[From Letters of Bishop Hildesley]

Letter XXVI

Bishop's Court, Dec. 8, 1763.†

Once more, thank God! I am safe arrived at my own country manse; with no accident in my travels, and little or no cold caught, after being two hours of three days successively in a damp church, pierced with sharp draughts of wind. What my friends at Douglas heard of my indisposition was in part true; I was confined to my bed great part of one day, with a retching head-ache: But, when appointments are made, and business calls, I generally then exert all my courage, if able to stir; and bugbears about weather and sloughy roads are dissipated from my imagination; although, as with other people of our order, they are sometimes apt to terrify me,

Our brother Gill's (47) leg, which was healing, has been obliged to be laid open; and flying gout in his stomach has rendered him almost unable to use a pen. I have engaged to exchange with Mr Curghey (48) next Sunday, if alive and well, for the service at Lezayre; and am willing to continue to take my share, or perhaps more than my share, in supplying the necessities of the Church, that I may not eat my bread in idleness in the land, where I am capable of beingbhut of little use.

I presume your Douglas assistant will be disposed to breathe a little northern air among his relations on this side, at the ensuing holidays, and then he will be at hand to try his voice at Lezayre. Has he made a Manks sermon yet? If he has not, 'tis fit he should unless he is one of those genuises of the South, who think the cultivation of that language unnecessary. If I were not fraught with full conviction of its utility, and with resolution to pursue my undertaking, what with the coolness of its reception by some, and the actual disapprobation of it by others, I should be so discouraged as to give it up. This, I believe, is the only country in the world that is ashamed of, and even inclined to extirpate, if it could, its own native tongue.

Corlett (49) now stays by his own choice, in London, to see the Acts of the Apostles finished from the press; and therefore we cannot expect him much before Christmas.

I think I have now noted every particular in both your letters, excepting your surprize at the phenomenon (sic) of a Dissenting preacher in the Church of England canonicals: On which I have only to observe that their having taken up may possibly be owing to those of our Church having of late nearly laid aside the black toga, by hiding under the white in the pulpit, and throwing it off, as soon as may be, when out of it (50).

Yours, PHILOSTOLUS.

Footnotes

† Ibid., pp. 448-54.

47)—John Gill, Vicar of Lezayre (b. 1708 ; d. 1772). He translated 2nd Chronicles, and a portion of the Psalms into Manx.

(48)—Matthias Curghey (b. 1693; d. 1771), Rector of Ballaugh and Vicar-General, (see "Manx Note Book," p. 128).

(49)—Henry Corlett, Vicar of German (see note 37). The Four Gospels and Acts in Manx were published at the end of 1763.

(50) At a later date than this, and till within a few years of the present time, the "Low Church" party would have thought it wicked to preach in a surplice.