I dare say the story had little foundation in fact; but, like all these election stories, each side firmly believes them for the moment, and as the rector said, “it makes it very difficult not to be angry.”
The bitterness of the election seemed, however, to have quite passed away. By nature, the Welshman is Conservative, almost to the point of bigotry. This is particularly noticeable in his methods of agriculture, horticulture, and sanitation. When he is emancipated, and, like the Jew and the Catholic, his grievance is gone, it will be very interesting to note his further political development.
The rector was a great theologian, and enforced his views with liberal quotations from the Greek Testament, which he could recite in great quantity. He took a simple pride in his knowledge of the Greek, and used it on occasions, I must say, in a somewhat unsportsmanlike manner. He had much sympathy with the Baptists, and was an upholder of the ceremony of total immersion. He told me, more in sorrow than in anger, of the wicked outburst of a Particular Baptist whom he had encountered in a third-class carriage between Holyhead and Bangor.
“I must tell you this, Judge Parry—for you know I have a great weakness for the Baptists, and I should see no objection to the ceremony of total immersion being performed in our Church; well, to-day I met an old gentleman, a grave reverend man, with a white beard, in the train, and he asked me what views I had about baptism. Well, I told him, and then I found he wanted to speak very evil things about the ceremony of baptism in the English Church. So I quoted the Greek Testament to him to explain it, and I could see he did not understand it, so then I quoted a whole chapter to the fellow in Greek, and he got in a terrible rage and jumped up and shook his fist in my face, and said, ‘I will tell you what you are! You are nothing but a damned sprinkler. That’s what you are!’ Dear me, it was terrible for a reverend old gentleman with a white beard to use such language to a rector, was it not?”
I asked him if he had ever performed a ceremony of total immersion as a minister of the Church of England, and he told me he had not, but he was very near it on one occasion. “I must tell you this,” he continued; “it was when I was curate in Glamorganshire, a fellow, named Evan Jones, came to me and wanted to be baptized. Well, I knew he was a poacher and a bad fellow, and a Presbyterian, but he said he had never been baptized, so I said I would baptize him.
“‘But I want to be baptized like the Baptists do it,’ says he.
“‘Total immersion, you mean,’ says I. ‘Well, I will do it then for you, if my vicar will let me.’
“‘Where will you do it?’ asked Evan.
“‘It would be good to do it at the pond in the middle of the village on a Saturday afternoon, when the school children are there to see, and we can have a hymn,’ said I.
“Well, Evan did not like that idea at all, and wanted me to go up to a pool on the hills by a little bridge on the old mountain road; and I did not care to go up the hills with him alone, for he was a bad fellow. But he did not want anyone to come with us, for his wife objected to him being baptized, and he was afraid she might get to hear of it and cause a disturbance. Well, I decided it was my duty to go with the fellow, and I told him I would do so if my vicar would allow me. Now my vicar was a very shrewd, wise old man, and I was very eager to do this if it was for the good of the Church, so I went to him at once.