_THE MINISTRY IN THE ISLAND OF ANGLESEA_.
Journey to Anglesea—Cildwrn Chapel, and Life in the Cildwrn
Cottage—Poverty—Forcing his Way to Knowledge—Anecdote, “I am the
Book”—A Dream—The Sandemanian Controversy—Jones of Ramoth—“Altogether
Wrong”—The Work in Peril—Thomas Jones of Rhydwilym—Christmas’s
Restoration to Spiritual Health—Extracts from Personal
Reflections—Singular Covenant with God—Renewed Success—The Great
Sermon of the Churchyard World—Scenery of its Probable
Delivery—Outline of the Sermon—Remarks on the Allegorical
Style—Outlines of Another Remarkable Sermon, “The Hind of the
Morning”—Great Preaching but Plain Preaching—Hardships of the Welsh
Preacher.
In 1792 Christmas Evans left Lleyn. He speaks of a providential
intimation conveyed to him from the Island of Anglesea; the providential
intimation was a call to serve all the Churches of his order in that
island for seventeen pounds a year! and for the twenty years during which
he performed this service, he never asked for more. He was twenty-six
years of age when he set forth, on his birthday, Christmas Day, for his
new and enlarged world of work. He travelled like an Apostle,—and surely
he travelled in an apostolic spirit,—he was unencumbered with this
world’s goods. It was a very rough day of frost and snow,
“The way was long, the wind was cold.”
He travelled on horseback, with his wife behind him; and he arrived on
the evening of the same day at Llangefni. On his arrival in Anglesea he
found ten small Baptist Societies, lukewarm and faint; what amount of
life there was in them was spent in the distraction of theological
controversy, which just then appeared to rage, strong and high, among the
Baptists in North Wales. He was the only minister amongst those
Churches, and he had not a brother minister to aid him within a hundred
and fifty miles; but he commenced his labours in real earnest, and one of
his first movements was to appoint a day of fasting and prayer in all the
preaching places; he soon had the satisfaction to find a great revival,
and it may with truth be said “the pleasure of the Lord prospered in his
hand.”
Llangefni appears to have been the spot in Anglesea where Christmas found
his home. Llangefni is a respectable town now; when the preaching
apostle arrived there, near a hundred years since, its few scattered
houses did not even rise to the dignity of a village. Cildwrn Chapel was
here the place of his ministrations, and here stood the little cottage
where Christmas and his wife passed their plain and simple days. Chapel
and cottage stood upon a bleak and exposed piece of ground. The cottage
has been reconstructed since those days, but upon the site of the queer
and quaint old manse stands now a far more commodious chapel-keeper’s
house. As in the Bedford vestry they show you still the chair in which
John Bunyan sat, so here they show a venerable old chair, Christmas
Evans’s chair, in the old Cildwrn cottage; it is deeply and curiously
marked by the cuttings of his pocket-knife, made when he was indulging in
those reveries and daydreams in which he lived abstracted from everything
around him.
The glimpses of life we obtain from this old Cildwrn cottage do not
incline us to speak in terms of very high eulogy of the Voluntary
principle, as developed in Anglesea in that day; from the description, it
must have been a very poor shanty, or windy shieling; it is really almost
incredible to think of such a man in such a home. The stable for the
horse or pony was a part of the establishment, or but very slightly
separated from it; the furniture was very poor and scanty: a bed will
sometimes compensate for the deprivations and toils of the day when the
wearied limbs are stretched upon it, but Christmas Evans could not, as
James Montgomery has it, “Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head, upon
his own delightful bed;” for, one of his biographers says, the article on
which the inmates, for some time after their settlement, rested at night,
could be designated a bed only by courtesy; some of the boards having
given way, a few stone slabs did some necessary service. The door by
which the preacher and his wife entered the cottage was rotted away, and
the economical congregation saved the expense of a new door by nailing a
tin plate across the bottom; the roof was so low that the master of the
house, when he stood up, had to exercise more than his usual forethought
and precaution.
Here, then, was the study, the furnace, forge, and anvil whence were
wrought out those noble ideas, images, words, which made Christmas Evans
a household name throughout the entire Principality. Here he, and his
Catherine, passed their days in a life of perfect naturalness—somewhat
too natural, thinks the reader—and elevated piety. Which of us, who
write, or read these pages, will dare to visit them with the indignity of
our pity? Small as his means were, he looks very happy, with his
pleasant, bright, affectionate, helpful and useful wife; he grew in the
love and honour of the people; and to his great pulpit eminence, and his
simple daily life, have been applied, not unnaturally, the fine words of
Wordsworth—
“So did he travel on life’s common way
In cheerful lowliness; and yet his heart
The mightiest duties on itself did lay.”
And there was a period in Wordsworth’s life, before place, and fame, and
prosperity came to him, when the little cottage near the Wishing Gate, in
Grasmere, was not many steps above that of the Cildwrn cottage of
Christmas Evans. The dear man did not care about his poverty,—he appears
never either to have attempted to conceal it, nor to grumble at it; and
one of his biographers applies to him the pleasant words of Jean Paul
Richter, “The pain of poverty was to him only as the piercing of a
maiden’s ear, and jewels were hung in the wound.”
It was, no doubt, a very rough life, but he appears to have attained to
the high degree of the Apostle,—“having food and raiment, let us be
therewith content;” and he was caught up, and absorbed in his work:
sermons, and material for sermons, were always preparing in his mind; he
lived to preach, to exercise that bardic power of his. That poor room
was the study; he had no separate room to which to retire, where, in
solitude, he could stir, or stride the steeds of thought or passion.
During those years, in that poor Cildwrn room, he mastered some ways of
scholarship, the mention of which may, perhaps, surprise some of our
readers. He made himself a fair Hebraist; no wonder at that, he must
have found the language, to him, a very congenial tongue; we take it
that, anyhow, the average Welshman will much more readily grapple with
the difficulties of Hebrew than the average Englishman. Then he became
so good a Grecian, that once, in a bookseller’s shop, upon his making
some remarks on Homer in the presence of a clergyman, a University man,
which drew forth expressions of contempt, Christmas put on his classical
panoply, and so addressed himself to the shallow scholar, that he was
compelled, by the pressure of engagements, to beat a surprisingly quick
retreat.
Very likely the slender accoutrements of his library would create a sneer
upon the lips of most of the scholars of the modern pulpit: his lexicons
did not rise above Parkhurst,—and _we_ will be bold to express gratitude
to that forgotten and disregarded old scholar, too; Owen supplied him
with the bones of theological thought, the framework of his systematic
theology; and whatever readers may think of his taste, Dr. Gill largely
drew upon his admiration and sympathy, in the method of his exposition.
But, when all was said and done, he was the Vulcan himself, who wrought
the splendid fancies of the Achilles’ shield,—say, rather, of the shield
of Faith; he did not disdain books, but books with him were few, and his
mind, experience, and observation were large.
A little while ago, we heard a good story. A London minister of
considerable notoriety, never in any danger of being charged with a too
lowly estimate of himself, or his powers, was called to preach an
anniversary sermon, on a week evening, some distance from London.
Arrived at the house of the brother minister, for whom he had undertaken
the service, before it commenced, he requested to be shown into the
study, in which he might spend some little time in preparation: the
minister went up with him.
“So!” said the London Doctor, as he entered, and gazed around, “this is
the place where all the mischief is done; this is your furnace, this is
the spot from whence the glowing thoughts, and sparks emanate!”
“Yes,” said his host, “I come up here to think, and prepare, and be
quiet; one cannot study so well in the family.”
The Doctor strode up and down the room, glancing round the walls, lined
with such few books as the modest means of a humble minister might be
supposed to procure.
“Ah!” said the Doctor, “and these are the books, the alimentary canals
which absorb the pabulum from whence you reinvigorate the stores of
thought, and rekindle refrigerated feeling.”
“Yes, Doctor,” said the good man, “these are my books; I have not got
many, you see, for I am not a rich London minister, but only a poor
country pastor; you have a large library, Doctor?”
The great man stood still; he threw a half-indignant and half-benignant
glance upon his humble brother, and he said, “_I_ have no library, _I_ do
not want books, _I_ am _the_ Book!”
Christmas Evans, so far as he could command the means,—but they were very
few,—was a voracious reader; and most of the things he read were welded
into material for the imagination; but much more truly might he have
said, than the awful London dignitary and Doctor, “I have no books, I am
the book.” His modesty would have prevented him from ever saying the
last; but it was nevertheless eminently and especially true, he _was_ the
book. There was a good deal in him of the self-contained, self-evolving
character; and it is significant of this, that, while probably he knew
little, or nothing, of our great English classical essayists, John Foster
and his Essays were especially beloved by him; far asunder as were their
spheres, and widely different their more obvious and manifested life,
there was much exceedingly alike in the structure of their mental
characters.
We have already alluded to the dream-life of Christmas Evans; we should
say, that if dreams come from the multitude of business, the daily
occupation, the ordinary life he lived was well calculated to foster in
him the life of dreams. Here is one,—a strange piece, which shows the
mind in which he lived:—“I found myself at the gate of hell, and,
standing at the threshold, I saw an opening, beneath I which was a vast
sea of fire, in wave-like motion. Looking at it, I said, ‘What infinite
virtue there must have been in the blood of Christ to have quenched, for
His people, these awful flames!’ Overcome with the feeling, I knelt down
by the walls of hell, saying, ‘Thanks be unto Thee, O great and blessed
Saviour, that Thou hast dried up this terrible sea of fire!’ Whereupon
Christ addressed me: ‘Come this way, and I will show you how it was
done.’ Looking back, I beheld that the whole sea had disappeared. Jesus
passed over the place, and said: ‘Come, follow Me.’ By this time, I was
within what I thought were the gates of hell, where there were many
cells, out of which it was impossible to escape. I found myself within
one of these, and anxious to make my way out. Still I felt wonderfully
calm, as I had only just been conversing with Jesus, and because He had
gone before me, although I had now lost sight of Him. I got hold of
something, with which I struck the corner of the place in which I stood,
saying, ‘In the name of Jesus, open!’ and it instantly gave way; so I did
with all the enclosures, until I made my way out into the open field.
Whom should I see there but brethren, none of whom, however, I knew,
except a good old deacon, and their work was to attend to a nursery of
trees; I joined them, and laid hold of a tree, saying, ‘In the name of
Jesus, be thou plucked up by the root!’ And it came up as if it had been
a rush. Hence I went forth, as I fancied, to work miracles, saying, ‘Now
I know how the Apostles wrought miracles in the name of Christ!’”
It was during the earlier period of Christmas Evans’s ministry at
Anglesea, that a great irruption took place in the island, and, indeed,
throughout the Principality; and the Sandemanian controversy shook the
Churches, and especially the Baptist Churches, almost beyond all
credibility, and certainly beyond what would have been a possibility, but
for the singular power of the chief leader, John Richard Jones, of
Ramoth. Christmas Evans himself fell for some time beneath the power of
Sandemanian notions. Our readers, perhaps, know enough of this peculiar
form of faith and practice, to be aware that the worst thing that can be
said of it is, that it is a religious ice-plant, religion in an
ice-house,—a form chiefly remarkable for its rigid ritualistic
conservation of what are regarded as the primitive forms of apostolic
times, conjoined to a separation from, and a severe and cynical
reprobation of, all other Christian sects.
Christmas Evans says of himself at this period: “The Sandemanian heresy
affected me so far as to quench the spirit of prayer for the conversion
of sinners, and it induced in my mind a greater regard for the smaller
things of the kingdom of heaven, than for the greater. I lost the
strength which clothed my mind with zeal, confidence, and earnestness in
the pulpit for the conversion of souls to Christ. My heart retrograded,
in a manner, and I could not realize the testimony of a good conscience.
Sabbath nights, after having been in the day exposing and vilifying, with
all bitterness, the errors that prevailed, my conscience felt as if
displeased, and reproached me that I had lost nearness to, and walking
with, God. It would intimate that something exceedingly precious was now
wanting in me; I would reply, that I was acting in obedience to the Word;
but it continued to accuse me of the want of some precious article. I
had been robbed, to a great degree, of the spirit of prayer, and of the
spirit of preaching.”
And the man who headed and gave effect to this Sandemanian movement,
which was regarded as a mighty reform movement, was Jones of Ramoth. No
doubt a real and genuine character enough, a magnificent orator, a master
of bitter wit, and vigorous declamation. That is a keen saying with
which Richard Hooker commences his “Ecclesiastical Polity:” “He that
goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they are not so well governed
as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers;
because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment
is subject; but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public
proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the
judgment to consider.” This seems to have been the work, and this the
effect, of John Richard Jones: very much the sum and substance of his
preaching grew to be a morbid horror of the entire religious world, and a
supreme contempt—one of his memorialists says, a superb contempt—for all
preachers except himself, especially for all itinerant preachers. In
fact, Ramoth Jones’s influence in Anglesea might well be described in
George MacDonald’s song, “The Waesome Carl:”—
“Ye’re a’ wrang, and a’ wrang,
And a’thegither a’ wrang;
There’s no a man aboot the toon
But’s a’thegither a’ wrang.
“The minister wasna fit to pray,
And let alane to preach;
He nowther had the gift o’ grace,
Nor yet the gift o’ speech.
“He mind’t him o’ Balaam’s ass,
Wi’ a differ ye may ken:
The Lord He opened the ass’s mou’,
The minister opened’s ain.
“Ye’re a’ wrang, and a’ wrang,
And a’thegither a’ wrang;
There’s no a man aboot the toon
But’s a’thegither a’ wrang.”
Compared with the slender following of the Sandemanian schism now,—for we
believe it has but six congregations in the whole United Kingdom,—it
seems strange to know that it laid so wonderful a hold upon the island of
Anglesea. It did, however; and that it did was evidently owing to the
strong man whose name we have mentioned. He was a self-formed man, but
he was a man, if not of large scholarship, of full acquaintance with
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; he was a skilful musician; he understood the
English language well, but of the Welsh he was a great master. But his
intelligence, we should think, was dry and hard; his sentiments were
couched in bitter sarcasm: “If,” said he, “every Bible in the world were
consumed, and every word of Scripture erased from my memory, I need be at
no loss how to live a religious life, according to the will of God, for I
should simply have to proceed in all respects in a way perfectly contrary
to the popular religionists of this age, and then I could not possibly be
wrong.” He was very arrogant and authoritative in tone and manner,
supercilious himself, and expecting the subordination of others. He was
so bitter and narrow, that one naturally supposes that some injustice had
embittered him. Some of his words have a noble ring. But he encouraged
a spirit far other than a charitable one wherever his word extended; and
it has been not unnaturally said, that the spread of this Sandemanian
narrowness in Anglesea, realized something of the old Scotch absurdity of
having two Churches in the same cottage, consisting of Janet in one
apartment, and Sandy in the other; or of that other famed Scottish
Church, which had dwindled down to two members, old Dame Christie, and
Donald, but which seemed at last likely to dwindle yet farther into one,
as Christie said she had “sair doubts o’ Donald.”
The work of Christmas Evans, so far successful, seemed likely to be
undone; all the Churches seemed inoculated by these new and narrow
notions, and Christmas Evans himself appears, as we have seen, to have
been not altogether unscathed. There is something so plausible in this
purism of pride; and many such a creed of pessimism is the outgrowth of
indifference born, and nurtured, upon decaying faith,—a faith which,
perhaps, as in the instance of Ramoth Jones and his Sandemanian teachers,
continued true to Christ, so far as that is compatible with utter
indifference to humanity at large, and an utter separation from the
larger view of the Communion of Saints.
There was, however, a grand man, who stood firm while ministers and
Churches around him were reeling, Thomas Jones, of Glynceiriog, in
Denbighshire; he is said to have been the one and only minister, at all
known to the public, who remained in his own denomination firm, and,
successfully in his own spirit, withstood, and even conquered, in this
storm of new opinion. And this Thomas Jones did not stand like an
insensible stone or rock, but like a living oak, braving the blasts of
veering opinion. Most men think in crowds,—which is only to say they are
the victims of thoughtless plausibilities. This Thomas Jones appears to
have known what he believed; he was eminent for his politeness, and
greatly deferential in his bearing; but with all this, his courtesy was
the courtesy of the branch which bows, but retains its place. He was a
man of marvellous memory, and Christmas Evans used to say of him, that
wherever Thomas Jones was, no Concordance would be necessary. He was a
great master in the study of Edwards “On the Freedom of the Will,” and
his method of reading the book was characteristic; he would first seize a
proposition, then close the book, and close his eyes, and turn the
proposition round and round that it might be undisturbed by anything
inside the treatise, or outside of it, and in this way he would proceed
with the rigorous demonstration. He was a calm and dignified knight in
the tournament of discussion; and, before his lance, more vehement but
less trained thinkers and theologians went down.
Thus it was that he preached a great Association sermon at Llangevni, in
1802, which dealt the Sandemanian schism a fatal blow; the captivity
beneath the spell of the influence of Ramoth Jones was broken, and turned
as streams in the south. While the sermon was being preached, Christmas
Evans said, “This Thomas Jones is a monster of a man!” Then the great
revival sprang up,—the ice reign was over; but shortly after, he was
called away to Rhydwilym, in Caermarthenshire. Young as he was, when
John Elias heard of his departure, he said, “The light of the north is
removed.” He died full of years, full of honours, full of love; closing
a life, says one, of quiet beauty, which perhaps has never been
surpassed, at Rhydwilym, in 1850.
This irruption of Sandemanian thought, as we have said and seen, affected
the spiritual life and earnest usefulness of Christmas Evans. It is well
we should place this passing flower upon the memory of Jones of
Rhydwilym, for he, it seems, broke the spell and dissolved the
enchantment, and bade, in the heart of Christmas Evans, the imprisoned
waters once more to flow forth warm, and rejoicing, in the life and
enthusiasm of love. May we not say, in passing, that some such spell, if
not beneath the same denomination of opinion, holds many hearts in
bondage among the Churches in our time?
The joy which Christmas Evans felt in his deliverance, realizes something
of the warm words of the poet of the _Messiah_—
“The swain in barren deserts, with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.”
“I was weary,” he says, referring to this period, “of a cold heart
towards Christ, and His sacrifice, and the work of His Spirit—of a cold
heart in the pulpit, in secret prayer, and in the study. For fifteen
years previously, I had felt my heart burning within, as if going to
Emmaus with Jesus. On a day ever to be remembered by me, as I was going
from Dolgelly to Machynlleth, and climbing up towards Cadair Idris, I
considered it to be incumbent upon me to pray, however hard I felt in my
heart, and however worldly the frame of my spirit was. Having begun in
the name of Jesus, I soon felt, as it were, the fetters loosening, and
the old hardness of heart softening, and, as I thought, mountains of
frost and snow dissolving and melting within me. This engendered
confidence in my soul in the promise of the Holy Ghost. I felt my whole
mind relieved from some great bondage; tears flowed copiously, and I was
constrained to cry out for the gracious visits of God, by restoring to my
soul the joys of His salvation; and that He would visit the Churches in
Anglesea that were under my care. I embraced in my supplications all the
Churches of the saints, and nearly all the ministers in the Principality
by their names. This struggle lasted for three hours; it rose again and
again, like one wave after another, or a high flowing tide, driven by a
strong wind, until my nature became faint by weeping and crying. Thus I
resigned myself to Christ, body and soul, gifts and labours—all my
life—every day, and every hour that remained for me; and all my cares I
committed to Christ. The road was mountainous and lonely, and I was
wholly alone, and suffered no interruption in my wrestlings with God.
“From this time, I was made to expect the goodness of God to Churches,
and to myself. Thus the Lord delivered me and the people of Anglesea
from being carried away by the flood of Sandemanianism. In the first
religious meetings after this, I felt as if I had been removed from the
cold and sterile regions of spiritual frost, into the verdant fields of
Divine promises. The former striving with God in prayer, and the longing
anxiety for the conversion of sinners, which I had experienced at Lëyn,
were now restored. I had a hold of the promises of God. The result was,
when I returned home, the first thing that arrested my attention was,
that the Spirit was working also in the brethren in Anglesea, inducing in
them a spirit of prayer, especially in two of the deacons, who were
particularly importunate that God would visit us in mercy, and render the
Word of His grace effectual amongst us for the conversion of sinners.”
And to about this time belongs a most interesting article, preserved
among his papers, “a solemn covenant with God,” made, he says, “under a
deep sense of the evil of his own heart, and in dependence upon the
infinite grace and merit of the Redeemer.” It is a fine illustration of
the spirit and faith of the man in his lonely communions among the
mountains.
Covenant with God.
I. I give my soul and body unto Thee, Jesus, the true God, and
everlasting life; deliver me from sin, and from eternal death, and
bring me into life everlasting. Amen.—C. E.
II. I call the day, the sun, the earth, the trees, the stones, the
bed, the table, and the books, to witness that I come unto Thee,
Redeemer of sinners, that I may obtain rest for my soul from the
thunders of guilt and the dread of eternity. Amen.—C. E.
III. I do, through confidence in Thy power, earnestly entreat Thee
to take the work into Thine own hand, and give me a circumcised
heart, that I may love Thee; and create in me a right spirit, that I
may seek thy glory. Grant me that principle which Thou wilt own in
the day of judgment, that I may not then assume pale-facedness, and
find myself a hypocrite. Grant me this, for the sake of Thy most
precious blood. Amen.—C. E.
IV. I entreat Thee, Jesus, the Son of God, in power grant me, for
the sake of Thy agonizing death, a covenant interest in Thy blood
which cleanseth; in Thy righteousness, which justifieth; and in Thy
redemption, which delivereth. I entreat an interest in Thy blood,
for Thy _blood’s_ sake, and a part in Thee, for Thy Name’s sake,
which Thou hast given among men. Amen.—C. E.
V. O Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, take, for the sake of Thy
cruel death, my time, and strength, and the gifts and talents I
possess; which, with a full purpose of heart, I consecrate to Thy
glory in the building up of Thy Church in the world, for Thou art
worthy of the hearts and talents of all men. Amen.—C. E.
VI. I desire Thee, my great High Priest, to confirm, by Thy power
from Thy High Court, my usefulness as a preacher, and my piety as a
Christian, as two gardens nigh to each other; that sin may not have
place in my heart to becloud my confidence in Thy righteousness, and
that I may not be left to any foolish act that may occasion my gifts
to wither, and I be rendered useless before my life ends. Keep Thy
gracious eye upon me, and watch over me, O my Lord, and my God for
ever! Amen.—C. E.
VII. I give myself in a particular manner to Thee, O Jesus Christ
the Saviour, to be preserved from the falls into which many stumble,
that Thy name (in Thy cause) may not be blasphemed or wounded, that
my peace may not be injured, that Thy people may not be grieved, and
that Thine enemies may not be hardened. Amen.—C. E.
VIII. I come unto Thee, beseeching Thee to be in covenant with me in
my ministry. As Thou didst prosper Bunyan, Vavasor Powell, Howell
Harris, Rowlands, and Whitfield, O do Thou prosper me. Whatsoever
things are opposed to my prosperity, remove them out of the way.
Work in me everything approved of God for the attainment of this.
Give me a heart “sick of love” to Thyself, and to the souls of men.
Grant that I may experience the power of Thy Word before I deliver
it, as Moses felt the power of his own rod, before he saw it on the
land and waters of Egypt. Grant this, for the sake of Thine
infinitely precious blood, O Jesus, my hope, and my all in all.
Amen.—C. E.
IX. Search me now, and lead me into plain paths of judgment. Let me
discover in this life what I am before Thee, that I may not find
myself of another character when I am shown in the light of the
immortal world, and open my eyes in all the brightness of eternity.
Wash me in Thy redeeming blood. Amen.—C. E.
X. Grant me strength to depend upon Thee for food and raiment, and
to make known my requests. O let Thy care be over me as a
covenant-privilege betwixt Thee and myself, and not like a general
care to feed the ravens that perish, and clothe the lily that is cast
into the oven; but let Thy care be over me as one of Thy family, as
one of Thine unworthy brethren. Amen.—C. E.
XI. Grant, O Jesus, and take upon Thyself the preparing of me for
death, for Thou art God; there is no need but for Thee to speak the
word. If possible, Thy will be done; leave me not long in
affliction, nor to die suddenly, without bidding adieu to my
brethren, and let me die in their sight, after a short illness. Let
all things be ordered against the day of removing from one world to
another, that there be no confusion nor disorder, but a quiet
discharge in peace. O grant me this, for the sake of Thine agony in
the garden. Amen.—C. E.
XII. Grant, O blessed Lord, that nothing may grow and be matured in
me to occasion Thee to cast me off from the service of the sanctuary,
like the sons of Eli; and for the sake of Thine unbounded merit, let
not my days be longer than my usefulness. O let me not be like
lumber in a house in the end of my days, in the way of others to
work. Amen.—C. E.
XIII. I beseech Thee, O Redeemer, to present these my supplications
before the Father; and oh, inscribe them in Thy Book with Thine own
immortal pen, while I am writing them with my mortal hand in my book
on earth. According to the depths of Thy merit, Thine undiminished
grace, and Thy compassion, and Thy manner unto Thy people, O attach
Thy Name in Thine Upper Court to these unworthy petitions; and set
Thine Amen to them, as I do on my part of the covenant.
Amen.—CHRISTMAS EVANS, _Llangevni_, _Anglesea_, _April_ 10, 18—.
Is not this an amazing document? It is of this time that he further
writes:—“I felt a sweet peace and tranquillity of soul, like unto a poor
man that had been brought under the protection of the Royal Family, and
had an annual settlement for life made upon him; and from whose dwelling
painful dread of poverty and want had been for ever banished away.” We
have heard of God-intoxicated men; and what language can more
appropriately describe a covenant-engagement so elevated, so astonishing,
and sublime?
Now, apparently strengthened as by a new spirit, with “might in the inner
man,” he laboured with renewed energy and zeal; and new and singular
blessings descended upon his labours. In two years, his ten preaching
places in Anglesea were increased to twenty, and six hundred converts
were added to the Church under his own immediate care. It seemed as if
the wilderness and the solitary place were glad for him, and the desert
rejoiced and blossomed as the rose.
Probably, Christmas Evans’s name had been scarcely announced, or read, in
England, until his great Graveyard Sermon was introduced to a company of
friends, by the then celebrated preacher, Dr. Raffles, of Liverpool. As
the story has been related, some persons present had affected contempt
for Welsh preaching. “Listen to me,” said Raffles, “and I will give to
you a specimen of Welsh eloquence.” Upon those present, the effect was,
we suppose, electrical. He was requested to put it in print; and so the
sermon became very extensively known, and has been regarded, by many, as
the preacher’s most astonishing piece.
To what exact period of Evans’s history it is to be assigned cannot be
very well ascertained, but it is probably nearly sixty years since
Raffles first recited it; so that it belongs, beyond a doubt, to the
early Anglesea days. It was, most likely, prepared as a great bardic or
dramatic chant for some vast Association meeting, and was, no doubt,
repeated several times, for it became very famous. It mingles something
of the life of an old Mystery Play, or Ober-Ammergau performance; but as
to any adequate rendering of it, we apprehend that to be quite
impossible. Raffles was a rhetorician, and famous as his version became,
the good Doctor knew little or nothing of Welsh, nor was the order of his
mind likely very accurately to render either the Welsh picture or the
Welsh accent. His periods were too rounded, the language too fine, and
the pictures too highly coloured.
It was about the same time that, far away from Anglesea, among the
remote, unheard-of German mountains of Baireuth, a dreamer of a very
different kind was visited by some such vision of the world, regarded as
a great churchyard. Jean Paul Richter’s churchyard, visited by the dead
Christ, was written in Siebinckas, for the purpose of presenting the
misty, starless, cheerless, and spectral outlook of the French atheism,
which was then spreading out, noxious and baleful, over Europe.
Very different were the two men, their spheres, and their avocations;
overwhelming, solemn, and impressive as is the vision of Jean Paul, it
certainly would have said little to a vast Welsh congregation among the
dark hills. Christmas Evans’s piece is dramatic; his power of
impersonation and colloquy in the pulpit was very great; and the reader
has to conceive all this, while on these colder pages the scenes and the
conversations go on. It appears to have been first preached in a small
dell among the mountains of Carnarvonshire. The spot was exquisitely
romantic; it was a summer’s season, the grass was in its rich green,
brooks were purling round, and the spot hemmed in by jagged crags and the
cliffs of tall mountains; a beautiful spot, but an Englishman spoke of it
as “beauty sleeping on the lap of terror.”
A preliminary service, of course, went on,—hymns, the sounding of the
slow, plaintive minor melody from thousands of tongues, rising and
loitering, and lingering among the neighbouring acclivities, before they
finally fade off into silence; then there is reading, and prayer, singing
again, and a short sermon before Christmas Evans comes. He has not
attained to the full height of his great national fame as yet; he is
before the people, however, “the one-eyed man of Anglesea,”—the
designation by which he was to be known for many years to come. He
stands six feet high, his face very expressive, but very calm and quiet;
but a great fire was burning within the man. He gave out some verses of
a well-known Welsh hymn, and while it was being sung took out a small
phial from his waistcoat-pocket, wetting the tips of his fingers and
drawing them over his blind eye; it was laudanum, used to deaden the
excruciating pain which upon some occasions possessed him.
He gave out his text from Romans v. 15: “If through the offence of one
many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is
by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” Naturally, he does
not begin at once, but spends a little time, in clearly-enunciated words,
in announcing two things,—the universal depravity and sinfulness of men,
and the sighing after propitiation. _Mene_! _Tekel_! he says, is
written on every human heart; wanting, wanting, is inscribed on heathen
fanes and altars, on the laws, customs, and institutions of every nation,
and on the universal consciousness of mankind; and bloody sacrifices
among pagan nations show the handwriting of remorse upon the
conscience,—a sense of guilt, and a dread of punishment, and a fear which
hath torment.
As he goes on the people draw nearer, become more intense in their
earnest listening; they are rising from their seats, their temporary
forms. Some are in carriages; there is a lady leaning on her husband’s
shoulder, he still sitting, she with outstretched neck gazing with
obviously strange emotion at the preacher; some of the people are
beginning to weep. There is an old evangelical clergyman who has always
preached the Gospel, although laughed at by his squire, and quite unknown
by his Bishop; he is rejoicing with a great joy to hear his old loved
truths set forth in such a manner; he is weeping profusely.
Christmas Evans, meantime, is pursuing his way, lost in his theme. Now
his eye lights up, says one who knew him, like a brilliantly-flashing
star, his clear forehead expands, his form dilates in majestic dignity;
and all that has gone before will be lost in the white-heat passion with
which he prepares to sing of Paradise lost, and Paradise regained. One
of his Welsh critics says: “All the stores of his energy, and the
resources of his voice, which was one of great compass, depth, and
sweetness, seemed reserved for the closing portions of the picture, when
he represented the routed and battered hosts of evil retreating from the
cross, where they anticipated a triumph, and met a signal, and
irretrievable overthrow.” Thus prepared, he presented to his hearers the
picture of
“THE WORLD AS A GRAVEYARD.”
“Methinks,” exclaimed the impassioned preacher, “I find myself
standing upon the summit of one of the highest of the everlasting
hills, permitted from thence to take a survey of the whole earth; and
all before me I see a wide and far-spread burial-ground, a graveyard,
over which lie scattered the countless multitudes of the wretched and
perishing children of Adam! The ground is full of hollows, the
yawning caverns of death; and over the whole scene broods a thick
cloud of darkness: no light from above shines upon it, there is no
ray of sun or moon, there is no beam, even of a little candle, seen
through all its borders. It is walled all around, but it has gates,
large and massive, ten thousand times stronger than all the gates of
brass forged among men; they are one and all safely locked,—the hand
of Divine Law has locked them; and so firmly secured are the strong
bolts, that all the created powers even of the heavenly world, were
they to labour to all eternity, could not drive so much as one of
them back. How hopeless is the wretchedness to which the race is
doomed! into what irrecoverable depths of ruin has sin plunged the
people who sit there in darkness, and in the shadow of death, while
there, by the brazen gates, stands the inflexible guard, brandishing
the flaming sword of undeviating Law!
“But see! In the cool of the day, there is one descending from the
eternal hills in the distance: it is Mercy! the radiant form of
Mercy, seated in the chariot of Divine Promise. She comes through
the worlds of the universe; she pauses here to mark the imprisoned
and grave-like aspect of our once fair world; her eye affected her
heart as she beheld the misery, and heard the cry of despair, borne
upon the four winds of heaven; she could not pass by, nor pass on;
she wept over the melancholy scene, and she said, ‘Oh that I might
enter! I would bind up their wounds, I would relieve their sorrows,
I would save their souls!’ An embassy of angels, commissioned from
Heaven to some other world, paused at the sight; and Heaven forgave
that pause. They saw Mercy standing by the gate, and they cried,
‘Mercy, canst thou not enter? Canst thou look upon that world and
not pity? Canst thou pity and not relieve?’ And Mercy, in tears,
replied, ‘I can see, and I can pity, but I cannot relieve.’ ‘Why
dost thou not enter?’ inquired the heavenly host. ‘Oh,’ said Mercy,
‘Law has barred the gate against me, and I must not, and I cannot
unbar it.’ And Law stood there watching the gate, and the angels
asked of him, ‘Why wilt thou not suffer Mercy to enter?’ And he
said, ‘No one can enter here and live;’ and the thunder of his voice
outspoke the wailings within. Then again I heard Mercy cry, ‘Is
there no entrance for me into this field of death? may I not visit
these caverns of the grave; and seek, if it may be, to raise some at
least of these children of destruction, and bring them to the light
of day? Open, Justice, Open! drive back these iron bolts, and let me
in, that I may proclaim the jubilee of redemption to the children of
the dust!’ And then I heard Justice reply, ‘Mercy! surely thou
lovest Justice too well to wish to burst these gates by force of arm,
and thus to obtain entrance by lawless violence. I cannot open the
door: I am not angry with these unhappy, I have no delight in their
death, or in hearing their cries, as they lie upon the burning hearth
of the great fire, kindled by the wrath of God, in the land that is
lower than the grave. But _without shedding of blood there is no
remission_.’
“So Mercy expanded her wings, splendid beyond the brightness of the
morning when its rays are seen shooting over mountains of pearl,—and
Mercy renewed her flight amongst the unfallen worlds; she re-ascended
into the mid air, but could not proceed far, because she could not
forget the sad sight of the Graveyard-World, the melancholy prison.
She returned to her native throne in the Heaven of heavens; it was a
glorious high throne, unshaken and untarnished by the fallen fate of
man and angels. Even there she could not forget what she had
witnessed, and wept over, and she weighed the woes of the sad world
against the doom of eternal Law; she could not forget the prison and
the graveyard, and she re-descended with a more rapid and radiant
flight, and she stood again by the gate, but again was denied
admission. And the two stood there together, Justice and Mercy; and
Justice dropped his brandishing sword while they held converse
together; and while they talked, there was silence in heaven.
“‘Is there then no admission on any terms whatever?’ she said. ‘Ah,
yes,’ said Justice; ‘but then they are terms which no created being
can fulfil. I demand atoning death for the Eternal life of those who
lie in this Graveyard; I demand Divine life for their ransom.’ And
while they were talking, behold there stood by them a third Form,
fairer than the children of men, radiant with the glory of heaven.
He cast a look upon the graveyard. And He said to Mercy, ‘Accept the
terms.’ ‘Where is the security?’ said Justice. ‘Here,’ said Mercy,
pointing to the radiant Stranger, ‘is my bond. Four thousand years
from hence, demand its payment on Calvary. To redeem men,’ said
Mercy, ‘I will be incarnate in the Son of God, I will be the Lamb
slain for the life of this Graveyard World.’
“The bond was accepted, and Mercy entered the graveyard leaning on
the arm of Justice. She spoke to the prisoners. Centuries rolled
by. So went on the gathering of the firstfruits in the field of
redemption. Still ages passed away, and at last the clock of
prophecy struck the fulness of time. The bond, which had been
committed to patriarchs and prophets, had to be redeemed; a long
series of rites and ceremonies, sacrifices and oblations, had been
instituted to perpetuate the memory of that solemn deed.
“At the close of the four thousandth year, when Daniel’s seventy
weeks were accomplished, Justice and Mercy appeared on the hill of
Calvary; angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, principalities
and powers, left their thrones and mansions of glory, and bent over
the battlements of heaven, gazing in mute amazement and breathless
suspense upon the solemn scene. At the foot of Calvary’s hill was
beheld the Son of God. ‘Lo, I come,’ He said; ‘in the bond it is
written of me.’ He appeared without the gates of Jerusalem, crowned
with thorns, and followed by the weeping Church. It was with Him the
hour and the power of darkness; above Him were all the vials of
Divine wrath, and the thunders of the eternal Law; round Him were all
the powers of darkness,—the monsters of the pit, huge, fierce and
relentless, were there; the lions as a great army, gnashing their
teeth ready to tear him in pieces; the unicorns, a countless host,
were rushing onwards to thrust him through; and there were the bulls
of Bashan roaring terribly; the dragons of the pit unfolding
themselves, and shooting out their stings; and dogs, many, all round
the mountain.
“And He passed through this dense array, an unresisting victim led as
a lamb to the slaughter. He took the bond from the hand of Justice,
and, as He was nailed to the cross, He nailed it to the cross; and
all the hosts of hell, though invisible to man, had formed a ring
around it. The rocks rent, the sun shrank from the scene, as Justice
lifted his right hand to the throne, exclaiming, ‘Fires of heaven,
descend and consume this sacrifice!’ The fires of heaven, animated
with living spirit, answered the call, ‘We come! we come! and, when
we have consumed that victim, we will burn the world.’ They burst,
blazed, devoured; the blood of the victim was fast dropping; the
hosts of hell were shouting, until the humanity of Emmanuel gave up
the ghost. The fire went on burning until the ninth hour of the day,
but when it touched the Deity of the Son of God it expired; Justice
dropped the fiery sword at the foot of the cross; and the Law joined
with the prophets in witnessing to the righteousness which is by
faith in the Son of God, for all had heard the dying Redeemer
exclaim, ‘It is finished!’ The weeping Church heard it, and lifting
up her head cried too, ‘It is finished!’ Attending angels hovering
near heard it, and, winging their flight, they sang, ‘It is
finished!’ The powers of darkness heard the acclamations of the
universe, and hurried away from the scene in death-like feebleness.
He triumphed over them openly. The graves of the old Burial-ground
have been thrown open, and gales of life have blown over the valley
of dry bones, and an exceeding great army has already been sealed to
our God as among the living in Zion; for so the Bond was paid and
eternal redemption secured.”
This was certainly singular preaching; it reads like a leaf or two from
Klopstock. We may believe that the enjoyment with which it was heard was
rich and great, but we suppose that the taste of our time would regard it
as almost intolerable. Still, there are left among us some who can enjoy
the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and the _Fairy Queen_, and we do not see how,
in the presence of those pieces, a very arrogant exception can be taken
to this extraordinary sermon.
A more serious objection, perhaps, will be taken to the nomenclature, the
symbolic language in which the preacher expressed his theology. It
literally represented the theology of Wales at the time when it was
delivered; the theology was stern and awful; the features of God were
those of a stern and inflexible Judge; nature presented few relieving
lights, and man was not regarded as pleasant to look upon. Let the
reader remember all this, and perhaps he will be more tolerant to the
stern outline of this allegory; it is pleasant, now, to know that we have
changed all that, and that everywhere, and all around us, God, and
nature, and man are presented in rose-hued lights, and all conditions of
being are washed by rosy and pacific seas; we see nothing stern or awful
now, either in nature or in grace, in natural or in supernatural things;
Justice has become gentlemanly, and Law, instead of being stern and
terrible, is bland, and graceful, and beautiful as a woman’s smile!
In Christmas Evans’s day, it was not quite so. As to objections to the
mode of preaching, as in contrast with that style which adopts only the
sustained argument, and the rhetorical climax and relation, we have
already said that Christmas must be tried by quite another standard; we
have already said that he was a bard among preachers, and belonged to a
nation of bards. It was a kind of primeval song, addressed to people of
primeval instincts; but, whatever its merits or demerits may be, it
fairly represents the man and his preaching. It does not, indeed,
reflect the style of the modern mind; but, there are many writers, and
readers at present, who are carrying us back to the mediæval times, and
the monastic preachers of those ages, and among them we find innumerable
pieces of the same order of sustained allegory which we have just quoted
from Christmas Evans. What is it but to say, that the simple mind is
charmed with pictures,—it must have them; and such sermons as abound in
them, have power over it?
We believe we have rendered this singular passage with such fairness that
the reader may be enabled to form some idea of its splendour. When it
was repeated to Robert Hall, he pronounced it one of the finest
allegories in the language. When Christmas Evans was on a visit to Dr.
Raffles, the Doctor recited to him his own version, and, apparently with
some amazement, said, “Did you actually say all that?” “Oh, yes,” said
Christmas, “I did say all that, but I could never have put it into such
English.” And this we are greatly disposed to regard as impairing the
bold grandeur and strength of the piece; any rendering of it into English
must, as it seems to us, add to its prettiness, and therefore divest it
of its power.
Probably to the same period of the preacher’s history belongs another
sermon, which has always seemed to us a piece of undoubted greatness. It
is upon the same subject, the Crucifixion of Christ. We should think
that its delivery would, at any time, from such lips as his, produce
equally pathetic emotions. The allegory is not so sustained, but it is
still full of allegorical allusions derived from Scriptural expression.
“THE HIND OF THE MORNING.
“It is generally admitted that the twenty-second Psalm has particular
reference to Christ. This is evident from His own appropriation of
the first verse upon the cross: ‘My God! my God! why hast Thou
forsaken Me?’ The title of that Psalm is ‘_Aijeleth Shahar_,’ which
signifies ‘A Hart, or the Hind of the Morning.’ The striking
metaphors which it contains are descriptive of Messiah’s peculiar
sufferings. He is the Hart, or the Hind of the Morning, hunted by
the Black Prince, with his hell-hounds—by Satan, and all his allies.
The ‘dogs,’ the ‘lions,’ the ‘unicorns,’ and the ‘strong bulls of
Bashan,’ with their devouring teeth, and their terrible horns,
pursued Him from Bethlehem to Calvary. They beset Him in the manger,
gnashed upon Him in the garden, and well-nigh tore Him to pieces upon
the cross. And still they persecute Him in His cause, and in the
persons and interests of His people.
“The faith of the Church anticipated the coming of Christ, ‘like a
roe or a young hart,’ with the dawn of the day promised in Eden; and
we hear her exclaiming in the Canticles—‘The voice of my beloved!
behold, He cometh, leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the
hills!’ She heard Him announce His advent in the promise, ‘Lo, I
come to do Thy will, O God!’ and with prophetic eye, saw Him leaping
from the mountains of eternity to the mountains of time, and skipping
from hill to hill throughout the land of Palestine, going about doing
good. In the various types and shadows of the law, she beheld Him
‘standing by the wall, looking forth at the windows, showing Himself
through the lattice;’ and then she sang—‘Until the day break and the
shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like the roe or the
young hart upon the mountains of Bether!’ Bloody sacrifices revealed
Him to her view, going down to the ‘vineyards of red wine;’ whence
she traced Him to the meadows of Gospel ordinances, where ‘He feedeth
among the lilies’—to ‘the gardens of cucumbers,’ and ‘the beds of
spices;’ and then she sang to Him again—‘Make haste’—or, flee
away—‘my beloved! be thou like the roe or the young hart among the
mountains of spices.’
“Thus she longed to see Him, first ‘on the mountain of Bether,’ and
then ‘on the mountain of spices.’ On both mountains she saw Him
eighteen hundred years ago, and on both she may still trace the
footsteps of His majesty, and His mercy. The former, He hath tracked
with His own blood, and His path upon the latter is redolent of
frankincense and myrrh.
“Bether signifies division. This is the craggy mountain of Calvary;
whither the ‘Hind of the Morning’ fled, followed by all the wild
beasts of the forest, and the bloodhounds of hell; summoned to the
pursuit, and urged on, by the prince of perdition; till the victim,
in His agony, sweat great drops of blood—where He was terribly
crushed between the cliffs, and dreadfully mangled by sharp and
ragged rocks—where He was seized by Death, the great Bloodhound of
the bottomless pit—whence He leaped the precipice, without breaking a
bone; and sunk in the dead sea, sunk to its utmost depth, and saw no
corruption.
“Behold the ‘Hind of the Morning’ on that dreadful mountain! It is
the place of skulls, where Death holds his carnival in companionship
with worms, and hell laughs in the face of heaven. Dark storms are
gathering there—convolving clouds, charged with no common wrath.
Terrors set themselves in battle-array before the Son of God; and
tempests burst upon Him which might sweep all mankind in a moment to
eternal ruin. Hark! hear ye not the subterranean thunder? Feel ye
not the tremor of the mountain? It is the shock of Satan’s
artillery, playing upon the Captain of our Salvation. It is the
explosion of the magazine of vengeance. Lo, the earth is quaking,
the rocks are rending, the graves are opening, the dead are rising,
and all nature stands aghast at the conflict of Divine mercy with the
powers of darkness. One dread convulsion more, one cry of desperate
agony, and Jesus dies—an arrow has entered into His heart. Now leap
the lions, roaring, upon their prey; and the bulls of Bashan are
bellowing; and the dogs of perdition are barking; and the unicorns
toss their horns on high; and the devil, dancing with exultant joy,
clanks his iron chains, and thrusts up his fettered hands in defiance
towards the face of Jehovah!
“Go a little farther upon the mountain, and you come to ‘a new tomb
hewn out of the rock.’ There lies a dead body. It is the body of
Jesus. His disciples have laid it down in sorrow, and returned,
weeping, to the city. Mary’s heart is broken, Peter’s zeal is
quenched in tears, and John would fain lie down and die in his
Master’s grave. The sepulchre is closed up, and sealed, and a Roman
sentry placed at its entrance. On the morning of the third day,
while it is yet dark, two or three women come to anoint the body.
They are debating about the great stone at the mouth of the cave.
‘Who shall roll it away?’ says one of them. ‘Pity we did not bring
Peter, or John with us.’ But, arriving, they find the stone already
rolled away, and one sitting upon it, whose countenance is like
lightning, and whose garments are white as the light. The
steel-clad, iron-hearted soldiers lie around him, like men slain in
battle, having swooned with terror. He speaks: ‘Why seek ye the
living among the dead? He is not here; He is risen; He is gone forth
from this cave victoriously.’
“It is even so! For there are the shroud, and the napkin, and the
heavenly watchers; and when He awoke, and cast off His grave-clothes,
the earthquake was felt in the city, and jarred the gates of hell.
‘The Hind of the Morning’ is up earlier than any of His pursuers,
‘leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills.’ He is
seen first with Mary at the tomb; then with the disciples in
Jerusalem; then with two of them on the way to Emmaus; then going
before His brethren into Galilee; and, finally, leaping upon the top
of Olivet to the hills of Paradise; fleeing away to ‘the mountain of
spices,’ where He shall never more be hunted by the Black Prince and
his hounds.
“Christ is perfect master of gravitation, and all the laws of nature
are obedient to His will. Once He walked upon the water, as if it
were marble beneath His feet; and now, as He stands blessing His
people, the glorious Form, so recently nailed to the cross, and still
more recently cold in the grave, begins to ascend like ‘the living
creature’ in Ezekiel’s vision, ‘lifted up from the earth,’ till
nearly out of sight; when ‘the chariots of God, even thousands of
angels,’ receive Him, and haste to the celestial city, waking the
thrones of eternity with this jubilant chorus—‘Lift up your heads, O
ye gates! and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors! and the King of
glory shall come in!’
“Christ might have rode in a chariot of fire all the way from
Bethlehem to Calvary; but he preferred riding in a chariot of mercy,
whose lining was crimson, and whose ornament the malefactor’s cross.
How rapidly rolled his wheels over the hills and the plains of
Palestine, gathering up everywhere the children of affliction, and
scattering blessings like the beams of the morning! Now we find Him
in Cana of Galilee, turning water into wine; then treading the waves
of the sea, and hushing the roar of the tempest; then delivering the
demoniac of Gadara from the fury of a legion of fiends; then healing
the nobleman’s son at Capernaum; raising the daughter of Jairus, and
the young man of Nain; writing upon the grave of Bethany, ‘I am the
resurrection and the life;’ curing the invalid at the pool of
Bethesda; feeding the five thousand in the wilderness; preaching to
the woman by Jacob’s well, acquitting the adulteress, and shaming her
accusers; and exercising everywhere, in all his travels, the three
offices of Physician, Prophet, and Saviour, as he drove on towards
the place of skulls.
“Now we see the chariot surrounded with enemies—Herod, and Pilate,
and Caiaphas, and the Roman soldiers, and the populace of Jerusalem,
and thousands of Jews who have come up to keep the Passover, led on
by Judas and the devil. See how they rage and curse, as if they
would tear him from his chariot of mercy! But Jesus maintains his
seat, and holds fast the reins, and drives right on through the angry
crowd, without shooting an arrow, or lifting a spear upon his foes.
For in that chariot the King must ride to Calvary—Calvary must be
consecrated to mercy for ever. He sees the cross planted upon the
brow of the hill, and hastens forward to embrace it. No sacrifice
shall be offered to Justice on this day, but the one sacrifice which
reconciles heaven and earth. None of these children of Belial shall
suffer to-day. The bribed witnesses, and clamorous murderers, shall
be spared—the smiters, the scourgers, the spitters, the
thorn-plaiters, the nail drivers, the head-shakers—for Jesus pleads
on their behalf: ‘Father, forgive them! they know not what they do.
They are ignorant of Thy grace and truth. They are not aware of whom
they are crucifying. Oh, spare them! Let Death know that he shall
have enough to do with _me_ to-day! Let him open all his batteries
upon _me_! _My_ bosom is bare to the stroke. _I_ will gather all
the lances of hell in _my_ heart!’
“Still the chariot rushes on, and ‘fiery darts’ are thick and fast,
like a shower of meteors, on Messiah’s head, till He is covered with
wounds, and the blood flows down His garments, and leaves a crimson
track behind Him. As He passes, He casts at the dying malefactor a
glance of benignity, and throws him a passport into Paradise, written
with His own blood; stretches forth His sceptre, and touches the
prison-door of death, and many of the prisoners came forth, and the
tyrant shall never regain his dominion over them; rides triumphant
over thrones and principalities, and crushes beneath his wheels the
last enemy himself, and leaves the memorial of his march engraven on
the rocks of Golgotha!
“Christ is everywhere in the Scriptures spoken of as a Blessing; and
whether we contemplate His advent, His ministry, His miracles, His
agony, His crucifixion, His interment, His resurrection, or His
ascension, we may truly say, ‘All His paths drop fatness.’ All His
travels were on the road of mercy; and trees are growing up in His
footsteps, whose fruit is delicious food, and ‘whose leaves are for
the healing of the nations.’ He walketh upon the south winds,
causing propitious gales to blow upon the wilderness till songs of
joy awake in the solitary place, and the desert blossoms as the rose.
“If we will consider what the prophets wrote of the Messiah, in
connection with the evangelical history, we shall be satisfied that
none like Him, either before or since, ever entered our world, or
departed from it. Both God and man—at once the Father of eternity
and the Son of time, He filled the universe, while He was embodied
upon earth, and ruled the celestial principalities and powers, while
He wandered, a persecuted stranger, in Judea. ‘No man,’ saith He,
‘hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even
the Son of man who is in heaven.’
“Heaven was no strange place to Jesus. He talks of the mansions in
His Father’s house as familiarly as one of the royal family would
talk of Windsor Castle where he was born; and saith to His disciples,
‘I go to prepare a place for you; that where I am there ye may be
also.’ The glory into which He entered was His own glory—the glory
which He had with the Father before the world was. He had an
original and supreme right to the celestial mansions; and He acquired
a new and additional claim by His office as Mediator. Having
suffered for our sins, He ‘ought to enter into His glory.’ He ought,
because He is ‘God, blessed for ever;’ He ought, because He is the
representative of His redeemed people. He has taken possession of
the kingdom in our behalf, and left on record for our encouragement
this cheering promise, ‘To him that overcometh will I grant to sit
with me in my throne; even as I also have overcome, and am set down
with my Father in His throne.’
“The departure of God from Eden, and the departure of Christ from the
earth, were two of the sublimest events that ever occurred, and
fraught with immense consequences to our race. When Jehovah went out
from Eden, He left a curse upon the place for man’s sake, and drove
out man before him into an accursed earth. But when Jesus descended
from Olivet, He lifted the curse with Him, and left a blessing behind
Him—sowed the world with the seed of eternal blessings; ‘and instead
of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the briar
shall come up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a
name, and an everlasting sign, that shall not be cut off.’ He
ascended to intercede for sinners, and reopen Paradise to His people;
and when He shall come the second time, according to the promise,
with all His holy angels, then shall we be ‘caught up to meet the
Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.’
“‘The Lord is gone up with a shout!’ and has taken our redeemed
nature with Him. He is the Head of the Church, and is the
representative at the right hand of the Father. ‘He hath ascended on
high; He hath led captivity captive; He hath received gifts for men;
yea, for the rebellious also, that God may dwell among them.’ ‘Him
hath God exalted, with His own right hand, to be a Prince and a
Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.’ This
is the Father’s recognition of His ‘Beloved Son,’ and significant
acceptance of his sacrifice. ‘Wherefore God also hath highly exalted
Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in
the earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’
“The evidence of our Lord’s ascension is ample. He ascended in the
presence of many witnesses, who stood gazing after Him till a cloud
received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly
toward heaven, two angels appeared to them, and talked with them of
what they had seen. Soon afterward, on the day of Pentecost, He
fulfilled, in a remarkable manner, the promise which He had made to
His people: ‘If I go away I will send you another Comforter, who
shall abide with you for ever.’ Stephen, the first of His disciples
that glorified the Master by martyrdom, testified to his murderers,
‘Lo, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the
right hand of God!’ And John, the ‘beloved disciple,’ while an exile
‘in Patmos, for the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ,’
beheld Him ‘in the midst of the throne, as a Lamb that had been
slain!’ These are the evidences that our Lord is in heaven; these
are our consolations in the house of our pilgrimage.
“The Apostle speaks of the _necessity_ of this event, ‘Whom the
heaven _must_ receive.’
“Divine necessity is a golden chain reaching from eternity to
eternity, and encircling all the events of time. It consists of many
links all hanging upon each other; and not one of them can be broken
without destroying the support of the whole. The first link is in
God, ‘before the world was;’ and the last is in heaven, when the
world shall be no more. Christ is its Alpha, and Omega, and Christ
constitutes all its intervenient links. Christ in the bosom of the
Father, receiving the promise of eternal life, before the foundation
of the world, is the beginning; Christ in His sacrificial blood,
atoning for our sins, and pardoning and sanctifying all them that
believe, is the middle; and Christ in heaven, pleading the merit of
His vicarious sufferings, making intercession for the transgressors,
drawing all men unto Himself, presenting the prayers of His people,
and preparing their mansions, is the end.
“There is a necessity in all that Christ has done as our Mediator, in
all that He is doing on our behalf, and all that he has engaged to
do—the necessity of Divine love manifested, of Divine mercy
exercised, of Divine purposes accomplished, of Divine covenants
fulfilled, of Divine faithfulness maintained, of Divine justice
satisfied, of Divine holiness vindicated, and of Divine power
displayed. Christ felt this necessity while He tabernacled among us,
often declared it to His disciples, and acknowledged it to the Father
in the agony in the Garden.
“Behold Him wrestling in prayer, with strong crying and tears:
‘Father, save me from this hour! If it be possible, let this cup
pass from me!’ Now the Father reads to Him His covenant engagement,
which He signed and sealed with His own hand before the foundation of
the world. The glorious Sufferer replies, ‘Thy will be done! For
this cause came I unto this hour. I will drink the cup which Thou
hast mingled, and not a dreg of any of its ingredients shall be left
for my people. I will pass through the approaching dreadful night,
under the hidings of Thy countenance, bearing away the curse from my
beloved. Henceforth repentance is hidden from my eyes!’ Now, on His
knees, He reads the covenant engagements of the Father, and adds, ‘I
have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
Thou gavest Me to do. Now glorify Thou Me, according to Thy promise,
with Thine own Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the
world was. Father, I will also that they whom Thou hast given Me be
with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory. Thine they were,
and Thou hast given them to Me, on condition of My pouring out My
soul unto death. Thou hast promised them, through My righteousness
and meritorious sacrifice, the kingdom of heaven, which I now claim
on their behalf. Father, glorify My people, with Him whom Thou
lovedst before the foundation of the world!’
“This intercession of Christ for His saints, begun on earth, is
continued in heaven. This is our confidence and joy in our journey
through the wilderness. We know that our Joshua has gone over into
the land of our inheritance, where He is preparing the place of our
habitation for Israel; for it is His will that all whom He has
redeemed should be with Him for ever!
“And there is a text which speaks of the period when the great
purposes of our Lord’s ascension shall be fully accomplished: ‘Until
the times of the restitution of all things.’
“The period here mentioned is ‘the dispensation of the fulness of
time,’ when ‘the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in,’ and ‘the
dispersed of Judah’ shall be restored, and Christ shall ‘gather
together in Himself all things in heaven and in earth,’ overthrow his
enemies, establish his everlasting kingdom, deliver the groaning
creation from its bondage, glorify His people with Himself, imprison
the devil with his angels in the bottomless pit, and punish with
banishment from His presence them that obey not the Gospel.
“To this glorious consummation, the great travail of redemption, and
all the events of time, are only preparatory. It was promised in
Eden, and the promise was renewed and enlarged to Abraham, to Isaac,
and to Jacob. It was described in gorgeous oriental imagery by
Isaiah, and ‘the sweet Psalmist of Israel;’ and ‘spoken of by all the
Prophets, since the world began.’ Christ came into the world to
prepare the way for His future triumph—to lay on Calvary the ‘chief
corner-stone’ of a temple, which shall be completed at the end of
time, and endure through all eternity. He began the great
restitution. He redeemed His people with a price, and gave them a
pledge of redemption by power. He made an end of sin, abolished the
Levitical priesthood, and swallowed up all the types and shadows in
Himself. He sent home the beasts, overthrew the altars, and quenched
the holy fire; and, upon the sanctifying altar of His own divinity,
offered His own sinless humanity, which was consumed by fire from
heaven. He removed the seat of government from Mount Zion, in
Jerusalem, to Mount Zion above, where He sits—‘a Priest upon His
throne,’ drawing heaven and earth together, and establishing ‘the
covenant of peace between them both.’
“Blessed be God! we can now go to Jesus, the Mediator; passing by
millions of angels, and all ‘the spirits of just men made perfect;’
till we ‘come to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better
things than that of Abel.’ And we look for that blessed day, when
‘this gospel of the kingdom’ shall be universally prevalent; ‘and all
shall know the Lord, from the least even to the greatest;’ when there
shall be a ‘new heaven, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness;’ when both the political, and the moral aspects of our
world shall be changed; and a happier state of things shall exist
than has ever been known before,—when the pestilence, the famine, and
the sword shall cease to destroy, and ‘the saints of the Most High
shall possess the kingdom’ in ‘quietness, and assurance for ever.’
Then cometh the end, when Emmanuel ‘shall destroy in this mountain
the veil of the covering cast over all people, and swallow up death
in victory!’”
Such sermons as we have quoted surely convey a living and distinct idea
of the kind of power which made the man remarkable. It is, from every
aspect, very unlike the preaching to which we are now accustomed, and
which, therefore, finds general favour with us; it is dogmatic in the
last degree; nothing in it is tentative, or hypothetical, yet the
dogmatism is not that of a schoolman, or a casuist; it is the dogmatism
of burning conviction, of a profound and unquestioning faith in the
veracity of New Testament truth, and the corresponding light and
illustration from the Old. In these sermons, and others we shall place
before our readers, there is nothing pretty, no nice metaphysical or
critical analysis, no attempt to carve giants’ heads on cherry-stones.
He realized his office as a preacher, not as one set apart to minister to
intellectual luxury, or vanity, but to stand, announcing eternal truth.
The people to whom he spoke were not _dilettantic_, he was no
_dilettante_. We can quite conceive,—and therefore these remarks,—that
the greater number even of the more eminent men in our modern pulpit will
regard the style of Christmas Evans with contempt. We are only setting
it forth in these pages. Evidently it told marvellously on the
Principality; it “searched Jerusalem with candles;” those who despise it
had better settle the question with Christmas Evans himself, and show the
superiority of their method by their larger ministerial usefulness.
The worth and value of great preaching and great sermons must depend upon
the measure to which they represent the preacher’s own familiarity with
the truths he touches, and proclaims. The history of the mind of
Christmas Evans is, from this point of view, very interesting. We can
only get at it from the papers found after his death; but they reveal the
story of the life, walk, and triumph of faith in his mind and heart. He
kept no journal; but still we have the record of his communions with God
amongst the mountains,—acts of consecration to God quite remarkable,
which he had thought it well to commit to paper, that he might remind
himself of the engagements he had made. It was after some such season
that he said to a brother minister, “Brother, the doctrine, the
confidence, and strength I feel will make people dance with joy in some
parts of Wales;” and then, as the tears came into his eyes whilst he was
speaking, he said again, “Yes, brother!”
Little idea can be formed of the Welsh preacher from the life of the
minister in England. The congregations, we have seen, lay wide, and
scattered far apart. Often, in Wales ourselves, we have met the minister
pursuing his way on his horse, or pony, to his next “publication;” very
often, his Bible in his hand, reading it as he slowly jogged along. So
Christmas Evans passed his life, constantly, either on foot or on
horseback, urging his way; sometimes through a country frowning as if
smitten by a blow of desolation, and at others, laughing in loveliness
and beauty; sometimes through the hot summer, when the burning beams
poured from the craggy mountains; sometimes in winter, through the snow
and rain and coldest inclemency, to fulfil his engagements. For the
greater part of his life his income was never more than thirty pounds a
year, and for the first part only about from ten to seventeen. It looks
a wretched sum; but we may remember that Luther’s income was never much
more; and, probably, what seems to us a miserable little income, was very
much further removed from want, and even poverty, than in other, less
primitive, circumstances is often an income of hundreds. Certainly,
Christmas Evans was never in want; always, not only comfortable, but able
even to spare, from his limited means, subscriptions to some of the great
societies of the day.