"Be thou exalted, O God of heaven, above the earth and firmament," gave them the following interpretation:—
"Arise O God above the head
Of two hens and the crows egg also."
"Ymddyrcha o Dduw'r nef uwch ban
Dwy iar ac wy brân hefyd."
'Another dean, addressing his work-people at their drinkings, said, "pori yr ydych etto," "you are still grazing." His work-people not perceiving that the blunder was unintentional, thought their master treated them as brute beasts, and were much offended.
'Another clergyman reading that part of the "Venite," "In his hand are all the corners of the earth," said, "In his hand are all the afflictions of the earth," "gorthyrmderau'r ddaear."
'A clergyman reading, "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint," was understood to say, "the back parts are sick, and the middle of the back faint." "Y pen ol sy glwyfus a'r hol ganol yn lesg."
'Another reading, "The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain," "A'r gwyrgeimion a wneir yn uniawn, a'r geirwon yn ffyrdd gwastad," read it thus, "The crooked men shall be made straight, and the rough men, smooth ways;" leaving the women, I suppose, still crooked and rough.'
But while admitting, as who could hesitate to admit, that the practice so long followed of appointing Englishmen to all the higher ecclesiastical offices in Wales, could not fail to affect most injuriously the interests of the Welsh Church, we must utterly demur, as we have already intimated, to the exaggerated influence ascribed by the modern defenders of the Church to this circumstance, as though it were the sole cause of its inefficiency. For let us look a little more closely into the matter. The period to which the advocates of this theory are fond of reverting, as constituting the ideal era of the Established Church in Wales, when it was governed principally by native prelates, is, speaking in general terms, the interval between the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the reign of William and Mary, or to take the precise dates, adopted by those among them who have most carefully investigated the subject, from the years 1558 to 1715. They specify the names of twenty-four Welshmen elevated to Welsh sees during these 257 years. But what was done by these Cymric bishops for the spiritual good of the Principality? Mr. Johnes, whose work is the great repertory of information on all matters connected with this subject, mentions three out of the whole number who seem to have distinguished themselves by some service rendered to their country. First, Bishop Morgan, who translated the Bible into the Welsh language; but he did this not as bishop, but as the vicar of a small country parish in Denbighshire, and he undertook the work precisely because it had been neglected by the Welsh prelates to whom it had been entrusted. Second, Bishop Parry, who brought out a new edition of the Bible for use in the churches. Third, Bishop Owen, who succeeded to the diocese of St. Asaph in 1629, and of whom we are told that 'he began first by his order and decrees, to establish preaching in Welsh in St. Asaph parish church, and as it is supposed, in other parish churches, in his diocese. He repaired his cathedral at his own cost, and set up a new organ in it;'—expressions which evidently seem to imply, that these very simple and obvious duties had been neglected by his predecessors, though they also were native prelates. We have, also, seen a general statement that some of the others established and endowed schools in particular localities in Wales. Of most of the rest we know nothing, but of some of them we know something. We know of Bishop Hughes, of St. Asaph, that he held sixteen rich livings in commendam, and left his diocese in the disgraceful condition already described in the early part of this article. We know that under Bishop Meyrick, of Bangor, there were, by his own acknowledgment, only two preachers in his diocese; and that according to the testimony of Strype, the grossest scandals were openly practised by the clergy. We know that the four native bishops, who by the Act of Elizabeth, of 1563, were charged with translating the Scriptures into Welsh, so neglected their duty as that even the churches were left without Welsh Bibles for twenty-five years after that date. We know that for seventy years after the settlement of the Reformation, not a single edition of the Bible in the Welsh language was issued for the use of the people. We know that from 1640 to 1690, which forms a considerable portion of the vaunted era of Welsh bishops, Churchmen published only one edition of the Scriptures—a large folio, for use in the churches—while during the same interval the Nonconformists published nine editions. We know that the contributions of the 'native bishops' to the moral and religious literature of the Cymry are conspicuous by their absence. We have examined with some care Rowland's 'Cambrian Bibliography' ('Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry'), containing an account of all books published in the Welsh language from 1546 to 1800, and, between the years 1558 and 1715, the era of Welsh bishops, we have failed to discover a single work written in Welsh or translated into Welsh by any one of these prelates, except 'A Letter to the Welsh,' by Bishop Davies, introducing Salesbury's translation of the New Testament. Nor is there any proof that they helped or promoted in any important degree the publication of religious books in the Welsh language, while the Nonconformists of that age laboured indefatigably to enlighten the people through the press. Even Vicar Pritchard's work, 'The Welshman's Candle,' left by him in manuscript, and which, next to the Bible, had the greatest influence on the religious character of the country, was published by the care and at the expense of Mr. Stephen Hughes, a Nonconformist minister. But above all, we know what was the state of the Church and the country during, and at the end of, the reign of this long dynasty of Welsh bishops. It is described in the language already cited of Strype, and Penry, and Pritchard, and Edwards, and Thomas, and Erasmus Saunders, and Griffith Jones, and Howell Harris. And we beg our readers specially to observe, that all the witnesses we have summoned to depose to the character and condition of the Welsh Church during three centuries of its history, have been members of the Church itself. If there is one exception, it is that of John Penry. But he also was born in the Church, and baptized in the Church, and ordained in the Church, for we are told that he was 'a famous preacher of the University' and he had, moreover, the honour of being persecuted, imprisoned, and hung by the Church. With that one doubtful exception all the rest lived and died within its pale. We might, of course, have added a large number of witnesses from the ranks of Nonconformity, whose testimony, we believe, would have been quite as trustworthy. But we have preferred omitting whatever might be thought open to even the suspicion of sectarian prejudice. Let us remember, that several of the 'native bishops' lived several years into the beginning of the eighteenth century, and if they had exercised so blessed an influence on the Church and the country as it is now the fashion to affirm, that influence could not have suddenly vanished immediately after their death. Nemo repente fuit turpissimus is surely as applicable to a community as to an individual. And yet we know by the confession of all candid Churchmen, that when Griffith Jones and Howell Harris began their labours—the former in 1730, and the latter in 1735—the Welsh Church was in a most lamentable state of inefficiency and corruption.