e might not have lived long. If the Church still held and
exercised the same powers over evil speakers we should never hear our
own ears in the streets for the din of the voices of the penitents; and
if it still punished unchastity in a white sheet the trade of the linen
weaver would be brisk.

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