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

by Edwin Paxton Hood

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.”