together, he was even more at ease and at home. He had never been a rich man, and had always been a lover of books, and his shelves were crowded with the most unkempt collection of dear friends that ever a book-lover had gathered together. Bindings were in many cases conspicuous by their absence, and in a series of volumes one or two were often missing. These were bargains he had picked up on some of his rare visits to English towns. The most of his books were theological, and many were Welsh; but the English classics were well represented. There were no decorative books. Favourite volumes were placed lengthways on the shelves instead of upright, with slips of paper in them, so that the passages he wished to read again could be readily found. He was, I fancy, a slow reader and a thoughtful one. I was often astonished at the passages from Milton and Shakespeare he could quote. These he translated in thought, he told me, into Welsh, to get their real meaning into his mind.

I have heard say that he was eloquent in extempore prayer, and I can well believe it. He used to be very indignant over the alleged shortcomings of some of the Nonconformists in this respect. “I must tell you this indeed,” he said: “there are fellows who will repeat the most beautiful passages of our beautiful Prayer-book in a chapel, and pretend to the poor people it is extempore prayer. I wonder what they think! Do they think God has never heard our Prayer-book at all?” Then he would speak with great respect of the powers of extempore prayer of some of the great Welsh Nonconformist divines, but he always wound up in a spirit of sportsmanlike churchmanship rather than boasting: “Excuse me, but I think I could pray extempore against any of them.”

One of the sights of the rectory was the kitchen. It was a bright example of cleanliness, comfort, and hospitable warmth. In it was the only musical instrument in the house, an harmonium, and here, of an evening, the rector came to play over the Welsh hymns which he and his servants loved to sing. The rector was always rather in fear of his housekeeper and spoke of her with the affectionate awe that a capable domestic rightly inspires in a confirmed old bachelor. I have no doubt that his habit of friendliness with all the children of the parish who visited the rectory freely, and at their own moments, made dirt and trouble for the household authorities, whose views of children were more practical than the rector’s, and born of a wider and different experience of their ways and habits.

I remember him telling me, one Sunday evening, a story that, I think, must have been very characteristic of the man and his methods with the little ones about his gate. The story arose quite naturally, and he told it with pleasure, but without the least suspicion that it was in any way a story to his own credit.

“Did you see that young fellow at the church door this morning with a top-hat and a black coat, and a gold watch-chain?” he asked.

“I did not notice him,” I said.

“Dear me! I must tell you this,” he said. “Have I never told you of ‘Schoni-bach’?”

The name “Schoni-bach”—the “Sch” was soft, and the “o” moderately long—was, I felt sure, a Welsh equivalent for Little Johnny, and I waited with interest to hear more about him.

“It is a long time ago,” continued the rector, “since Schoni’s father died. You know the thatched cottage on the shore! Well, he lived there. He was the strongest man in the parish, and he could get underneath a cart, a big farm cart, and lift it on his back. On market day, he would go to Holyhead and make bets he could lift a cart, and he would win a lot of money, as much as half-a-crown or three shillings sometimes. But he was not a temperate man, and one day he had been drinking in Holyhead, and they got him to lift a cart, when he slipped, and the cart broke his back, and he died. Well, his widow had three little children, and Schoni-bach was the eldest. And they wanted her to go to the workhouse, but she would not go. And they were very poor, for she was not strong, poor woman, and there was very little work for her to do, and the little children were often starving. They were wild, naked, shy little things, and would never come near anyone. The poor mother had frightened them by telling them that they would be taken to the workhouse, and if a stranger came near the house, they ran up to the mountain-side and hid among the heather. However, one day I found little Schoni on the hillside near the rectory. He looked very thin and starved, so I brought him down the hill, and gave him a slice of bread and some butter-milk, and he ate it like a dog, I tell you. I told him to come down again, but I was out next day, and he came with his wet, bare feet into the kitchen, and my housekeeper sent him off, I think. However, the day after, I was writing my sermon, and there came a tap at my own side-door—a very gentle, little tap—and I went to the door, and there was Schoni-bach, a little ragged, yellow-haired urchin with bare feet. So I went round to the kitchen, and got a loaf and some butter-milk, for the housekeeper was in the laundry, and the coast was clear. So I asked him where his little brother and sister were, and he went behind the laurel bush and dragged them out. For there they were in hiding all the time, more like little wild foxes than children. Well, indeed, after that, Schoni-bach would always bring them down and tap at my side-door, and he always found out when the housekeeper was away; but how he did it I don’t know. He must often have been lying hid about the house, waiting for an hour or more, but he was good friends with my dog, Gelert, who never barked at him at all. But he was very frightened of the housekeeper, who had scolded him for his dirty feet.

“Well, in the summer, they did not come so often, for there were bilberries and blackberries to gather, and more chances of work and food, and before winter came Schoni’s uncle, who was a farmer in Canada, sent for him and paid his passage out, and a little after that he sent for his mother and the other children, and so they went away, and a very good thing it was, too, for all of them.

“Well, all this was many years ago. And last Thursday I was writing my sermon, and I heard old Gel start up and growl, and there was quite a gentle little tap at my side-door. I went to the door, for my housekeeper was out, and there was a big fellow with a top-hat and a black coat, and a gold watch-chain. I knew what he would be after, so I said to him, ‘It is no use coming here to sell cattle spice and patent foods and gold watches, for we don’t want them, indeed, in Rhoscolyn!’

“The fellow laughed a bit, and said: ‘Don’t you know me, Mr. Hopkins?’

“‘Not a bit of it,’ I said.

“‘I have often knocked at this door before,’ he said.

“‘I don’t believe you, indeed,’ I replied.

“‘Well, it is true,’ he said. And he looked straight at me, and I looked at him, and then I began to see him again just a little ragged, yellow-haired boy, and I cried out: ‘It is Schoni-bach! Little Schoni come back!’ And I must tell you this, that I was so full of joy to see him again, I could have fallen on his neck and wept. Dear me, but I was glad to see him yet alive!”

The rector sighed to think of the old days, and then went on; “Yes, that was little Schoni outside the church this morning. He was a great fellow among all the young men there, indeed. ‘What do you think of Canada, Schoni?’ they kept asking him. And all he did was to keep his hands in his pockets and rattle his money. That made them stare, I can tell you. Schoni-bach, with a black coat and a top-hat, and a gold watch-chain, and his hands in his pockets rattling his money. That was something for these fellows who have stayed at home to see, wasn’t it? Schoni-bach rattling his money—or, perhaps, it was only a bunch of keys. He was always a smart lad, was Schoni-bach.”

These stories of the old rector’s seem very colourless without the music of his accent, the constant pauses for the whiff of the tobacco, and the kindly smile that accompanied them. To those who never knew him, any written portrait of the man must give but a faint echo of his personality; but to the many English visitors, artists, sportsmen, and others, who have found their way beyond the Four Mile Bridge to the ultimate corner of Anglesey, and there been made welcome by the rector, these recollections will, I doubt not, call to mind the memory of a kind friend, and a holiday made the brighter by his cheerful hospitality. Characters such as his seem to grow rarer day by day. Few men of his energy and enthusiasm would remain nowadays for a quarter of a century in so narrow a sphere, content with such a simple life. But the Reverend John Hopkins was more than content—he was happy. He had sprung from the people, and was by nature a farmer, and to live upon the land was to him to be at home. But, above all things, he was enthusiastic in his ministry. His qualities are set out without flattery on a bronze tablet that his friends erected in the church he loved so well:

“A servant of God, in true simplicity of soul, he loved books, music, and happy human faces, but his chief delight was in the services of the Church.”

I have written what I remember of the man, and not of the priest, and though I should have no right to chronicle or criticise his ministerial career, I saw enough of him to understand that the keynote to the cheerfulness and simplicity of his character is sounded in the text that the friends amongst his congregation have chosen for his memorial:

“Llawenychais pan ddywedent wrthyf: Awn i dy’r Arglwydd.”

“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”

FOOTNOTES

[1] This was written prior to The Oaths Act 1909.

[2] The figures of 1909 are given because in June, 1911, when this was revised, no later figures were then published.

[3] In 1883, 43,344 warrants of commitment were issued; and, in 1909, 136,630 warrants of commitment were issued.

[4] This was published in April 1909. The Oaths Act 1909, 9 Edw. vii. c 39 abolished the practice of kissing the book.

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