Have I dashed your faith in my hero? Was he indeed the bitterest of
tyrants as well as the serenest of saints? Yet bethink you of the other
good men who have done evil deeds? King David and the wife of Uriah,
Mahomet and his adopted son; the gallery of memory is hung round with
many such portraits. Poor humanity, weak at the strongest, impure at
the purest; best take it as it is, and be content. Remember that a good
man's vices are generally the excess of his virtues. It was so with
Bishop Wilson. Remember, too, that it is not for what a man does, but
for what he means to do, that we love him or hate him in the end. And
in the end the Manx people loved Bishop Wilson, and still they bless his
memory.
We have a glimpse of his last days, and it is full of tender beauty.
True to his lights, simple and frugal of life, God-fearing and strong
of heart, he lived to be old. Very feeble, his beautiful face grown
mellower even as his heart was softer for his many years, tottering on
his staff, drooping like a white flower, he went in and out among his
people, laying his trembling hands on the children's heads and blessing
them, remembering their fathers and their fathers' fathers. Beloved by
the young, reverenced by the old, honoured by the great, worshipped by
the poor, living in sweet patience, ready to die in hope. His day was
done, his night was near, and the weary toiler was willing to go to his
rest. Thus passed some peaceful years. He died in 1755, and was followed
to his grave by the whole Manx nation. His tomb is our most sacred
shrine. We know his faults, but we do not speak of them there. Call a
truce over the place of the old man's rest. There he lies, who was once
the saviour of our people. God bless him! He was our fathers' bishop,
and his saintly face still shines on our fathers' children.