"When men's labours are attended with tolerable success, yet because either they can better their temporal condition, or think that a more public station would be more suitable to their great capacities, they leave their station for one more full of dangers, without any prospect of being more serviceable to God, or to his church and the souls of men; not considering that this is the voice of pride, self-love, and covetousness; and an evil example to others, to whom we do or should preach humility, as the very foundation of christianity... To leave a clergy and a people to whom one is perfectly well known, to go to another to whom one is a stranger, and this for the sake of riches, which are supposed to have been renounced: this was unknown to the first ages of christianity."

Let this example not only excite the admiration of men, but moderate their ambitious desires, and infuse into their hearts a like spirit of contentedness and selfdenial !

It may seem strange to say, that during the greater part of the life of this excellent man, corrupt principles and practice were establishing themselves amongst the people whose affection he so largely possessed. Yet such was the case. In his Charges, year after year, he deplores the increasing evidences of forgetfulness of God: and a growing population, which exceeded 20,000 many years before his death, daily became more tainted with vice as they became more numerous. He consequently speaks mournfully of the loss of their ancient reputation; a reputation not ill-deserved, since, in the early part of his residence amongst them, he had no lock to his outer door, nor any other fastening than a latch.

These sprinklings of tares amongst the wheat may be easily attributed to the right quarter. Throughout his

charges we find him lamenting the effects of the great influx of strangers. "We are most unjustly reproached," he says, in his Charge of 1724, "for being enemies to strangers. I wish to God we had been more enemies to such of them as have from time to time corrupted our manners and our principles, and afterwards raised an evil report upon the whole community, for the vices of those whom they themselves have corrupted."

From other sources we learn that these strangers were persons who made the island their residence in order to carry on more securely a lucrative contraband trade. It had nothing else to tempt them, for neither were there any manufactures, nor a surplus produce from the soil, nor were the people rich enough to give encouragement to speculators by making large purchases of imported goods. But, from its central position, it became the grand resort and warehouse of smugglers, who shipped off their goods, as occasion offered, to England, Scotland, and Ireland. To adopt the words of Mr. Britton, in his Beauties of England and Wales "Merchants from various countries flourished in every town; and the expression of the traveller, that the whole isle was become a horde of smugglers, was hardly too strong to characterize the number of its inhabitants who were engaged in the different branches of its illicit traffic." He further says, that "the insular revenue of the lord was considerably augmented by the clandestine commerce of his people."

It appears that these elements of demoralization were not introduced into the "little quiet nation" for some time after bishop Wilson's arrival there. But in a few years the smugglers carried on their transactions to so great an extent as materially to affect the British reve

nues, and to bring the subject before parliament at different times subsequently to the year 1726.

Another source of grief and discouragement to the bishop was the want of countenance and support from the chief civil power, which he latterly had reason to complain of. His good friend and patron, the earl of Derby, his pupil's father, died in 1702; and neither his brother James, the tenth earl, who succeeded him, nor the officers whom he brought into the island, appear to have entertained that respect and regard for the bishop which were so generally conceded. But, whatever might be the cause, it is certain that the civil authorities bore considerable animosity towards the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and took occasion to show it by the unjust exercise of power. In one case the governor prevented the execution of a sentence of the spiritual court; he also oppressed a clergyman by imposing an illegal fine and imprisonment. And so manifest was the intention of undermining and subverting the established regulations of the church, that it was necessary either to annul them altogether, or to bring matters to an issue. The bishop resolved to abide by the existing laws, and still continued to enforce them with his usual temper and mildness, and without any regard to the personal inconvenience or hostility to which he might be subjected in the performance of his duty.

In 1722, a case occurred which brought him in direct collision with captain Horne, the governor of the island.

Archdeacon Horrobin was chaplain to the governor ; he appears to have been tainted with some serious errors of a socinian character, and to have held his ecclesiastical superiors in no great respect, being desirous of setting aside the Constitutions, and not scrupling to act in direct disobedience to them. Bishop Wilson charges him with hav

"ing delivered several things from the pulpit not agreeable to truth and sound doctrine; and, by an obstinate defence of them, after he was seriously admonished to forbear giving offence, having done what in him lay to involve in endless disputes a church, which at his coming he found in perfect peace and unity." The errors alleged against him bear so close an affinity to those which bishop Wilson reprobates, in one of his Charges, as being disseminated by a book intitled the Independent Whig, at that time diligently circulated by the governor and his party, that it seems natural to trace the sentiments of the chaplain to that source.

The instance of his open breach of discipline was one in which his name stands implicated with that of the governor's lady. The case is stated in nearly the following terms, by bishop Wilson, in a letter to the earl of Derby, the lord of the island.

"The archdeacon, having repulsed one Mrs. Puller from the sacrament, gave me notice thereof in order to an hearing; amongst other reasons he gave for so doing, one was, that Madam Horne, the governor's lady, had informed him that she had seen certain improprieties between sir James Poole and the said gentlewoman, which he thought a sufficient reason for expelling her from the Lord's Table, which he did without any previous admonition.

"Sir James and the gentlewoman, complaining of this as a grievous slander, demanded of us power to charge the archdeacon to make it good, or to suffer as a slanderer. The archdeacon, to free himself, brought Madam Horne, who owned herself to be the author of the information; and, having no evidence to support the charge, and also refusing to declare how the matter was, (unless she might do it upon oath, which the law did not admit of, in regard

she could not be both accuser and witness,) Sir James and the gentlewoman demanded the benefit of the law, which was to clear themselves upon oath; which they did, after a very solemn manner, with lawful compurgators, and then petitioned for reparation for such an unjust reproach cast upon them. This we could not in justice deny, and therefore Madam Horne was only to ask their forgiveness for the slander, and that under such penalties as the law directs.

"This, my lord, is plain matter of fact: and were we to die for it, we could not have done otherwise, if we resolved to act agreeably to the law, our oaths, and duty." It was even proposed as a sufficient compensation, that she should acknowledge her offence "privately, before the vicar of the parish, asking forgiveness for the great injury done."

Captain Horne, however, was probably pleased at having an opportunity of resisting the ecclesiastical law, as well as piqued at the injury done to his consequence by this treatment of his wife. She therefore refused to make any apology, and the consequence was, that sentence was promulgated, excluding her from the holy communion till reparation should be made. Notwithstanding this, the archdeacon administered the sacrament to her as before; and the bishop, feeling that to omit punishing this offence was virtually to annul the law and to neglect his duty, suspended the offender.

The archdeacon was highly indignant at this treatment, but, instead of applying to the archbishop of York, who was the proper judge to appeal to in such a case, he made his appeal to his friend the governor, who, under pretence that the bishop had exercised powers not entrusted to him by the law, fined him £50, and his two vicars-general (who had been officially concerned in the