“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.”