Send out Thy Word from pole to pole,
And with Thy blood make thousands whole,
And, after that come down.
Nancy Jones would have been a useful member of the “Singing Sisters” band, so efficient a century or more afterwards.
The tunes of the Reformation under the “Methodist Fathers” continued far down the century to be the country airs of the nation, and reverberations of the great spiritual movement were heard in their rude music in the mountain-born revival led by Jack Edward Watkin in 1779 and in the local awakenings of 1791 and 1817. Later in the 19th century new hymns, and many of the old, found new tunes, made for their sake or imported from England and America.
The sanctified gift of song helped to make 1829 a year of jubilee in South Wales, nor was the same aid wanting during the plague in 1831, when the famous Presbyterian preacher, John Elias,* won nearly a whole county to Christ.
* Those who read his biography will call him the “Seraphic John Elias.”
His name was John Jones when he was admitted a member of the presbytery. What followed is a commentary on the embarrassing frequency of a common name, nowhere realized so universally as it is in Wales.
“What is his father's name?” asked the moderator when John Jones was announced.