_THE PREACHERS OF WILD WALES_.
Rees Pritchard, and “The Welshman’s Candle”—A Singular Conversion—The
Intoxicated Goat—The Vicar’s Memory—“God’s better than All”—Howell
Harris—Daniel Rowlands at Llangeitho—Philip Pugh—The Obscure
Nonconformist—Llangeitho—Charles of Bala—His Various Works of Christian
Usefulness—The Ancient Preachers of Wild Wales characterised—Thomas Rhys
Davies—Impressive Paragraphs from his Sermons—Evan Jones, an Intimate
Friend of Christmas Evans—Shenkin of Penhydd—A Singular Mode of
Illustrating a Subject—Is the Light in the Eye?—Ebenezer Morris—High
Integrity—Homage of Magistrates paid to his Worth—“Beneath”—Ebenezer
Morris at Wotton-under-Edge—His Father, David Morris—Rough-and-ready
Preachers—Thomas Hughes—Catechised by a Vicar—Catching the Congregation
by Guile—Sammy Breeze—A Singular Sermon in Bristol in the Old Time—A
Cloud of Forgotten Worthies—Dr. William Richards—His Definition of
Doctrine—Davies of Castell Hywel, the Pastor of Christmas Evans, and of
Davies of Swansea—Some Account of Welsh Preaching in Wild Wales, in
Relation to the Welsh Proverbs, Ancient Triads, Metaphysics, and
Poetry—Remarks on the Welsh Language and the Welsh Mind—Its Secluded and
Clannish Character.
AMONGST the characteristic names of Wales, remarkable in that department
to which we shall devote this chapter, whoever may be passed by, the name
of Rees Pritchard, the ancient Vicar of Llandovery, ought not to go
unmentioned. We suppose no book, ever published in Wales, has met the
acceptance and circulation of “Canwyll-y-Cymry,” or “The Welshman’s
Candle.” Since the day of its publication, it has gone through perfectly
countless editions; and there was a time, not long since, when there was
scarcely a family in Wales, of any intelligence, which did not possess a
copy.
Its author was born in the parish of which he became the vicar, so far
back as 1575. He was educated at Oxford. His early life was more
remarkable for dissipation of every kind, than for any pursuits
compatible with his sacred profession. He was, especially, an inveterate
drunkard; the worst of his parishioners were scandalised by his example,
and said, “Bad as we may be, we are not half so bad as the parson!” The
story of his conversion is known to many, who are not acquainted with his
life, and work, and the eminence to which he attained; and it certainly
illustrates how very strange have been some of the means of man’s
salvation, and how foolish things have confounded the wise. As George
Borrow says in his “Wild Wales,” in his account of Pritchard, “God,
however, who is aware of what every man is capable, had reserved Rees
Pritchard for great, and noble things, and brought about his conversion
in a very remarkable manner.”
He was in the habit of spending much of his time in the public-house,
from which he was, usually, trundled home in a wheelbarrow, in a state of
utter insensibility. The people of the house had a large he-goat, which
went in, and out, and mingled with the guests. One day, Pritchard called
the goat to him, and offered it some ale, and the creature, so far from
refusing it, drank it greedily, and soon after fell down in a state of
intoxication, and lay quivering, to the great delight of Pritchard, and
his companions, who, however, were horrified at this conduct in one, who
was appointed to be their example, and teacher. Shortly after, as usual,
Pritchard himself was trundled home, utterly intoxicated. He was at
home, and ill, the whole of the next day; but on the day following, he
went down to the public-house, and called for his pipe, and tankard. The
goat came into the room, and again he held the tankard to the creature’s
mouth; but it turned away its head in disgust, hurried away, and would
come near him no more. This startled the man. “My God!” he said, “is
this poor dumb creature wiser than I?” He pursued, in his mind, the
train of feeling awakened by conscience; he shrank, with disgust, from
himself. “But, thank God!” he said, “I am yet alive, and it is not too
late to mend. The goat has taught me a lesson; I will become a new man.”
Smashing his pipe, he left his tankard untasted, and hastened home. He,
indeed, commenced a new career. He became, and continued for thirty
years, a great, and effective preacher; “preaching,” says Mr. Borrow,
“the inestimable efficacy of Christ’s blood-shedding.”
Those poetical pieces which he wrote at intervals, and which are called
“The Welshman’s Candle,” appear only to have been gathered into a volume,
and published, after his death. The room in which he lived, and wrote,
appears to be still standing; and Mr. Borrow says: “Of all the old houses
in Llandovery, the old Vicarage is, by far, the most worthy of attention,
irrespective of the wonderful monument of God’s providence, and grace,
who once inhabited it;” and the old vicar’s memory is as fresh in
Llandovery, to-day, as ever it was. While Mr. Borrow was looking at the
house, a respectable-looking farmer came up, and was about to pass; “but
observing me,” he says, “and how I was employed, he stopped, and looked
now at me, and now at the antique house. Presently he said, ‘A fine old
place, sir, is it not? But do you know who lived there?’ Wishing to
know what the man would say, provided he thought I was ignorant as to the
ancient inmate, I turned a face of inquiry upon him, whereupon he
advanced towards me, two or three steps, and placing his face so close to
mine, that his nose nearly touched my cheek, he said, in a kind of
piercing whisper, ‘_The Vicar_!’ then drawing his face back, he looked me
full in the eyes, as if to observe the effect of his intelligence, gave
me two or three nods, as if to say, ‘He did indeed,’ and departed. _The_
Vicar of Llandovery had then been dead nearly two hundred years. Truly
the man in whom piety, and genius, are blended, is immortal upon earth!”
“The Welshman’s Candle” is a set of homely, and very rememberable verses,
putting us, as far as we are able to judge, in mind of our Thomas Tusser.
Mr. Borrow gives us a very pleasant taste in the following literal,
vigorous translation, which we may presume to be his own:—
“GOD’S BETTER THAN ALL.”
“God’s better than heaven, or aught therein;
Than the earth, or aught we there can win;
Better than the world, or its wealth to me—
God’s better than all that is, or can be.
“Better than father, than mother, than nurse;
Better than riches, oft proving a curse;
Better than Martha, or Mary even—
Better, by far, is the God of heaven.
“If God for thy portion thou hast ta’en,
There’s Christ to support thee in every pain;
The world to respect thee thou wilt gain;
To fear thee, the fiend, and all his train.
“Of the best of portions, thou choice didst make,
When thou the high God to thyself didst take;
A portion, which none from thy grasp can rend,
Whilst the sun, and the moon on their course shall wend.
“When the sun grows dark, and the moon turns red;
When the stars shall drop, and millions dread;
When the earth shall vanish, with its pomp, in fire,
Thy portion shall still remain entire.
“Then let not thy heart, though distressed, complain;
A hold on thy portion firm maintain.
Thou didst choose the best portion, again I say;
Resign it not till thy dying day!”
But the age of preachers in Wales, to which the following pages will more
immediately refer, commences with those two great men, who were indeed
the Whitfield, and the Wesley of Wales—Howell Harris of Trevecca, and
Daniel Rowlands of Llangeitho. It is remarkable that these two men, born
to be such inestimable, and priceless blessings to their country, were
born within a year of each other—Harris at Trevecca, in 1714, Rowlands at
Pantybeidy, in Cardiganshire, in 1713. As to Harris, he is spoken of as
the most successful preacher that ever ascended a pulpit, or platform in
Wales; and yet nothing is more certain, than that he neither aimed to
preach, nor will his sermons, so far as any knowledge can be obtained of
them, stand the test of any kind of criticism. This only is certain,
their unquestioned, and greatly pre-eminent usefulness.
He did not deliver composed sermons, but unpremeditated addresses, on
sin, and its tremendous consequences; on death, and the judgment, and the
world to come. It is said, “His words fell like balls of fire, on the
careless, and impenitent multitudes.” Himself destined for a clergyman
of the Church of England, an Oxford man, and with a fair promise of
success in the Church—since before he left Oxford, he had a benefice
offered him—he repeatedly applied, in vain, for ordination. Throughout
his life, he continued ardently attached to the services of the Church of
England.
It was, unhappily, from that Church, in Wales, he encountered his most
vehement opposition, and cruel persecution. He, however, roused the
whole country,—within the Church of England, and without,—from its state
of apathy, and impiety; while we quite agree with his biographer, who
says: “Any attempt to account philosophically for the remarkable effects
which everywhere attended the preaching of Howell Harris, would be
nothing better than an irreverent trifling with a solemn subject. All
that can be said, with propriety, is, that he was an extraordinary
instrument, raised by Providence, at an extraordinary time, to accomplish
an extraordinary work.”
But Llangeitho, and its vicar, seem to demand a more lengthened notice,
as coming more distinctly within the region of the palpable, and
apprehensible. Daniel Rowlands was a clergyman, and the son of a
clergyman. At twenty-two years of age, he was appointed perpetual
curate, or incumbent, of the united parishes of Nantcwnlle and
Llangeitho, at a salary of ten pounds a year. He never received any
higher preferment in the Church on earth, although so eminent a blessing
to his country. He must have been some such man as our William Grimshaw,
of Haworth. When he entered upon his curacy, he was quite an unconverted
young man, given to occasional fits of intoxication, and in the summer he
left his pulpit, to take his part, with his parishioners, in the sports,
and games in the neighbouring fields, or on the village green.
But, in the immediate neighbourhood of his own hamlet, ministered a good
and consistent Nonconformist, Philip Pugh, a learned, lovable, and lowly
man; and, in the smaller round of his sphere, a successful preacher.
Daniel Rowlands appears to have been converted under a sermon of the
eminent Rev. Griffith Jones of Llanddouror, at Llanddewibrefi; but it was
to Philip Pugh that he was led for that instruction, and influence, which
instrumentally helped to develop his character. It would seem that
Rowlands was a man bound to be in earnest; but conversion set on fire a
new genius in the man. He developed, hitherto undiscovered, great
preaching power, and his church became crowded. Still, for the first
five years of his new course of life, he did not know that more glorious
and beautiful Gospel which he preached through all the years following.
He was a tremendous alarmist; the dangers of sin, and the terrors of the
eternal judgments, were his topics; and his hearers shrank, and recoiled,
while they were fascinated to listen. Again, the venerable Nonconformist
stepped in; Philip Pugh pointed out his defect. “My dear sir,” said he,
“preach the Gospel—preach the Gospel to the people. Give them the balm
of Gilead; show the blood of Christ; apply it to their spiritual wounds;
show the necessity of faith in a crucified Redeemer.” “I am afraid,”
said Rowlands, “that I have not all that faith myself, in its full
vigour, and exercise.” “Preach on it,” said Mr. Pugh; “preach on it,
until you feel it in that way,—it will come. If you go on preaching in
the way you have been doing, you will kill half the people in the
country. You thunder out the curses of the law, and preach in such a
terrific manner, that nobody can stand before you. Preach the Gospel!”
And again the young clergyman followed the advice of his patriarchal
friend, and unnumbered thousands in Wales had occasion, through long
following years, to bless God for it.
Does not the reader call up a very beautiful picture of these two, in
that old and obscure Welsh hamlet, nearly a hundred and fifty years
since?—the conversation of such an one as Paul, the aged, with his young
son, Timothy; and if anything were needed to increase our sense of
admiration of the young clergyman, it would be that he did not disdain to
receive lessons from old age, and an old age covered with the indignities
attaching to an outlawed Nonconformist. In Wales, there were very many
men like Philip Pugh; we may incidentally mention the names of several in
the course of these pages—names well worthy of the commendation in
Johnson’s perfect lines:
“Their virtues walked their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found
Their single talent well employed.
“And still they fill affection’s eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind;
And let not arrogance deny
Its praise to merit unrefined.”
Then there opened a great career before Rowlands, and Llangeitho became
as a shrine in evangelical Wales. He received invitations to preach in
every neighbourhood of the Principality; many churches were opened to
him, and where they were not, he took freely, and cheerfully, to the
chapels, or the fields. His words, and accents were of that marvellous
kind we have identified with Welsh preaching. Later on, and in other
times, people said, he found his successor in Davies of Swansea; and the
highest honour they could give to Swansea, in Davies’ day, was that “it
was another Llangeitho.”
Rowlands had the power of the thunder, and the dew; he pressed an
extraordinary vitality into words, which had often been heard before, so
that once, while reading the Church Service, in his own church, he gave
such a dreadful tenderness to the words, “By thine agony, and bloody
sweat!” that the service was almost stopped, and the people broke forth
into a passion of feeling. Christmas Evans says: “While Rowlands was
preaching, the fashion of his countenance became altered; his voice
became as if inspired; the worldly, dead, and careless spirit was cast
out by his presence. The people, as it were, drew near to the cloud,
towards Christ, and Moses, and Elijah. Eternity, with its realities,
rushed upon their vision. These mighty influences were felt, more or
less, for fifty years. Thousands gathered at Llangeitho for communion
every month, and they came there from every county in Wales.”
Such power there is in human words when divinely wielded; such was the
spiritual power of Daniel Rowlands. Well does one writer say, the story
of Llangeitho, well written, would read like a chapter in religious
romance. It is very doubtful whether we have the record of any other man
who drew such numbers to the immediate circle of his ministry, as
Rowlands. He did not itinerate so largely as most of the great Welsh
preachers. In an obscure spot in the interior of Cardiganshire, in an
age of bad roads, and in a neighbourhood where the roads were especially
bad, he addressed his immense concourses of people. His monthly
communion was sometimes attended by as many as three thousand
communicants, of whom, often, many were clergymen. Upwards of a hundred
ministers ascribe to him the means of their conversion. Thus, in his
day, it was a place of pilgrimages; and even now, there are not a few who
turn aside, to stand, with wonder, upon the spot where Rowlands exercised
his marvellous ministry.
The four great Welsh preachers, Christmas Evans, John Elias, Williams of
Wern, and Davies of Swansea, on whose pulpit powers, and method, we have
more distinctly dilated, may be styled the tetrarchs of the pulpit of
Wild Wales of these later times. Their eminence was single, and
singular. Their immense powers unquestioned: rivals, never, apparently,
by their own selection, the great Welsh religious mind only rivalled them
with each other. After them it might be said, “Great was the company of
preachers,”—great, not merely in number, carrying also influence, and
usefulness of another kind; perhaps even superior to those honoured
names.
How, for instance, can we do sufficient honour to the labours of CHARLES
OF BALA? This truly apostolic man was born at Llanvihangel, in 1755.
While yet a boy, he managed to introduce family worship into his father’s
house; but it was in his eighteenth year that he heard the great Daniel
Rowlands preach, and he says: “From that day I found a new heaven, and a
new earth, to enjoy; the change experienced by a blind man, on receiving
his sight, is not greater than that which I felt on that day.” In his
twentieth year he went to Oxford, and received Deacon’s orders, and was
appointed to a curacy in Somersetshire; he took his degree at his
University, but he could never obtain priest’s orders; in every instance
objection was made to what was called his Methodism.
The doors of the Establishment were thus closed against him, and he was
compelled to cast in his lot with the Welsh Methodists, in 1785. Before
this, he had preached for Daniel Rowlands in his far-famed church at
Llangeitho, and the great old patriarch simply uttered a prophecy about
him when he said, “Mr. Charles is the gift of God to North Wales.” He
was an eminent preacher, but it was rather in other ways that he became
illustrious, in the great religious labours of his country. Moving about
to preach, from place to place, his heart became painfully impressed, and
distressed, by the great ignorance of the people everywhere, and that
such multitudes were unable to read the Word of God; so he determined on
the establishment of schools upon a singular principle.
It was two or three years before he commenced his more settled labours in
Wales, that Robert Raikes had originated the Sunday-school idea in
Gloucester. Thomas Charles was the first to seize upon the idea, and
introduce it into his own country. Charles had an organizing, and
administrative, mind; he fixed upon innumerable places, where he settled
schoolmasters, for periods of from six to nine, and twelve months, to
teach the people to read, giving them the initial elements, and
rudiments, of education, and then removing these masters to another
locality.
So he filled the country with schools—Sabbath, and night-schools. He
visited the schools himself, periodically, catechizing the children
publicly; and in the course of his lifetime, he had the satisfaction of
seeing the aspect of things entirely changed. He used no figure of
speech, when, towards the close of his life, he said, “The desert
blossoms as the rose, and the dry land has become streams of water.” To
these purposes of his heart he was able to devote whatever money he
received from the work of the ministry; he testifies affectionately that
“the wants of my own family were provided for by the industry of my dear
wife;” and he received some help by donations from England. He found,
everywhere, a dearth of Bibles, and it is curious to read that, although
the Church of England would not receive him as one of her ministers, when
his work became established, the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge made him, after considerable reluctance, a grant of no less
than ten thousand Welsh Bibles. After this, he went to London, for the
purpose of establishing a Society to supply Wales with the Holy
Scriptures. It was at a meeting of the Religious Tract Society, which
was called together for that purpose, that it was resolved to establish
the British and Foreign Bible Society; and before that society had been
established ten years, it had supplied Wales with a hundred thousand
copies of the Word of God.
Other men were great preachers, but Thomas Charles was, in the truest
sense of the word, a bishop, an overseer,—travelling far, and wide,
preaching, catechizing, administrating, placing and removing labourers.
All his works, and words, his inward, and his outward life, show the
active, high-toned saintliness, and enthusiastic holiness, of the man.
There is, perhaps, no other to whom Wales is so largely indebted for the
giving direction, organization, and usefulness to all religious labour,
as to him. His modesty transcended his gifts, and his activity. John
Campbell, of Kingsland, himself noted in all the great, and good works of
that time, relates that at a meeting, at Lady Anne Erskine’s, at which
Mr. Charles was requested to state the circumstances which had made
little Bala a kind of spiritual metropolis of the Principality of Wales,
“he spoke for about an hour, and never once mentioned himself, although
he was the chief instrument, and actor, in the whole movements which had
made the place so eminent.”
This good man, John Campbell, afterwards wrote to Mr. Charles’s
biographer: “I never was at Bala but once, which was not long after his
removal to the regions of immortality; and such was my veneration for his
character, and labours, that, in approaching it, I felt as if I was about
coming in sight of Sinai, or Jerusalem, or treading on classical ground.
The events of his life, I believe, are viewed with more interest by the
glorified than the battles of Actium, or Waterloo.”
But, as a preacher, he was unlike those men, whose words moved upon the
wheels of thunder, and who seemed to deal with the lightnings of
imagination, and eloquence. As we read his words, they seem to flow with
refreshing sweetness. He was waited for, and followed everywhere, but
his utterances had nothing of the startling powers we have seen; we
should think he preached, rather, to those who knew, by experience, what
it is to grow in grace. There is a glowing light of holiness about his
words—a deep, sweet, experimental reality. Of course, being a Welshman,
his thoughts were pithily expressed. They were a sort of spiritual
proverbs, in which he turned over, again and again, some idea, until it
became like the triads of his country’s literature; and dilating upon an
idea, the various aspects of it became like distinct facets, setting
forth some pleasant ray.
Such was Thomas Charles. Wales lost him at the age of sixty—a short
life, if we number it by years; a long life, if we consider all he
accomplished in it; and, to this day, his name is one of the most revered
throughout the Principality.
It is impossible to do the justice even of mentioning the names of many
of those men, who “served their generation” so well, “according to the
will of God, and then fell asleep.” And it is as necessary, as it is
interesting, to notice how the various men, moved by the Spirit of God,
found Him leading, and guiding them in the path of labour, their
instincts chose.
In the history of preaching, we believe there is no more curious chapter
than this, of these strange preachers in Wales. They have an
idiosyncrasy as entirely, and peculiarly, their own, as is that of the
country in which they carried on their ministrations. The preaching
friars of the times we call the dark, or middle ages, are very
remarkable, from the occasional glimpses we are able to obtain of them.
Very remarkable the band of men, evoked by the rise of Methodism in
England,—those who spread out all over the land, treading the paths
indicated by the voice, and finger of Whitfield, or Wesley. Very
entertaining are the stories of the preachers of the backwoods of
America, the sappers, and miners, who cleared a way for the planting of
the Word among the wild forests of the Far West.
These Welsh preachers were unlike any of them,—they had a character
altogether their own. A great many of them were men of eminent genius,
glowing with feeling, and fancy; never having known college training, or
culture, they were very often men who had, somehow, attained a singular
variety of knowledge, lore, and learning, which, perhaps, would be
despised as unscientific, and unclassified, by the schools, but which was
not the less curious, and, to the Celtic mind, enchanting.
They all lived, and fared hard; all their thoughts, and fancies were
high. If they marched before us now, the nineteenth century would, very
likely, regard them as a set of very rough tykes. Perhaps the nineteenth
century would regard Elijah, Amos, and Nahum, and sundry other equally
respectable persons, in much the same manner. Rude, and rough in gait,
and attire, the rudeness, and the roughness would, perhaps, be forgotten
by us, if we could interpret the torrent, and the wail of their speech,
and be, for a short time, beneath the power of the visions, of which they
were the rapt seers, and unveilers. We wonder that no enthusiastic
Welshman has used an English pen to pourtray the lives, and portraits of
a number of these Welsh worthies; to us, several of them—notably, John
Elias, and Christmas Evans—seem to realize the idea of the Ancient
Mariner,—
“I pass like night from land to land,
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me—
To him my tale I teach.”
For instance, how many people in England ever heard the name of THOMAS
RHYS DAVIES, an extraordinary man? And he left an extraordinary diary
behind him, for he seems to have been a very methodical man; and his
diary shows that he preached during his lifetime at least 13,145 times,
and this diary contains a distinct record of the time, place, and text;
and it is said that there is scarcely a river, brook, or tarn, from
Conway to Llansanan, from Llanrwst to Newbridge, from the sea at
Llandudno, to the waters of the Berwyn mountains, in whose waves he had
not baptized.
In fact, he was, perhaps, in his own particular, and peculiar line,
second to none of the great Welsh preachers; only, it is said that his
power was inexplicable, and yet that it stood the severest tests of
popularity. His sermons are said to have been exceedingly simple, and
very rememberable; they sprang out of a rare personal charm; he was
himself; but, perhaps, if he resembled one of his great brethren, it
would be Williams of Wern. His style was sharp, pointed, axiomatic, but
antithetic, never prodigal of words, his sermons were short; but he was
able to avail himself of any passing circumstance in the congregation,
and to turn it to good account. Once, when a congregation seemed to be
even more than usually disposed to cough, he said, “Cough away, my
friends, it will not disturb me in the least; it will rather help me than
not, for if you are coughing, I shall be sure that you are awake.”
He had that rare gift in the preacher, perfect self-possession, the grand
preliminary to mastery over a congregation, an entire mastery over
himself. All great Welsh preachers, however they may sometimes dilate,
and expand truths into great paintings, and prolonged descriptions, excel
in the pithy, and proverb-uttering power; but Thomas Rhys Davies was
remarkable in this. Here are a few illustrations:—
“Ignorance is the devil’s college.”
“There are only three passages in the Bible which declare what God
is, although there are thousands which speak about Him. God is a
Spirit, God is Light, and God is Love.”
“Pharaoh fought ten great battles with God, and did not gain one.”
“The way through the Red Sea was safe enough for Israel, but not for
Pharaoh; he had no business to go that way, it was a private road,
that God had opened up for His own family.”
“Let the oldest believer remember that Satan is older.”
“Christ is the Bishop, not of titles, but of souls.”
“Moses was learned, but slow of speech; it was well that he was so,
or, perhaps, he would not have found time to write the law. Aaron
had the gift of speech, and it does not appear that he had any other
gift.”
“If you have no pleasure in your religion, make haste to change it.”
“Judas is much blamed for betraying Christ for three pounds; many, in
our day, betray Him a hundred times for three pence.”
“Pharaoh commanded that Moses should be drowned; in after days,
Pharaoh was paid back in his own coin.”
“Many have a brother’s face, but Christ has a brother’s heart.”
Such was Thomas Rhys Davies; like Christmas Evans, journeying from North
through South Wales, he was taken ill in the same house in which
Christmas Evans died. Conscious of his approaching death, he begged that
he might die in the same bed; this was not possible, but he was buried in
the same grave.
Then there was EVAN JONES; he had been a _protégé_ of Christmas Evans;
Christmas Evans appears to have brought him forward, giving his verdict
on his suitability as to the ministry. Christmas Evans was able to
appreciate the young man, for he seems to have possessed really brilliant
powers; in his country, and in his land’s language, he attained to the
distinction of a bard; and it is said that his poetry rose to an
elevation of wild, and daring grandeur. As a preacher, he does not
appear to have studied to be popular, or to seek to adapt his sermons to
the multitude; he probably moved through cloudy grandeurs, from whence,
however, he sometimes descended, with an odd quaintness, which, if always
surprising, was sometimes reprehensible. Once, he was expatiating,
glowingly, on the felicities of the heavenly state, in that tone, and
strain which most preachers love, occasionally, to indulge, and which
most hearers certainly, occasionally, enjoy; he was giving many
descriptive delineations of heavenly blessedness, and incidentally said,
“There they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” There was sitting
beneath him a fervent brother, who, probably, not knowing what he said,
sounded forth a hearty “Amen!” Evan heard it, looked the man full in the
face, and said, “Ah, you’ve had enough of it, have you?”
This man was, perhaps, in his later years, the most intimate friend of
Christmas Evans. Christmas poured his brilliant imagination, couched in
his grand, although informal, rhetoric over the multitudes; Evan Jones
frequently soared into fields whither, only here and there, an eye could
follow his flight; but when the two friends were alone, their spirits
could mingle pleasantly, for their minds were cast very much in the same
mould; and when Christmas Evans died, it was this friend who published in
Welsh one of the most graceful tributes to his memory.
In the history of the preaching, and preachers of a hundred years since,
we meet, of course, with many instances of men, who possessed
considerable power, but allied with much illiterate roughness; still, the
power made itself very manifest—a power of illustrating truth, and making
it clearly apprehended. Such a preacher must SHENKIN OF PENHYDD have
been, rough, and rude farmer as he was, blending, as was not at all
uncommon then, and even in our own far more recent knowledge, the
occupations of a farmer, and the ordained minister. Shenkin has left a
very living reputation behind him; indeed, from some of the accounts we
have read of him, we should regard him as quite a type of the rude, yet
very effective, Welsh orator.
Whatever the Welsh preacher had to say, however abstract, it had to be
committed to an illustration, to make it palpable, and plain. In those
early times, a very large room, or barn, in which were several hundreds
of people, would, perhaps, have only one solitary candle, feebly
glimmering over the gloom. It was in such circumstances, or such a
scene, that Shenkin was once preaching on Christ as the Light of the
world. In the course of his sermon, he came to show that the world was
not its own light, and announced to his hearers what, perhaps, might
startle some of them, that “light was not in the eye.” It seemed as if
he had no sooner said this, than he felt it to be a matter that required
illustration. As he warmed with his subject, going round, and round to
make his meaning plain, but all the time seeming to fear that he was not
doing much towards it with his rustic congregation, he suddenly turned to
the solitary candle, and blew it out, leaving his congregation in utter
darkness. “There,” he exclaimed, triumphantly, to his invisible
congregation, “what do you say to that? Is the light in the eye?” This,
of course, settled the matter in the minds of the most obtuse; but it was
still a serious matter to have to relight, in a lonely little chapel, an
extinguished candle.
He was a singular creature, this Shenkin. Not many Welsh preachers have
a greater variety of odd stories told than he, of his doings, and
sayings. He had a very downright, and straightforward method of speech.
Thus, he would say, “There are many who complain that they can scarcely
remember anything they hear. Have done with your lying!” he exclaimed.
“I’ll be bound to say you remember well what you sold your old white
horse for at Llandaff fair three years ago. Six or seven pounds, was it?
Certainly that has not escaped your memory. You can remember anything
but the Gospel.” And many of his images were much more of the
rough-and-ready, than of the classical, order. “Humility,” he once said,
“is as beautiful an ornament as a cow’s tail; but it grows, like the
cow’s tail, downwards.”
Wales was covered with men like this. Every district possessed them, and
many of them have found their memorial in some little volume, although,
in most instances, they only survive in the breath of popular
remembrance, and tradition.
One of the mightiest of these sons of thunder, who has left behind him a
name, and fame, scarcely inferior to the great ones on whom we have more
lengthily dwelt, was EBENEZER MORRIS. He was a fine, free, cheerful
spirit; his character sparkled with every Christian virtue,—a man of rare
gifts, and grace. With a severe sense of what was just in the relations
of life, and what constituted the principles of a strong theology,
keeping his unblemished course beneath the dominion of a peaceful
conscience, he enjoyed, more than many, the social fireside chat, with
congenial friends. Although a pastor, and a preacher of wide fame, he
was also a farmer; for he was one of an order of men, of whom it has been
said, that good people were so impressed with the privilege conferred by
preaching the gospel, that their hearers were careful not to deprive them
of the full enjoyment of it, by remunerating their labours too
abundantly.
Ebenezer Morris held a farm, and the farmer seems to have been worthy of
the preacher. A story is told of him that, wanting to buy a cow, and
going down to the fair, he found one for sale which he thought would suit
him, and he bought it at the price named by its owner. Some days after,
Mr. Morris found that the price of cattle had gone up considerably, and
meeting the previous owner of the cow, he said, “Look here, I find you
gave me too great a bargain the other day; the cow is worth more than I
purchased her for,—here is another guinea; now I think we shall be about
right.”
There are several stories told, in the life of this good, and great man,
showing that he could not take an unfair advantage, that he was above
everything mean, unfair, and selfish, and that guineas, and farms weighed
nothing with him in the balance against righteousness, and truth. His
influence over his whole country was immense; so much so, that a
magistrate addressed him once in public, saying, “We are under great
obligations to you, Mr. Morris, for keeping the country in order, and
preserving peace among the people; you are worth more than any dozen of
us.” On one occasion he was subpœnaed, to attend before a court of
justice, to give evidence in a disputed case. As the book was handed to
him, that he might take the oath, the presiding magistrate said, “No! no!
take it away; there is no necessity that Mr. Morris should swear at all;
his word is enough.”
His appearance in preaching, his entire presence, is described as most
majestic, and commanding: his voice was very loud, and it is said, a word
from his mouth would roll over the people like a mighty wave. “Look at
that window,” said an aged deacon, in North Wales, to a minister, who had
come to preach at the chapel to which the former belonged, “look at that
window! It was there that Ebenezer Morris stood, when he preached his
great sermon from the words, ‘The way of life is above to the wise, that
he may depart from hell beneath,’ and when we all turned pale while we
were listening to him.” “Ah!” said the minister, “do you remember any
portion of that sermon?” “Remember!” said the old deacon; “remember, my
good man? I should think I do, and shall remember for ever. Why, there
was no flesh here that could stand before it!” “What did he say?” said
the minister. “Say! my good man,” replied the deacon; “say? Why, he was
saying, ‘Beneath, beneath, beneath! Oh, my people, hell is beneath,
beneath, _beneath_!’ until it seemed as if the end of the world had come
upon us all in the chapel, and outside!”
When Theophilus Jones was selected as Rowland Hill’s co-pastor at
Wooton-under-Edge, Ebenezer Morris came to preach on his induction. In
that place, the audience was not likely to be a very sleepy one, but this
preacher roused them beyond their usual mark, and strange stories are
told of the sermon, while old Rowland sat behind the preacher,
ejaculating the whole of the time; and many times after, when Mr. Hill
found the people heavy, and inattentive, he was in the habit of saying,
“We must have the fat minister from Wales here, to rouse you up again!”
We know his likeness very well, and can almost realize his grand, solemn
manner, in his black velvet cap, which made him look like a bishop, and
gave much more impressiveness to his aspect, than any mitre could have
done.
This Ebenezer Morris was the son of a man eminent in his own day, David
Morris, of whom it was said, that he scarcely ever preached a sermon
which was not the means of the conversion of men, and in his evangelistic
tours he usually preached two, or three times a day. There is a sermon,
still spoken of, preached at Rippont Bridge, Anglesea. The idea came to
him whilst he was preaching, that many of the people before him might
surely be lost, and he burst forth into a loud dolorous wail, every line
of his countenance in sympathy with his agonizing cry, in Welsh, which no
translation can render, “O bobl y golled fawr! y golled fawr!” The
English is, “O ye people of the great loss! the great loss!” It seems
slight enough to us, but it is said that the people not only moved before
his words, like reeds in a storm, but to this day they speak in Anglesea
of David Morris’s sermon of “The Great Loss.”
The great authority for the most interesting stories of the religious
life in Wales, is the “History of Welsh Methodism,” by the late Rev. John
Hughes, of Liverpool; unfortunately, we believe it only exists in Welsh,
in three volumes, amounting to nearly two thousand pages; but “Welsh
Calvinistic Methodism; a Historical Sketch,” by the Rev. William
Williams, appears to be principally a very entertaining digest, and
condensation, of many of the most noticeable particulars from the larger
work. There have certainly appeared, from time to time, many most
interesting, and faithful men in the ministry of the Gospel in Wales,
quite beyond the possibility of distinct mention; some of them were very
poor, and lowly in life, and circumstances. Such was THOMAS HUGHES. He
is described as a man of small talent, and slender knowledge, but of
great holiness, and with an intense faith that many of his neighbours
were in a very bad condition, and that it was his duty to try to speak
words to them, whereby they might be saved. He used to stand under the
old walls of Conway, and numbers gathered around him to listen; until at
last he excited the anger of the vicar, who caused him to be arrested,
and brought into his presence, when the following conversation took
place:—
_Vicar_. “You ought to be a learned man, to go about, and to be able to
answer deep questions.”
_Hughes_. “What questions, sir?”
_Vicar_. “Here they are—those which were asked me by the Lord Bishop.
Let’s see whether you will be able to answer them. Where was St. Paul
born?”
_Hughes_. “In Tarsus.”
_Vicar_. “Hem! I see that you know something about it. Well, can you
tell me who took charge of the Virgin Mary after our blessed Redeemer was
crucified?”
_Hughes_. “John.”
_Vicar_. “Well, once again. Who wrote the Book of Revelation? Answer
that if you can.”
_Hughes_. “John the Apostle.”
_Vicar_. “Ho! you seem to know a good deal, after all.”
_Hughes_. “Perhaps, sir, you will allow me to ask you one or two
questions?”
_Vicar_. “Oh yes; only they must be religious questions.”
_Hughes_. “What is holiness? and how can a sinner be justified before
God?”
_Vicar_. “Ho! we have no business to bother ourselves with such things,
and you have no business to put such questions to a man in my position;
go out of my sight, this minute.” And to the men who had brought him,
“Take care that you do not bring such people into my presence any more.”
Hughes was a simple, earnest, believing man, with a good deal of Welsh
cuteness. After this interview with the vicar, he was permitted to
pursue his exhortations at Conway in peace. But there is a place between
Conway, and Llandudno, called Towyn Ferry; it was a very ignorant little
nook, and the people were steeped in unbelief, and sin; thither Hughes
determined to go, but his person was not known there. The news, however,
was circulated abroad, that there was to be a sermon, and religious
service. When he arrived, he found things did not appear very pleasant;
there were heaps of stones prepared for the preacher’s reception, when he
should make his appearance, or commence his work. Hughes had nothing
clerical in his manner, or garb, any more than any one in the crowd, and
no one suspected him to be the man, as he threw himself down on the
grass, and entered familiarly into conversation with the people about
him. After a time, when their patience began to fail, he stood up, and
said, “Well, lads, there is no sign of any one coming; perhaps the man
has heard that you are going to stone him; let one of us get up, and
stand on that heap of stones, and talk, and the rest sing. Won’t that be
first-rate?”
“Capital,” said a bully, who seemed to be the recognised leader of the
crowd. “You go on the heap, and preach to us.”
“Very well,” said Hughes, “I’m willing to try; but mind you, I shall make
some blunders, so you must be civil, and not laugh at me.”
“I’ll make ’em civil,” said the bully. “Look here, lads, whoever laughs,
I’ll put one of these stones into his head!”
“Stop you!” said Hughes; “the first thing we have to do, is to pray,
isn’t it?”
“Ay, ay!” said the bully, “and I’ll be clerk. I’ll stand before you, and
you shall use my shoulder for the pulpit.”
So prayer was offered, short, and simple, but in real earnest; and at its
close, a good many favourable words were uttered. Some volunteered the
remark that, “It was every bit as good as a parson.” Hughes proceeded to
give out a text, but the bully shouted,—
“Hold on, you fool! we’ve got to sing first.”
“Ay, ay!” said Hughes, “I forgot that.”
So they sang a Welsh hymn, after a fashion, and then came the text, and
the sermon, which was short, and simple too, listened to very
attentively; and the singular part of the story is, that the bully, and
clerk, left the ground with the preacher, quieted, and changed, and
subsequently he became a converted man. The regeneration of Wales,
through its villages, and lone remote districts, is full of anecdotes
like this,—stories of persecution, and the faithful earnestness of simple
men, who felt in them a strong desire to do good, and fulfilled their
desire, becoming humble, but real blessings to their neighbourhoods.
Only in a history of the Welsh pulpit—and that would be a volume of no
slight dimensions—would it be possible to recapitulate the names of the
men who exercised, in their day, considerable influence over the
scattered thousands of the Principality. They constitute a very varied
race, and were characterized by freshness, and reality, taking, of
course, the peculiar mental complexion of the preacher: some calm, and
still, but waving about their words like quiet lightnings; some vehement,
overwhelming, passionate; some remarkable for their daring excursions of
imagination; some abounding in wit, and humour. One of the most
remarkable of these last, one who ought not to go unmentioned in such an
enumeration, was SAMUEL BREEZE. This was the man who first introduced
“The Churchyard World” to Dr. Raffles,—of whom it was said, that if you
heard one of his sermons, you heard three preachers, so various were not
only the methods of his sermons, but even the tone of his voice. He is
said to have produced extraordinary effects. Christmas Evans said of
him, that “his eyes were like a flame of fire, and his voice like a
martial strain, calling men to arms.”
The writer of this volume, in a work on the “Vocation of the Preacher,”
mentions a curious instance, which he gives from the unpublished
reminiscences of a dear departed friend—the Rev. John Pyer, late of
Devonport—who was present when the incident happened, in Bristol, perhaps
nearly eighty years since. Sammy Breeze, as he was familiarly called by
the multitudes who delighted in his ministry, came, periodically, from
the mountains of Cardiganshire, or the neighbourhood of Aberystwith, to
Bristol, where he spoke with more than tolerable efficiency in English.
Mr. Pyer, then a youth, was in the chapel, when, as was not unusual, two
ministers, Sammy Breeze and another, were to preach. The other took the
first place, a young man with some tints of academical training, and some
of the livid lights of a then only incipient rationalism in his mind. He
took for his text, “He that believeth shall be saved, and he that
believeth not shall be damned;” but he condoned the heavy condemnation,
and, in an affected manner, shaded off the darkness of the doom of
unbelief, very much in the style of the preacher in Cowper’s satire, who
never mentioned hell to ears polite. The young man, also, grew
sentimental, and “begged pardon” of an audience, rather more polite than
usual, for the sad statement made in the text. “But, indeed,” said he,
“he that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not—indeed, I
regret to say, I beg your pardon for uttering the terrible truth, but,
indeed, he shall be sentenced to a place which here I dare not mention.”
Then rose Sammy Breeze. He began: “I shall take the same text, to-night,
which you have just heard. Our young friend has been fery fine to-night,
he has told you some fery polite things. I am not fery fine, and I am
not polite, but I will preach a little bit of truth to you, which is
this: ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall
be damned,’ _and I begs no pardons_.” He continued, “I do look round on
this chapel, and I do see people all fery learned and in-tel-lect-u-al.
You do read books, and you do study studies, and fery likely you do think
that you can mend God’s Book, and are fery sure you can mend me. You
have great—what you call thoughts, and poetries; but I will tell you one
little word, and you must not try to mend that; but if you do, it will be
all the same; it is this, look you: ‘He that believeth shall be saved,
and he that believeth not shall be damned, _and I begs no pardons_. And
then I do look round your chapel, and I do see you are a foine people,
well-dressed people, well-to-do people. I do see that you are fery rich,
and you have got your moneys, and are getting fery proud; but I tell you,
it does not matter at all; for I must tell you the truth, and the truth
is, ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be
damned,’ _and I begs no pardons_. And now,” continued the preacher, “you
will say to me, ‘What do you mean by talking to us in this way? Who are
you, sir?’ And now I will tell you. I am Sammy Preeze. I have come
from the mountains of Cardiganshire, on my Master’s business, and His
message I must deliver. If you will never hear me again, I shall not
matter much, but while you shall hear me, you shall hear me, and this is
His word in me, and in me to you: ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and
he that believeth not shall be damned,’ _and I begs no pardons_.”
It was a strange scene; but as he went on, in quaint, but terribly
earnest strain, anger passed into awe, and mute astonishment into rapt
attention. No one, who heard the words, could ever again hear them
unheeded, nor think lightly of the doom of the unbelieving. The anecdote
is worth being laid to heart, in these days, when there is too often a
reserve in declaring the whole counsel of God.
After service, in the vestry, the deacons were in great anger with the
blunt preacher; and one, a well-known religious man in Bristol,
exclaimed, “Mr. Breeze, you have strangely forgotten yourself to-night,
sir. We did not expect that you would have behaved in this way. We have
always been very glad to see you in our pulpit, but your sermon to-night,
sir, has been most insolent, shameful!” He wound up a pretty sharp
condemnation by saying, “In short, I don’t understand you!”
“Ho! ho!” exclaimed Sammy. “You say you do not understand me? Eh! look
you then, I will tell you; I do understand you! Up in our mountains, we
have one man there, we do call him exciseman; he comes along to our shops
and stores, and says, ‘What have you here? Anything contraband here?’
And if it is all right, the good man says, ‘Step in, Mr. Exciseman, come
in, look you.’ He is all fair, open, and above-board. But if he has
anything secreted there, he does draw back surprised, and he makes a fine
face, and says, ‘Sir, I do not understand you.’ Now, you do tell me that
you don’t understand me, but I do understand you, gentlemen, I do; and I
do fear you have something contraband here; and I will say good-night to
you; but I must tell you one little word; that is: ‘He that believeth
shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned,’ _and I begs
no pardons_.”
But, with these simple illustrations, we have not exhausted the number of
noticeable names. In connection with every name as it occurs, some
interesting anecdote meets the memory. There was Robert Lloyd, the
shoemaker, and Thomas the turner, and Robert Roberts, of whom, from the
stories before us, we do not find it difficult to believe, that he had
the power to describe things in such a vivid, and graphic manner, as to
make his hearers feel as if the scenes were passing before their eyes.
Then there were David Evans of Aberayron, and Ebenezer Richard of
Tregaron, and William Morris of St. David’s, whose every sermon was said
to be a string of sparkling gems; John Jones of Talysarn, and his
brother, David Jones; John Hughes; the seraphic Henry Rees, and Thomas
Philips, and many another name, concerning whom an illustration might be
furnished, of their powers of wit, wisdom, or eloquence. England,
itself, has been indebted, in many a circle, to eminent Welsh preachers,
who have stimulated thought, created the sphere of holy usefulness, moved
over the minds of cultivated members with the freshness of a mountain
wind, or a mountain stream. It would be invidious to mention their
names—many are yet living; and some, who have not long quitted the Church
on earth, have still left behind them the fragrance of loved, and
honoured names, and exalted, and earnest labours.
Few of our readers, we may suppose, can be unacquainted with the name,
and memory of “The Man of Ross,” so famous through the verses of Pope.
Ross is a well-known little town in Monmouthshire, on the banks of the
Wye, on the borders of Wales. There, in the parish church, in the pew in
which John Kyrle, the Man of Ross, sat, more than a hundred years since,
a curious sight may be seen: two elm-trees rise, and spread out their
arms, and flourish within the church; especially during the spring, and
summer months, they form a singular adornment to the sacred edifice. The
tradition is, that they are suckers from a tree planted by the “Man of
Ross,” outside the church; but it was cut down by a certain rector,
because it excluded the light; the consequence was that they forced their
way inside, where they had continued to grow, and flourish. As we have
looked upon the singular sight of those trees, in the Man of Ross’s pew,
we have often thought of those who, in Wales, planted in the house of the
Lord, flourish in sacred, and sainted memories, in the courts of our God.
Although all that was mortal of them has passed away, they still bring
forth fruit, and flourish in the grateful recollections of the country,
they were permitted to bless, and adorn.
Yes, it is very singular to think of many of these men of Wild Wales.
Even those who were counted heretical, were more than extraordinary men;
they were, perhaps, men who, in our day, would seem rather remarkable for
their orthodoxy of sentiment. Rhys Stephen, in an extended note in his
Memoirs of Christmas Evans, refers to the influence of discussions, in
the Principality, raised by the Rev. WILLIAM RICHARDS, LL.D. A large
portion of the ministerial life of this distinguished man, was passed in
England; he was educated for the ministry at the Baptist Academy in
Bristol, for some time co-pastor with Dr. Ash, author of the Dictionary,
and then became the minister of the Baptist Church at Lynn, in Norfolk,
where he remained for twenty years. He always continued, however, in
every sense of the word, a Welshman, and, notwithstanding his English
pastorates, his residences in Wales were frequent and long.
He was born at Pen-hydd, in Pembrokeshire, in 1749. He published a
Welsh-English dictionary, and his services to Welsh literature were
eminent. But he was regarded as a heretic; his temperament, singular as
it seems in a Welshman, was almost purely philosophic, and neither
imaginative, nor emotional; he disliked the great annual religious
gatherings of his countrymen, and called them fairs, and the preachers,
upon these occasions, he sometimes described in epithets, which were not
complimentary. Naturally, his brethren paid him back; they called him a
heretic,—which is also an exceedingly convenient, and not unusual method
of revenge. Dr. Richards’s influence, however, in Wales, at the
beginning of this century, appears to have been very great; the charges
against him, he does not appear to have been very mindful to disprove,
and it is exceedingly likely that a different, or more guarded mode of
expression, was the height of his offending. Who can fathom, or
delineate, all the fine shades and divergencies of the Arian
controversy?—men whose perfect soundness, in evangelical doctrine, was
utterly undisputed, talked with Dr. Richards, and said, that they could
not discover that he held opinions different from their own. In a
letter, dated December 7th, 1804, when grave charges had been urged
against him, and all the religious mischiefs throughout the Principality
ascribed to him, he writes as follows, to a friend:—
“I think I may safely say, that no great change, of any kind, has
taken place in my sentiments since I knew you. You must know,
surely, that I did not use to be an _Athanasian_, or even a
_Waterlandian_. Such views of the Deity always appeared to me too
_Tritheistical_. I have been used to think, and do so still, that
there is a particular meaning in such words as these of the
Apostle’s, ‘To us there is but one God, the Father;’ but I never
could say, or think, with the Socinians, that Jesus Christ is no more
than _a man_, like ourselves. I believe, indeed, that He is a Man;
but I, also, believe that He is ‘Emmanuel, God with us’—that he is
‘the form of God’—‘the image of the invisible God’—an object of
Divine worship, so that we should ‘honour the Son as we honour the
Father’—‘that all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily,’
or substantially. In short, I believe everything of the dignity, and
glory of Christ’s character, that does not _divide_ the Deity, or
land in _Tritheism_.”
Again, to another correspondent: “I believe, also, in the doctrine of the
atonement, or sacrifice, of Christ, in the virtue of His blood, and in
the prevalence of His mediation.”
Something of the same order of man, so far as sentiment, and knowledge
are indications, but possessed of more wit, imagination, and emotion, was
DAVIES, of CASTELL HYWEL, the first pastor of Christmas Evans, and of
Daniel Davies, of Swansea. He was, in his day, a man of many-sided
reputation, but of suspicious doctrinal relations. He was so eminent a
classical scholar, and so many of the Welsh clergy had received their
education from him, that when Dr. Horsley was appointed Bishop of St.
David’s, he expressed, in his usual passionate manner, his irritation
that the most distinguished tutor in South Wales was a Nonconformist, and
gave out that he would not ordain any of Mr. Davies’ pupils. Davies was
a great bard; and Welshmen who know both languages, say that his
translation of Gray’s “Elegy” is, in force, and pathos, superior to the
original. This will scarcely seem strange, if the deep pathos of the
Welsh language be taken into account. His epitaph on Dr.
Priestley—satirizing, of course, the materialism of
Priestley—illustrates, at once, his humour, and versification:
“Here lies at rest, in oaken chest,
Together packed most nicely,
The bones, and brains, flesh, blood, and veins,
And _soul_ of Dr. Priestley!”
As an illustration of his readiness of wit, a story is told, how one of
the most noted of the Welsh bards one day met him, while the rain was
streaming down upon him. Umbrellas, probably, were scarce. He was
covered with layers of straw, fastened round with ropes of the same
material; in fact, thatched all over. To him his brother bard exclaimed:
“Oh, bard and teacher, famed afar,
Such sight I never saw!
It ill becomes a house like yours
To have a roof of straw.”
To which Davies instantly replied:
“The rain is falling fast, my friend;
You know not what you say,
A roof of straw, methinks, doth well
Beseem a wall of clay.”
Such was Christmas Evans’s first “guide, philosopher, and friend.”
And if we refer to certain characteristics of the Welsh language, which
make it eminently fine furniture for preaching-power, to these may be
added, what we have not so particularly dwelt on, but which does follow,
as a part of the same remark—the singular proverbial power of the Welsh
language. In reading great Welsh sermons, and listening to Welsh
preachers, we have often felt how much the spirit of their own triads,
and the manner of old Catwg the Wise, and other such sententious bards,
falls into their modern method. Welsh proverbs are the delightful
recreations of the archæologists of the old Welsh language. Here, while
we write these lines, we have piles of these proverbial utterances before
us; short, compact sayings, wherever they come from, but which have been
repeated on, from generation to generation. The Bardic triads, for
instance, relating to language, selected by Mr. Owen Pugh,—how admirable
they are for any preacher! They may stand as the characteristics of
their most eminent men.
“The three indispensables of language—purity, copiousness, and aptness;
the three supports of language—order, strength, and harmony; the three
uses of language—to relate, to describe, to excite; the correct qualities
of language,—correct construction, correct etymology, and correct
pronunciation; three marks of the purity of language—the intelligible,
the pleasurable, the credible; three things that constitute just
description—just selection of words, just construction of language, and
just comparison; three things appertaining to just selection—the best
language, the best order, and the best object.” It must be admitted, we
think, that, in these old triads, there is much of the compact wisdom of
a primeval people, with whom books were few, and thoughts were fresh, and
constant. There seemed to be a singular propensity, in the old mind of
Wales, to throw everything into the form of a trinity of expression, or
to bind up words, as far as possible, in short, sententious utterances.
Catwg’s “Essay on Metaphysics” is a very brief, and concise one, but it
illustrates that rapid running-up-the-ladder kind of style, which has
always been the delight of the Welsh poet or teacher.
“In every person there is a soul. In every soul there is
intelligence. In every intelligence there is thought. In every
thought there is either good, or evil. In every evil there is death;
in every good there is life. In every life there is God; and there
is no God but He than whom there can be none better. There is
nothing that cannot have its better, save the best of all. There is
no best of all except love. There is no love but God. God is love!”
Illustrations of this kind fill volumes. It is not for us here to say
how much of the admirable, or the imitable there may be in the method.
It was the method of the old Welsh mind; it was the method into which
many of the best preachers fell, not because they, perhaps, knew so much
of the words of the bards, as because it represented the mind of the
race. Take a few of the Welsh proverbs.
“He that is intent upon going, will do no good before he departs.”
“Every one has his neighbour for a mirror.”
“The water is shallowest where it bubbles.”
“A lie is the quickest traveller.”
“Fame outlives riches.”
“He that is unlucky at sea, will be unlucky on land.”
“There is always time for meat, and for prayer.”
“He mows the meadow with shears.”
“Calumny comes from envy.”
“Every bird loves its own voice.”
“The life of a man is not at the disposal of his enemy.”
“He that loves the young, must love their sports.”
“Prudence is unmarried without patience.”
“He that is the head, should become the bridge.”
“Three things come unawares upon a man: sleep, sin, and old age.”
But it is not only that this sententious characteristic of the Welsh
language makes it a vehicle for the transparent expression of sentiment;
even our translations cannot altogether disguise the pathetic tones of
the language, and bursts of feeling. The following verse of an old Welsh
prayer, which, a _Quarterly Reviewer_ tells us, used to form, with the
Creed and Ten Commandments, part of the peasant’s daily devotion,
illustrates this:—
“Mother, O mother! tell me, art thou weeping?”
The infant Saviour asked, on Mary’s breast.
“Child of th’ Eternal, nay; I am but sleeping,
Though vexed by many a thought of dark unrest.”
“Say, at what vision is thy courage failing?”
“I see a crown of thorns, and bitter pain;
And thee, dread Child, upon the cross of wailing,
All heaven aghast, at rude mankind’s disdain.”
It is singular that Mr. Borrow found, on an old tombstone, an epitaph,
which most of our readers will remember, as very like that famous one Sir
Walter Scott gives us, from an old tomb, in a note to “The Lay of the
Last Minstrel.” The following is a translation:—
“Thou earth, from earth, reflect, with anxious mind,
That earth to earth must quickly be consigned;
And earth in earth must lie entranced, enthralled,
Till earth from earth to judgment shall be called.”
The following lines also struck Mr. Borrow as remarkably beautiful, of
which he gives us this translation. They are an inscription in a
garden:—
“In a garden the first of our race was deceived;
In a garden the promise of grace was received;
In a garden was Jesus betrayed to His doom;
In a garden His body was laid in the tomb.”
Such verses are very illustrative of the alliterative character of the
Welsh mind.
But Wales, in its way—and no classical reader must smile at the
assertion—was once quite as much the land of song as Italy. Among the
amusements of the people was the singing of “Pennilion,” a sort of
epigrammatic poem, and of an improvisatorial character, testing the
readiness of rural wit. With this exercise there came to be associated,
in later days, a sort of rude mystery, or comedy, performed in very much
the same manner as the old monkish mysteries of the dark ages. These
furnished an opportunity for satirizing any of the unpopular characters
of the village, or the Principality. Such mental characteristics,
showing that there was a living mind in the country, must be remembered,
when we attempt to estimate the power which extraordinary preachers soon
attained, over the minds of their countrymen. Then, no doubt, although
there might be exceptions, and a Welshman prove that he could be as
stupid as anybody else, in general there was a keen love, and admiration
of nature. The names of places show this. Mr. Borrow illustrates both
characters in an anecdote. He met an old man, and his son, at the foot
of the great mountain, called Tap-Nyth-yr Eryri.
“Does not that mean,” said Mr. Borrow, “the top nest of the eagles?”
“Ha!” said the old man, “I see you understand Welsh.”
“A little. Are there eagles there now?”
“Oh, no! no eagle now; eagle left Tap-Nyth.”
“Is that young man your son?” said Mr. Borrow, after a little pause.
“Yes, he my son.”
“Has he any English?”
“No, he no English, but he plenty of Welsh; that is, if he see reason.”
He spoke to the young man, in Welsh, asking him if he had ever been up to
the Tap-Nyth; but he made no answer.
“He no care for your question,” said the old man; “ask him price of pig.”
“I asked the young fellow the price of hogs,” says Mr. Borrow, “whereupon
his face brightened up, and he not only answered my question, but told me
that he had a fat hog to sell.”
“Ha, ha!” said the old man, “he plenty of Welsh now, for he see reason;
to other question he no Welsh at all, no more than English, for he see no
reason. What business he on Tap-Nyth, with eagle? His business down
below in sty with pig. Ah! he look lump, but he no fool. Know more
about pig than you, or I, or anyone, ’twixt here and Machunleth.”
It has been said, that the inhabitants of a mountainous country cannot be
insensible to religion, and whether, or not this is universally true, it
is, certainly, true of Wales. The magnificent scenery seems to create a
pensive awe upon the spirit. Often the pedestrian, passing along a piece
of unsuggestive road, suddenly finds that the stupendous mountains have
sloped down, to valleys of the wildest, and most picturesque beauty,
valley opening into valley, in some instances; in others, as in the vale
of Glamorgan, stretching along, for many miles, in plenteous
fruitfulness, and beauty, illuminated by some river like the Tivy, the
Towy, or the Llugg, some of these rivers sparkling, and flashing with the
glittering _gleisiad_, as an old Welsh song sings it—
“_Glan yw’r gleisiad yn y llyn_,
Full fair the _gleisiad_ in the flood
Which sparkles ’neath the summer’s sun.”
The_ gleisiad_ is the salmon. We have dwelt on the word here, for the
purpose of calling the reader’s attention to its beautiful
expressiveness. It seems to convey the whole idea of the fish—its
silvery splendour, gleaming, and glancing through the lynn.
It seems rather in the nature of the Welsh mind, to take instantly a
pensive, and sombre idea of things. A traveller, walking beneath a fine
row of elms, expressed his admiration of them to a Welsh companion. “Ay,
sir,” said the man; “they’ll make fine chests for the dead!” It was very
nationally characteristic, and hence, perhaps, it is that the owl (the
_dylluan_) among birds, has received some of the most famous traditions
of the Welsh language. Mr. Borrow thought there was no cry so wild, as
the cry of the _dylluan_—“unlike any other sound in nature,” he says, “a
cry, which no combination of letters can give the slightest idea of;”
and, surely, that Welsh name far better realizes it, than the _tu whit tu
whoo_ of our Shakespeare.
Certainly, it is not in a page, or two, that we can give anything like an
adequate idea of that compacted poetry, which meets us in Wales, whether
we think of the varied scenery of the country, of the nervous, and
descriptive language, or of its race of people, so imaginative, and
speculative.
It ought to be mentioned, also, as quite as distinctly characteristic,
that there is an intense clannishness prevalent throughout the
Principality. Communication between the people has no doubt somewhat
modified this; but, usually, an Englishman resident in Wales, and
especially in the more sequestered regions, has seldom found himself in
very comfortable circumstances. The Welsh have a suspicion that there
are precious secrets in their land, and language, of which the English
are desirous to avail themselves. And, perhaps, there is some
extenuation in the recollection that we, as their conquerors, have seldom
given them reason to think well of us.