“His path is ’mid the Cambrian mountains wild;
The many fountains that well wandering down
Plinlimmon’s huge round side their murmurs smooth
Float round him; Idris, that like warrior old
His batter’d and fantastic helmet rears,
Scattering the elements’ wrath, frowns o’er his way,
A broad irregular duskiness. Aloof
Snowdon, the triple-headed giant, soars,
Clouds rolling half-way down his rugged sides.
Slow as he trod amid their dizzy heights,
Their silences and dimly mingling sounds,
Rushing of torrents, war of prison’d winds;
O’er all his wounded soul flow’d strength, and pride,
And hardihood; again his front soar’d up
To commerce with the skies, and frank and bold,
His majesty of step his rugged path
Imprinted . . .
. . . Whence, ye mountains, whence
The spirit that within your secret caves
Holds kindred with man’s soul?”
Henry Vaughan delighted to call himself the Silurist, always proud of the country from whence he came: his was a different region of Wales from that which produced Christmas Evans. Henry Vaughan was the swan of the Usk; but the sermons of Evans, like the sacred poems of Vaughan, were a kind of Silex Scintillans, or sparks from the flint, sparks shot forth from the great mountains, and the overhanging stars, with both of which he held long communion: he had no opportunity for any other often in the course of his travel; they were as the streets of God, lighted with suns stretching across his way, in the green amphitheatre of day, and the blue amphitheatre of night.
And this was, no doubt, very greatly the secret of his preaching. It is not too strong a term to use, to say that, with all its brilliancy, its bardic, and poetic splendours, it was massive preaching. He usually laid the foundations of the edifice of a sermon, strong and secure in reason, and in Scripture, securing the understanding, and the convictions of his hearers, before he sketched those splendid allegories, or gave those descriptive touches; before even he appealed to those feelings, when he led the whole congregation captive by the chains of his eloquence.
We have said before, that like most of the preachers of his country, he delighted also in the use of sharp, rememberable sayings. That is a striking expression when he says, speaking of death, to the believer in Christ, “The crocodile of death shall be harnessed to the chariot of the daughter of Zion, to bring her home to her father’s house.” Again, “Our immortal souls, although in perishable bodies, are evidently originally birds of Paradise, and our faculties are the beautiful wings by which we understand, remember, fear, believe, love, hope, and delight in immortal, and eternal things.” That is very pretty when he says, “Faith is the wedding-ring by which the poor daughter of the old Ammonite is married to the Prince of Peace: she is raised from poverty to opulence, from degradation to honour, not because of the intrinsic value of the ring, though it is a golden one, but on account of the union which it signifies, between her, and the beloved Prince.” Again, “A cradle, a cross, and a grave, all of His Father’s appointing, must Jesus have, in order to open a fountain of living water to the world.” Such sentences as these the reader will find strewn along all his sermons, and many such in those which we have quoted more at length.
But it must always be remembered that Christmas Evans was, in a pre-eminent degree, the orator. He had a presence; he was nearly six feet high, and finely-proportioned; his whole bearing was dignified, and majestic; he had but one eye, it is true, but we can believe the testimony which describes it as singularly penetrating, and even burning with a wonderful effect, when the strong inspiration of his eloquence was upon him. Then his voice was one of marvellous compass, and melody; like his sermons themselves, which were able to touch the hearts of mighty multitudes, so his voice was able to reach their ears.
When he heard Robert Hall, the marvellous enchantment of that still, small voice, a kind of soprano in its sweet, and cleaving clearness, so overwhelmed him, that he longed to preach in that tone, and key; but the voices of the men were fitted to their words,—Hall’s to his own exquisitely-finished culture, and to the sustained, and elevated culture either of spirit, or intelligence of those whom he addressed; Evans’s words we suppose rolled like the thunder of a mighty sea, with all its amplitude of many-voiced waves. Singers differ, and, no doubt, while we are able to admire the evangelical force, and fervour, and even the fine pictorial imagery of the sermons of Christmas Evans, it is something like looking at the painting on the glass, which may be very pretty, and exquisite, but in order really to see it, it should be in the camera, with the magnifying lens, and the burning lamp behind it. Alas! it is so with all reported and written eloquence: the figures, and the words are almost as cold as the paper upon which they are printed, as they pass before the eye; they need the inspiration of the burning genius, and that inspired by a Divine affection, or afflatus, in their utterance, to give them a real effect.
And in the case of Christmas Evans’s sermons, this is not all: to us they are only translations,—translations from the difficult Welsh language,—translations without the wonderful atmospheric accent of the Welsh vowel; so that the very best translation of one of Christmas Evans’s performances can only be the skeleton of a sermon. We may admire the structure, the architecture of the edifice, but we can form little idea of the words which were said to have set Wales on fire.
We recur to the expression we used a few sentences since. We are able to appreciate the massive character of these sermons: it is very true they are cyclopean,—they have about them a primæval rudeness; but then the cyclopean architecture, although primitive, is massive. Here are huge thoughts, hewn out of the primæval, but ever-abiding instincts of our nature, or, which is much the same thing, from the ancient, and granite flooring of the Divine Word. We must make this allowance for our preacher: he took up his testimony from the grand initial letters of Faith; he knew something of the other side of thought; the belief of his country, in his time, in the earlier days of his ministry, had been very much vexed by Sabellianism.
The age of systematic, and scientific doubt had not set in on the Principality; but he met the conscience of man as a conscience, as that which was a trouble, and a sorrow to the thoughtful mind, and where it was still untroubled, he sought to alarm it, and awaken it to terror, and to fear; and he preached the life, and work of Christ as a legitimate satisfaction, and rest to the troubled conscience. This was, no doubt, the great burden of his ministry; these are the subjects of all his sermons. He used the old words, the old nomenclature.
Since the day of Christmas Evans, theological language is so altered, that the theological lexicon of the eighteenth century would seem very poorly to represent theological ideas in this close of the nineteenth. But we have often thought, that, perhaps, could the men of that time be brought face to face with the men of this, it might be found that terms had rather enlarged their signification, than essentially altered their meaning,—this in many instances, of course, not in all. But it would often happen, could we but patiently analyze the meaning of theological terms, we should often find a brother where we had suspected an alien, and a friend where we had imagined a foe.