Christmas Evans, the Preacher of Wild Wales / His country, his times, and his contemporaries

by Edwin Paxton Hood

“To Be Accursed From Christ.

“‘For I could wish that I were accursed (anathema) from Christ for my brethren,’ etc. (Rom. ix. 3). Many things, most incredible to me, have been said in exposition of this passage; and principally, I think, from not observing that the word ‘anathema’ is used in two senses,—the one good, and the other bad. Barclay analyses into four acceptations; and, according to the first, it signifies that which is devoted, or set apart, to God, in a good sense. According to Parkhurst, it signifies, in Luke xxi. 5, a consecrated gift, set apart for the temple of God, and to His service alone. The word translated gifts is anathemasi. In the second book of Maccabees, ix. 8, the word denotes a consecrated gift. The word in the LXX., according to Parkhurst, is synonymous with the Hebrew word cherem, and signifies, generally, that which is entirely separated from its former condition, and use. If so, why should we not understand Paul, in the text, as expressing his ardent desire that he should be separated, a devoted thing, for the conversion of his brethren according to the flesh? Having gone thus far in explanation, we offer the following interpretation: ‘For I could wish that I were anathema, or a gift, in my labours as an apostle, and a preacher of the Gospel, from Christ, for the spiritual benefit of my brethren according to the flesh, principally, instead of being an apostle to the Gentiles, as I am appointed; theirs is the adoption, etc.; and I could also wish that I, also, as an apostle, were an especial gift of Christ for their distinctive service.’ If this be correct, there is no necessity for changing the tense of the verb from the present to the perfect, and reading, ‘I could wish,’ as ‘I have wished;’ while it saves us from putting in the Apostle’s mouth a wish entirely opposed to the ‘new creation,’ to the plan of Divine grace, and to the glory of God; for it is certain that it is quite in opposition to all this, for a man to desire to live in sin, and to be accursed for ever,—and that cannot for a moment be predicated of the Apostle of the Gentiles. I humbly ask some learned correspondent, whether there is anything in the original text with which this exposition will not harmonize.

“Christmas Evans.”

This letter led to some unsympathetic criticism, and reply. Christmas Evans wrote a vindication of his former views, which may be not uninteresting to our readers, as illustrating a phase of his intellectual character. It appeared in the Seren Gomer for 1822:—

“Mr. Gomer,—If you please, publish the following, in defence of my former letter on Romans ix. 3, and in reply to your correspondent, Pen Tafar.

“It is admitted, on all hands, that the words in the question express the highest degree of love to the Jews. Let us, now, put the different expositions before the reader, and then let him judge which of them contains the greatest harmony and fitness; i.e., first, to express love to the Jews; second, the best adapted to bring about their salvation; third, the most consistent with supreme love to Christ; and fourth, within the confines of sinlessness.

“1. Many learned men set forth the Apostle as having formed this desire when he was an enemy to Christ. This they maintain by tracing the word anathema throughout the Greek Scriptures, and the Hebrew word cherem, of which it is the synonym. Anathema, they say, always signifies ‘without an exception,’ a separation, or devotement of a beast, a city, or something else, to irredeemable destruction (Lev. xxvii. 29). The devoted thing was not to be redeemed, but certainly to be put to death (Gal. i. 9). ‘Let him be accursed,’ says Paul of the angel that would preach another gospel. ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha,’ ‘accursed when the Lord cometh.’ But who can believe that this is the meaning of the word in the passage before us? I say, with Dr. Gill, ‘This never can be the signification.’ What probability is there that Paul would swear, calling Jesus Christ to witness, to his ancient enmity against Him? This was notorious enough throughout the whole country. No asseveration was necessary to prove Paul’s persecuting spirit.

“Again, how could that which he formerly had been, prove, he now having denied himself, his old persecuting spirit, and, being deeply ashamed on the account, prove his present love to the Jews? How did his former love to Satan prove his present love to the Jews?

“2. Others say that it is Paul’s wish as a Christian, whatever anathema means. I believe it is his desire as a Christian; otherwise I see not how it could be an instance of his love to his brethren according to the flesh. Several authors maintain that Paul was willing, for the sake of saving his nation, to part with his interest in Christ, and to perish for ever. Peter Williams and Matthew Henry give this interpretation. But, seriously, how can a person persuade himself to believe this? Would not the Apostle, in this case, love his nation more than Christ, and be accordingly unworthy of Christ? This is opposed to a principle of our nature, which never can desire its own destruction; to the principle of grace, which loves Christ above all things on earth, and in heaven. Such a desire would make Paul a devil.

“3. Others suppose that Paul here speaks inconsiderately, in a kind of ecstasy, carried away by a stream of affection to his people. Who can believe this without giving up Paul’s inspiration, even when he solemnly appeals to Christ?

“4. Another notion is, that the Apostle was willing, and desirous to be excommunicated from the Church of Christ upon earth, and to be deprived of its ordinances. How can this, again, be considered as consistent with love to Christ, and His Church? What tendency could his leaving the Church have to induce the Jews to enter it? This is contrary to the whole course of the Divine command, and promises: God will give His people an everlasting home, and place in His house.

“5. Some say, it is an hyperbole. To confirm this, Exod. xxxii. 32 is quoted as a case in point: ‘Blot me, I pray thee, out of Thy book, which Thou hast written.’ This is not the book of eternal life, but the book of the dispensation, in which Moses was leader, and mediator. ‘I would,’ he says, ‘give up my office.’ God rejected the request: ‘Lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken to thee.’ It was not for Israel, nor a condition of forgiveness to them, but for himself, that Moses said, ‘Blot my name out of Thy book.’ All this gives but little assistance to understand the Apostle. The two spiritual men do not stand on the same ground. Moses seeks the obliteration of his name, unless Israel was pardoned. Paul seeks a work, and an office, in order to the forgiveness of his nation.

“6. Further, it is supposed to be proper to modify—to soften—the meaning of the word anathema, as signifying, sometimes, anything devoted to God, and that never could, afterwards, be appropriated to any other service; and here, to understand it in that softened sense, signifying that Paul was willing for the Redeemer to make him a devoted thing—a martyr for the truth, for the good of the Jewish nation. This is substantially the opinion of Thomas Charles, and Dr. Gill. Christmas Evans’s theory is erected on this ground—the modified sense of the word; thus, ‘I could wish myself entirely set apart, by Christ, to the service of my people, for their spiritual good; I should have been glad, had I my choice, to have been an Apostle, separated to them alone, and not to the Gentiles, with my dwelling, and labours, amongst them, and to die a martyr for the truth, even the most horrible death that could be devised, if Christ had appointed me hereto.’ If ‘P. T.’ says this is a new interpretation of Christmas Evans’s, the answer is, No, but a legitimate extension of a former one; for he did not intend, nor did his words import, the separation of martyrdom, or the most anathematised sufferings, from Paul for his kinsmen according to the flesh.

“7. Is it not plain, and does not ‘P. T.’ see, that this view is superior to the former five, and that it takes in, and is an improving addition to the latter of the five, as to its fitness to express the Apostle’s great love to his people, without destroying his love to Christ, as well as to bring about the salvation of the Jews by proper means? How could the death of the Apostle contribute to the conversion of the Jews, unless he died as an apostate of the circumcision?”

It appears to have been towards the close of the Anglesea period, that he was thrown into a panic of fear, by a threat of a legal prosecution, on account of some chapel debts, for which, of course, he was regarded as responsible. “They talk,” he said, “of casting me into a court of law, where I have never been, and I hope I shall never go; but I will cast them, first, into the court of Jesus Christ.” We have seen that he was in the habit of putting on paper his prayers, and communions with God. It was a time of severe trial to him. He says, “I knew there was no ground of action, but, still, I was much disturbed, being, at the time, sixty years of age, and having, very recently, buried my wife.” He continues, “I received the letter at a monthly meeting, at one of the contests with spiritual wickedness in high places. On my return home, I had fellowship with God, during the whole journey of ten miles, and, arriving at my own house, I went upstairs to my own chamber, and poured forth my heart before the Redeemer, who has in His hands all authority, and power.” And the following seem to be the pathetic words in which he indulged:—

“O blessed Lord! in Thy merit I confide, and trust to be heard. Lord, some of my brethren have run wild; and forgetting their duty, and obligations to their father in the Gospel, they threaten me with the law of the land. Weaken, I beseech Thee, their designs in this, as Thou didst wither the arm of Jeroboam; and soften them, as Thou didst soften the mind of Esau, and disarmed him of his warlike temper against Thy servant Jacob, after the wrestling at Penuel. So disarm them, for I do not know the length of Satan’s chain in this case, and in this unbrotherly attack. But Thou canst shorten the chain as short as it may please Thee. Lord, I anticipate them in point of law. They think of casting Thine unworthy servant into the little courts here below; but I cast my cause into the High Court, in which Thou, gracious Jesus, art the High Chancellor. Receive Thou the cause of Thine unworthy servant, and send him a writ, or a notice, immediately—sending into their conscience, and summoning them to consider what they are doing. Oh, frighten them with a summons from Thy court, until they come, and bow in contrition at Thy feet; and take from their hands every revengeful weapon, and make them deliver up every gun of scandal, and every sword of bitter words, and every spear of slanderous expressions, and surrender them all at Thy cross. Forgive them all their faults, and clothe them with white robes, and give them oil for their heads, and the organ, and the harp of ten strings, to sing, for the trampling of Satan under our feet by the God of peace.

“I went up once,” he says, “and was about ten minutes in prayer; I felt some confidence that Jesus heard. I went up again with a tender heart; I could not refrain from weeping with the joy of hope that the Lord was drawing near to me. After the seventh struggle I came down, fully believing that the Redeemer had taken my cause into His hands, and that He would arrange, and manage for me. My countenance was cheerful, as I came down the last time, like Naaman, having washed himself seven times in the Jordan; or Bunyan’s Pilgrim, having cast his burden at the foot of the cross, into the grave of Jesus. I well remember the place—the little house adjoining the meeting-house, at Cildwrn, where I then resided—in which this struggle took place; I can call it Penuel. No weapon intended against me prospered, and I had peace, at once, to my mind, and in my (temporal) condition. I have frequently prayed for those who would injure me, that they might be blessed, even as I have been blessed. I know not what would have become of me, had it not been for these furnaces in which I have been tried, and in which the spirit of prayer has been excited, and exercised in me.”

It is scarcely necessary to add, that the threat was never executed, nor did poor Christmas, apparently, hear anything further of the matter; but we have seen how great was the trouble, and agitation it caused him, while the fear was upon him. It is very affecting to find that this great, this saintly, and earnest minister, had upon his heart, and mind, the burden of all the chapel-debts connected with his denomination in Anglesea, while he was minister there.

It might have been thought that the ministerial course of Christmas Evans would close in Anglesea, where he had laboured so long, and so effectually. He was, now, about sixty years of age, but there was little light just now, in the evening-time of his life; indeed, clouds of trouble were thickening around him. It often seems that trouble, in the ministerial life, comes exactly at that moment when the life is least able to stand, with strength, against it; and, certainly, in the life of Christmas Evans, sorrows gathered, and multiplied at the close.

Chief among these must be mentioned, beyond any doubt, the death of the beloved companion of all the Anglesea life, his good wife, Catherine; she left him in 1823. She was eminently, and admirably fitted to be the wife of such a man as Christmas. Somewhat younger than her husband, she supplied many attributes of character, to him most helpful; she was not an enthusiast, but she was a Christian, with real, deep, and devout convictions. We have no lengthy accounts of her; but little side-lights, a kind of casemented window, reveal a character at once affectionate, beautiful, and strong.

We have seen that their home was the region of self-denial, and her husband long remembered, and used to tell, how “if there happened to be on our table one thing better than the other, she would, modestly, but cheerfully and earnestly, resist all importunity to partake of it until she ascertained that there was enough for both.” What a little candle such a sentence as this is, but what a light it sheds over the whole room! She did not pretend to be her husband; he filled his larger sphere, and she, in all her manifold, gentle ways, sought to give him rest. Surely she adds another name to the long catalogue of good wives. She reminds us of Lavater’s wife, and some little incidents in that Cildwrn cottage call up memories from the manse of St. Peter’s Church, and the shadows of the old Lindenhof of Zurich, where probably life did not put on a gayer apparel, or present more lavish and luxurious possibilities, than in the poor parsonage of Anglesea.

It is incredible, almost, to read what the good Catherine did, poor—to our thinking, miserable—as was the income of her husband. Her hand was most generous; how she did it, what committee of ways and means she called together, in her thoughtful mind, we do not know,—only, that she, constantly, found some food to give to poor children, and needy people; unblessed by children of her own, she employed her fingers in making clothes for the poor members, and families, of the Church. There was always help for the poor hungry labourer passing her cottage; the house was always open for the itinerant minister travelling on his way to some “publication,” and she was always ready to minister to his necessities with her own kind hands. Her husband often thought that the glance she gave upon a text shed light upon it. She never had robust health, but she accompanied her husband on several of his longer journeys through the greater part of Wales,—ah, and some of them in the winter, through storms of rain, and snow, and hail, along dangerous roads too, across difficult ferries; and she was uniformly cheerful! What an invaluable creature, what a blessed companion! A keener observer of character, probably, from what we can gather, than her husband; a sharper eye, in general, to detect the subterfuges of selfishness and conceit.

One mighty trial she had before she died; she had, in some way, been deeply wounded, grievously injured, and hurt, and she found it hard to forgive; she agonized, and prayed, and struggled; and before she was called to eternity, she was able to feel that she had forgiven, and buried the memory of the injuries in the love and compassion of the Redeemer. Her husband had to give her up, and at a time, perhaps, when he needed her most. The illness was long, but great strength was given to her, and at last the release came. There was mourning in the Cildwrn cottage. The last night of her life she repeated a beautiful, and comfortable Welsh hymn, and then, ejaculating three times, “Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me!” she breathed forth her quiet, affectionate, and hopeful spirit, into her Saviour’s hands, and left her husband all alone, to bear the burden of her departure, and other griefs, and troubles which were crowding upon him.

Other troubles,—for, in what way we need not attempt too curiously to inquire,—the pastorate gave to the poor old pastor little, or no peace. There were strong Diotrephesian troubles agitating the great preacher’s life. The Churches, too, which Christmas Evans had raised, and to which, by his earnest eloquence, and active, organizing mind, he had given existence, grew restive, and self-willed beneath his guidance, refusing his advice with reference to ministers he suggested, and inviting others, whose appointment he thought unwise.

Poor Christmas! Did he ever ask himself, in these moments, when he thought of his lost Catherine, and felt the waves of trouble rising up, and beating all round him,—did he ever ask himself whether the game was worth the candle? whether he was a mere plaything in life, whom that arch old player, Death, had outplayed, and defeated? Did it ever seem to him that it was all a vanity, ending in vexation of spirit? The life most beloved had burnt out, the building he had spent long years to erect, seemed only to be furnished for discomfort, and distraction.

Did he begin to think that the wine of life was only turning into acrid vinegar, by-and-by to end with the long sleeping-draught? Of life’s good things, in the worldling’s sense of good, he had tasted few; most clearly he had never desired them. He had never the opportunity, nor had he ever desired to be like a Nebuchadnezzar, roaming the world like a beast, and pasturing at a dinner-table, as upon a sort of meadow-land of the stomach, sinking the soul to the cattle of the field; but he might have expected that his Church, and Churches, would be a joy, a rest, a pleasant meadow-land to him. The body was certainly crumbling to decay: would the ideas also prove like frescoes, which could be washed out by tears, or removed, and leave the soul only a desolate habitation, waiting for its doom of dust?

We do not suppose that, amidst his depressing griefs, these desolating beliefs, or unbeliefs, had any mastery over him. What did the men who tormented him know of those mighty springs of comfort, which came from those covenants he had made with God, amidst the lonely solitudes of his journeyings among the wild Welsh hills? He had not built his home, or his hopes, on the faithfulness of men, or the vitality of Churches; the roots of his faith, as they had struck downward, were now to bear fruit upward.

There was a fine healthfulness in his spirit. There is nothing in his life to lead one to think that he had ever been much intoxicated by the fame which had attended him; he appears to have been always beneath the control of the great truths in which he believed, and it was not the seductive charms of popularity for which he cared, but the power of those truths to bring light, conviction, and rest, to human souls. All his sermons look that way; all that we know of his preaching, and experience, turns in that direction.

Rose-leaves are said to act as an emetic, and have much the same effect on the constitution as senna-leaves. It is so with those sweet things which fame offers to the imagination; the conserves of its fragrance, by-and-by, become sickening. So, the robust nature of our fine old friend had to rise over grief, and disappointment, and unfriendliness, and diaconal dictation and impertinence. Only one thing he remembered. He appears to have been sustained, even as Edward Irving was, in his conviction that the truth of his message, the lamp of the ministry which he carried, gave to him a right, and a prerogative which he was not to relinquish; he had proved himself, he had proved the Spirit of God to be in him of a truth. He was not a wrangler, not disposed to maintain debates as to his rights; nor was he disposed to yield to caprice, faction, and turbulence; and so, he began to think of retiring, old as he was, from the field, the fragrance of which had proclaimed that the Lord had blessed him there.

Christmas Evans, as he draws near to the close of his work in Anglesea, only illustrates what many a far greater, and many a lesser man than he, have alike illustrated. There is a fine word among the many fine words of that great, although eccentric teacher, John Ruskin:—“It is one of the appointed conditions of the labour of man, that in proportion to the time between the seed-sowing and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit; and that generally, therefore, the further off we place our aim, and the less we desire to be the witnesses of what we have laboured for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success.” This was, no doubt, the consolation of Christmas; but as we look upon him, a friendly voice reminds us, that, as he leaves Anglesea, he realizes very much of Robert Browning’s soliloquy of the martyred patriot:—

“Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs people have dropped down dead.
Paid by the world,—what dost thou owe
Me? God might question; now, instead,
’Tis God shall repay! I am safer so.”

So the candlestick was removed out of its place in Anglesea, and Anglesea soon, but too late, regretted the removal. Christmas Evans, however, seems to illustrate a truth, which may be announced almost as a general law, from the time of the Saviour and his Apostles down to our own, that those who have wrought most unselfishly, and serviceably for the cause of God, and the well-being of man, had to receive their payment in themselves, and in the life to come. In proportion to the greatness of their work was the smallness of their remuneration here.

If we refer to the painful circumstances in connection with the close of the ministry of Christmas Evans at Anglesea, it is, especially, to notice how his faith survived the shock of surrounding trouble. He himself writes: “Nothing could preserve me in cheerfulness and confidence under these afflictions, but the assurance of the faithfulness of Christ; I felt assured that I had much work yet to do, and that my ministry would be instrumental in bringing many sinners to God. This arose from my trust in God, and in the spirit of prayer that possessed me; I frequently arose above all my sorrows.”

And again he writes: “As soon as I went into the pulpit during this period, I forgot my troubles, and found my mountain strong; I was blessed with such heavenly unction, and longed so intensely for the salvation of men, and I felt the truth like a hammer in power, and the doctrine distilling like the honey-comb, and like unto the rarest wine, that I became most anxious that the ministers of the county should unite with me to plead the promise, ‘If any two of you agree touching anything,’ etc. Everything now conspired to induce my departure from the island: the unyielding spirit of those who had oppressed, and traduced me; and my own most courageous state of mind, fully believing that there was yet more work for me to do in the harvest of the Son of Man, my earnest prayers for Divine guidance, during one whole year, and the visions of my head at night, in my bed—all worked together towards this result.”

Few things we know of are more sad than this story. “It was an affecting sight,” says Mr. William Morgan, quoted by Mr. Rhys Stephen in his Memoir, “to see the aged man, who had laboured so long, and with such happy effects, leaving the sphere of his exertions under these circumstances; having laboured so much to pay for their meeting-houses, having performed so many journeys to South Wales for their benefit, having served them so diligently in the island, and passed through so many dangers; now some of the people withheld their contributions, to avenge themselves on their own father in the Gospel; others, while professing to be friends, did little more; while he, like David, was obliged to leave his city, not knowing whether he should ever return to see the ark of God, and his tabernacle in Anglesea again. Whatever misunderstanding there was between Mr. Evans, and some of his brethren, it is clear that his counsels ought to have been received with due acknowledgment of his age, and experience, and that his reputation should have been energetically vindicated. I am of opinion, I am quite convinced, that more strenuous exertions should have been made to defend his character, and to bear him, in the arms of love, through the archers, and not to have permitted him to fall in the street without an advocate.”

The whole aim of Mr. Evans’s life, as far as we have been able to read it, was to get good from heaven, in order that he might do good on earth. Clearly, he never worked with any hope of a great earthly reward for any personal worthiness; perhaps there arose a sense that he had always been unjustly remunerated, that burdens had been laid upon him he ought not to have been called upon to bear; and now the sense of injustice sought, as is so frequently the case, to vindicate itself by ingratitude. It seems so perpetually true, in the sad record of the story of human nature, that it is those who have injured us who seek yet further to hurt us.

CHAPTER V.
CONTEMPORARIES IN THE WELSH PULPIT—WILLIAMS OF WERN.

The Great Welsh Preachers unknown in England—The Family of the Williamses—Williams of Pantycelyn—Peter Williams—Evan Williams—Dr. Williams—Williams of Wern—The immense Power of his Graphic Language—Reading and Thinking—Instances of his Power of Luminous Illustration—Early Piety—A Young Preacher—A Welsh Gilboa—Admiration of, and Likeness to, Jacob Abbot—Axiomatic Style—Illustrations of Humour—The Devils—Fondness for Natural Imagery—Fondness of Solitude—Affecting Anecdotes of Dying Hours—His Daughter—His Preaching characterised—The Power of the Refrain in the Musician and the Preacher, “Unto us a Child is born.”

We pause here for a short time, in our review of the career, and character, and pulpit power of Christmas Evans, to notice some of those eminent men, who exercised, in his day, an influence over the Welsh mind. We will then notice some of those preachers, of even the wilder Wales, who preceded these men. So little is known of many of them in England, and yet their character, and labours, are so essentially and excellently instructive, that we feel this work, to those who are interested, to be not one of supererogation. The men, their country, the people among whom they moved, their work in it, the singular faith in, and love for preaching, for the words these men had to utter,—they must seem, to us, remarkable, and memorable. In this time of ours, when preaching, and all faith in preaching, is so rapidly dying out, that it may be regarded, now, as one of the chief qualifications of a candidate for the pulpit, that he cannot preach a sermon, but can “go to those who sell, and buy for himself”—this study of what was effected by a living voice, with a real live soul behind it, must seem, as a matter of mere history, noteworthy. And first among those who charmed the Welsh ear, in the time of Christmas Evans, we mention Williams of Wern.

It is not without reason, that many eminent Welshmen can only be known, and really designated after the place of their birth, or the chief scene of their labours. The family of the Williamses, for instance, in Wales, is a very large one—even the eminent Williamses; and William Williams would not make the matter any clearer; for, always with tenderest love ought to be pronounced the name of that other William Williams, or, as he is called, Williams of Pantycelyn—the obscure, but not forgotten, Watts of Wales. His hymns have been sung over the face of the whole earth, and long before missionary societies had been dreamed of, he wrote, in his remote Welsh village,

“O’er the gloomy hills of darkness;”

and he has cheered, and comforted many a Zion’s pilgrim by his sweet song,

“Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah!”

He was born in 1717, and died in 1791. This sweet and sacred singer ought to receive more than this passing allusion. Little is known of him in England; and it is curious that Mr. Christopher’s volume on “Hymn Writers and their Hymns” neither mentions his hymns, nor his name.

A writer in the Quarterly Review, evidently not very favourable to that denomination of religious sentiment which Williams represented, has spoken of the “unmixed pleasure” his name and character awakens: “He was a man in whom singular purity of sentiment added grace to a truly original genius.” “His direction to other composers was, never to attempt to compose a hymn until they feel their souls near heaven. His precept, and his practice, in this respect, have been compared to those of Fra Angelico.” Would that some competent Welsh pen would render for us, into English, more of these notes of the sweet singer of Pantycelyn.

William Williams came from the neighbourhood of Llandovery, the parish of Pritchard of the “Welshman’s Candle;” he was, as his hymns would indicate, well educated; he studied for, and entered upon the medical profession; but, converted beneath the preaching of Howell Harris, in Talgarth churchyard, he turned from medicine to the work of the ministry. He was a member of the Established Church; he sought, and received ordination, and deacon’s orders, but, upon application for priest’s orders, he was refused. He then united himself with the Calvinistic Methodists, but still continued to labour with the great Daniel Rowlands, at Llangeitho. His sermons were, like his hymns, often sublime, always abounding in notes of sweetness. During the forty three years of his ministry, it is said, he travelled about 2,230 miles a year, making in all 95,890 miles! He wrote extensively, also, in prose. There is a handsome edition of his works in the Welsh language, and an English edition of some of his hymns. Among the most beautiful, our readers will remember—

“Jesus, lead us with Thy power
Safe into the promised rest.”

This was William Williams of Pantycelyn.

Then, there was Peter Williams, a famous name in the Principality, and of about the same period as Williams of Pantycelyn. No man of his time did so much to cultivate religious literature in Wales. He was a great preacher, and an exemplary man; when a minister within the Church of England, he was persecuted for his opinions, and practices; and, when he left that communion, he suffered even a more bitter persecution from his Methodist brethren. His life, and his preaching, appear to have been full of romantic incidents.

Then there was Evan Williams, who is spoken of as a seraphic man, and whose life appears to justify the distinctive designation, although he died at the age of twenty-nine, very greatly in consequence of ill-usage received in persecution.

Then, in England, we are better acquainted with Daniel Williams, the founder of what is called Dr. Williams’s Library; and who, in addition to this magnificent bequest, left sums of money to Wales for schools, endowments of ministers, annual grants of Bibles, and religious books, and for widows of ministers; by which Wales has received since, and receives now, the sum of about £700 a year. His ministry, however, was in London, at Hand Alley, Bishopsgate Street, nearly two hundred years since. His works are contained in six octavo volumes; but he scarcely falls beneath the intention of these pages.

Besides these, there are many others; so that, as we said above, the name of Williams represents, not only a large family, but a family remarkable for Christian usefulness in Wales. But, in this catalogue of eminent preachers, Williams of Wern, among those of his name, is singularly eminent. He had that power, to which we have referred, of using his language in such a manner, that people, in a very awful way, realized the scenes he described. Dr. Rees mentions of him, that when preaching on the resurrection of the dead, from the window of Ynysgan Chapel, Merthyr Tydvil, he so riveted the attention of the vast multitude, who were on the burying-ground before him, that when he reached the climax, all the crowd moved together in terror, imagining that the graves under their feet were bursting open, and the dead rising. Yet Williams was a singularly quiet preacher; these effects were wrought by the power of that language, so wonderfully fitted to work on the emotions of a very imaginative people, and which he knew how to play upon so well.

This great preacher had quite as remarkable an individuality as either of the eminent men, whose characters we may attempt faintly to portray. Christmas Evans, we have seen, led his hearers along through really dramatic, and pictorial representations. Davies was called the “Silver Trumpet” of Wales; his voice was an instrument of overwhelming compass, and sweetness. Elias was a man of severe, and passionate eloquence,—all the more terrible, because held in the restraint of a perfect, and commanding will. Williams differed from all three; nor must it, for a moment, be said that he “attained not to the first three.” His eminence was equal to theirs, and, in his own walk, he was quite as highly esteemed; but his department of power was completely different. Perhaps, he was less the vehicle of vehement passion than either Elias, or Davies; and it was altogether apart from his purpose to use the amazing imagery of Christmas Evans. His mind was built up of compacted thought; his images were not personifications, but analogies. So far as we are able to form a conception of him, his mind appears to have moved in a pathway of self-evidencing light.

Thus, if we were to speak of these four men as constituting a quartette in the harmony of the great Welsh pulpit, we should give to John Elias the place of the deep bass; to Davies, the rich and melting soprano; to Christmas Evans the tenor; reserving, for Williams of Wern, the place of the alto. His teaching was eminently self-evolved. None of the great Welsh preachers dealt much with pen, and paper. They wrought out their sermons on horseback, or whilst moving from place to place. With Williams it was especially so. Two ministers called upon him in 1830. One of them was something of a bookworm, and he asked him if he had read a certain book which had just been published. Williams said he had not. “Have you,” continued his friend, “seen so-and-so?” naming another work. “No, I have not.” And, presently, a third was mentioned, and the answer was still in the negative. “I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Williams, “you read too much; you do not think sufficiently. My plan in preparing sermons is to examine the connection of a passage, extract its principle, and think it over in my own mind. I never look at a Commentary, except when completely beaten.”

It has often been said that, in the very proportion in which eloquence is effective, and commanding in delivery, in the degree in which it is effective as heard, it is impossible to be read; and, with some measure of exception, this is, no doubt, true. Williams, certainly, is an illustration of this general principle; yet he was, perhaps, one of the most luminous of speakers; only, this alone, without accompanying passion, does not make the orator. Take the following as an illustration of his manner. On ejaculatory prayer:—

“Ejaculatory prayer is the Christian’s breath; the secret path to his hiding-place; his express to heaven in circumstances of difficulty, and peril; it is the tuner of all his religious feelings; it is his sling, and stone, with which he slays the enemy, ere he is aware of it; it is the hiding of his strength; and, of every religious performance, it is the most convenient. Ejaculatory prayer is like the rope of a belfry; the bell is in one room, and the handle, or the end of the rope which sets it a-ringing, in another. Perhaps the bell may not be heard in the apartment where the rope is, but it is heard in its own apartment. Moses laid hold of the rope, and pulled it hard, on the shore of the Red Sea; and though no one heard, or knew anything of it, in the lower chamber, the bell rang loudly in the upper one, till the whole place was moved, and the Lord said, ‘Wherefore criest thou unto me?’”

This is luminous preaching. Unfortunately, as with others, we have very little—scarcely anything, indeed—left of Williams’s pulpit talk.

William Williams was born in the year 1781, at Cwm-y-swn-ganol, in Merionethshire. There his parents occupied a farm, and were much respected. It seems, to us, an odd thing that their name was not Williams, but Probert, or Ap-Robert. He received his name of Williams from the singular practice, then prevalent in many parts of Wales, of converting, with the aid of the letter S, the Christian name of the father into the surname of the son. His father, although an orderly attendant upon Divine Worship, never made a public profession of religion; but his mother was a very pious, and exemplary member of the Calvinistic Methodist connexion.

The decisive hour of real religious conviction came to the youth when he was very young—only about thirteen years of age. Impressions deep, and permanent, were made on his mind, and heart, and at fifteen he was received into Church fellowship; but he suffered greatly from diffidence. Although it was expected of him, he could not pray either in the family, or in public, because, as he used to say, he would then be required, by all his acquaintance, to conduct himself like a perfect saint. But one night, when all the family, with the exception of his mother, and himself, had retired to rest, she engaged in prayer with him, and then said, “Now, Will, dear, do you pray,” and he did so; and from this moment dated the commencement of his courage, and confidence.

It was in his twenty-second year that he entered Wrexham Academy. He was a thorough Welshman—a monoglot. He made some progress in the acquisition of English, and Greek; but he could never speak English fluently, and was advanced in life before he knew a word of it; and he used to say, “When I violate English, I am like a child that breaks a window; I do not go back to mend it, but I run away, hoping I shall not be seen.” As linguists, most of his fellow-students outshone him; in the pulpit, from his very first efforts, he not only outshone them all, but it was soon seen that he was to transcend most of the teachers, and speakers of his time.

Perhaps his example will not commend itself to some of our modern writers, as to preparation for the ministry; for when he was recommended to continue longer under tuition, he said, “No—no; for if so, the harvest will be over while I am sharpening my sickle.” Young as he was, he took a singular view of the leadings of Providence, which, however, eminently marks the character of the man. He received a most unanimous invitation from a large, and influential Church at Horeb, in Cardiganshire, and was just about accepting the invitation, when the smaller, and, in comparison, quite insignificant sphere of Wern was put before him, with such commendations of the importance of the work as commanded his regards. He declined Horeb, and accepted Wern.

His field of labour appears to have comprehended a cluster of villages, such as Llangollen, Rhuabon, and Rhosllanerchrugog; and in this region the greater number of his days were passed, excepting that brief period, towards the close of his life, when he became the minister of the great Welsh tabernacle in Cross Hall Street, Liverpool. But he left Wales with a heavy heart, amidst the pretty distinctly expressed dissatisfaction of the people of the Principality, who, however, still insisted on giving him his designation of Williams of Wern. Nor was he away from them long. His old Church continued unsettled, and after three years’ ministry in Liverpool, he returned to Wern, to close his active, and useful life.

His pastorate consisted, really, of three places—Wern, Rhos, and Harwood. It was a singular circumstance, that whilst large crowds thronged round him at the first two places, and while his name was becoming as a sharp arrow through the whole Principality, he made little impression on Harwood. He used to say that Harwood had been of greater service to him than he had been to it; for it was “the thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure;” and if he ever felt disposed to be lifted up when he saw the crowds gathering round him at other places, he had only to go over to, or think about Harwood, and this became an effectual check to the feelings of self-inflation, in which he might have been tempted to indulge. It was so, whilst other places, Churches, and congregations, “waited for him as for the rain, and opened their mouths wide as for the latter rain;” whilst upon other fields his “doctrine distilled as the dew,” his stubborn Harwood appears to have been a kind of Welsh Gilboa, upon which no dew fell.

He was claimed as a kind of public property, and Churches at a distance seemed to think they had a right to his services, frequently very much to the irritation of his own people, to whom he might have given the consolation he once administered to a brother minister; “I understand that your people complain a good deal because you so often leave them. Well, let us be thankful that the reverse is not the case; for our own people might have tired of us, and be pleased to hear strangers, and preferred our absence, regarding us as ‘a vessel wherein is no pleasure.’” Unfortunately, in such cases, congregations do not take the matter as philosophically as the old Scotchwoman, who, when she met a neighbouring clergyman one Sabbath morning, wending his way to her own kirk, expressed her surprise at meeting him there, and then. He explained that it was an exchange of services. “Eh, then,” said the old woman, “your people will be having a grand treat the day.”

Something of the nature of Williams’s mind, and his method of ministration, may be gathered from his exceeding admiration of Jacob Abbot, and especially his work, “The Corner Stone.” “Oh! what a pity,” he said, “that we cannot preach as this man writes.” But, so far as we have been able to judge from the scanty means we possess, he did preach very much after the manner of Jacob Abbot’s writings. His words appear, first, to have been full of strong, seminal principles, and these were soon made clear in the light of very apt illustrations. Truly it has been said, that, first, the harper seizes his harp, and lays his hand firmly upon it, before he sweeps the strings. In an eminent manner, Williams gave to his people the sense, as soon as he commenced, that a subject was upon his heart, and mind; and he had a firm grasp of it, and from his creative mind each successive stroke was some fine, apt, happy evolution.

Illustration was his forte, but of a very different order from that of Christmas Evans; for instance, illustrating the contests of Christian creeds, and sects with each other, “I remember,” he said, “talking with a marine, who gave to me a good deal of his history. He told me the most terrible engagement he had ever been in, was one between the ship to which he belonged, and another English vessel, when, on meeting in the night, they mistook each other for a French man-of-war. Many persons were wounded, some slain; both vessels sustained serious damage from the firing, and, when the day broke, great was their surprise to find the English flag hoisted from the masts of both vessels, and that, through mistake, they had been fighting all night against their own countrymen. It was of no avail, now, that they wept together: the mischief was done. Christians,” said the preacher, “often commit the same error in this present world. One denomination mistakes another for an enemy; it is night, and they cannot see to recognise each other. What will be their surprise when they see each other in the light of another world! when they meet in heaven, after having shot at each other through the mists of the present state! How will they salute each other, when better known, and understood, after having wounded one another in the night! But they should wait till the dawn breaks, at any rate, that they may not be in danger, through any mistake, of shooting at their friends.”

The Welsh language is, as we suppose our readers well know, especially rich in compact, proverbial, axiomatic expressions. The Welsh triads are an illustration of this. The same power often appears in the pulpit. The latter, and more recent, languages are unfavourable to the expression of proverbs. Williams we should suppose to have been one of the most favourable exemplifications of this power. General tradition in Wales gives him this kind of eminence—poem, and proverb united in his sentences. We have not been able to obtain many instances of this; and we fear it must be admitted, that our language only in a clumsy way translates the pithy quaintness of the Welsh, such as the following: “The door of heaven shuts from below, not from above. ‘Your iniquities have separated, saith the Lord.’” “Of all the birds,” he once said, “the dove is the most easily alarmed, and put to flight, at hearing a shot fired. Remember,” he continued, “that the Holy Ghost is compared to a dove; and if you begin to shoot at each other, the heavenly Dove will take wing, and instantly leave you. The Holy Spirit is one of love, and peace, not of tumult, and confusion. He cannot live amongst the smoke, and noise of fired shots: if you would grieve the Holy Spirit, and compel Him to retire, you have only to commence firing at one another, and He will instantly depart.” “The mind of man is like a mill, which will grind whatever you put into it, whether it be husk or wheat. The devil is very eager to have his turn at this mill, and to employ it for grinding the husk of vain thoughts. Keep the wheat of the Word in the mind; ‘keep thy heart with all diligence.’”

Some of his words seem very odd, although he was a most grave, and serious man. Thus; “Our prayers often resemble the mischievous tricks of town-children, who knock at their neighbours’ houses, and then run away; we often knock at Heaven’s door, and then run off into the spirit of the world: instead of waiting for entrance, and answer, we act as if we were afraid of having our prayers answered.” Again: “There are three devils which injure, and ravage our Churches, and congregations,—the singing devil, the pew-letting devil, and the Church officers’ appointment devil: they are of the worst kind of devils, and this kind goeth not out but by prayer, and fasting.” “The old ministers,” he used to say, “were not much better preachers than we are, and, in many respects, they were inferior to us; but they had a success attendant upon their ministry that can now seldom be seen. They prayed more than we do. It was on his knees that Jacob became a prince; and if we would become princes, we must be more upon our knees. We should be successful as our fathers, could we be brought to the same spirit, and frame of mind.”

But Williams is like Elias in this; we have had none of his sermons rendered into English, and, therefore, the descriptions we have are rather tantalizing. Mr. Parry, the Congregational minister of Llandudno, a man well fitted to judge—himself one of the most distinguished living poets in the Welsh language, and who has carried many prizes from the Eisteddfodd—says of him: “I shall never forget his eloquence. It poured forth like a swollen torrent. I cannot help referring to a sermon he preached at an annual Association at Llanerchmedd, Anglesea. The meeting was, as usual, held in the open air. The weather was very sultry; the congregation seemed drowsy. His manner, before preaching, showed considerable restlessness, and when he came to the desk, he looked rather wild. It was evident his spirit was on fire, and his mind charged brimful with ideas. He read his text in a quick, bold tone; ‘But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly.’ He poured forth such a flood of eloquent description, that he completely enchanted our feelings, and made us imagine we felt the field move under our feet. He himself thought this occasion one of the most remarkable in his life; for I spoke to him about the sermon years after. I believe it served to raise our Churches throughout the whole land.”

He was a more extensive reader than any of his brethren in the ministry; a keen observer, too, in the departments of natural history, and natural philosophy. It was, indeed, much like his own method, and it illustrated the reason of his great admiration for Jacob Abbot’s “Corner Stone,” when he very prettily says, “The blessed Redeemer was very fond of His Father’s works.” He used to say, “If we understood nature better, it would help us to understand the Bible better. The kingdom of nature, and the kingdom of grace, are very like each other. There is a striking resemblance between the natural principles of the one, and the moral principles of the other.” He entered with a kind of joy into the sublime moods of nature; was fond of watching the play of the lightning, and listening to the voice of the thunder. “Jesus,” he used to say, “loved to look at the lily, and to listen to the birds; to speak upon the mysteries of the seed, and to draw forth principles from these things. It was no part of His plan to expound the laws of nature, although He understood them more perfectly than any one else; but He employed nature as a book of reference, to explain the great principles of the plan of salvation.”

A clergyman writes of him, that “his appearance when preaching was very remarkable, and singularly beautiful. When standing in a great crowd, every soul seemed agitated to its centre, and cheeks streaming with tears. It is but justice that every one should have his likeness taken when he appears to the greatest advantage; and so Williams. His picture, on such an occasion, would be an honour to the country which reared him, a treasure to the thousands who heard him, and a name to the painter.” The likeness is before us now, and in the firm, composed thoughtfulness, a kind of sad, far outlook in the eyes, and the lips which seem to wait to tremble into emotion—we think we can well realize, from the inanimate engraving, what life must have been in the speech of this extraordinary man. His mind was cast in a sweetly meditative mould. He was fond of retreating by himself among the trees, and walking beneath their shadows, as they formed a canopy over his head. He said of one such place, “I think I must love that spot through all eternity, for I have felt a degree of heaven there.”

And thus he died. He had lost his wife some time before. It is very affecting to read the account of himself, and his daughter, dying together in different rooms of the same house. As he said to her, one day, “We appear to be running, with contending footsteps, to be first at the goal.” They spent much time in talking together, with unruffled composure, of death, and heaven, and being “absent from the body, and present with the Lord.” Every morning, as soon as he was up, found him by the bedside of his daughter.

Once he said to her, “Well, Eliza, how are you this morning?”

“Very weak, father.”

“Ah!” said he, “we are both on the racecourse. Which of us do you think will get to the end first?”

“Oh, I shall, father. I think you must have more work to do yet.”

“No,” he said; “I think my work is nearly over.”

“It may be so, father; but, still, I think I shall be the first to go.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “it is best it should be so, for I am more able to bear the blow. But,” he continued, “do you long to see the end of the journey?”

“Oh, from my heart!” she replied.

“But why?”

“Because I shall see so many of my old friends, and my mother; and, above all, I shall see Jesus.”

“Ah, well, then,” he said, “tell them I am coming! tell them I am coming!”

She died first. Her last words were, “Peace! peace!” He followed her shortly after—on the 17th of March, 1840, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.

Amongst the great preachers of Wales, not one seems to have won more upon the tender love of those who knew him. Dr. Raffles said of him, “What he was as a preacher, I can only gather from the effects he produced on those who understood the language in which he spoke, but I can truly say, that every occasion on which I saw him only served to impress me more with the ardour of his piety, and the kindness of his heart. He was one of the loveliest characters it has been my lot to meet.”

High strains of thought, rendered into the sweet variety, melting tenderness, and the grand strength of the language of Wales, seem to have been the characteristics of the preaching of Williams of Wern; tender, and terrible, sweetness alternating with strength. We have already said how much Welsh preaching derived, in its greatest men, from the power of varying accent; the reader may conceive it himself if ever listening to that wonderful chorus in Handel’s “Messiah,” which Herder, the great German, called truly the Christian Epos; but the chorus to which we refer, is that singular piece of varying pictorial power, “Unto us a Child is born,” repeated, again and again, in sweet whispered accents, playing upon the thought; the shepherds having kept watch over their flocks by night in the fields, and having heard the revelation voices of the angels say it—“For unto us a Child is born;” and then rolls in the grand thunder, “And His name shall be called Wonderful;” and then, you return back to the sweet silvery accents, “For unto us a Child is born;” and the thought is, that the Wise Men are there offering their gifts; and then roll in, again, the grand, overwhelming words, “And His name shall be called Wonderful;” and yet again that for which we waited, the tender, silvery whisperings, “Unto us a Child is born;” until it seems as if flocks, and herds, and fields, shepherds, and wise men, all united with the family of Jesus, beneath the song-singing through the heavens in the clear starry night, “Unto us a Child is born, and His name shall be called Wonderful.” Those who have listened to this chorus, may form some idea of the way in which a great Welsh preacher—and Williams of Wern as a special illustration—would run his thought, and its corresponding expression, up and down, through various tones of feeling, and with every one awaken, on some varying accent, a fresh interpretation, and expression. Perhaps, the nearest approach we have heard, in England, to the peculiar gifts of this preacher, has been in the happiest moods of the beloved, and greatly honoured Thomas Jones, once minister of Bedford Chapel, London.

CHAPTER VI.
CONTEMPORARIES—JOHN ELIAS.

Fire and Smoke—Elias’s Pure Flame—Notes in the Pulpit—Carrying Fire in Paper—Elias’s Power in Apostrophe—Anecdote of the Flax-dresser—A Singular First Appearance in the Pulpit—A Rough Time in Wales—The Burning of the Ravens’ Nests—A Hideous Custom put down—The Great Fair of Rhuddlan—The Ten Cannon of Sinai—Action in Oratory—The Tremendous Character of his Preaching—Lives in an Atmosphere of Prayer—Singular Dispersion on a Racecourse—A Remarkable Sermon, Shall the Prey be taken from the Mighty?—Anecdote of a Noble Earl—Death and Funeral.

We have already implied that Welsh preaching has had many varieties, and very various influences too. Even the very excitements produced by these famous men, whose names we are recording, varied considerably; but one characteristic certainly seemed to attend them—the influence was real, and very undoubted. When Rowland Hill was in Wales, and witnessed some of the strong agitations resulting from great sermons, he said, he “liked the fire, but he did not like the smoke.” It was, like so many of the sayings of the excellent old humorist, prettily, and wittily said. But it may, also, be remarked, that it is, usually, impossible to have real fire without smoke; and it has further been well said, that the stories of the results of such preaching make us feel that, could we only get the fire, we need not object to a little of the smoke.

We are introducing to our readers, now, in John Elias, one who, certainly, does not seem to have surrounded the clear flames of his eloquence with unnatural excitement. If the effects of his oratory seem to rival all that we have heard of the astonishing power of George Whitefield, the material of his sermons, the severity of their tone of thought, and the fearfulness of their remorseless logic, remind us of Jonathan Edwards. He had read extensively, especially in theology; and, it has been truly said, his mind was a storehouse, large, lofty, and rich. Like his great coadjutors, he prepared for the pulpit with amazing care, and patience, but apparently never verbally—only seeing his ideas clearly, and revolving them over and over until, like fuel in the furnace, they flamed. He tells us how, having done his part, by earnest, and patient study, he trusted to God to give to his prepared mind its fitting expression, and speech. Of course, like the rest, he disclaimed all paper in the pulpit. An eminent brother minister, Thomas Jones, of Denbigh, was coming to London to preach what was considered the great annual sermon of the London Missionary Society, at Surrey Chapel. In his own country, Mr. Jones preached always extempore; but, being in company with Matthew Wilkes, and John Elias, he inquired of old Matthew whether, for such an occasion, he did not think that he had better write his sermon.

“Well, for such an occasion,” said Matthew, “perhaps it would be better to write your discourse; but, at any rate, let us have plenty of fire in it.”

“But,” said John Elias, “he cannot carry fire in paper!”

“Never mind,” said Matthew; “paper will do very well to light the fire with!”

Mr. Wilkes’ witty rejoinder seems to give the entire value to notes, and writing in the pulpit; but, no doubt, Elias expressed his conviction, and the conviction of all these men, that you cannot carry fire in paper. But we have before said that it was by no means wild-fire. One of the great poets of Wales imagined a conversation going on between the soul and the body of Elias, before they both went up together in the pulpit, when the soul said to the body, “Now, you must be a sacrifice for an hour. You must bear all my fire, and endure all my exertion, however intense it may be.” And another writer says of him that, while some preachers remind us of Pharaoh’s chariots, that drove heavily, Elias reminded us, rather, of that text, “He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.”

Whatever is to be said of the peculiarities of other great Welsh preachers, it seems to be admitted, on all hands, that John Elias was the Demosthenes of the group. Let no reader smile, however high his regard for the classic orator. The stories told of the effects of the preaching of John Elias, greatly resemble those of the great Grecian orator, who, at the close of his tremendous orations, found the people utterly oblivious to all the beauty, and strength of his discourses—utterly indisposed to admire, or criticise, but only conducted to that point of vehement indignation, and passionate action, which had been, all along, the purpose of the speaker, exclaiming, “Let us march against Philip!”

If profound passionate conviction, persuasion altogether insensible of anything besides its own emotions, be the chief attribute of the gifted orator, John Elias must stand, we will not say matchless, but, from all that we have heard of him, unsurpassed. We have no means of testing this by any published sermons; scraps and fragments we have, and traditions of the man, and his soul-piercing eloquence, float about over Wales; but we apprehend it was an order of eloquence which would not submit itself to either penmanship, or paper, either to the reporter, or the printing-press.

How extravagant some things seem when quietly read, unaccompanied by the passion, and excitement which the preacher has either apprehended, or produced! The reader remembers very well—for who does not?—Whitefield’s vehement apostrophe, “Stop, Gabriel!” Who could deliberately write it down to utter it? and what an affectation of emotion it seems to read it! But that was not the effect produced on David Hume, who heard it; and we may be very sure that man,—the most acute, profound, cold philosopher, and correct writer, had no friendly feelings either to Whitefield, or Gabriel—to the message which the preacher had to give, or the archangel to carry. A quiet, ordinary, domestic state of feeling scarcely knows how to make allowances for an inflamed orator, his whole nature heaving beneath the passion produced by some great, and subduing vision, an audience in his hands, as a river of water, prepared to move whithersoever he will. Thus Elias, when he was handling some weighty subject, would suddenly say, “Stop! silence!” (Disymwth! Gosteg!) “What are they saying in Heaven on the subject?” His hearers testify that, in such moments, he almost brought them within the precincts of the glory. The effect was thrilling. And, dealing with alarming truths, he would exclaim, “Stop! silence! What do they say in hell on this subject?”

The man who can do these things must be no hearsay man, or such questionable excursions of speech would be likely to provoke laughter, and contempt, rather than overwhelming awe. The effect of this preacher was unutterable. It is said that upon such occasions, had the people heard these things from the invisible world, as he expatiated on the things most likely to be uttered, either in Heaven or hell, upon the subject, they could scarcely have been more alarmed.

His biographer, Mr. Morgan, Vicar of Syston, in Leicestershire, tells how he heard him preaching once to a crowd in the open air, on “the Last Day,” representing the wicked as “tares gathered into bundles,” and cast into the everlasting burnings. There was a certain flax-dresser, who, in a daring and audacious way, chose to go on with his work in an open room opposite to where Elias was preaching from the platform; but, as the preacher grew more and more earnest, and the flames more flashing, the terrible fire more and more intense in its vehemence, the man was obliged to leave his work, and run into a yard behind his house, to get out of the reach of the cruel flames, and the awful peals of the thunder of the preacher’s subduing voice. “But the awful language of that Elias followed me there also,” said the panic-stricken sinner.

There was a preacher of Caernarvon, one Richardson, a preacher of peculiar tenderness, and sweetness, who made his hearers weep beneath the lovely message he generally carried. On one occasion, while Elias was pouring forth his vehement, and dreadful words, painting the next world in very living, and fearful colours, his audience all panic-stricken, and carried along as if they were on the confines of the darkness, and the gates opening to receive them, a man, in the agony of his excitement, cried out, “Oh, I wish I could hear Mr. Richardson, of Caernarvon, just for five minutes!” No anecdote could better illustrate the peculiar gifts, and powers of both men.

John Elias was a native of Caernarvonshire. His parents were people in very humble circumstances, but greatly respected. His paternal grandfather lived with them. He was a member of the Church of England. His influence over the mind of Elias appears to have been especially good; and it is, perhaps, owing to this influence that, although he became a minister, and the eminent pride of the Calvinistic Methodist body, he, throughout his life, retained a strong affection for the services, and even the institution, of the Church of England. Through his grandfather, he acquired, what was not usual in that day, the rudiments of education very early, and as a young child, could read very well and impressively. Thus, when quite a child, they went together to hear some well-known Methodist preacher. The time for the service had long passed, and the preacher did not arrive. The old gentleman became impatient, and said to his little grandson, “It’s a pity the people should be idling like this; go up into the pulpit, John, and read a chapter to them;” and, suiting the action to the word, he pushed the child up into the pulpit, and shut the door after him. With much diffidence, he began to read portions of the Sermon on the Mount, until, venturing to withdraw his eye from the Bible, and look aside, lo! to his great dismay, there was the preacher quietly waiting outside the pulpit door. He gently closed the book, and slipped down the pulpit stairs. This was his first appearance in the pulpit. Little could any one dream that, in after years, he was to be so eminent a master in it.

But he was only twenty years of age when he began to preach, indeed; and it is said that, from the first, people saw that a prophet of God had risen amongst them. There was a popular preacher, with a very Welsh name, David Cadwalladr, who went to hear him; and, after the sermon, he said, “God help that lad to speak the truth, for he’ll make the people believe,—he’ll make the people believe whatever he says!” From the first, John Elias appears to have been singularly like his two namesakes, John the Baptist, and Elias the prophet. He had in him a very tender nature; but he was a severe man, and he had a very severe theology. He believed that sin held, in itself, very tremendous, and fearful consequences, and he dealt with sin, and sinners, in a very daring, and even dreadful manner.

He appeared in a rough time, when there were, in the neighbourhood, rough, cruel, and revolting customs. Thus, on Whitsunday in each year, a great concourse of people used to assemble together to burn the ravens’ nests. These birds bred in a high and precipitous rock, called Y gadair (that is, “the chair”). The birds were supposed to prey on young poultry, etc., and the people thought it necessary to destroy them; but they always did so on the Sabbath, and it became quite a wild festival occasion; and the manner of their destruction was most savage, and revolting. The nests were beyond their reach; but they suspended a fiery fagot by a chain. This was let down to set the nests on fire; and the young birds were roasted alive. At every blaze which was seen below, triumphant shouts rose from the brutal crowd, rending the air. When the savages had put the birds to death, they usually turned on each other; and the day’s amusement closed in fights, wounds, bruises, and broken bones. One of the first of Elias’s achievements was the daring feat of invading this savage assembly, by proclaiming, in their very midst, the wrath of God against unrighteousness, and Sabbath-breaking. Perhaps, to us, the idea of preaching in such a scene seems like the attempting to still a storm by the waving of a feather; but we may also feel that here was a scene in which that terrible eloquence, which was a chief power of Elias, was well bestowed. Certainly, it appears chiefly due to Elias that the hideous custom was put down, and put to an end for ever.

It was no recreative play, no rippling out of mild, meditative, innocent young sermons, these first efforts of young Elias. For instance, there was a great fair which was wont to be held at Rhuddlan, in Denbighshire. It was always held on the Lord’s Day. Thither, into the midst of the fair, went the young man. He took his stand on the steps of the New Inn, the noise and business of the fair going on all around him. His friends had earnestly tried to dissuade, and entreated him not to venture into the midst of so wild, and dangerous a scene. Farmers were there, to hire labourers; crowds of rough labourers were there. It was the great market-day for scythes, and reaping-hooks. In the booths all round him were the sounds of harps, and fiddles; it was a wild scene of dissipation. There stood the solemn young man, thoughtful, grave, and compassionate. Of course, he commenced with a very solemn prayer; praying so that almost every order of person on the ground felt himself arrested, and brought, in a solemn way, before God. Singular effects, it is said, seemed to follow the prayer itself. Then he took for his text the fourth commandment; but he said he had come to open upon them “the whole ten cannon of Sinai.” The effects could hardly have been more tremendous had the congregation really stood at the foot of the mountain that “might not be touched.” In any case, Elias was an awful preacher; and we may be sure that upon this occasion he did not keep his terrors in reserve.

One man, who had just purchased a sickle, was so alarmed at the tremendous denunciations against Sabbath-breakers, that he imagined that the arm which held the sickle was paralysed; he let it fall on the ground. He could not take his eye from the preacher; and he feared to stoop to pick it up with the other hand, lest that should be paralysed also. It ought, also, to be said this man became an entirely changed character, and lived, to an advanced age, a consistent Christian. The great crowd was panic-stricken. The fair was never after held on the Lord’s Day. Some person said to Elias, afterwards, that the fair was an old custom, and it would recover itself, notwithstanding his extraordinary sermon. Elias, in his dreadful manner, replied, “If any one will give the least encouragement to the revival of that fair, he will be accursed before the Holy Trinity, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!” A dreadfully earnest sort of man this. We are not vindicating his speeches, only giving an account of them.

Mr. Jones, the Rector of Nevern, one of the most eminent of the Welsh bards, says, “For one to throw his arms about, is not action; to make this, or that gesture, is not action. Action is seen in the eye, in the curling of the lip, in the frowning of the nose—in every muscle of the speaker.” Mentioning these remarks to Dr. Pugh, when speaking of Elias, he said he “never saw an orator that could be compared to him. Every muscle was in action, and every movement that he made was not only graceful, but it spoke. As an orator,” said Dr. Pugh, “I considered him fully equal to Demosthenes!”

It was tremendous preaching. It met the state of society—the needs of the times. What is there in a sermon?—what is there in preaching? some have flippantly inquired. We have seen that the preaching of Elias effected social revolutions; it destroyed bad customs, and improved manners. He lived in this work; it consumed him. Those who knew him, applied to him the words of Scripture: “The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.” In estimating him, and his work, it ought never to be forgotten, that, as has always been the case with such men, he lived in a life of wondrous prayerfulness, and spiritual elevation. He was called to preach a great Association sermon at Pwlheli. In the whole neighbourhood the state of religion was very low, and distressingly discouraging to pious minds; and it had been so for many years. Elias felt that his visit must be an occasion with him. It may almost be said of that day, that “Elias prayed, and the heavens gave rain.” He went. He took his text, “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered!” It was an astonishing time. While the preacher drove along with his tremendous power, multitudes of the people fell to the ground. Calm stood the man, his words rushing from him like flames of fire. There were added to the Churches of that immediate neighbourhood, Mr. Elias’s clerical biographer tells us, in consequence of the powerful impetus of that sermon, two thousand five hundred members.

The good man lived in an atmosphere of prayer. The stories which gather about such men, sometimes seem to partake of the nature of exaggerations; but, on the other hand, it ought to be recollected that all anecdotes and popular impressions arise from some well-known characteristic to which they are the correspondents. There was a poor woman, a neighbour’s wife. She was very ill, and her case pressed very much upon the mind of Elias in family prayer. But one morning he said to his wife, “I have somehow missed Elizabeth in my prayer this morning; I think she cannot be alive.” The words had scarcely passed from his lips when the husband was at the door, to tell him of his wife’s departure.

There is a singular circumstance mentioned of some horse-races, a great disturbance to the best interests of the neighbourhood; on the day of the great race, Elias’s spirit was very much moved, and he prayed most passionately and earnestly that the Lord would do something to put a stop to them. His prayer was so remarkable, that someone said, “Ahab must prepare his chariot, and get away.” The sky became so dark shortly after, that the gas was lighted in some of the shops of the town. At eleven o’clock the rain began to pour in torrents, and continued until five o’clock in the afternoon of the next day. The multitudes on the race-ground dispersed in half-an-hour, and did not reassemble that year; and what seemed more remarkable was, that the rainfall was confined to that vicinity. It is our duty to mention these things. An adequate impression could not be conveyed of the place this man held in popular estimation without them. And his eminence as a preacher was astonishing; wherever he went, whatever day of the week, or whatever hour of the day, no matter what the time or the season, business was laid aside, shops were closed, and the crowds gathered to hear him. Sometimes, when it was arranged for him to preach in a chapel, and more convenient that he should do so, a window was taken out, and there he stood, preaching to the crowded place within, and, at the same time, to the multitudes gathered outside. Mr. Morgan, late vicar of Christ Church, in Bradford, gives an account of one of these sermons. There was a great panorama exhibiting at the same time. Elias took the idea of moving succession—the panorama of all the miracles wrought by Christ. It is easy to see how, from such lips, a succession of wonderful pictures would pass before the eye, of living miracles of Divine working,—a panorama of wonderful cures. Mr. Morgan says, “I was very ill at the time, but that striking sermon animated me, and I have often stirred the cold English with the account of it.”

We have said that no sermons are preserved; Elias himself regretted, in his advanced life, that some, which had been of a peculiar interest to him, had gone from him. Fragments there are, but they are from the lips of hearers. Many of these fragments still present, in a very impressive manner, his rousing, and piercing, and singularly original style; his peculiar mode of dealing at will, for his purposes of illustration, with the things of earth, heaven, and hell.

Take one illustration, from the text, “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive be delivered?” “Satan!” he exclaimed, “what do you say? Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? ‘No, never. I will increase the darkness of their minds; I will harden more the hardness of their hearts; I will make more powerful the lusts in their souls; I will increase the strength of their chains; I will bind them hand and foot, and make my chains stronger; the captives shall never be delivered. Ministers! I despise ministers! Puny efforts theirs!’ ‘Gabriel!’ exclaimed the preacher, ‘messenger of the Most High God: shall the prey be taken from the mighty?’ ‘Ah! I do not know. I have been hovering over this assembly. They have been hearing the Word of God. I did expect to see some chains broken, some prisoners set free; but the opportunity is nearly over; the multitudes are just upon the point of separating; there are no signs of any being converted. I go back from this to the heavenly world, but I have no messages to carry to make joy in the presence of the angels.’” There were crowds of preachers present. Elias turned to them. “‘What think you? You are ministers of the living God. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty?’ ‘Ah! who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have laboured in vain, and spent our strength for nought; and it seems the Lord’s arm is not stretched out. Oh, there seems very little hope of the captives being delivered!’ ‘Zion! Church of Christ! answer me, Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? What do you say?’ And Zion said, ‘My God hath forgotten me; I am left alone, and am childless. And my enemies say, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.’ Oh, I am afraid the prey will not be taken from the mighty—the captive will not be delivered. Praying Christians, what do you think? ‘O Lord, Thou knowest. High is Thy hand, and strong is Thy right hand. Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, and come down! Let the sighing of the prisoner come before Thee. According to the greatness of Thy power, preserve Thou them that are appointed to die. I am nearly wearying in praying, and yet I have a hope that the year of jubilee is at hand.’” Then, at this point, Elias assumed another, higher, and his most serious manner, as if about to speak to the Almighty; and, in quite another tone, he said, “What is the mind of the Lord respecting these captives? Shall the prey be taken from the mighty?” Then he exclaimed, “‘Thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered.’ Ah!” he exclaimed, “there is no doubt about the mind and will of the Lord—no room for doubt, and hesitation. ‘The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.’”

This is the fragment of a sermon preached when Elias was about thirty years of age. Of course it can give but a very slender idea, but perhaps it shows something of the manner of the master. His imagination was very brilliant, but more chastened, and subdued, than that of many. His eloquence, like all of the highest order, was simple, and he trusted rather to a fitting word, than to a large furniture of speech. It is said that, to his friends, every sermon appeared to be a complete masterpiece of elocution, a nicely-compacted, and well-fitted oration.

Among the great Welsh preachers, David Davies, and Williams of Wern were, like Rowlands of Llangeitho, comparatively fixtures. Of course, they appeared on great Association occasions. But John Elias, and Christmas Evans itinerated far, and wide. Unlike as they were in the build of their minds, and the character of their eloquence, they had a great, and mutual, regard, and affection for each other; and it is told how, when either preached, the other was seen with anxious interest drinking in, with the crowd, the words of his famous brother. Theirs are, no doubt, the two darling names most known to the religious national heart of Wales. To John Elias it is impossible to render such a mede of justice, or to give of his powers even so comprehensive a picture, as is attempted, even in this volume, of Christmas Evans.

Something like an illustration of the man may be gathered from an anecdote of the formation of one of the first Bible Societies in North Wales. It was a very great occasion. A noble Earl, the Lord Lieutenant of the county, was to take the chair; but when he heard that John Elias was expected to be the principal speaker, he very earnestly implored that he might be kept back, as “a ranter, a Methodist, and a Dissenter, who could do no good to the meeting.” The position of Elias was such that, upon such an occasion, no one could have dared to do that; so the noble Lord introduced him, but with certain hints that “brevity, and seriousness would be desirable.” The idea of recommending seriousness to John Elias, certainly, seems a very needless commendation; but when Elias spoke,—partly in English, and partly in Welsh,—especially when, in stirring Welsh, he referred to the constitution of England, and the repose of the country, as illustrating the value of the Bible to society, and some other such remarks,—of course with all the orator’s piercing grandeur of expression,—the chairman, seeing the inflamed state of the people, and himself not well knowing what was said, would have the words translated to him. He was so carried away by the dignified bearing of the great orator, that he would have a special introduction to him at the close of the meeting. A day or two after, a special messenger came to invite him to visit, and spend some time at the house of the Earl. This, however, was respectfully declined, for reasons, no doubt, satisfactory to Elias, and which would satisfy the peer also, that the preacher had no desire to use his great popularity for his own personal influence, and aggrandisement.

After a life of eminent usefulness, he died, in 1841, at the age of sixty-eight. His funeral was a mighty procession, of about ten thousand persons. They had to travel, a distance of some miles, to the beautiful little churchyard of Llanfaes, a secluded, and peaceful spot,—a scene of natural romance, and beauty, the site of an old Franciscan monastery, about fourteen miles from Llangefni, the village where Elias died. The day of the funeral was, throughout the whole district, as still as a Sabbath. As it passed by Beaumaris, the procession saw the flags of the vessels in the port lowered half-mast high; and as they passed through Beaumaris town, and Bangor city, all the shops were closed, and all the blinds drawn before the windows. Every kind of denomination, including the Church of England, joined in marks of respect, and justified, more distinctly than could always be done, the propriety of the text of the funeral oration: “Know ye not that a prince and a great man has fallen?” Of him it might truly be said, “Behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills like chaff.”

CHAPTER VII.
CONTEMPORARIES—DAVIES OF SWANSEA.

Traditions of his Extraordinary Eloquence—Childhood—Unites in Church Fellowship with Christmas Evans, and with him preaches his First Sermon—The Church of Castell Hywel—Settles in the Ministry at Frefach—The Anonymous Preacher—Settles in Swansea—Swansea a Hundred Years Since—Mr. Davies reforms the Neighbourhood—Anecdotes of the Power of his Personal Character—How he Dealt with some Young Offenders—Anecdote of a Captain—The Gentle Character of his Eloquence—The Human Voice a Great Organ—The Power of the “Vox Humana” Stop—A Great Hymn Writer—His Last Sermon.

We shall, in the next chapter, mention several names of men, mightily influential as Welsh preachers in their own country, and to most English readers utterly unknown. Perhaps the most conspicuous of these lesser known men is, however, David Davies, of Swansea. Dr. Thomas Rees, in every sense a thoroughly competent authority, speaks of him as one of the most powerful pulpit orators in his own, or any other, age; and he quotes the words of a well-known Welsh writer, a minister, who says of David Davies: “In his best days, he was one of the chief of the great Welsh preachers.” This writer continues: “I may be deemed too partial to my own denomination in making such an observation. What, it may be asked, shall be thought of John Elias, Christmas Evans, and others? In point of flowing eloquence, Davies was superior to every one of them, although, with regard to his matter, and the energy, and deep feeling with which he treated his subjects, Elias, in his best days, excelled him.” As to this question of feeling, however, the writer of these pages was talking, some time since, with Dr. Rees himself, about this same David Davies, when the Doctor said: “What the old people tell you about him is wonderful. It was in his voice—he could not help himself; without any effort, five minutes after he began to speak, the whole congregation would be bathed in tears.”

This great, and admirable man was born in the obscure little village of Llangeler, in Carmarthenshire, in June, 1763. His parents, although respectable, not being in affluent circumstances, could give him very few advantages of education. Thus it happened that, eminent as he became as a preacher, as one of the most effective hymn-writers in his language, and as a Biblical commentator, he was entirely a self-made man. However, as is so often the case in such instances, his earnest eagerness in the acquisition of knowledge was manifest when he was yet very young; and he was under the influence of very strong religious impressions at a very early age.

Even when he was quite a child, he would always stand up, and gravely ask a blessing on his meals; and it is said that there was something so impressive, and grave, in the manner of the child, that some careless frequenters of the house always took off their hats, and behaved with grave decorum until the short prayer was ended. His parents were not religious persons, and, therefore, it is yet more remarkable that one day, while he was still in his earliest years, his father heard him fervently in prayer for them behind a hedge. It is not wonderful to learn that he was greatly affected by it. It does not seem that this depth of religious life accompanied him all the way through his boyhood, and his youth; but a very early marriage—in most instances, so grave, and fatal a mistake—would appear to have been the occasion of the restoration of his religious convictions. He was but twenty when he married Jane Evans, a respectable, and lovely young woman of his own neighbourhood; and now his religious life began in real earnest.

It is surely very remarkable, as we have already seen, that he, and Christmas Evans were admitted into Church fellowship on the same evening,—the Church to which we have already referred,—beneath the pastorate of the eminent scholar, and bard, David Davies, of Castell Hywel. The singularity did not stop here. Christmas Evans, and the young Davies, preached their first sermon in the same little cottage, in the parish of Llangeler, within a week of each other. The two youths were destined to be the most eminent lights of their different denominations, in their own country, in that age; but neither of them continued long in connection with the Church at Castell Hywel; and as they joined at the same time, so about the same time they left.

David Davies, their pastor, was a great man, and an eminent preacher, but he was an Arian, and the Church members were chiefly of the same school of thought; and the convictions of both youths were altogether of too deep, and matured an order, to be satisfied by the Arian view of the person, and work of Christ. Moreover, they both, by the advice of friends, were looking to the work of the Ministry, for which they must have early shown their fitness; and, as we have noticed in the case of Christmas Evans, there was a rule in the Church at Castell Hywel, that no one should be permitted to preach who had not received an academical training.

This, in addition to their dissatisfaction with services devoted chiefly to the frigid statements of speculative points of doctrine, or the illustration of worldly politics, soon operated to move the young men into other fields. Evans, as we know, united himself with the Baptists; Davies found a congenial ministration at Pencadair, under the direction of a noted evangelical teacher of those parts, the Rev. William Perkins. There his deepest religious convictions became informed, and strengthened. Davies was always a man of emotion; it was his great strength when he became a preacher; and his biographer very pleasingly states the relation of his after-work to this moment of his life, when he says that, “Beneath the teaching of Mr. Perkins, a delightful change came over his feelings; he could now see, in the revealed testimony concerning the work finished by our Divine Surety, and Redeemer, enough to give confidence of approach ‘into the holiest,’ to every one who believes the report of it, as made known to all alike in the Scriptures. We may justly say, ‘Blessed are their eyes who see’ this; who see that God is now ‘reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses.’ They, indeed, see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending, and descending upon the Son of Man. They see that fulfilled which was set forth of old in vision to Jacob, the restoration of intercourse between earth and heaven through a mediator; and, in the discovery of it, they walk joyfully in the way of peace, and in the gracious presence of their reconciled Father.”

It was after this period that the first sermon was preached, in the cottage to which we have alluded. “The humble beginning of both Davies, and Evans, naturally reminds us,” says Davies’ biographer, “of the progress of an oak from the acorn to the full-grown tree, or that of a streamlet issuing from an obscure valley among the mountains, and swelling, by degrees, into a broad, and majestic river.” David Davies soon became well known in his neighbourhood as a mighty evangelist. Having grounded his own convictions, and even then possessed of a copious eloquence, it is not wonderful to read that dead Churches rose into newness of life, and became, in the course of time, flourishing societies. He was ordained as a co-pastor with the Rev. John Lewis, at Trefach. The chapel became too small, and a new one was built, which received the name of Saron. He became a blessing to Neuaddlwyd, and Gwernogle; his words ran, like flames of fire, through the whole district. It is said that his active spirit, and fervent style of preaching, gave a new tone to the ministry of the Independents throughout the whole Principality. Hearers, who have been unaccustomed to the penetrating, the quietly passionate emotionalness of the great Welsh preachers, can scarcely form an idea of the way in which their at once happy, and invincible words would set a congregation on fire.

The beloved, and revered William Rees, of Liverpool, in his memoir of his father, gives an illustration of this, in connection with a sermon preached by Mr. Davies; and it furnishes a striking proof of the force of his eloquence. The elder Rees speaks of one meeting in particular, which he attended at Denbigh, at the annual gathering of the Independents. A minister from South Wales preached at the service with unusual power, and eloquence. Among the auditors, there was a venerable man, named William Lewis, who possessed a voice loud, and clear as a trumpet, and who was, at that time, a celebrated preacher among the Calvinistic Methodists. The southern minister, in full sail, with the power of the “hwyl” strong upon him, and the whole congregation, of course, in full sympathy, all breathless, and waiting for the next word, came to a point in his sermon where he repeated, says Mr. Rees, in his most pathetic tones, the verse of a hymn, which can only be very poorly conveyed in translation:—

“Streams from the rock, and bread from heaven,
Were, by their God, to Israel given;
While Sinai’s terrors blazed around,
And thunders shook the solid ground,
No harm befell His people there,
Sustained with all a Father’s care,
Perversely sinful though they were.”

The drift of the passage was to show that the believer in Christ is just as safe amidst terrors from within, and without. The sentiment touched the electric chord in the hearts of the multitude. Old William Lewis could bear it no longer. Up he started, unable to conceal his feelings. “Oh, yes! oh, yes!” he exclaimed; “blessed be His name! God supported His people amidst all the terrors of Sinai, sinful, and rebellious though they were. That was the most dreadful spot in which men could ever be placed; yet, even there, God preserved His people unharmed. Oh, yes! and there He sustained me, too, a poor, helpless sinner, once exposed to the doom of His law, and trembling before Him!” No sooner had the old man uttered these words, than a flame seemed instantaneously to spread through the whole congregation, which broke forth into exclamations of joy, and praise. But the preacher, who had kindled this wonderful fire, and who could do such things! For some time, Mr. Rees was unable to find out who it was; and it was the younger Rees, long the venerable minister in Liverpool, who discovered afterwards, from one of his father’s old companions, that it was David Davies, from the south,—he who came to be called, in his more mature years, “The great Revivalist of Swansea.”

For, after labouring until the year 1802 in the more obscure regions we have mentioned, where, however, his congregations were immense, and his influence great over the whole Principality, he was invited by the Churches of Mynyddbach, and Sketty—in fact, parts of Swansea—to become their pastor; and on this spot his life received its consummation, and crown.

When Mr. Davies entered the town, it was a remarkably wicked spot; the colliers were more like barbarians than the inhabitants of a civilized country. Gangs of drunken ruffians prowled through its streets, and the suburbs in different directions, ready to assault, and ill-treat any persons who ventured near them. They were accustomed to attack the houses as they passed, throwing stones at the doors, and windows, and could scarcely open their mouths without uttering the most horrid oaths, and blasphemies. It seems almost strange, to our apprehensions now, that the presence of a preacher should effect a change in a neighbourhood; yet nothing is more certain, than the fact that immense social reformations were effected by ministers of the Gospel, both in England, and in Wales.

Mr. Davies had not long entered Swansea before the whole neighbourhood underwent a speedy, and remarkable change. He had a very full, and magnificent voice; a voice of amazing compass, flexibility, and tenderness; a voice with which, according to all accounts, he could do anything—which could roll out a kind of musical thunder in the open air, over great multitudes, or sink to the softest intonations, and whispers, for small cottage congregations. It was well calculated to arrest a rude multitude. And so it came about that Mynyddbach became as celebrated for the work of David Davies, as the far-famed Llangeitho for the great work, and reformation of David Rowlands. The people poured in from the country round to hear him. Then, although very tender, and genial, his manner was so solemn, and he had so intense a power of realizing, to others, the deep, and weighty truths he taught, that he became a terror to evil-doers.

It is mentioned that numbers of butchers from the neighbourhood of Cwmamman, and Llangenie, were in the habit of attending Swansea market on Saturdays. Some of them, after selling the meat which they had brought, were accustomed to frequent the public-houses, and to remain there drinking, and carousing until the Sunday morning. It is a well-known, and amusing circumstance, that, in the course of a little time, when proceeding homewards on their ponies, if they caught a glimpse of Mr. Davies coming in an opposite direction, they hastily turned round, and trotted off, until they could find a bystreet, or lane, to avoid his reproving glances, or warnings, which had the twofold advantage of pertinency and serious wit, conveyed in tones sufficiently stentorian to reach their ears. And there was a man, proverbially notorious for his profane swearing, who plied a ferry-boat between Swansea, and Foxhole; whenever he perceived Mr. Davies approaching, he took care to give a caution to any who might be using improper expressions: “Don’t swear, Mr. Davies is coming!”

And there is another story, which shows what manner of man this Davies was. One Saturday night, a band of drunken young men, and boys, threw a quantity of stones against his door, according to their usual mode of dealing with other houses. While they were busy at their work of mischief, he suddenly opened the door, rushed out, and secured two or three of the culprits, who were compelled to give him the names of all their companions. He then told them that he should expect every one of them to be at his house on a day which he mentioned. Accordingly, the whole party came at the appointed hour, but attended by their mothers, who were exceedingly afraid lest the offending lads should be sent to prison in a body. Instead of threatening to take them before the magistrates, Mr. Davies told them to kneel down with him; and having offered up an earnest prayer, and affectionately warned them of the consequences of their evil ways, he dismissed them, requesting, however, that they would all attend at Ebenezer Chapel on the following Sunday. They were, of course, glad to comply with his terms, and to be let off so easily. In after years, several of them became members of his Church, and maintained through life a consistent Christian profession. “And one of them,” said Dr. Rees, when writing the story of his great predecessor, “is an old grey-headed disciple, still living.”

Such anecdotes as these show how far the character of the man aided, and sustained the mighty power of the minister. Our old friend, the venerable William Davies, of Fishguard, says: “I well remember Mr. Davies of Swansea’s repeated preaching tours through Pembrokeshire, and can never forget the emotions, and deep feelings which his matchless eloquence produced on his crowded congregations everywhere; he had a penetrating mind, a lively imagination, and a clear, distinctive utterance; he had a remarkable command of his voice, with such a flow of eloquence, and in the most melodious intonations, that his enraptured audience would almost leap for joy.”

Instances are not wanting, either in the ancient, or modern history of the pulpit, of large audiences rising from their seats, and standing as if all spellbound, while the preacher was pursuing his theme, and, to the close of his discourse, subdued beneath the deepening impression, and rolling flow of words. Perhaps the reader, also, will remember, if he have ever been aware of such scenes, that it is not so much glowing splendour of expression, or the weight of original ideas, still less vehement action, which achieves these results, as a certain marvellous, and melodious fitness of words, even in the representation of common things.

But to return to Mr. Davies. Davies of Fishguard, aforementioned, gives an illustration of his preaching: “The captain of a vessel was a member of my Church at Fishguard, but he always attended Ebenezer, when his vessel was lying at Swansea. One day, he asked another captain, ‘Will you go with me next Sunday, to hear Mr. Davies? I am sure he will make you weep.’ ‘Make me weep?’ said the other, with a loud oath. ‘Ah! there’s not a preacher in this world can make me weep.’ However, he promised to go. They took their seats in the front of the gallery. The irreligious captain, for awhile, stared in the preacher’s face, with a defiant air, as if determined to disregard what he might say; but when the master of the assembly began to grow warm, the rough sailor hung down his head, and before long, he was weeping like a child.” Here was an illustration of the great power of this man to move, and influence the affections.

As compared with other great Welsh preachers, Davies must be spoken of as, in an eminent manner, a singer, a prophet of song, and the swell, and cadences of his voice were like the many voices, which blend to make up one complete concert. He was not only a master of the deep bass notes, but he had a rich soprano kind of power, too; for we read that “when he raised his voice to a higher pitch than ordinary, it increased in melody, and power, and its effects were thrilling in the extreme; there were no jarring notes—all was the music of eloquence throughout.” This must not be thought wonderful—it is natural; all men cannot be thus, nor all preachers, however good, and great. There are a few noble organs in the world. The organ itself, however considered, is a wonderful instrument, but there are some built with such extraordinary art that they are capable of producing transcendent effects beyond most other instruments. Davies, the preacher, was one of these amazing organs, in a human frame; but the power of melody was still within his own soul, and it was the wonderful score which he was able to read, and which he compelled his voice to follow, which yet produced these amazing effects.

Surely, it is not more wonderful, that the human voice should have its great, and extraordinary exceptions, than that most wonderful piece of mechanism and art, an organ. We have the organs of Berne, Haarlem, and the Sistine Chapel—such are great exceptions in those powers which art exercises over the kingdom of sound; their building, their architecture, has made them singular, and set them apart as great instruments. But even in these, who does not remember the power of the vox humana stop? We apprehend that few who have heard it in the organs of Berne, or Fribourg, will sympathise with Dr. Burney’s irreverent, and ridiculous condemnation of it, in his “History of Music,” as the “cracked voice of an old woman of ninety, or Punch singing through a comb.” Far from this, the hearer waits with intense anxiety, almost goes to hear this note, and realizes in it, what has been said so truly, that music, as it murmurs through the ear, is the nurse of the soul. But all organs have not the vox humana stop, nor all preachers either. The human voice, like the organ, is a mighty instrument, but it is the soul which informs the instrument with this singular power, so that within its breast all the passions seem to reign in turn. Singular, that we have thought so much of the great organs of the Continent, and have listened with such intensity to the great singers, and have failed to apply the reflection that the greatest preachers must be, in some measure, a combination of both.

Davies was one of those preachers, without whose presence the annual gatherings, in which the Welsh especially delighted, would have been incomplete. On such occasions, he was usually the last of the preachers—the one waited for. As the service proceeded, it naturally happened that some weariness fell over the assembly; numbers of people might be seen in different parts, sitting, or reclining, on the grass; but as soon as David Davies appeared on the platform, there was a gathering in of all the people, pressing forward from all parts of the field, eager to catch every word which fell from the lips of the speaker. When a great singer appears at a concert, who of all the audience would lose a single bar of the melody? He gave out his own hymn in a voice that reached, without effort, to the utmost limits of the assembled multitude, though he spoke in a quiet, natural tone, without any exertion. He read his text deliberately, but in accents sufficiently loud to be heard with ease by ten thousand people. What is any great singer, without distinctness of enunciation? And distinct enunciation has always been one of the strong points of the great Welsh preachers. Hence, from this reason, he was always impressive, and he seldom preached without using some Scriptural story, which he made to live, through his accent, in the hearts of the people; illustrative similes, and not too many of them; striking thoughts, beneath the pressure of which his manner became more and more impressive, until, at each period, his hearers were overpoweringly affected. Every account of him speaks of his wonderfully impressive voice; and all this gained additional force from his dignified bearing, and appearance, which took captive, and carried away, not only more refined intelligences, but even coarsest natures, while the preacher never approached, for a moment, the verge of vulgarity. Contemporary preachers bore testimony that when the skilful singer had closed his strain, the people could not leave the spot, but remained for a long time after, weeping, and praising.

We have said, already, that Mr. Davies was one of the Welsh hymn-writers; eighty of his hymns are said to be among the best in the Welsh language. He was a strong man, of robust constitution, but, it may be said, he died young; before he had reached his fiftieth year, his excessive labours had told visibly on his health, and for many months before his death, he was strongly impressed with the idea that the time of his departure was at hand. He died in the year 1816. The first Sabbath of that year, he preached a very impressive sermon, from the text, “Thus saith the Lord, This year thou shalt die.”

His last sermon was preached about three weeks before he died, when he also administered the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, and gave the right hand of fellowship to thirteen persons, on their admission into the Church. He spoke only a few words during the service, and in those, in faltering accents, told his people he did not expect to be seen amongst them any more. And, indeed, there was every indication, by his weakness, that his words would be fulfilled. Every cheek was bedewed with tears. The hearts of many were ready to burst with grief; for this man’s affections were so great, that he produced, naturally, that grief which we feel when the holders of our great affections seem to be parted from us.

He went home from this meeting to die. The struggle was not long protracted. On the morning of December 26th, 1816, he breathed his last. On the day of the funeral, a large concourse, from the town, and neighbourhood, followed his remains to the grave. These lie in a vault, which now occupies a space in the centre of the new chapel, reared on the site of that in which he ministered so affectionately; and over the pulpit, a chaste, and beautiful mural marble tablet memorialises, and very conspicuously bears the name of David Davies. Of him, also, it might be said: “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.”

CHAPTER VIII.
THE PREACHERS OF WILD WALES.

Rees Pritchard, and “The Welshman’s Candle”—A Singular Conversion—The Intoxicated Goat—The Vicar’s Memory—“God’s better than All”—Howell Harris—Daniel Rowlands at Llangeitho—Philip Pugh—The Obscure Nonconformist—Llangeitho—Charles of Bala—His Various Works of Christian Usefulness—The Ancient Preachers of Wild Wales characterised—Thomas Rhys Davies—Impressive Paragraphs from his Sermons—Evan Jones, an Intimate Friend of Christmas Evans—Shenkin of Penhydd—A Singular Mode of Illustrating a Subject—Is the Light in the Eye?—Ebenezer Morris—High Integrity—Homage of Magistrates paid to his Worth—“Beneath”—Ebenezer Morris at Wotton-under-Edge—His Father, David Morris—Rough-and-ready Preachers—Thomas Hughes—Catechised by a Vicar—Catching the Congregation by Guile—Sammy Breeze—A Singular Sermon in Bristol in the Old Time—A Cloud of Forgotten Worthies—Dr. William Richards—His Definition of Doctrine—Davies of Castell Hywel, the Pastor of Christmas Evans, and of Davies of Swansea—Some Account of Welsh Preaching in Wild Wales, in Relation to the Welsh Proverbs, Ancient Triads, Metaphysics, and Poetry—Remarks on the Welsh Language and the Welsh Mind—Its Secluded and Clannish Character.

Amongst the characteristic names of Wales, remarkable in that department to which we shall devote this chapter, whoever may be passed by, the name of Rees Pritchard, the ancient Vicar of Llandovery, ought not to go unmentioned. We suppose no book, ever published in Wales, has met the acceptance and circulation of “Canwyll-y-Cymry,” or “The Welshman’s Candle.” Since the day of its publication, it has gone through perfectly countless editions; and there was a time, not long since, when there was scarcely a family in Wales, of any intelligence, which did not possess a copy.

Its author was born in the parish of which he became the vicar, so far back as 1575. He was educated at Oxford. His early life was more remarkable for dissipation of every kind, than for any pursuits compatible with his sacred profession. He was, especially, an inveterate drunkard; the worst of his parishioners were scandalised by his example, and said, “Bad as we may be, we are not half so bad as the parson!” The story of his conversion is known to many, who are not acquainted with his life, and work, and the eminence to which he attained; and it certainly illustrates how very strange have been some of the means of man’s salvation, and how foolish things have confounded the wise. As George Borrow says in his “Wild Wales,” in his account of Pritchard, “God, however, who is aware of what every man is capable, had reserved Rees Pritchard for great, and noble things, and brought about his conversion in a very remarkable manner.”

He was in the habit of spending much of his time in the public-house, from which he was, usually, trundled home in a wheelbarrow, in a state of utter insensibility. The people of the house had a large he-goat, which went in, and out, and mingled with the guests. One day, Pritchard called the goat to him, and offered it some ale, and the creature, so far from refusing it, drank it greedily, and soon after fell down in a state of intoxication, and lay quivering, to the great delight of Pritchard, and his companions, who, however, were horrified at this conduct in one, who was appointed to be their example, and teacher. Shortly after, as usual, Pritchard himself was trundled home, utterly intoxicated. He was at home, and ill, the whole of the next day; but on the day following, he went down to the public-house, and called for his pipe, and tankard. The goat came into the room, and again he held the tankard to the creature’s mouth; but it turned away its head in disgust, hurried away, and would come near him no more. This startled the man. “My God!” he said, “is this poor dumb creature wiser than I?” He pursued, in his mind, the train of feeling awakened by conscience; he shrank, with disgust, from himself. “But, thank God!” he said, “I am yet alive, and it is not too late to mend. The goat has taught me a lesson; I will become a new man.” Smashing his pipe, he left his tankard untasted, and hastened home. He, indeed, commenced a new career. He became, and continued for thirty years, a great, and effective preacher; “preaching,” says Mr. Borrow, “the inestimable efficacy of Christ’s blood-shedding.”

Those poetical pieces which he wrote at intervals, and which are called “The Welshman’s Candle,” appear only to have been gathered into a volume, and published, after his death. The room in which he lived, and wrote, appears to be still standing; and Mr. Borrow says: “Of all the old houses in Llandovery, the old Vicarage is, by far, the most worthy of attention, irrespective of the wonderful monument of God’s providence, and grace, who once inhabited it;” and the old vicar’s memory is as fresh in Llandovery, to-day, as ever it was. While Mr. Borrow was looking at the house, a respectable-looking farmer came up, and was about to pass; “but observing me,” he says, “and how I was employed, he stopped, and looked now at me, and now at the antique house. Presently he said, ‘A fine old place, sir, is it not? But do you know who lived there?’ Wishing to know what the man would say, provided he thought I was ignorant as to the ancient inmate, I turned a face of inquiry upon him, whereupon he advanced towards me, two or three steps, and placing his face so close to mine, that his nose nearly touched my cheek, he said, in a kind of piercing whisper, ‘The Vicar!’ then drawing his face back, he looked me full in the eyes, as if to observe the effect of his intelligence, gave me two or three nods, as if to say, ‘He did indeed,’ and departed. The Vicar of Llandovery had then been dead nearly two hundred years. Truly the man in whom piety, and genius, are blended, is immortal upon earth!” “The Welshman’s Candle” is a set of homely, and very rememberable verses, putting us, as far as we are able to judge, in mind of our Thomas Tusser.

Mr. Borrow gives us a very pleasant taste in the following literal, vigorous translation, which we may presume to be his own:—

“GOD’S BETTER THAN ALL.”

“God’s better than heaven, or aught therein;
Than the earth, or aught we there can win;
Better than the world, or its wealth to me—
God’s better than all that is, or can be.

“Better than father, than mother, than nurse;
Better than riches, oft proving a curse;
Better than Martha, or Mary even—
Better, by far, is the God of heaven.

“If God for thy portion thou hast ta’en,
There’s Christ to support thee in every pain;
The world to respect thee thou wilt gain;
To fear thee, the fiend, and all his train.

“Of the best of portions, thou choice didst make,
When thou the high God to thyself didst take;
A portion, which none from thy grasp can rend,
Whilst the sun, and the moon on their course shall wend.

“When the sun grows dark, and the moon turns red;
When the stars shall drop, and millions dread;
When the earth shall vanish, with its pomp, in fire,
Thy portion shall still remain entire.

“Then let not thy heart, though distressed, complain;
A hold on thy portion firm maintain.
Thou didst choose the best portion, again I say;
Resign it not till thy dying day!”

But the age of preachers in Wales, to which the following pages will more immediately refer, commences with those two great men, who were indeed the Whitfield, and the Wesley of Wales—Howell Harris of Trevecca, and Daniel Rowlands of Llangeitho. It is remarkable that these two men, born to be such inestimable, and priceless blessings to their country, were born within a year of each other—Harris at Trevecca, in 1714, Rowlands at Pantybeidy, in Cardiganshire, in 1713. As to Harris, he is spoken of as the most successful preacher that ever ascended a pulpit, or platform in Wales; and yet nothing is more certain, than that he neither aimed to preach, nor will his sermons, so far as any knowledge can be obtained of them, stand the test of any kind of criticism. This only is certain, their unquestioned, and greatly pre-eminent usefulness.

He did not deliver composed sermons, but unpremeditated addresses, on sin, and its tremendous consequences; on death, and the judgment, and the world to come. It is said, “His words fell like balls of fire, on the careless, and impenitent multitudes.” Himself destined for a clergyman of the Church of England, an Oxford man, and with a fair promise of success in the Church—since before he left Oxford, he had a benefice offered him—he repeatedly applied, in vain, for ordination. Throughout his life, he continued ardently attached to the services of the Church of England.

It was, unhappily, from that Church, in Wales, he encountered his most vehement opposition, and cruel persecution. He, however, roused the whole country,—within the Church of England, and without,—from its state of apathy, and impiety; while we quite agree with his biographer, who says: “Any attempt to account philosophically for the remarkable effects which everywhere attended the preaching of Howell Harris, would be nothing better than an irreverent trifling with a solemn subject. All that can be said, with propriety, is, that he was an extraordinary instrument, raised by Providence, at an extraordinary time, to accomplish an extraordinary work.”

But Llangeitho, and its vicar, seem to demand a more lengthened notice, as coming more distinctly within the region of the palpable, and apprehensible. Daniel Rowlands was a clergyman, and the son of a clergyman. At twenty-two years of age, he was appointed perpetual curate, or incumbent, of the united parishes of Nantcwnlle and Llangeitho, at a salary of ten pounds a year. He never received any higher preferment in the Church on earth, although so eminent a blessing to his country. He must have been some such man as our William Grimshaw, of Haworth. When he entered upon his curacy, he was quite an unconverted young man, given to occasional fits of intoxication, and in the summer he left his pulpit, to take his part, with his parishioners, in the sports, and games in the neighbouring fields, or on the village green.

But, in the immediate neighbourhood of his own hamlet, ministered a good and consistent Nonconformist, Philip Pugh, a learned, lovable, and lowly man; and, in the smaller round of his sphere, a successful preacher. Daniel Rowlands appears to have been converted under a sermon of the eminent Rev. Griffith Jones of Llanddouror, at Llanddewibrefi; but it was to Philip Pugh that he was led for that instruction, and influence, which instrumentally helped to develop his character. It would seem that Rowlands was a man bound to be in earnest; but conversion set on fire a new genius in the man. He developed, hitherto undiscovered, great preaching power, and his church became crowded. Still, for the first five years of his new course of life, he did not know that more glorious and beautiful Gospel which he preached through all the years following.

He was a tremendous alarmist; the dangers of sin, and the terrors of the eternal judgments, were his topics; and his hearers shrank, and recoiled, while they were fascinated to listen. Again, the venerable Nonconformist stepped in; Philip Pugh pointed out his defect. “My dear sir,” said he, “preach the Gospel—preach the Gospel to the people. Give them the balm of Gilead; show the blood of Christ; apply it to their spiritual wounds; show the necessity of faith in a crucified Redeemer.” “I am afraid,” said Rowlands, “that I have not all that faith myself, in its full vigour, and exercise.” “Preach on it,” said Mr. Pugh; “preach on it, until you feel it in that way,—it will come. If you go on preaching in the way you have been doing, you will kill half the people in the country. You thunder out the curses of the law, and preach in such a terrific manner, that nobody can stand before you. Preach the Gospel!” And again the young clergyman followed the advice of his patriarchal friend, and unnumbered thousands in Wales had occasion, through long following years, to bless God for it.

Does not the reader call up a very beautiful picture of these two, in that old and obscure Welsh hamlet, nearly a hundred and fifty years since?—the conversation of such an one as Paul, the aged, with his young son, Timothy; and if anything were needed to increase our sense of admiration of the young clergyman, it would be that he did not disdain to receive lessons from old age, and an old age covered with the indignities attaching to an outlawed Nonconformist. In Wales, there were very many men like Philip Pugh; we may incidentally mention the names of several in the course of these pages—names well worthy of the commendation in Johnson’s perfect lines:

“Their virtues walked their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found
Their single talent well employed.

“And still they fill affection’s eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind;
And let not arrogance deny
Its praise to merit unrefined.”

Then there opened a great career before Rowlands, and Llangeitho became as a shrine in evangelical Wales. He received invitations to preach in every neighbourhood of the Principality; many churches were opened to him, and where they were not, he took freely, and cheerfully, to the chapels, or the fields. His words, and accents were of that marvellous kind we have identified with Welsh preaching. Later on, and in other times, people said, he found his successor in Davies of Swansea; and the highest honour they could give to Swansea, in Davies’ day, was that “it was another Llangeitho.”

Rowlands had the power of the thunder, and the dew; he pressed an extraordinary vitality into words, which had often been heard before, so that once, while reading the Church Service, in his own church, he gave such a dreadful tenderness to the words, “By thine agony, and bloody sweat!” that the service was almost stopped, and the people broke forth into a passion of feeling. Christmas Evans says: “While Rowlands was preaching, the fashion of his countenance became altered; his voice became as if inspired; the worldly, dead, and careless spirit was cast out by his presence. The people, as it were, drew near to the cloud, towards Christ, and Moses, and Elijah. Eternity, with its realities, rushed upon their vision. These mighty influences were felt, more or less, for fifty years. Thousands gathered at Llangeitho for communion every month, and they came there from every county in Wales.”

Such power there is in human words when divinely wielded; such was the spiritual power of Daniel Rowlands. Well does one writer say, the story of Llangeitho, well written, would read like a chapter in religious romance. It is very doubtful whether we have the record of any other man who drew such numbers to the immediate circle of his ministry, as Rowlands. He did not itinerate so largely as most of the great Welsh preachers. In an obscure spot in the interior of Cardiganshire, in an age of bad roads, and in a neighbourhood where the roads were especially bad, he addressed his immense concourses of people. His monthly communion was sometimes attended by as many as three thousand communicants, of whom, often, many were clergymen. Upwards of a hundred ministers ascribe to him the means of their conversion. Thus, in his day, it was a place of pilgrimages; and even now, there are not a few who turn aside, to stand, with wonder, upon the spot where Rowlands exercised his marvellous ministry.

The four great Welsh preachers, Christmas Evans, John Elias, Williams of Wern, and Davies of Swansea, on whose pulpit powers, and method, we have more distinctly dilated, may be styled the tetrarchs of the pulpit of Wild Wales of these later times. Their eminence was single, and singular. Their immense powers unquestioned: rivals, never, apparently, by their own selection, the great Welsh religious mind only rivalled them with each other. After them it might be said, “Great was the company of preachers,”—great, not merely in number, carrying also influence, and usefulness of another kind; perhaps even superior to those honoured names.

How, for instance, can we do sufficient honour to the labours of Charles of Bala? This truly apostolic man was born at Llanvihangel, in 1755. While yet a boy, he managed to introduce family worship into his father’s house; but it was in his eighteenth year that he heard the great Daniel Rowlands preach, and he says: “From that day I found a new heaven, and a new earth, to enjoy; the change experienced by a blind man, on receiving his sight, is not greater than that which I felt on that day.” In his twentieth year he went to Oxford, and received Deacon’s orders, and was appointed to a curacy in Somersetshire; he took his degree at his University, but he could never obtain priest’s orders; in every instance objection was made to what was called his Methodism.

The doors of the Establishment were thus closed against him, and he was compelled to cast in his lot with the Welsh Methodists, in 1785. Before this, he had preached for Daniel Rowlands in his far-famed church at Llangeitho, and the great old patriarch simply uttered a prophecy about him when he said, “Mr. Charles is the gift of God to North Wales.” He was an eminent preacher, but it was rather in other ways that he became illustrious, in the great religious labours of his country. Moving about to preach, from place to place, his heart became painfully impressed, and distressed, by the great ignorance of the people everywhere, and that such multitudes were unable to read the Word of God; so he determined on the establishment of schools upon a singular principle.

It was two or three years before he commenced his more settled labours in Wales, that Robert Raikes had originated the Sunday-school idea in Gloucester. Thomas Charles was the first to seize upon the idea, and introduce it into his own country. Charles had an organizing, and administrative, mind; he fixed upon innumerable places, where he settled schoolmasters, for periods of from six to nine, and twelve months, to teach the people to read, giving them the initial elements, and rudiments, of education, and then removing these masters to another locality.

So he filled the country with schools—Sabbath, and night-schools. He visited the schools himself, periodically, catechizing the children publicly; and in the course of his lifetime, he had the satisfaction of seeing the aspect of things entirely changed. He used no figure of speech, when, towards the close of his life, he said, “The desert blossoms as the rose, and the dry land has become streams of water.” To these purposes of his heart he was able to devote whatever money he received from the work of the ministry; he testifies affectionately that “the wants of my own family were provided for by the industry of my dear wife;” and he received some help by donations from England. He found, everywhere, a dearth of Bibles, and it is curious to read that, although the Church of England would not receive him as one of her ministers, when his work became established, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge made him, after considerable reluctance, a grant of no less than ten thousand Welsh Bibles. After this, he went to London, for the purpose of establishing a Society to supply Wales with the Holy Scriptures. It was at a meeting of the Religious Tract Society, which was called together for that purpose, that it was resolved to establish the British and Foreign Bible Society; and before that society had been established ten years, it had supplied Wales with a hundred thousand copies of the Word of God.

Other men were great preachers, but Thomas Charles was, in the truest sense of the word, a bishop, an overseer,—travelling far, and wide, preaching, catechizing, administrating, placing and removing labourers. All his works, and words, his inward, and his outward life, show the active, high-toned saintliness, and enthusiastic holiness, of the man. There is, perhaps, no other to whom Wales is so largely indebted for the giving direction, organization, and usefulness to all religious labour, as to him. His modesty transcended his gifts, and his activity. John Campbell, of Kingsland, himself noted in all the great, and good works of that time, relates that at a meeting, at Lady Anne Erskine’s, at which Mr. Charles was requested to state the circumstances which had made little Bala a kind of spiritual metropolis of the Principality of Wales, “he spoke for about an hour, and never once mentioned himself, although he was the chief instrument, and actor, in the whole movements which had made the place so eminent.”

This good man, John Campbell, afterwards wrote to Mr. Charles’s biographer: “I never was at Bala but once, which was not long after his removal to the regions of immortality; and such was my veneration for his character, and labours, that, in approaching it, I felt as if I was about coming in sight of Sinai, or Jerusalem, or treading on classical ground. The events of his life, I believe, are viewed with more interest by the glorified than the battles of Actium, or Waterloo.”

But, as a preacher, he was unlike those men, whose words moved upon the wheels of thunder, and who seemed to deal with the lightnings of imagination, and eloquence. As we read his words, they seem to flow with refreshing sweetness. He was waited for, and followed everywhere, but his utterances had nothing of the startling powers we have seen; we should think he preached, rather, to those who knew, by experience, what it is to grow in grace. There is a glowing light of holiness about his words—a deep, sweet, experimental reality. Of course, being a Welshman, his thoughts were pithily expressed. They were a sort of spiritual proverbs, in which he turned over, again and again, some idea, until it became like the triads of his country’s literature; and dilating upon an idea, the various aspects of it became like distinct facets, setting forth some pleasant ray.

Such was Thomas Charles. Wales lost him at the age of sixty—a short life, if we number it by years; a long life, if we consider all he accomplished in it; and, to this day, his name is one of the most revered throughout the Principality.

It is impossible to do the justice even of mentioning the names of many of those men, who “served their generation” so well, “according to the will of God, and then fell asleep.” And it is as necessary, as it is interesting, to notice how the various men, moved by the Spirit of God, found Him leading, and guiding them in the path of labour, their instincts chose.

In the history of preaching, we believe there is no more curious chapter than this, of these strange preachers in Wales. They have an idiosyncrasy as entirely, and peculiarly, their own, as is that of the country in which they carried on their ministrations. The preaching friars of the times we call the dark, or middle ages, are very remarkable, from the occasional glimpses we are able to obtain of them. Very remarkable the band of men, evoked by the rise of Methodism in England,—those who spread out all over the land, treading the paths indicated by the voice, and finger of Whitfield, or Wesley. Very entertaining are the stories of the preachers of the backwoods of America, the sappers, and miners, who cleared a way for the planting of the Word among the wild forests of the Far West.

These Welsh preachers were unlike any of them,—they had a character altogether their own. A great many of them were men of eminent genius, glowing with feeling, and fancy; never having known college training, or culture, they were very often men who had, somehow, attained a singular variety of knowledge, lore, and learning, which, perhaps, would be despised as unscientific, and unclassified, by the schools, but which was not the less curious, and, to the Celtic mind, enchanting.

They all lived, and fared hard; all their thoughts, and fancies were high. If they marched before us now, the nineteenth century would, very likely, regard them as a set of very rough tykes. Perhaps the nineteenth century would regard Elijah, Amos, and Nahum, and sundry other equally respectable persons, in much the same manner. Rude, and rough in gait, and attire, the rudeness, and the roughness would, perhaps, be forgotten by us, if we could interpret the torrent, and the wail of their speech, and be, for a short time, beneath the power of the visions, of which they were the rapt seers, and unveilers. We wonder that no enthusiastic Welshman has used an English pen to pourtray the lives, and portraits of a number of these Welsh worthies; to us, several of them—notably, John Elias, and Christmas Evans—seem to realize the idea of the Ancient Mariner,—

“I pass like night from land to land,
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me—
To him my tale I teach.”

For instance, how many people in England ever heard the name of Thomas Rhys Davies, an extraordinary man? And he left an extraordinary diary behind him, for he seems to have been a very methodical man; and his diary shows that he preached during his lifetime at least 13,145 times, and this diary contains a distinct record of the time, place, and text; and it is said that there is scarcely a river, brook, or tarn, from Conway to Llansanan, from Llanrwst to Newbridge, from the sea at Llandudno, to the waters of the Berwyn mountains, in whose waves he had not baptized.

In fact, he was, perhaps, in his own particular, and peculiar line, second to none of the great Welsh preachers; only, it is said that his power was inexplicable, and yet that it stood the severest tests of popularity. His sermons are said to have been exceedingly simple, and very rememberable; they sprang out of a rare personal charm; he was himself; but, perhaps, if he resembled one of his great brethren, it would be Williams of Wern. His style was sharp, pointed, axiomatic, but antithetic, never prodigal of words, his sermons were short; but he was able to avail himself of any passing circumstance in the congregation, and to turn it to good account. Once, when a congregation seemed to be even more than usually disposed to cough, he said, “Cough away, my friends, it will not disturb me in the least; it will rather help me than not, for if you are coughing, I shall be sure that you are awake.”

He had that rare gift in the preacher, perfect self-possession, the grand preliminary to mastery over a congregation, an entire mastery over himself. All great Welsh preachers, however they may sometimes dilate, and expand truths into great paintings, and prolonged descriptions, excel in the pithy, and proverb-uttering power; but Thomas Rhys Davies was remarkable in this. Here are a few illustrations:—

“Ignorance is the devil’s college.”

“There are only three passages in the Bible which declare what God is, although there are thousands which speak about Him. God is a Spirit, God is Light, and God is Love.”

“Pharaoh fought ten great battles with God, and did not gain one.”

“The way through the Red Sea was safe enough for Israel, but not for Pharaoh; he had no business to go that way, it was a private road, that God had opened up for His own family.”

“Let the oldest believer remember that Satan is older.”

“Christ is the Bishop, not of titles, but of souls.”

“Moses was learned, but slow of speech; it was well that he was so, or, perhaps, he would not have found time to write the law. Aaron had the gift of speech, and it does not appear that he had any other gift.”

“If you have no pleasure in your religion, make haste to change it.”

“Judas is much blamed for betraying Christ for three pounds; many, in our day, betray Him a hundred times for three pence.”

“Pharaoh commanded that Moses should be drowned; in after days, Pharaoh was paid back in his own coin.”

“Many have a brother’s face, but Christ has a brother’s heart.”

Such was Thomas Rhys Davies; like Christmas Evans, journeying from North through South Wales, he was taken ill in the same house in which Christmas Evans died. Conscious of his approaching death, he begged that he might die in the same bed; this was not possible, but he was buried in the same grave.

Then there was Evan Jones; he had been a protégé of Christmas Evans; Christmas Evans appears to have brought him forward, giving his verdict on his suitability as to the ministry. Christmas Evans was able to appreciate the young man, for he seems to have possessed really brilliant powers; in his country, and in his land’s language, he attained to the distinction of a bard; and it is said that his poetry rose to an elevation of wild, and daring grandeur. As a preacher, he does not appear to have studied to be popular, or to seek to adapt his sermons to the multitude; he probably moved through cloudy grandeurs, from whence, however, he sometimes descended, with an odd quaintness, which, if always surprising, was sometimes reprehensible. Once, he was expatiating, glowingly, on the felicities of the heavenly state, in that tone, and strain which most preachers love, occasionally, to indulge, and which most hearers certainly, occasionally, enjoy; he was giving many descriptive delineations of heavenly blessedness, and incidentally said, “There they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” There was sitting beneath him a fervent brother, who, probably, not knowing what he said, sounded forth a hearty “Amen!” Evan heard it, looked the man full in the face, and said, “Ah, you’ve had enough of it, have you?”

This man was, perhaps, in his later years, the most intimate friend of Christmas Evans. Christmas poured his brilliant imagination, couched in his grand, although informal, rhetoric over the multitudes; Evan Jones frequently soared into fields whither, only here and there, an eye could follow his flight; but when the two friends were alone, their spirits could mingle pleasantly, for their minds were cast very much in the same mould; and when Christmas Evans died, it was this friend who published in Welsh one of the most graceful tributes to his memory.

In the history of the preaching, and preachers of a hundred years since, we meet, of course, with many instances of men, who possessed considerable power, but allied with much illiterate roughness; still, the power made itself very manifest—a power of illustrating truth, and making it clearly apprehended. Such a preacher must Shenkin of Penhydd have been, rough, and rude farmer as he was, blending, as was not at all uncommon then, and even in our own far more recent knowledge, the occupations of a farmer, and the ordained minister. Shenkin has left a very living reputation behind him; indeed, from some of the accounts we have read of him, we should regard him as quite a type of the rude, yet very effective, Welsh orator.

Whatever the Welsh preacher had to say, however abstract, it had to be committed to an illustration, to make it palpable, and plain. In those early times, a very large room, or barn, in which were several hundreds of people, would, perhaps, have only one solitary candle, feebly glimmering over the gloom. It was in such circumstances, or such a scene, that Shenkin was once preaching on Christ as the Light of the world. In the course of his sermon, he came to show that the world was not its own light, and announced to his hearers what, perhaps, might startle some of them, that “light was not in the eye.” It seemed as if he had no sooner said this, than he felt it to be a matter that required illustration. As he warmed with his subject, going round, and round to make his meaning plain, but all the time seeming to fear that he was not doing much towards it with his rustic congregation, he suddenly turned to the solitary candle, and blew it out, leaving his congregation in utter darkness. “There,” he exclaimed, triumphantly, to his invisible congregation, “what do you say to that? Is the light in the eye?” This, of course, settled the matter in the minds of the most obtuse; but it was still a serious matter to have to relight, in a lonely little chapel, an extinguished candle.

He was a singular creature, this Shenkin. Not many Welsh preachers have a greater variety of odd stories told than he, of his doings, and sayings. He had a very downright, and straightforward method of speech. Thus, he would say, “There are many who complain that they can scarcely remember anything they hear. Have done with your lying!” he exclaimed. “I’ll be bound to say you remember well what you sold your old white horse for at Llandaff fair three years ago. Six or seven pounds, was it? Certainly that has not escaped your memory. You can remember anything but the Gospel.” And many of his images were much more of the rough-and-ready, than of the classical, order. “Humility,” he once said, “is as beautiful an ornament as a cow’s tail; but it grows, like the cow’s tail, downwards.”

Wales was covered with men like this. Every district possessed them, and many of them have found their memorial in some little volume, although, in most instances, they only survive in the breath of popular remembrance, and tradition.

One of the mightiest of these sons of thunder, who has left behind him a name, and fame, scarcely inferior to the great ones on whom we have more lengthily dwelt, was Ebenezer Morris. He was a fine, free, cheerful spirit; his character sparkled with every Christian virtue,—a man of rare gifts, and grace. With a severe sense of what was just in the relations of life, and what constituted the principles of a strong theology, keeping his unblemished course beneath the dominion of a peaceful conscience, he enjoyed, more than many, the social fireside chat, with congenial friends. Although a pastor, and a preacher of wide fame, he was also a farmer; for he was one of an order of men, of whom it has been said, that good people were so impressed with the privilege conferred by preaching the gospel, that their hearers were careful not to deprive them of the full enjoyment of it, by remunerating their labours too abundantly.

Ebenezer Morris held a farm, and the farmer seems to have been worthy of the preacher. A story is told of him that, wanting to buy a cow, and going down to the fair, he found one for sale which he thought would suit him, and he bought it at the price named by its owner. Some days after, Mr. Morris found that the price of cattle had gone up considerably, and meeting the previous owner of the cow, he said, “Look here, I find you gave me too great a bargain the other day; the cow is worth more than I purchased her for,—here is another guinea; now I think we shall be about right.”

There are several stories told, in the life of this good, and great man, showing that he could not take an unfair advantage, that he was above everything mean, unfair, and selfish, and that guineas, and farms weighed nothing with him in the balance against righteousness, and truth. His influence over his whole country was immense; so much so, that a magistrate addressed him once in public, saying, “We are under great obligations to you, Mr. Morris, for keeping the country in order, and preserving peace among the people; you are worth more than any dozen of us.” On one occasion he was subpœnaed, to attend before a court of justice, to give evidence in a disputed case. As the book was handed to him, that he might take the oath, the presiding magistrate said, “No! no! take it away; there is no necessity that Mr. Morris should swear at all; his word is enough.”

His appearance in preaching, his entire presence, is described as most majestic, and commanding: his voice was very loud, and it is said, a word from his mouth would roll over the people like a mighty wave. “Look at that window,” said an aged deacon, in North Wales, to a minister, who had come to preach at the chapel to which the former belonged, “look at that window! It was there that Ebenezer Morris stood, when he preached his great sermon from the words, ‘The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath,’ and when we all turned pale while we were listening to him.” “Ah!” said the minister, “do you remember any portion of that sermon?” “Remember!” said the old deacon; “remember, my good man? I should think I do, and shall remember for ever. Why, there was no flesh here that could stand before it!” “What did he say?” said the minister. “Say! my good man,” replied the deacon; “say? Why, he was saying, ‘Beneath, beneath, beneath! Oh, my people, hell is beneath, beneath, beneath!’ until it seemed as if the end of the world had come upon us all in the chapel, and outside!”

When Theophilus Jones was selected as Rowland Hill’s co-pastor at Wooton-under-Edge, Ebenezer Morris came to preach on his induction. In that place, the audience was not likely to be a very sleepy one, but this preacher roused them beyond their usual mark, and strange stories are told of the sermon, while old Rowland sat behind the preacher, ejaculating the whole of the time; and many times after, when Mr. Hill found the people heavy, and inattentive, he was in the habit of saying, “We must have the fat minister from Wales here, to rouse you up again!” We know his likeness very well, and can almost realize his grand, solemn manner, in his black velvet cap, which made him look like a bishop, and gave much more impressiveness to his aspect, than any mitre could have done.

This Ebenezer Morris was the son of a man eminent in his own day, David Morris, of whom it was said, that he scarcely ever preached a sermon which was not the means of the conversion of men, and in his evangelistic tours he usually preached two, or three times a day. There is a sermon, still spoken of, preached at Rippont Bridge, Anglesea. The idea came to him whilst he was preaching, that many of the people before him might surely be lost, and he burst forth into a loud dolorous wail, every line of his countenance in sympathy with his agonizing cry, in Welsh, which no translation can render, “O bobl y golled fawr! y golled fawr!” The English is, “O ye people of the great loss! the great loss!” It seems slight enough to us, but it is said that the people not only moved before his words, like reeds in a storm, but to this day they speak in Anglesea of David Morris’s sermon of “The Great Loss.”

The great authority for the most interesting stories of the religious life in Wales, is the “History of Welsh Methodism,” by the late Rev. John Hughes, of Liverpool; unfortunately, we believe it only exists in Welsh, in three volumes, amounting to nearly two thousand pages; but “Welsh Calvinistic Methodism; a Historical Sketch,” by the Rev. William Williams, appears to be principally a very entertaining digest, and condensation, of many of the most noticeable particulars from the larger work. There have certainly appeared, from time to time, many most interesting, and faithful men in the ministry of the Gospel in Wales, quite beyond the possibility of distinct mention; some of them were very poor, and lowly in life, and circumstances. Such was Thomas Hughes. He is described as a man of small talent, and slender knowledge, but of great holiness, and with an intense faith that many of his neighbours were in a very bad condition, and that it was his duty to try to speak words to them, whereby they might be saved. He used to stand under the old walls of Conway, and numbers gathered around him to listen; until at last he excited the anger of the vicar, who caused him to be arrested, and brought into his presence, when the following conversation took place:—

Vicar. “You ought to be a learned man, to go about, and to be able to answer deep questions.”

Hughes. “What questions, sir?”

Vicar. “Here they are—those which were asked me by the Lord Bishop. Let’s see whether you will be able to answer them. Where was St. Paul born?”

Hughes. “In Tarsus.”

Vicar. “Hem! I see that you know something about it. Well, can you tell me who took charge of the Virgin Mary after our blessed Redeemer was crucified?”

Hughes. “John.”

Vicar. “Well, once again. Who wrote the Book of Revelation? Answer that if you can.”

Hughes. “John the Apostle.”

Vicar. “Ho! you seem to know a good deal, after all.”

Hughes. “Perhaps, sir, you will allow me to ask you one or two questions?”

Vicar. “Oh yes; only they must be religious questions.”

Hughes. “What is holiness? and how can a sinner be justified before God?”

Vicar. “Ho! we have no business to bother ourselves with such things, and you have no business to put such questions to a man in my position; go out of my sight, this minute.” And to the men who had brought him, “Take care that you do not bring such people into my presence any more.”

Hughes was a simple, earnest, believing man, with a good deal of Welsh cuteness. After this interview with the vicar, he was permitted to pursue his exhortations at Conway in peace. But there is a place between Conway, and Llandudno, called Towyn Ferry; it was a very ignorant little nook, and the people were steeped in unbelief, and sin; thither Hughes determined to go, but his person was not known there. The news, however, was circulated abroad, that there was to be a sermon, and religious service. When he arrived, he found things did not appear very pleasant; there were heaps of stones prepared for the preacher’s reception, when he should make his appearance, or commence his work. Hughes had nothing clerical in his manner, or garb, any more than any one in the crowd, and no one suspected him to be the man, as he threw himself down on the grass, and entered familiarly into conversation with the people about him. After a time, when their patience began to fail, he stood up, and said, “Well, lads, there is no sign of any one coming; perhaps the man has heard that you are going to stone him; let one of us get up, and stand on that heap of stones, and talk, and the rest sing. Won’t that be first-rate?”

“Capital,” said a bully, who seemed to be the recognised leader of the crowd. “You go on the heap, and preach to us.”

“Very well,” said Hughes, “I’m willing to try; but mind you, I shall make some blunders, so you must be civil, and not laugh at me.”

“I’ll make ’em civil,” said the bully. “Look here, lads, whoever laughs, I’ll put one of these stones into his head!”

“Stop you!” said Hughes; “the first thing we have to do, is to pray, isn’t it?”

“Ay, ay!” said the bully, “and I’ll be clerk. I’ll stand before you, and you shall use my shoulder for the pulpit.”

So prayer was offered, short, and simple, but in real earnest; and at its close, a good many favourable words were uttered. Some volunteered the remark that, “It was every bit as good as a parson.” Hughes proceeded to give out a text, but the bully shouted,—

“Hold on, you fool! we’ve got to sing first.”

“Ay, ay!” said Hughes, “I forgot that.”

So they sang a Welsh hymn, after a fashion, and then came the text, and the sermon, which was short, and simple too, listened to very attentively; and the singular part of the story is, that the bully, and clerk, left the ground with the preacher, quieted, and changed, and subsequently he became a converted man. The regeneration of Wales, through its villages, and lone remote districts, is full of anecdotes like this,—stories of persecution, and the faithful earnestness of simple men, who felt in them a strong desire to do good, and fulfilled their desire, becoming humble, but real blessings to their neighbourhoods.

Only in a history of the Welsh pulpit—and that would be a volume of no slight dimensions—would it be possible to recapitulate the names of the men who exercised, in their day, considerable influence over the scattered thousands of the Principality. They constitute a very varied race, and were characterized by freshness, and reality, taking, of course, the peculiar mental complexion of the preacher: some calm, and still, but waving about their words like quiet lightnings; some vehement, overwhelming, passionate; some remarkable for their daring excursions of imagination; some abounding in wit, and humour. One of the most remarkable of these last, one who ought not to go unmentioned in such an enumeration, was Samuel Breeze. This was the man who first introduced “The Churchyard World” to Dr. Raffles,—of whom it was said, that if you heard one of his sermons, you heard three preachers, so various were not only the methods of his sermons, but even the tone of his voice. He is said to have produced extraordinary effects. Christmas Evans said of him, that “his eyes were like a flame of fire, and his voice like a martial strain, calling men to arms.”

The writer of this volume, in a work on the “Vocation of the Preacher,” mentions a curious instance, which he gives from the unpublished reminiscences of a dear departed friend—the Rev. John Pyer, late of Devonport—who was present when the incident happened, in Bristol, perhaps nearly eighty years since. Sammy Breeze, as he was familiarly called by the multitudes who delighted in his ministry, came, periodically, from the mountains of Cardiganshire, or the neighbourhood of Aberystwith, to Bristol, where he spoke with more than tolerable efficiency in English. Mr. Pyer, then a youth, was in the chapel, when, as was not unusual, two ministers, Sammy Breeze and another, were to preach. The other took the first place, a young man with some tints of academical training, and some of the livid lights of a then only incipient rationalism in his mind. He took for his text, “He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned;” but he condoned the heavy condemnation, and, in an affected manner, shaded off the darkness of the doom of unbelief, very much in the style of the preacher in Cowper’s satire, who never mentioned hell to ears polite. The young man, also, grew sentimental, and “begged pardon” of an audience, rather more polite than usual, for the sad statement made in the text. “But, indeed,” said he, “he that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not—indeed, I regret to say, I beg your pardon for uttering the terrible truth, but, indeed, he shall be sentenced to a place which here I dare not mention.”

Then rose Sammy Breeze. He began: “I shall take the same text, to-night, which you have just heard. Our young friend has been fery fine to-night, he has told you some fery polite things. I am not fery fine, and I am not polite, but I will preach a little bit of truth to you, which is this: ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned,’ and I begs no pardons.” He continued, “I do look round on this chapel, and I do see people all fery learned and in-tel-lect-u-al. You do read books, and you do study studies, and fery likely you do think that you can mend God’s Book, and are fery sure you can mend me. You have great—what you call thoughts, and poetries; but I will tell you one little word, and you must not try to mend that; but if you do, it will be all the same; it is this, look you: ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned, and I begs no pardons. And then I do look round your chapel, and I do see you are a foine people, well-dressed people, well-to-do people. I do see that you are fery rich, and you have got your moneys, and are getting fery proud; but I tell you, it does not matter at all; for I must tell you the truth, and the truth is, ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned,’ and I begs no pardons. And now,” continued the preacher, “you will say to me, ‘What do you mean by talking to us in this way? Who are you, sir?’ And now I will tell you. I am Sammy Preeze. I have come from the mountains of Cardiganshire, on my Master’s business, and His message I must deliver. If you will never hear me again, I shall not matter much, but while you shall hear me, you shall hear me, and this is His word in me, and in me to you: ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned,’ and I begs no pardons.”

It was a strange scene; but as he went on, in quaint, but terribly earnest strain, anger passed into awe, and mute astonishment into rapt attention. No one, who heard the words, could ever again hear them unheeded, nor think lightly of the doom of the unbelieving. The anecdote is worth being laid to heart, in these days, when there is too often a reserve in declaring the whole counsel of God.

After service, in the vestry, the deacons were in great anger with the blunt preacher; and one, a well-known religious man in Bristol, exclaimed, “Mr. Breeze, you have strangely forgotten yourself to-night, sir. We did not expect that you would have behaved in this way. We have always been very glad to see you in our pulpit, but your sermon to-night, sir, has been most insolent, shameful!” He wound up a pretty sharp condemnation by saying, “In short, I don’t understand you!”

“Ho! ho!” exclaimed Sammy. “You say you do not understand me? Eh! look you then, I will tell you; I do understand you! Up in our mountains, we have one man there, we do call him exciseman; he comes along to our shops and stores, and says, ‘What have you here? Anything contraband here?’ And if it is all right, the good man says, ‘Step in, Mr. Exciseman, come in, look you.’ He is all fair, open, and above-board. But if he has anything secreted there, he does draw back surprised, and he makes a fine face, and says, ‘Sir, I do not understand you.’ Now, you do tell me that you don’t understand me, but I do understand you, gentlemen, I do; and I do fear you have something contraband here; and I will say good-night to you; but I must tell you one little word; that is: ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned,’ and I begs no pardons.”

But, with these simple illustrations, we have not exhausted the number of noticeable names. In connection with every name as it occurs, some interesting anecdote meets the memory. There was Robert Lloyd, the shoemaker, and Thomas the turner, and Robert Roberts, of whom, from the stories before us, we do not find it difficult to believe, that he had the power to describe things in such a vivid, and graphic manner, as to make his hearers feel as if the scenes were passing before their eyes. Then there were David Evans of Aberayron, and Ebenezer Richard of Tregaron, and William Morris of St. David’s, whose every sermon was said to be a string of sparkling gems; John Jones of Talysarn, and his brother, David Jones; John Hughes; the seraphic Henry Rees, and Thomas Philips, and many another name, concerning whom an illustration might be furnished, of their powers of wit, wisdom, or eloquence. England, itself, has been indebted, in many a circle, to eminent Welsh preachers, who have stimulated thought, created the sphere of holy usefulness, moved over the minds of cultivated members with the freshness of a mountain wind, or a mountain stream. It would be invidious to mention their names—many are yet living; and some, who have not long quitted the Church on earth, have still left behind them the fragrance of loved, and honoured names, and exalted, and earnest labours.

Few of our readers, we may suppose, can be unacquainted with the name, and memory of “The Man of Ross,” so famous through the verses of Pope. Ross is a well-known little town in Monmouthshire, on the banks of the Wye, on the borders of Wales. There, in the parish church, in the pew in which John Kyrle, the Man of Ross, sat, more than a hundred years since, a curious sight may be seen: two elm-trees rise, and spread out their arms, and flourish within the church; especially during the spring, and summer months, they form a singular adornment to the sacred edifice. The tradition is, that they are suckers from a tree planted by the “Man of Ross,” outside the church; but it was cut down by a certain rector, because it excluded the light; the consequence was that they forced their way inside, where they had continued to grow, and flourish. As we have looked upon the singular sight of those trees, in the Man of Ross’s pew, we have often thought of those who, in Wales, planted in the house of the Lord, flourish in sacred, and sainted memories, in the courts of our God. Although all that was mortal of them has passed away, they still bring forth fruit, and flourish in the grateful recollections of the country, they were permitted to bless, and adorn.

Yes, it is very singular to think of many of these men of Wild Wales. Even those who were counted heretical, were more than extraordinary men; they were, perhaps, men who, in our day, would seem rather remarkable for their orthodoxy of sentiment. Rhys Stephen, in an extended note in his Memoirs of Christmas Evans, refers to the influence of discussions, in the Principality, raised by the Rev. William Richards, LL.D. A large portion of the ministerial life of this distinguished man, was passed in England; he was educated for the ministry at the Baptist Academy in Bristol, for some time co-pastor with Dr. Ash, author of the Dictionary, and then became the minister of the Baptist Church at Lynn, in Norfolk, where he remained for twenty years. He always continued, however, in every sense of the word, a Welshman, and, notwithstanding his English pastorates, his residences in Wales were frequent and long.

He was born at Pen-hydd, in Pembrokeshire, in 1749. He published a Welsh-English dictionary, and his services to Welsh literature were eminent. But he was regarded as a heretic; his temperament, singular as it seems in a Welshman, was almost purely philosophic, and neither imaginative, nor emotional; he disliked the great annual religious gatherings of his countrymen, and called them fairs, and the preachers, upon these occasions, he sometimes described in epithets, which were not complimentary. Naturally, his brethren paid him back; they called him a heretic,—which is also an exceedingly convenient, and not unusual method of revenge. Dr. Richards’s influence, however, in Wales, at the beginning of this century, appears to have been very great; the charges against him, he does not appear to have been very mindful to disprove, and it is exceedingly likely that a different, or more guarded mode of expression, was the height of his offending. Who can fathom, or delineate, all the fine shades and divergencies of the Arian controversy?—men whose perfect soundness, in evangelical doctrine, was utterly undisputed, talked with Dr. Richards, and said, that they could not discover that he held opinions different from their own. In a letter, dated December 7th, 1804, when grave charges had been urged against him, and all the religious mischiefs throughout the Principality ascribed to him, he writes as follows, to a friend:—

“I think I may safely say, that no great change, of any kind, has taken place in my sentiments since I knew you. You must know, surely, that I did not use to be an Athanasian, or even a Waterlandian. Such views of the Deity always appeared to me too Tritheistical. I have been used to think, and do so still, that there is a particular meaning in such words as these of the Apostle’s, ‘To us there is but one God, the Father;’ but I never could say, or think, with the Socinians, that Jesus Christ is no more than a man, like ourselves. I believe, indeed, that He is a Man; but I, also, believe that He is ‘Emmanuel, God with us’—that he is ‘the form of God’—‘the image of the invisible God’—an object of Divine worship, so that we should ‘honour the Son as we honour the Father’—‘that all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily,’ or substantially. In short, I believe everything of the dignity, and glory of Christ’s character, that does not divide the Deity, or land in Tritheism.”

Again, to another correspondent: “I believe, also, in the doctrine of the atonement, or sacrifice, of Christ, in the virtue of His blood, and in the prevalence of His mediation.”

Something of the same order of man, so far as sentiment, and knowledge are indications, but possessed of more wit, imagination, and emotion, was Davies, of Castell Hywel, the first pastor of Christmas Evans, and of Daniel Davies, of Swansea. He was, in his day, a man of many-sided reputation, but of suspicious doctrinal relations. He was so eminent a classical scholar, and so many of the Welsh clergy had received their education from him, that when Dr. Horsley was appointed Bishop of St. David’s, he expressed, in his usual passionate manner, his irritation that the most distinguished tutor in South Wales was a Nonconformist, and gave out that he would not ordain any of Mr. Davies’ pupils. Davies was a great bard; and Welshmen who know both languages, say that his translation of Gray’s “Elegy” is, in force, and pathos, superior to the original. This will scarcely seem strange, if the deep pathos of the Welsh language be taken into account. His epitaph on Dr. Priestley—satirizing, of course, the materialism of Priestley—illustrates, at once, his humour, and versification:

“Here lies at rest, in oaken chest,
Together packed most nicely,
The bones, and brains, flesh, blood, and veins,
And soul of Dr. Priestley!”

As an illustration of his readiness of wit, a story is told, how one of the most noted of the Welsh bards one day met him, while the rain was streaming down upon him. Umbrellas, probably, were scarce. He was covered with layers of straw, fastened round with ropes of the same material; in fact, thatched all over. To him his brother bard exclaimed:

“Oh, bard and teacher, famed afar,
Such sight I never saw!
It ill becomes a house like yours
To have a roof of straw.”

To which Davies instantly replied:

“The rain is falling fast, my friend;
You know not what you say,
A roof of straw, methinks, doth well
Beseem a wall of clay.”

Such was Christmas Evans’s first “guide, philosopher, and friend.”

And if we refer to certain characteristics of the Welsh language, which make it eminently fine furniture for preaching-power, to these may be added, what we have not so particularly dwelt on, but which does follow, as a part of the same remark—the singular proverbial power of the Welsh language. In reading great Welsh sermons, and listening to Welsh preachers, we have often felt how much the spirit of their own triads, and the manner of old Catwg the Wise, and other such sententious bards, falls into their modern method. Welsh proverbs are the delightful recreations of the archæologists of the old Welsh language. Here, while we write these lines, we have piles of these proverbial utterances before us; short, compact sayings, wherever they come from, but which have been repeated on, from generation to generation. The Bardic triads, for instance, relating to language, selected by Mr. Owen Pugh,—how admirable they are for any preacher! They may stand as the characteristics of their most eminent men.

“The three indispensables of language—purity, copiousness, and aptness; the three supports of language—order, strength, and harmony; the three uses of language—to relate, to describe, to excite; the correct qualities of language,—correct construction, correct etymology, and correct pronunciation; three marks of the purity of language—the intelligible, the pleasurable, the credible; three things that constitute just description—just selection of words, just construction of language, and just comparison; three things appertaining to just selection—the best language, the best order, and the best object.” It must be admitted, we think, that, in these old triads, there is much of the compact wisdom of a primeval people, with whom books were few, and thoughts were fresh, and constant. There seemed to be a singular propensity, in the old mind of Wales, to throw everything into the form of a trinity of expression, or to bind up words, as far as possible, in short, sententious utterances. Catwg’s “Essay on Metaphysics” is a very brief, and concise one, but it illustrates that rapid running-up-the-ladder kind of style, which has always been the delight of the Welsh poet or teacher.

“In every person there is a soul. In every soul there is intelligence. In every intelligence there is thought. In every thought there is either good, or evil. In every evil there is death; in every good there is life. In every life there is God; and there is no God but He than whom there can be none better. There is nothing that cannot have its better, save the best of all. There is no best of all except love. There is no love but God. God is love!”

Illustrations of this kind fill volumes. It is not for us here to say how much of the admirable, or the imitable there may be in the method. It was the method of the old Welsh mind; it was the method into which many of the best preachers fell, not because they, perhaps, knew so much of the words of the bards, as because it represented the mind of the race. Take a few of the Welsh proverbs.

“He that is intent upon going, will do no good before he departs.”

“Every one has his neighbour for a mirror.”

“The water is shallowest where it bubbles.”

“A lie is the quickest traveller.”

“Fame outlives riches.”

“He that is unlucky at sea, will be unlucky on land.”

“There is always time for meat, and for prayer.”

“He mows the meadow with shears.”

“Calumny comes from envy.”

“Every bird loves its own voice.”

“The life of a man is not at the disposal of his enemy.”

“He that loves the young, must love their sports.”

“Prudence is unmarried without patience.”

“He that is the head, should become the bridge.”

“Three things come unawares upon a man: sleep, sin, and old age.”

But it is not only that this sententious characteristic of the Welsh language makes it a vehicle for the transparent expression of sentiment; even our translations cannot altogether disguise the pathetic tones of the language, and bursts of feeling. The following verse of an old Welsh prayer, which, a Quarterly Reviewer tells us, used to form, with the Creed and Ten Commandments, part of the peasant’s daily devotion, illustrates this:—

“Mother, O mother! tell me, art thou weeping?”
The infant Saviour asked, on Mary’s breast.
“Child of th’ Eternal, nay; I am but sleeping,
Though vexed by many a thought of dark unrest.”
“Say, at what vision is thy courage failing?”
“I see a crown of thorns, and bitter pain;
And thee, dread Child, upon the cross of wailing,
All heaven aghast, at rude mankind’s disdain.”

It is singular that Mr. Borrow found, on an old tombstone, an epitaph, which most of our readers will remember, as very like that famous one Sir Walter Scott gives us, from an old tomb, in a note to “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” The following is a translation:—

“Thou earth, from earth, reflect, with anxious mind,
That earth to earth must quickly be consigned;
And earth in earth must lie entranced, enthralled,
Till earth from earth to judgment shall be called.”

The following lines also struck Mr. Borrow as remarkably beautiful, of which he gives us this translation. They are an inscription in a garden:—

“In a garden the first of our race was deceived;
In a garden the promise of grace was received;
In a garden was Jesus betrayed to His doom;
In a garden His body was laid in the tomb.”

Such verses are very illustrative of the alliterative character of the Welsh mind.

But Wales, in its way—and no classical reader must smile at the assertion—was once quite as much the land of song as Italy. Among the amusements of the people was the singing of “Pennilion,” a sort of epigrammatic poem, and of an improvisatorial character, testing the readiness of rural wit. With this exercise there came to be associated, in later days, a sort of rude mystery, or comedy, performed in very much the same manner as the old monkish mysteries of the dark ages. These furnished an opportunity for satirizing any of the unpopular characters of the village, or the Principality. Such mental characteristics, showing that there was a living mind in the country, must be remembered, when we attempt to estimate the power which extraordinary preachers soon attained, over the minds of their countrymen. Then, no doubt, although there might be exceptions, and a Welshman prove that he could be as stupid as anybody else, in general there was a keen love, and admiration of nature. The names of places show this. Mr. Borrow illustrates both characters in an anecdote. He met an old man, and his son, at the foot of the great mountain, called Tap-Nyth-yr Eryri.

“Does not that mean,” said Mr. Borrow, “the top nest of the eagles?”

“Ha!” said the old man, “I see you understand Welsh.”

“A little. Are there eagles there now?”

“Oh, no! no eagle now; eagle left Tap-Nyth.”

“Is that young man your son?” said Mr. Borrow, after a little pause.

“Yes, he my son.”

“Has he any English?”

“No, he no English, but he plenty of Welsh; that is, if he see reason.” He spoke to the young man, in Welsh, asking him if he had ever been up to the Tap-Nyth; but he made no answer.

“He no care for your question,” said the old man; “ask him price of pig.”

“I asked the young fellow the price of hogs,” says Mr. Borrow, “whereupon his face brightened up, and he not only answered my question, but told me that he had a fat hog to sell.”

“Ha, ha!” said the old man, “he plenty of Welsh now, for he see reason; to other question he no Welsh at all, no more than English, for he see no reason. What business he on Tap-Nyth, with eagle? His business down below in sty with pig. Ah! he look lump, but he no fool. Know more about pig than you, or I, or anyone, ’twixt here and Machunleth.”

It has been said, that the inhabitants of a mountainous country cannot be insensible to religion, and whether, or not this is universally true, it is, certainly, true of Wales. The magnificent scenery seems to create a pensive awe upon the spirit. Often the pedestrian, passing along a piece of unsuggestive road, suddenly finds that the stupendous mountains have sloped down, to valleys of the wildest, and most picturesque beauty, valley opening into valley, in some instances; in others, as in the vale of Glamorgan, stretching along, for many miles, in plenteous fruitfulness, and beauty, illuminated by some river like the Tivy, the Towy, or the Llugg, some of these rivers sparkling, and flashing with the glittering gleisiad, as an old Welsh song sings it—

“Glan yw’r gleisiad yn y llyn,
Full fair the gleisiad in the flood
Which sparkles ’neath the summer’s sun.”

The gleisiad is the salmon. We have dwelt on the word here, for the purpose of calling the reader’s attention to its beautiful expressiveness. It seems to convey the whole idea of the fish—its silvery splendour, gleaming, and glancing through the lynn.

It seems rather in the nature of the Welsh mind, to take instantly a pensive, and sombre idea of things. A traveller, walking beneath a fine row of elms, expressed his admiration of them to a Welsh companion. “Ay, sir,” said the man; “they’ll make fine chests for the dead!” It was very nationally characteristic, and hence, perhaps, it is that the owl (the dylluan) among birds, has received some of the most famous traditions of the Welsh language. Mr. Borrow thought there was no cry so wild, as the cry of the dylluan—“unlike any other sound in nature,” he says, “a cry, which no combination of letters can give the slightest idea of;” and, surely, that Welsh name far better realizes it, than the tu whit tu whoo of our Shakespeare.

Certainly, it is not in a page, or two, that we can give anything like an adequate idea of that compacted poetry, which meets us in Wales, whether we think of the varied scenery of the country, of the nervous, and descriptive language, or of its race of people, so imaginative, and speculative.

It ought to be mentioned, also, as quite as distinctly characteristic, that there is an intense clannishness prevalent throughout the Principality. Communication between the people has no doubt somewhat modified this; but, usually, an Englishman resident in Wales, and especially in the more sequestered regions, has seldom found himself in very comfortable circumstances. The Welsh have a suspicion that there are precious secrets in their land, and language, of which the English are desirous to avail themselves. And, perhaps, there is some extenuation in the recollection that we, as their conquerors, have seldom given them reason to think well of us.

CHAPTER IX.
CHRISTMAS EVANS CONTINUED—HIS MINISTRY AT CAERPHILLY.

Caerphilly and its Associations—“Christmas Evans is come!”—A Housekeeper—His Characteristic Second Marriage—A Great Sermon, The Trial of the Witnesses—The Tall Soldier—Extracts from Sermons—The Bible a Stone with Seven Eyes—“Their Works do Follow them”—A Second Covenant with God—Friends at Cardiff—J. P. Davies—Reads Pye Smith’s “Scripture Testimony to the Messiah”—Beattie on Truth—The Edwards Family—Requested to Publish a Volume of Sermons, and his Serious Thoughts upon the Subject.

It was in the year 1826 that Christmas Evans, now sixty-two years of age, left Anglesea, accepting an invitation to the Baptist Church at Tonyvelin, in Caerphilly. His ministry at Anglesea had been long, affectionate, and very successful; but, dear as Anglesea was to him, he had to leave it, and he left it, as we have seen, under circumstances not honourable to the neighbouring ministers, or the churches of which he had been the patriarchal pastor. Little doubt can there be, that even he suffered from the jealousy of inferior minds, and characters; so old as he was, so venerable, and such a household name as his had become, throughout all Wales, it might have been thought that he would not have been permitted to depart. He left the dust of his beloved wife, the long companion of his Cildwrn cottage, behind him, and commenced his tedious journey to his new home. He had about two hundred miles to travel, and the travelling was not easy; travelling in Wales was altogether unrelated to the more comfortable, and commodious modes of conveyance in England, even in that day; and now he would have to cross a dangerous ferry, and now to mount a rugged, and toilsome hill, to wind slowly along by the foot of some gigantic mountain, to wend through a long, winding valley, or across an extensive plain. As the old man passed along, he says he experienced great tenderness of mind, and the presence of Christ by his side. A long, solitary journey! he says, he was enabled to entrust the care of his ministry to Jesus Christ, with the confidence that He would deliver him from all his afflictions; he says, “I again made a covenant with God which I never wrote.”

Caerphilly would seem a very singular spot in which to settle one of the most remarkable men, if not the most remarkable, in the pulpit of his country, and his time,—beyond all question, the most distinguished in his own denomination, there, and then. Even now, probably, very few of our readers have ever heard of Caerphilly; it is nearly forty years since the writer of the present pages was there, and there, in a Welsh cottage, heard from the lips of an old Welsh dame the most graphic outlines he has ever heard, or read, of some of the sermons of Christmas Evans. Since that day, we suppose Caerphilly may have grown nearer to the dignity of a little town, sharing some of the honours which have so lavishly fallen upon its great, and prosperous neighbour, Cardiff.

Caerphilly, however insignificant, as it lies in its mountain valley, a poor little village when Christmas Evans was there, has its own eminent claims to renown: tradition says—and, in this instance, tradition is, probably, correct—that it was once the seat of a large town. There, certainly, still stands the vast ruins of Caerphilly Castle, once the largest in all Great Britain next to Windsor, and still the most extensive ruin; here was the retreat of the ill-fated Edward II.; here was that great siege, during which the King escaped in the depth of a dark, and stormy night, in the disguise of a Welsh peasant, flying to the parish of Llangonoyd, twenty miles to the west, where he hired himself at a farm, which, it is said, is still pointed out, or the spot where once it stood, the site made memorable, through all these ages, by so singular a circumstance. This was the siege in which that grand, and massive tower was rent, and which still so singularly leans, and hangs there,—the leaning tower of Caerphilly, as wonderful an object as the leaning tower of Pisa, a wonder in Wales which few have visited.

After this period, it was occupied by Glendower; gradually, however, it became only famous for the rapacity of its lords, the Spencers, who plundered their vassals, and the inhabitants of the region in general, so that from this circumstance arose a Welsh proverb, “It is gone to Caerphilly,”—signifying, says Malkin, that a thing is irrecoverably lost, and used on occasions when an Englishman, not very nice, and select in his language, would say, “It is gone to the devil.” Gloomy ideas were associated for long ages with Caerphilly, as the seat of horror, and rapacity; it had an awful tower for prisoners, its ruinous walls were of wondrous thickness, and it was set amidst desolate marshes.

And this was the spot to which Christmas Evans was consigned for some of the closing years of his life; but, perhaps, our readers can have no idea of the immense excitement his transit thither caused to the good people of the village, and its neighbourhood. Our readers will remember, what we have already said, that a small village by no means implied a small congregation. His arrival at Caerphilly was looked upon as an event in the history of the region round about; for until he was actually there, it was believed that his heart would fail him at last, and that he would never be able to leave Anglesea.

It is said that all denominations, and all conditions of people, caught up, and propagated the report, “Christmas Evans is come!” “Are you sure of it?” “Yes, quite sure of it; he preached at Caerphilly last Sunday! I know a friend who was there.” These poor scattered villagers, how foolish, to us, seems their enthusiasm, and frantic joy, because they had their country’s great preaching bard in their midst; almost as foolish as those insane Florentines, who burst into tears and acclamations as they greeted one of the great pictures of Cimabue, and reverently thronged round it in a kind of triumphal procession. What makes it more remarkable, is that they should love a man as poor, as he was old. If they could revere him as, wearied and dusty, he came along after his tedious two hundred miles’ journey, spent, and exhausted, what an affluence of affection they would have poured forth had he rode into Caerphilly, as the old satirist has it, in a coach, and six!

Well, he was settled in the chapel-house, and a housekeeper was provided for him. In domestic matters, however, he did not seem to get on very well. North, and South Wales appeared different to him, and he said to a friend, he must get a servant from the north. It was suggested to him, that he might do better than that, that he had better marry again, and the name of an excellent woman was mentioned, who would have been probably not unwilling; and she had wealth, so that he might have bettered his entire worldly circumstances by the alliance, and have made himself pleasantly independent of churches, and deacons, and county associations; and when it was first suggested to him, he seemed to think for a moment, and then broke out into a cheerful laugh. “Ho! ho!” he said, “I tell you, brother, it is my firm opinion that I am never to have any property in the soil of this world, until I have a grave;” and he would talk no more on the subject, but he took a good brother minister of the neighbourhood into his counsel, Mr. Davies, of Argoed, and he persuaded him to take his horse, and to go for him to Anglesea, and to bring back with him the old, and faithful servant of himself, and his departed wife, Mary Evans; and, in a short time, he married her, and she paid him every tribute of untiring, and devoted affection, to the last moment of his life. A really foolish man, you see, this Christmas Evans, and, as many no doubt said, old as he was, he might have done so much better for himself. It is not uninteresting to notice a circumstance, which Mr. Rhys Stephen discovered, that Christmas Evans was married the second time in the same parish of Eglwysilian, in Glamorganshire, the church in which George Whitefield was married: the parish register contains both their names.

And what will our readers think, when they find that those who knew Christmas Evans, both at this, and previous periods of his history, declare that his preaching now surpassed that of any previous period? Certainly, his ministry was gloriously successful at Caerphilly. Caerphilly, the village in the valley, became like a city set upon a hill; every Sabbath, multitudes might be seen, wending their way across the surrounding hills, in all directions. The homes of the neighbourhood rang, and re-echoed with Christmas Evans’s sermons; his morning sermon, especially, would be the subject of conversation, in hundreds of homes, many miles away, that evening. The old dame with whom we drank our cup of tea, in her pleasant cottage at Caerphilly, near forty years since, talked, with tears, of those old days. She said, “We used to reckon things as they happened, by Christmas Evans’s sermons; people used to say, ‘It must have happened then, because that was the time when Christmas Evans preached The Wedding Ring,’ or The Seven Eyes, or some other sermon which had been quite a book-mark in the memory.”

No doubt, many grand sermons belong to the Caerphilly period: there is one which reads, to us, like an especial triumph; it was preached some time after he settled in the south; the subject was, “God manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit.” The grand drama in this sermon was the examination of the evidences of Christ’s resurrection:—