His conversation was, however, usually brightly religious. “This is the Gospel,” he said once in the course of talk—“This is the Gospel: ‘He that believeth shall be saved.’ Now, in order to the truth of this declaration, every believer must be saved. If, in the last day, the great enemy find one single soul not saved, who ever believed the Gospel, he would take that soul up, present that soul to the Judge, and to the immense assembly, and say, ‘The Gospel is not true.’ He would take that lost believer through all the regions of pandemonium, and exhibit him in triumph to the devils, and the damned.” “But,” said his host, “that shall never be, Mr. Evans.” “No,” said he, planting the forefinger of his right hand on his knee, as was his wont, and exclaiming, in a tone of triumphant congratulation, “Never! never! never!”
Leaving the house of Mr. Griffith, of Tredegar, he proceeded on his way, preaching at Caerphilly, Cardiff, Cowbridge, Bridgend, and Neath, and he reached Swansea on Saturday, July 14th. The next day, Sunday, he preached twice—preached like a seraph, says one of his memorialists: in the morning his subject was the Prodigal Son; the evening, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.” He was the guest of Daniel Davies, the pastor of the Welsh Baptist Church in the town, the blind preacher, as he was called, a man of great celebrity, and unquestioned power. He was to be the last host of his greater brother, or rather father, in the ministry. On the Monday evening, he went out to tea, with a friend who was always glad to greet him, Mr. David Walters; and on the same evening he preached, in English, in Mount Pleasant Chapel: his text was, “Beginning at Jerusalem.” He was very feeble,—perhaps we need scarcely wonder at that, after the two services of the day before. He always felt a difficulty when preaching in English, and, upon this occasion, he seemed much tried; gleams, and flashes of his ordinary brilliancy there were, as in the following:—
“Beginning at Jerusalem! Why at Jerusalem? The Apostles were to begin there, because its inhabitants had been witness to the life, and death of Christ; there He had preached, wrought miracles, been crucified, and rose again. Here, on the very spot of His deepest degradation, He was also to be exalted: He had been crucified as a malefactor, He was now to be elevated in the same place as a King; here were accorded to Him the first-fruits of His resurrection.” This was the strain of the sermon:—“‘At Jerusalem, Lord?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why, Lord, these are the men who crucified Thee; we are not to preach it to them?’ ‘Yes, preach it to all.’ ‘To the man who plaited the crown of thorns, and placed it on Thy Head?’ ‘Yes; tell him that from My degradation he may obtain a crown of glory.’ ‘Suppose we meet the very man that nailed Thy hands and feet to the cross, the very man that pierced Thy side, that spat in Thy face?’ ‘Preach the Gospel to them all: tell them all that I am the Saviour; that all are welcome to participate in the blessings of My salvation; I am the same Lord over all, and rich unto all that call on Me.’” Such were some of the most characteristic passages. As he was coming down the pulpit stairs, he said, loud enough to be heard by many present, “This is my last sermon!”
And it was even so. He was taken very ill during the night; the next day he was worse, the next day worse still, and then medical assistance was called in. But on the Thursday, he got up, and walked for some time in the garden. It seems doubtful whether he thought that his end was so near, although he had a dream, in one of the early evenings in the week, in which he seemed to come up to a great river, which he did not then cross, so that he scarcely thought his work or life might be over even yet.
But on Thursday night he was worse again, and on Friday morning, at two o’clock, he said to his friends, Mr. Davies, Mr. Hughes, and others round his bed, “I am leaving you. I have laboured in the sanctuary fifty-three years, and this is my comfort, that I have never laboured without blood in the basin,”—the ruling power of imagination strong in him to the close, evidently meaning that he had never failed to preach Christ and Him crucified. A few more remarks of the same character: “Preach Christ to the people, brethren. Look at me: in myself I am nothing but ruin, but in Christ I am heaven, and salvation.” He repeated a verse from a favourite Welsh hymn, and then, as if he had done with earth, he waved his hand, and exclaimed, “Good-bye! Drive on!”
It seems another instance of the labour of life pervading by its master-idea the hour of death. For how many years the “one-eyed man” of Anglesea had gone to, and fro on his humble nag! As we have seen, lately his friends had given him a gig, that he might be more at ease in his Master’s service; still he had his old horse, companion of his many journeys. While he was dying, the old mountain days of travel came over his memory—“Good-bye!” said he. “Drive on!” He turned over, and seemed to sleep. He slept indeed. His friends tried to rouse him, but the angelic postman had obeyed the order,—the chariot had passed over the everlasting hills. So he died, July 19th, 1838, in the seventy-third year of his age, and fifty-fourth of his ministry.
His funeral took place four days after his death, in the burying-ground attached to the Welsh Baptist Chapel, in Swansea. It is said there never was such a funeral in Swansea, such a concourse, and crowd of mourners, weeping their way to the grave, and following, as it had been their father. Fountains of sorrow were everywhere unsealed throughout the Principality, in Anglesea especially, where he had passed the greater portion of his life; indeed, throughout the Principality, there was scarcely a pulpit, of the order to which he belonged, which was not draped in black; and it was evident that all felt “a prince and a great man had fallen in Israel.”
CHAPTER XI.
SUMMARY OF GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRISTMAS EVANS, AS A MAN AND A PREACHER.
A Central Figure in the Religious Life of Wales—In a Singular Degree a Self-made Man—His Words on the Value of Industry—His Honest Simplicity—Power of Sarcasm Repressed—Affectionate Forgiveableness—Great Faith, and Power in Prayer—A Passage in Dean Milman’s “Samor”—His Sermons a Kind of Silex Scintillans—Massive Preaching, but lightened by Beautiful Flowers—As an Orator—A Preacher in the Age of Faith—Seeing Great Truths—His Remarks on what was called “Welsh Jumping” in Religious Services.
The character of Christmas Evans, it will be seen, from all that has gone before, appears to us to be eminently interesting as the most distinct, to us the most central, and realizable figure, in the religious life of his country, and his times: he is the central figure in a group of remarkable men. We shall not discuss the question as to whether he was the greatest,—greatness is so relative a term; he appears, to us, certainly, from our point of view, the most representative Welsh preacher of his time, perhaps of any time: in him seemed embodied not merely the imaginative, but the fanciful, the parable-loving spirit of his department of the great Celtic family; with this, that ardent devotion, that supersensuous absorption, which to our colder temperament looks like superstition.