DOLGELLEY
The Lake of Bala--Estuary of the Mawddach--Barmouth--Cader Idris--The
Torrent and Precipice Walks--“Welsh web”--Numerous lakes--Fishing
in Wales--Treachery of David ab Llewelyn--Gruffydd’s attempt to
escape--“The Spirit’s Blasted Tree”--John Thomas--Characteristics
of the Welsh people--Intelligence great--None of the coarseness
characterising the Anglo-Saxon bumpkin--Long-heads and short-heads--A
Welsh courtship--Untruthfulness a product of servitude--Religiousness
of the Welsh--The theatre discountenanced--Old Interludes--Richard
Malvine--Twm o’r Nant--Poetry in Wales--Welsh Nonconformity--The
squirearchy--The Seiet--The old Welsh preachers--Embellishments--The
Hwyl--Reviving the spirit--How the Church was treated--The Methodist
Revival--The Church in Wales.
ONLY as one reaches the head of the Bala Lake, coming from Ruabon, does
the beauty of form of the Welsh mountains begin to impress one. Then
ensues the rapid descent of the valley of the Wnion, down which the
train gallops, and as Dolgelley is approached, Cader Idris breaks on
the sight.
Beyond Dolgelley expands the estuary of the Mawddach, and when the
tide is in it is hard to match it for loveliness in the British Isles,
especially when the heather is in bloom. Then the flush is on the
mountains above that mirror, and it is like the glow of glad surprise
on the young girl’s cheek when she contemplates herself in a glass and
for the first time realises how beautiful she is.
Dolgelley and Barmouth are two delightful places at which to halt and
whence to explore the glorious surrounding scenery. To the former
belongs Cader Idris, and to the latter Llawllech and Diphwys. To the
first the vale of the Mawddach, and to the second that of the Arthog.
Cader Idris is the throne of the great father of Welsh song. Who Idris
was we hardly know. He is veiled in mystery, as his throne is wrapped
in mist. But some dim traditions of him have come down to us.
The Triads celebrate him as Idris Gawr, or the Giant, one of the three
primitive bards of the Isle of Britain, the inventor of the harp, and
withal great in the knowledge of the stars. It was said that whosoever
should pass a night on Cader Idris would descend in the morning
inspired with the spirit of poetry or a frenzied madman.
I said to my guide in Iceland one day, pointing to a glittering jökull,
“Oh, Grimr! would you not like to stand on the top?” “I can see the top
very well from down here”, was his reply.
A good many of us with old bones, and breath coming short, will be
content to look on Cader Idris from below, or only to mount the glens
to the lakes that lie around it, and leave the ultimate climb to the
young bloods.
The Town Council of Dolgelley has done its best to make the place
attractive to visitors who have not this climbing passion on them, by
laying out walks such as those of the Torrent and the Precipice, to
facilitate the easy reach of striking points of view.
[Illustration: CADER IDRIS]
Of the town itself not much can be said. “You see this decanter?” said
an old gentleman after dinner. “That is the church”; and, taking a
handful of nutshells and strewing them about the decanter, he added,
“there are the houses.”
Dolgelley does a little business. It has long been noted for the
manufacture of the “Welsh web,” and it is a famous resort of fishermen,
though the well-whipped streams do not abound in finny denizens as
they did at one time; moreover, the fish have grown uncommonly wary.
The neighbourhood has within reach many lakes more or less deserving
of the angler’s attention, and all meriting a visit by anyone who has
an eye for the beautiful. To the fisherman comes the choice between
stream and tarn, between following up the brawling torrent to its
source, lingering by the pools in which the trout glide like shadows,
and dreaming in a boat on one of the lakelets, whilst a gentle breeze
ruffles its surface. Some clever lines were written by the late Major
George Cecil Gooch, some years ago, contrasting the fishing in England
with that in Scotland. They apply equally to the contrast between
angling in England and in Wales.
“Oh! yon angler in Kennet and Itchen!
How he creeps and he crawls on his knees.
How he casteth a fly a deep ditch in,
Or on high hangs it up in the trees!
How he stalks a poor trout that is rising,
How he chucks a fly into its mouth!
Then vows that his skill is surprising,
For they manage things so in the South.
“Let him boast of his fine fishing tackle,
Of his lines and his casts and all that,
Of his quills and his cluns let him cackle,
Let him tie a cork band round his hat;
The reward of his toil, do you ask it?
While he grovels all day on his face,
After all, when he reckons his basket,
He must count all his spoils by the brace.
“Leave the country of hedgerows and meadows,
Where the yellow marsh-marigold grows,
Where the oak and the elm cast their shadows,
Bid adieu to the Land of the Rose.
Come with me to the Land of the Thistle,
Where the waters run rugged and fleet,
To the hills where the wild curlews whistle,
Where a man may stand up on his feet.
“Come with me where the bright sunbeams flicker,
Through the larches above on the brae,
Where the streams by the boulder stones bicker,
And wavelets around are at play.
Throw your line straight across over yonder,
Down, down let it gradually swing,
By the swirl near the rock let it wander,
And you’ll hook a trout fit for a king.
“There he comes! now just hit him and hold him!
Let him rage up and down through the pool!
There are no wretched weeds to enfold him,
He’s yours if you only keep cool.
So you have him! Now try for his cousins,
For his uncles and aunts and so forth.
Never fear but you’ll get ’em by dozens,
That’s the way that we fish in the North.”
Aye! and in Wales also!
The Precipice Walk is that which will probably be first taken by the
visitor to Dolgelley, carried round Moel Cynwch, which rises to the
height of 1,068 feet, and has on its lower head a prehistoric camp.
The way from Dolgelley leads past Cymmer Abbey, that was founded by
Llewelyn ab Iorwerth the Great, who died in 1240.
[Illustration: THE TORRENT WALK, DOLGELLEY]
[Illustration: MILL, TORRENT WALK, DULGELLEY]
His son Gruffydd, a man of noble stature and majestic beauty, won the
hearts of the men of Gwynedd, and he was preferred by them to his
brother David, whose mother was English; and from the moment that the
breath was out of the body of Llewelyn a fierce and sanguinary war
broke out between the half-brothers. At length, by the interposition
of the Bishop of Bangor, a meeting was arranged to take place between
the rival princes, but David treacherously waylaid his brother, and his
eldest son Owen, on their way to the appointed place of conference, and
shut them up in the castle of Criccieth.
The bishop, indignant with David for his treachery, hasted to King
Henry and invoked his intervention. The King accordingly ordered David
to release his prisoners, and when he refused to do so marched into
North Wales. Senena, the wife of Gruffydd, met the King at Shrewsbury,
and concluded a treaty with him, acting on behalf of her husband.
Henry now marched into Gwynedd and brought David to his knees. He
surrendered Gruffydd and Owen, but the King, violating his promises,
sent both to the Tower of London.
The Bishop of Bangor, distressed at the perfidy of the King, in vain
pleaded for the liberation of the captives, as did also the unhappy
Senena, who went to London to plead her cause in person, but all in
vain.
As time passed, and Henry showed no inclination to release them,
Gruffydd became desperate, and contrived a plan of escape along with
his devoted wife, who had obtained a reluctantly granted permission
to visit her husband and son in prison. He cut up the tapestry of his
chamber, as also his sheets and table-cloths, into strips, which he
twisted and plaited into a rope, and one night, by means of this frail
cable, attempted to descend from his window, assisted from above by his
son Owen, whilst Senena waited below. But the great weight of Gruffydd
strained and ravelled out the cable; it broke, and he fell from so
great a height that his head, striking the ground, was driven to the
chin into his breast, and he was killed on the spot.
Owen was thenceforth kept in closer durance than before.
The lovely Llyn Cynwch is under the mountains, and reflects Cader
Idris on its glassy surface. Nannau, the old residence of the Vaughan
family, is near the Precipice Walk, and in the grounds, where now
stands a sundial, was formerly the “Spirit’s Blasted Tree,” alluded to
in _Marmion_. Nannau was the seat of Howel Sele, a cousin of Glyndwr;
he had rendered himself obnoxious to his relative by the zeal with
which he had espoused the cause of King Henry IV. The Abbot of Cymmer,
desirous of effecting a reconciliation, contrived that the cousins
should meet. Howel had the reputation of being an excellent archer,
and as he and Glyndwr were walking in the grounds of Nannau the latter
pointed out a deer for the purpose of trying his kinsman’s dexterity.
Howel bent his bow, adjusted the arrow, but abruptly turned its point
on Glyndwr and discharged it at his breast. Happily the latter wore a
suit of chain mail under his kirtle, and the purpose of the assassin
was foiled. Howel was instantly seized by the followers of his intended
victim and thrown into the hollow trunk of an oak that stood by, and
was there left to perish. His skeleton was not discovered till forty
years later. Glyndwr burnt the house of Nannau, and committed other
devastations on the domain of his treacherous relative.
[Illustration: CADER IDRIS]
The tree fell on the night of July 13th, 1813. Out of it has been
fashioned a table now at Hengwrt.
Hengwrt is an interesting old house, and stands in woods that are
famous among entomologists as the haunt of many rare moths; and the
traces of these latter may be noted on the trees, where they have been
smeared with ale and sugar; and the lanterns of these eager scientists
wander about the shades of the oaks at night like wills-o’-the-wisp.
Dolgelley was the native place of John Thomas, Bishop of Salisbury.
He was born in 1681, and was the son of a porter in the service of a
brewer. His father’s employer, seeing that he was a bright, clever
boy, paid the expenses of his education at school and college. He
was ordained and went as chaplain to the English factory at Hamburg,
and owing to the fluency with which he could speak German, acquired
during his residence in the capacity of chaplain at that seaport, he
attracted the notice of King George II., who took Thomas along with
him whenever he visited his electorate of Hanover. Thomas married a
Danish woman, and on her death married a niece of Bishop Sherlock of
Salisbury. He was made rector of S. Vedast’s, Foster Lane, London,
and then prebendary of Westminster and canon of S. Paul’s. In 1743
he was nominated to the bishopric of S. Asaph, but before he was
consecrated he was offered and accepted the bishopric of Lincoln, and
was consecrated in 1744. He was translated to Salisbury in 1761, and
died there in 1766.
“He is,” says Cole, who wrote during his lifetime, “a very worthy and
honest man, a most facetious and pleasant companion, and remarkably
good-tempered. He has a peculiar cast in his eyes, and is not a little
deaf. I thought it rather an odd jumble, when I dined with him in
1753; his lordship squinting the most I ever saw anyone; Mrs. Thomas,
the bishop’s wife, squinting not a little; and a Dane, the brother
of his first wife, being so short-sighted as hardly to be able to
know whether he had anything on his plate or no. Mrs. Thomas was his
_fourth_ wife, granddaughter, as I take it, of Bishop Patrick, a very
worthy man. It is generally said that the bishop put this poesy to the
wedding ring when he married her: ‘If I survive, I will have five’;
and she dying in 1757, he kept his word.”
It is not my intention to describe scenery, perhaps because as I have
not slept on Cader Idris I lack the proper _afflatus_, but also because
that of Cader Idris and of the Mawddach valley has exercised better
pens than mine.
Instead of dilating on the scenery I will here give a few remarks on
the characteristics of the Welsh people, for whom I entertain a great
liking.
The Englishman accustomed to life in country districts cannot fail to
be impressed with the intellectual superiority of the Welsh peasant
to the English country bumpkin. The Welsh of the labourer and small
farmer class are brighter, quicker, keener than those occupying the
same position in Saxon land. The working man has an intellect higher
developed than the little farmer in England. This, in a measure, is due
to his being bilingual. The acquisition of a second tongue undoubtedly
gives flexibility to his mind. No English labourer dreams of learning
another language than his own, but the Welsh peasant must do this,
and this fact gives to his mind aptitude for fresh acquisitions, and
affords a spur to learning. He reads more, above all, thinks more. He
leads an inner life of thought and feeling; he is more impulsive and
more sensitive. He is more susceptible to culture, more appreciative
of what is poetical and beautiful, and does not find in buffoonery the
supreme delight of life.
The horse-play, the boisterous revelry that characterise the enjoyment
of country Hodge and Polly, as well as town-bred ’Arry and ’Arriet,
when taking a holiday, are never present on a similar occasion among
the Welsh. The great gatherings of the latter are their Eisteddfods,
and not races and football matches. They assemble in thousands to
hear music and poetry, and such gatherings are entirely free from
the vulgarities and riot of a collection of Anglo-Saxons out for a
junketing.
A friend of mine, an incumbent for many years in a purely Welsh parish,
who was transferred at length to one that was more than half English,
remarked on the difference to me.
There had been an entertainment in a neighbouring place, and the
English performers had given music-hall songs of a vulgar type, not
without _double entendres_, which were rapturously applauded by those
of the audience who were of English blood, whereas the Welsh sat
mute and disgusted. And my friend said to me, “Such an entertainment
would have been impossible in a purely Welsh village. The Welshman
has a sense of decorum and a higher standard of taste, which would
make him shrink from such an exhibition. But possibly it may be this
coarseness and animality that have made the Englishman so masterful
and so successful. It is the outward token of the tremendous vital
force within, that makes him carry everything before him, undeterred by
shyness, unhampered by sensitiveness, the qualities which hold back the
Celt from the rough-and-tumble struggle of life.”
It is the old story of the round-heads and the long-heads, as revealed
to us by the barrows on our wolds and moors. The most ancient
inhabitants of Britain had well-developed skulls, with plenty of
brains in them; had delicate chins and finely formed jaws, every token
that the race was one of a gentle, highly strung quality. But it was
trampled under foot by an invasion of round-heads, bullet-shaped
skulls, with beetling brows, and jaws that speak of brute force.
That the Welsh are more moral than the English cannot be maintained.
The Celtic idea of marriage was not that of the German, and woman in
Celtic lands did not stand so high in dignity and in popular esteem as
Tacitus shows us was the case among the Teutons. The Welsh laws allowed
a man to divorce his wife and marry another if she were unfruitful, and
for other reasons that seem to us frivolous.
A Welsh courtship is not conducted in the same manner as in England.
There is not, or rather was not till recently, any walking-out of
couples together; that was denounced from the chapel pulpits as
indecorous. But with the consent or connivance of the parents of a
young woman the suitor would come at night to the window of the damsel
he affected, and scratch at it with a stick or throw at it a little
gravel. Then she would descend, open the door, and the pair would spend
the greater part of the night together on the sofa in the parlour,
with, as a young man who had gone through the experience informed me, a
bottle of whisky, a Bible, and a currant cake on the table before them.
Some deny the whisky, some the Bible, but all allow that refreshment
is necessary when the session is carried on to the small hours of the
morning.
The Welsh are given the character of being untruthful, but with
injustice. They are not more so than the Anglo-Saxon of the lower
class. Untruthfulness is a product of oppression and injustice, and
doubtless the long martyrdom undergone by the Welsh people forced them
to equivocate and seek all manner of subterfuges, but this has passed
away--both the occasion and the consequence. The consequence does not
always become extinguished when the cause has been removed--not at
once--but it tends rapidly to disappear.
Mistresses complain in England that their domestics are untruthful. Of
course they are, if the authority over them is unjust. Plautus shows us
Davus as a liar through every fibre of his soul, but Davus was a slave.
If mistresses will treat their servants as part of their family, and
trust them, they, in turn, will be true.
Unfortunately, athletic sports are discountenanced by the preachers in
the chapels as well as the walking-out of sweethearts; consequently
the discipline of the cricket field and the struggle of the football
are not for the Welsh, except in a mining district. Football, however,
was formerly a favourite pastime among the Welsh, but as it was
principally played on Sundays it was put down with stern severity by
the Nonconformist preachers.
[Illustration: PISTYLL-Y-CAIN, DOLGELLEY]
Religion is an integral part of the life of the Welshman. There is
hardly any of that indifference to it which everywhere prevails in
England. With us, in a country place, one quarter of the population
goes to church, another quarter to chapel, and a half goes nowhere.
That half may live, and does live, a respectable, but it is a godless
life. That is not the case in Wales. There two-thirds of its population
go to the chapels, one-third to church, and an infinitesimal proportion
holds aloof from either. Religion enfolds the Welsh man and woman from
infancy. It does much to develop in him the faculty of self-government;
it moulds his opinions from the earliest age. But the form of religion
he has adopted has its disadvantages. It narrows his view, it cuts him
off from much that is wholesome and harmless, and limits his world
to his sect. The theatre is taboo. I was in a little town of some
1,200 inhabitants, to which came a strolling company of players, with
a programme of perfectly wholesome and, indeed, edifying pieces. It
expected to reap a harvest of sixpences and shillings, and announced
performances for four consecutive evenings. But no sooner were the
placards up than in all the seven chapels the ministers denounced “the
play” as a snare of the devil, and warned their congregations to eschew
it as a step to damnation. One told an anecdote. A young man with whom
he was acquainted went to the theatre, resolved to see a play; but,
raising his eyes, he saw written up, “This way to the pit.” Then,
conscience-stricken, he withdrew. “But,” said the preacher, “every
way--gallery, and stall, and box--lead alike to the bottomless pit.”
The result was that no Dissenters went, no Churchmen either, lest they
should offend their “weaker brethren” of the chapel, and the poor
players departed not having pocketed enough to pay their expenses for a
single night.
The Welsh are, however, a people with the dramatic instinct in them,
as is the case with all high-strung, sensitive races. In former times
they had their “Interludes,” just as the Cornish had their Miracle
and secular plays. In Cornwall there exist still the “Rounds”--great
amphitheatres of artificial construction, in which plays were wont
to be performed in the open air to crowds of spectators. The Wesleyan
Revival killed these plays, and the Rounds are now only employed for
great preaching bouts.
The Welsh Interludes were poetic compositions, calling forth the
abilities of the village composers. A great many of these still exist,
not perhaps excellent in dramatic situations, but some of them of no
mean poetic value. The Interlude was the direct offspring of the old
Morality, and it was allegorical rather than directly dramatic. We
have in English, among our peasantry, still a few of these, such as
the “Dialogue between the Serving-man and the Gardener,” and a score
of altercations in verse, very generally sung, in Cornwall, between
a youth and a damsel, who begin by quarrelling, or with the maiden
flouting the young man, and end in reconciliation and a trot off
hand-in-hand to be married. There is another, once popular in Cornwall,
in which the ghost of a maiden appears to her lover and sets him hard
riddles, which he answers. Unless he could answer them she would have
drawn him to the grave. Another, again, is that of “Richard Malvine,”
where the plot consists in an intrigue carried on between a parson
and the miller’s wife. The wife pretends to be ill, and sends for her
husband.
“O Richard Malvine, O Richard Malvine!
Good husband, I’m like to die,
And medicine alone can me restore
As here on my bed I lie.
I would drink of the Well of Absalom,
Its water I fain would try,
And oh! for a bottle of ale!”
The husband departs in quest of the Well of Absalom, and the wife
complacently says:--
“Pray God send him a hard journey,
And never to come home.”
No sooner is Richard Malvine gone than the wife sends for the parson,
and to him she says:--
“Pray feast with me;
I have good ale, bread fresh and bread stale,
And withal a venison pasty.
And merry we’ll drink and eat and dance,
Right merry I trow we’ll be.”
Now Richard Malvine had a man who was trusty. And so soon as the miller
went forth, the man pursued him, caught him up, and said:--
“O master, good Richard Malvine,
Thou art not gone far from here.
The priest and thy wife are right merrie,
Are having good sport and cheer.
Get into the sack, that I bear on my back,
And what they shall say, thou’lt hear.
“O Richard Malvine, O Richard Malvine!
Thy wife is false to thee.
I’ll stand the sack in the chimney-back,
Where thou canst hear and see.
And thou shalt find, when thou hast a mind
To call, I am near to thee.”
The parson arrives, and the table is spread--all this was acted in
farm-houses. The wife says:--
“My husband, Richard Malvine, is forth,
A journey afar doth roam,
A bottle to fetch of the water fresh
Of the Well of Absalom.”
Then the parson sits down and eats with the wife, and there is much
fun, somewhat broad--when out of the sack in the chimney-back jumps
Richard Malvine, and he shouts:--
“‘Now into the sack, as I’m Richard Malvine,
Or thy blood, Sir Priest, I will take!
O good my lady and gentleman,
I heard what you both did say,
The parson I’ll dip in the mill-pond quick
Before that I let him away,
And my wife with a rope about her neck
I’ll sell next market-day.’”
The waggoner then hoists the sack with the parson in it on his back,
and carries him forth to be ducked in the mill-pond.
Another such an Interlude was one, not more edifying, in which occur
snatches of a song:--
“Oh the wind and the rain,
They have sent him back again,
So you cannot have a lodging here!”
and:--
“Oh, the wind is in the west,
And the cuckoo’s in his nest,
So you cannot have a lodging here!”
and finally:--
“Oh, the devil is in the man,
That he cannot understan’
That he cannot have a lodging here!”
The half play half game of “Jenny-Jan” is common in the West of England
and in Scotland, alike.
A young man enters the room, when a woman acting the mother asks:--
“Come to see Jenny, Jan? Jenny, Jan? Jenny Jan?
Come to see Jenny?”
_He._ “Can I see her now?”
_She._ “Jenny is washing, washing, washing, Jan.
Jenny is washing, Jan, you can’t see her now.”
_Then all say_:--
“Morning, ladies and gentlemen, too!
Morning, ladies and gentlemen, too!
Come to see Jenny, Jan? Jenny, Jan? Jenny, Jan?
Come to see Jenny, and can’t see her now.”
Next the youth is informed that Jenny is married, then that she is
dead, then that she is buried, and lastly that her grave is green.
“Jenny’s grave is green with the tears that flow.” The principal
performer has to simulate various emotions at the information given to
him.
Now the first of these trifles is certainly derived from the old prose
romance of _Friar Rush_, the earliest English printed copy of which is
dated 1620, but which was taken from the German, and this was printed
at Strasburg in 1515. The story, however, dates, in all probability,
from a much earlier period.
The second is remarkable because the music is almost note for note as
sung not very many years ago, with the air to the same words as given
in Queen Elizabeth’s _Virginal Book_. That Jenny-Jan must have been
common all over England seems to be implied by the fact of its existing
in Devon as well as in Scotland, though to different melodies.
We can hardly doubt that these plays, in which three, at the most five,
but usually three persons took part, were common in Wales in the Middle
Ages, and, indeed, down to the Methodist Revival, when all such things
were set aside as of the devil, devilish. Of all the Welsh composers of
interludes, Twm o’r Nant, or Tom o’ the Dingle, was the most famous.
He wrote an interlude on John Bunyan’s “Spiritual Courtship,” on
Naaman’s Leprosy, and an allegorical piece on Hypocrisy. He was born
in 1739, and was married in 1763. His biography is extant and is very
entertaining. His other interludes were “Riches and Poverty,” “The
Three Associates of Man--the World, Nature, Conscience,” and “The King,
the Justice, the Bishop, and the Husbandman,” and he was wont to act in
them himself.
These were all composed in verse, and were not without poetic fire, but
the allegorical character of the pieces was against them.
One great cause of the refinement of mind, as well as of manner, in
the Welshman of the lower classes, is the traditional passion for
poetry. The Welsh have had their native poets from time immemorial.
The earlier poets are hard to be read, often from a habit they had of
introducing words, wholly regardless of sense, to pad out their lines,
or to produce a pleasant effect on the ear. But all this drops away in
the later poets, and Wales has never failed to produce a crop of these,
and their productions are read, acquired by heart, and go to mould the
taste.
Now look at the English bumpkin. What poetic faculty is there in him?
Take the broadside ballads of England. Unless you stumble on an ancient
ballad, all is the veriest balderdash.
“To hear the sweet birds whistle
And the nightingales to sing,”
or again:--
“As I went forth one May morning
To scent the morning air,”
the final line of which is capable of a double interpretation--the
bucolic mind rises to no poetic conception. It looks at Nature with
dull, dazed eyes, and sees nothing in it. It does not distinguish one
plant from another, its only idea of a sensation is a young woman
dressing as a sailor or a soldier to run after her young man, and its
only idea of humour is grossness.
But the moment you come in contact with Celtic blood a ripple of living
fire runs through the veins, the eyes are open and they see, the ears
are touched and they hear, the tongue is unloosed and it sings.
The sole conception that the vulgar English mind has of poetry is
rhyme, and the rhyme often execrably bad. In my time I have come upon
many a village poet--but never a poetic idea from their minds, never a
spark of divine fire in their doggerel.
But to return to Welsh Nonconformity. That it was the revolt of the
Conscience against the deadness of the Church, which had left out of
view all its glorious Catholic heritage, and offered stones in place
of bread, and put wolves in place of pastors over the sheep, does not
admit of question. Nor can it be doubted that Nonconformity has done an
amazing deal for the development--if one-sided, yet a development--of
the Welsh mind. It has stunted some of its faculties, but it has
expanded the mind in other directions. Nonconformity exercises a most
controlling force upon the Welshman. He no more dares to think or
worship or have an aspiration beyond his sect, than has a Mussulman
outside his religion. So long as he is in Wales, by a thousand ties he
is bound to his sect. He would wreck his social, his moral influence,
his position, his worldly prospects if he left it.
The bicycle, however, is making a breach in the bonds that restrain
the young people, much as in France it is emancipating the demoiselle
from the severe tutelage in which the French girl is held. It is taking
those who use the “wheel” beyond the little area over which their
religious community exercises influence.
We talk of the Irish peasantry as priest-ridden, but the Welsh are in
almost as strict subjection to the opinion of their chapel body. The
emancipation the bicycle produces has its good effects, but also those
which are evil. The chapel opinion makes for godliness and a decent
life.
The _Sciet_, or Society, comprises every member of the denomination,
and is a miniature democracy, in which the affairs of the community
are discussed, and its working is arranged, its religious tenets are
shaped, and its code of morals is fixed. The greatest excitement
allowed is the _Diwygiad_, or Revival, which may or may not leave good
moral results. Sometimes it awakens the indifferent, sometimes deepens
the religious life, but it also occasionally leads to lapses from
virtue.
Revivalism is a two-edged weapon that may cut the hand that holds it.
The Church is supported principally by the squirearchy and the
dependants on the squirearchy. And, as a rule, the squirearchy likes
to have a religion that does not make great demands on its time, does
not exact self-denial, does not require exalted spirituality. And it
is ready enough to pay for a jog-trot religion, but will button up the
pocket against a too exacting zeal.
[Illustration: TYN-Y-GROES, DOLGELLEY]
Some of the old Welsh preachers at the outburst of the revolt against
the deadness and worldliness of the Church were very remarkable men,
and their eloquence was great. It would not pass muster at the present
day in their own communities, but it served its purpose at the time.
There was one, for instance, reminiscences of whose sermons have
survived--Stephen Jenkins, born 1815, died 1892.
On one occasion he was preaching upon prayer, and he suddenly broke
forth into a graphic description of the animals entering the ark.
After having seen the lion, the bear, the ape, and the snail enter,
all whose progresses were graphically described, he went on to speak
of the elephant, and he drew a lively picture of the monstrous beast
ascending the plank that led to the entrance to the house-boat. “But
how is this?” exclaimed the preacher. “The elephant is higher than the
door. By no means can he walk in. Of no avail for Noah and his sons to
prog him with goads. He cannot enter. The door is low, and his head is
held too high. Then says Noah, ‘Go down on your knees, beast!’ and the
elephant obeys. Then, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth thrusting behind,
they managed to get the elephant into the ark. And you, if you will
enter the kingdom of heaven, must go down on your knees. Strait is the
gate and narrow is the way.”
The story is told differently in a little memoir of Stephen Jenkins
that has been published recently (Tonypandy, 1902), but I give it as it
reached me some years ago; probably the preacher used Noah’s ark more
than once, and to enforce different maxims.
The following is, however, from the book:--
“When Peter went to Cæsarea to his publication [_i.e._ preaching
to which invited], ha took Mrs. Peter with him. And ha was putting
up at a farmhouse. And the farmer took Peter around the farm with
him, to show his stock to ’n. On the way home the bull roared at ’n,
but ha didn’t notice that. When ha cam’ to the farm-yard, the ould
gander cam’ hissing after ’n, but he didn’t mind that either. But,
all of a sudden, the ould cock cam’ up to ’n quite bould, and sang
_Cock-a-doodle-doo_, and he turned quite pale, and begged the farmer
to let ’n go into the house. And when ha went into the house, Mrs.
Peter asked, ‘What is the matter, Peter _bach_?’ ‘Oh, that ould bird
again!’ he said.... Ah, my dear people, ould Conscience will remind
you some way or other, of your past sins, even after you’re forgiven.”
This may be absurd, but it served its purpose. Whether a preacher is
justified in drawing so freely on his imagination is a question I do
not enter upon. The sermon recalls to me one heard in a little Cornish
chapel a few years ago. I believe that I give the preacher’s words
without exaggeration. The text was from Psalm lvii. 8: “Awake up, my
glory; awake, psaltery and harp.” And this was the opening of the
discourse:--
“My brethren! King David awoke early in the morning, just as the sun
was rising. There had been wretched bad times, rain, rain, rain, all
day and night, and the sheep were cawed [diseased], and the harvest
was not got in, the shocks of corn were standing, the grain was
sprouting in the ears. You know what sort of bread comes of that!
David had been sore at heart, for he knew the farmers were in a bad
way, and the labouring people were also not well off. So he got out of
bed, and opened his window, and looked out, and smelt the beautiful
fresh morning air. Then he saw the sun come a-peeping up over the
eastern hills, like a spark of gold. So says David, ‘There he comes,
and not a cloud in the sky, and there’s every promise of a good day.
Wake up, my glory! wake up, my beautiful shining luminary, and give
us a long fine day, for we want it sore before the corn is utterly
spoiled and done for.’ And then, brethren, he made another remark, and
that he addressed to his Possle-tree [psaltery]. Now, I don’t pretend
to know exactly what sort of a tree a Possle-tree is, but travellers
who have been in Palestine, and learned commentators, do assert that
it is a plant that turns her face to the sun, whichever way the sun
be. In short she is a sort of convolvulus. Now David saw this here
possle-tree drooping, with her blossom heavy with rain, and says he,
with a great shout, ‘Possle-tree!’ says he, ‘Possle-tree, my hearty,
wake up! The glorious sun is up and shining, and it becomes you also
to wake up, and look the glorious sun in the face, as is your nature
and your duty too.’”
[Illustration: HALFWAY HOUSE, DOLGELLEY]
How completely Celtic both these addresses were! To the dull Saxon
mind there would be unreality and trifling in such rich embroidery of
sacred facts, and it would repel, not edify. But the Celtic taste is
not squeamish; it allows a broad margin for imaginary decoration, and
so long as the moral enforced is satisfactory, it does not regard the
means whereby it is reached.
Of course this sort of address would be impossible now in Wales, but in
Cornwall the level of culture is a century in arrear of Wales.
A Welshman is like an Irishman, naturally an orator, and his highest
climax is reached in the _hwyl_, the Welsh howl. This consists in a
rhythmic musical intonation, rising to a high pitch. It was at one
time general in extempore preaching, but has fallen into disuse, as
it showed a tendency to become a mechanical trick, a striving after
effect, when the orator felt that his matter ceased to interest and
arouse.
An amusing story was told me of a religious revival effected by an old
woman and a mendicant.
Said Sheena to Shone, “How is it at Bethesda now?”
“Ah, Sheena, dead as ditchwater!”
“That is a pity,” said she. “Let us revive the spirit.”
So they went together to the chapel, and during an eminently prosy
sermon began to rock on their seats, to moan and utter exclamations.
The influence spread, and presently the whole congregation swayed and
cried out, “Glory be to God!” at the preacher’s platitudes. Then,
little by little, the agitation of spirits affected him--his voice
rose to a cry, and sank and thrilled; he flamed, he flung about his
arms; finally, he howled. Thenceforth all was animation and unction in
Bethesda.
We may doubt whether the Catholic Church ever gained as firm a hold
over the Welsh people as it did over the English. The best benefices
were generally given to English or to foreign ecclesiastics who did
not understand a word of the vernacular of the people, and the poor
cures were cast to hedge-priests who were both ignorant and immoral;
such livings as were in Welsh hands were very indifferently served, as
the churches belonged to several people, in or out of Orders, as has
been already shown.
The Reformation did not at all mend matters. During the Tudor period,
it is true, the Church did hold the affection of the Welsh people, and
was, for upwards of a century, ruled by bishops who were Welsh in name
and tongue. But evil days followed. Bishoprics and livings were given
to Englishmen who did not know Welsh, and who often were nonresident.
The revenues of the Church were drained into the pockets of English
pluralists and men who ostentatiously neglected their duties.
With the Methodist Revival the Welsh found themselves masters of their
own religion; they could form communities for themselves, invent their
own creeds, and accommodate the worship to their own idiosyncrasies.
Although the Welsh are an emotional people, they are a clear and
hard-headed people as well. They have passed through the period of
hysterical religion, and a preacher who is acceptable must be one who
is worth listening to because he has something to say. He must be, not
a man of frothy eloquence, but one who has read and thought. One of
the drawbacks of the Church in Wales is that ministers who have proved
themselves to be more or less failures in their sects have been too
much in the habit of coming over to the Church and seeking ordination,
in the hopes of being coddled and applauded as “‘verts,” and being put
into benefices; and the bishops have shown too ready a disposition to
receive them.
Such converts are often no gain to the Church and no loss to Dissent.
In _Don Giovanni_ Figaro struts up and down the stage unrolling a
list of his conquests in the field of love, and it is not edifying
or pleasing to see some of the more vigorous defenders of the
“Establishment” parade in like manner the captures from Nonconformity.
The Church in Wales, except at Cardiff, has been hardly touched as
yet by the breath of the revival which has transformed the Church in
England. If the Church is to regain her hold over the Welsh people,
it will be by supplying them with what they cannot have in the sects.
They can obtain Christianity attenuated into the most vaporous
condition, thrown into the most varied nebular forms, in the several
denominations. But if the Welshman joins the Church, it will not be,
like Ixion, to embrace a cloud, but for a definite creed and apostolic
order.
[Illustration: HARLECH CASTLE]