r its own sake, and liked to see the poor and the
weak righted, but the memory of deemsters of this kind is not green. The
bulk of men are not better than their opportunities, and the temptations
of the deemsters of old were neither few nor slight.

THE BISHOPRIC VACANT

With such masters in the State, and such masters in the Church, the
island fell low in material welfare, and its poverty reacted on both.
Within fifty years the Bishopric was nineteen years vacant, though it
may be that at the beginning of the seventeenth century this was partly
due to religious disturbances. Then in 1697, with the monasteries and
nunneries dispersed, the abbeys in ruins, the cathedral church a wreck,
the clergy sunk in sloth and ignorance, there came to the Bishopric,
four years vacant, a true man whose name on the page of Manx Church
history is like a star on a dark night, when only one is shining--Bishop
Thomas Wilson. He was a strange and complex creature, half angel,
only half man, the serenest of saints, and yet almost the bitterest of
tyrants. Let me tell you about him.

BISHOP WILSON

Thomas Wilson was from Trinity College, Dublin, and became domestic
chaplain to William, Earl of Derby, and preceptor to the Earl's son, who
died young. While he held this position, the Bishopric of Sodor and
Man became vacant, and it was offered to him. He declined it, thinking
himself unworthy of so high a trust. The Bishopric continued vacant.
Perhaps the candidates for it were few; certainly the emoluments
were small; perhaps the patron was slothful--certainly he gave little
attention to the Church. At length complaint was made to the King that
the spiritual needs of the island were being neglected. The Earl was
commanded to fill the Bishopric, and once again he offered it to his
chaplain. Then Wilson yielded. He took possession in 1698, and was
enthroned at Peel Castle. The picture of his enthronement must have been
something to remember. Peel Castle was already tumbling to its fall, and
the cathedral church was a woful wreck. It is even said that from a
hole in the roof the soil and rain could enter, and blades of grass were
shooting up on the altar. The Bishop's house at Kirk Michael, which
had been long shut up, was in a similar plight; damp, mouldy,
broken-windowed, green with moss within and without. What would one give
to turn back the centuries and look on at that primitive ceremony in
St. Germain's Chapel in April 1698! There w