XVI. IN THE VALLEY OF THE DWYFOR

[Original]

HEN our steamer, the “Tunisian,” docked at Liverpool after a quick and pleasant voyage, the two brothers of my good friend and travelling companion, Dr. W., were waiting to greet him. It was something like half a century since my friend had left his home among the Welsh hills to devote his fine mind and loving heart to the ministry of Jesus Christ in America. Were this the place, one might write many a chapter concerning the faithfulness and fruitfulness of that ministry which has brought such priceless blessings to so many lives and helped so largely in building the Kingdom of God in the new world. However, it is of his early home rather than of the man, that we are to write just now.

It was because the writer was his brother’s friend that one of these strong-faced Welshmen extended a cordial invitation to be his guest when, later on, Dr. W. should visit his native town. So it came to pass that after the great meetings in London were over, we started for the little village of Garndolbenmaen where Dr. W. was born and had spent his earlier years.

We had counted not a little on making the ascent of Snowdon, and in spite of the cloudy, threatening weather, ascend it we did. Boarding the toylike car on the little narrow-gauge road, we were slowly hauled up the mountain side. We had hardly begun the ascent when the country about began to unroll like a panorama below us. Yonder is a thread-like stream, and beyond it the mines with their piles of slack marking each opening. Higher up, the clouds were all about us, shutting out everything but the immediate vicinity, and before we reached the summit, rain had begun to fall. The only relief to our disappointment was when, for a moment, the clouds broke and we looked far over mountains and valleys. Down at our feet and leading away towards the east was a white road on either side of which were little squares of cultivated fields. Towards the south loomed the tops of high hills, the sides of which were hidden by the clouds, while towards the west we caught just a glimpse of the Straits of Menna.

A little later we were riding along the shores of the Straits and looking across to Anglesea. To those familiar with religious work in Great Britain, one figure stands out, giant-like, whenever the name of that island is heard. Here Christmas Evans prayed and preached, turning many hundreds from sin to righteousness under the sway of his matchless eloquence. Farther on we passed Carnarvon Castle where, according to a tradition now generally discredited, Edward II, first Prince of Wales, was born.

Night had fallen when we reached the Garn station, a mile or more from the village which straggles up the side of one of the foot-hills of the Snowdon range. A cheerful fire was blazing in the open fire-place when we entered the house, and it seemed a symbol of the warm and generous hospitality extended to the American stranger. There is something indescribably attractive about one of these Welsh homes. Perhaps “hominess” describes it best. The absence of ceremony and the presence of a spirit of kindliness and cordiality put the stranger at his ease from the first. The days spent under that roof passed all too swiftly, and, as we look back upon them, they set the heart to glowing. Since then the master of the house has passed into the great silence, but no change that time works can efface the memory of his gracious and considerate hospitality.