[Illustration: "_The Ploughman returning from his weary work may just
scrape his boots outside._"]
In olden days the ordinary village school was the only place available
for meetings or for general gatherings of the parishioners, and a long
time ago that did very well. But the advance of education is tending
to interfere a good deal with our old ideas and places, and it is now
almost necessary that every Church, or every parish, should have a
clubroom--a room where all classes can mix together and improve the
knowledge they have gained at the various county schools--intermediate
or otherwise. We want the Parish Room to be open to everyone. The
ploughman returning from his weary work may just scrape his boots
outside, and he will be perfectly welcome any time he likes to come
in. I am sure there is a great deal of learning to be acquired, a
great deal of good to be done, a great deal of instruction to be
gathered, in a Church Room of this description, when it is managed in
the way it ought to be. As you know, there are certain superior people
who like essays and that sort of thing, and who, are inclined to sneer
at the village concerts and penny readings and little dances which are
likely to take place here. But we do not all possess the wisdom of
Socrates, the dignity of Pliny, or the wit of Horace. Perhaps I shall
put it more plainly if I say we do not possess the wisdom of
Shakespeare, the dignity of Wordsworth, or the wit of Byron. But there
is quite likely to be as much good sense in a humble gathering of an
evening here as amongst those superior people who always try to teach
us by telling us what we ought to do, what to think about, and what we
ought to remember. Those are the people who advertise the simple life.
I fancy most of you are living fairly simple lives, whilst those
gentlemen who advocate it so much do not know what the simple life
means. Not very far from us is where "the rude forefathers of the
hamlet sleep," and in Gray's beautiful Elegy we are told:
"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of Empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre."
Might not some of those who are laid in the Churchyard close by, if
they had enjoyed the advantages we have, have "wakened to ecstasy the
living lyre," or been great members of either parish councils or
county councils, or even Members of Parliament! I think that before
this room has been in existence many years we shall find that some of
those attending the gatherings which I hope will take place here, have
done their best to make themselves prominent in life, especially in
trying to keep before the world the truths of that religion which we
have thought so much of and heard so much of to-day.
_Opening of Church-room at Llanvaches,
February, 1909._