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.