_CHRISTMAS EVANS CONTINUED—HIS MINISTRY AT CAERPHILLY_.
Caerphilly and its Associations—“Christmas Evans is come!”—A
Housekeeper—His Characteristic Second Marriage—A Great Sermon, The Trial
of the Witnesses—The Tall Soldier—Extracts from Sermons—The Bible a Stone
with Seven Eyes—“Their Works do Follow them”—A Second Covenant with
God—Friends at Cardiff—J. P. Davies—Reads Pye Smith’s “Scripture
Testimony to the Messiah”—Beattie on Truth—The Edwards Family—Requested
to Publish a Volume of Sermons, and his Serious Thoughts upon the
Subject.
It was in the year 1826 that Christmas Evans, now sixty-two years of age,
left Anglesea, accepting an invitation to the Baptist Church at
Tonyvelin, in Caerphilly. His ministry at Anglesea had been long,
affectionate, and very successful; but, dear as Anglesea was to him, he
had to leave it, and he left it, as we have seen, under circumstances not
honourable to the neighbouring ministers, or the churches of which he had
been the patriarchal pastor. Little doubt can there be, that even he
suffered from the jealousy of inferior minds, and characters; so old as
he was, so venerable, and such a household name as his had become,
throughout all Wales, it might have been thought that he would not have
been permitted to depart. He left the dust of his beloved wife, the long
companion of his Cildwrn cottage, behind him, and commenced his tedious
journey to his new home. He had about two hundred miles to travel, and
the travelling was not easy; travelling in Wales was altogether unrelated
to the more comfortable, and commodious modes of conveyance in England,
even in that day; and now he would have to cross a dangerous ferry, and
now to mount a rugged, and toilsome hill, to wind slowly along by the
foot of some gigantic mountain, to wend through a long, winding valley,
or across an extensive plain. As the old man passed along, he says he
experienced great tenderness of mind, and the presence of Christ by his
side. A long, solitary journey! he says, he was enabled to entrust the
care of his ministry to Jesus Christ, with the confidence that He would
deliver him from all his afflictions; he says, “I again made a covenant
with God which I never wrote.”
Caerphilly would seem a very singular spot in which to settle one of the
most remarkable men, if not the most remarkable, in the pulpit of his
country, and his time,—beyond all question, the most distinguished in his
own denomination, there, and then. Even now, probably, very few of our
readers have ever heard of Caerphilly; it is nearly forty years since the
writer of the present pages was there, and there, in a Welsh cottage,
heard from the lips of an old Welsh dame the most graphic outlines he has
ever heard, or read, of some of the sermons of Christmas Evans. Since
that day, we suppose Caerphilly may have grown nearer to the dignity of a
little town, sharing some of the honours which have so lavishly fallen
upon its great, and prosperous neighbour, Cardiff.
Caerphilly, however insignificant, as it lies in its mountain valley, a
poor little village when Christmas Evans was there, has its own eminent
claims to renown: tradition says—and, in this instance, tradition is,
probably, correct—that it was once the seat of a large town. There,
certainly, still stands the vast ruins of Caerphilly Castle, once the
largest in all Great Britain next to Windsor, and still the most
extensive ruin; here was the retreat of the ill-fated Edward II.; here
was that great siege, during which the King escaped in the depth of a
dark, and stormy night, in the disguise of a Welsh peasant, flying to the
parish of Llangonoyd, twenty miles to the west, where he hired himself at
a farm, which, it is said, is still pointed out, or the spot where once
it stood, the site made memorable, through all these ages, by so singular
a circumstance. This was the siege in which that grand, and massive
tower was rent, and which still so singularly leans, and hangs there,—the
leaning tower of Caerphilly, as wonderful an object as the leaning tower
of Pisa, a wonder in Wales which few have visited.
After this period, it was occupied by Glendower; gradually, however, it
became only famous for the rapacity of its lords, the Spencers, who
plundered their vassals, and the inhabitants of the region in general, so
that from this circumstance arose a Welsh proverb, “It is gone to
Caerphilly,”—signifying, says Malkin, that a thing is irrecoverably lost,
and used on occasions when an Englishman, not very nice, and select in
his language, would say, “It is gone to the devil.” Gloomy ideas were
associated for long ages with Caerphilly, as the seat of horror, and
rapacity; it had an awful tower for prisoners, its ruinous walls were of
wondrous thickness, and it was set amidst desolate marshes.
And this was the spot to which Christmas Evans was consigned for some of
the closing years of his life; but, perhaps, our readers can have no idea
of the immense excitement his transit thither caused to the good people
of the village, and its neighbourhood. Our readers will remember, what
we have already said, that a small village by no means implied a small
congregation. His arrival at Caerphilly was looked upon as an event in
the history of the region round about; for until he was actually there,
it was believed that his heart would fail him at last, and that he would
never be able to leave Anglesea.
It is said that all denominations, and all conditions of people, caught
up, and propagated the report, “CHRISTMAS EVANS IS COME!” “_Are you sure
of it_?” “YES, _quite sure of it_; _he preached at Caerphilly last
Sunday_! I know a friend who was there.” These poor scattered
villagers, how foolish, to us, seems their enthusiasm, and frantic joy,
because they had their country’s great preaching bard in their midst;
almost as foolish as those insane Florentines, who burst into tears and
acclamations as they greeted one of the great pictures of Cimabue, and
reverently thronged round it in a kind of triumphal procession. What
makes it more remarkable, is that they should love a man as poor, as he
was old. If they could revere him as, wearied and dusty, he came along
after his tedious two hundred miles’ journey, spent, and exhausted, what
an affluence of affection they would have poured forth had he rode into
Caerphilly, as the old satirist has it, in a coach, and six!
Well, he was settled in the chapel-house, and a housekeeper was provided
for him. In domestic matters, however, he did not seem to get on very
well. North, and South Wales appeared different to him, and he said to a
friend, he must get a servant from the north. It was suggested to him,
that he might do better than that, that he had better marry again, and
the name of an excellent woman was mentioned, who would have been
probably not unwilling; and she had wealth, so that he might have
bettered his entire worldly circumstances by the alliance, and have made
himself pleasantly independent of churches, and deacons, and county
associations; and when it was first suggested to him, he seemed to think
for a moment, and then broke out into a cheerful laugh. “Ho! ho!” he
said, “I tell you, brother, it is my firm opinion that I am never to have
any property in the soil of this world, until I have a grave;” and he
would talk no more on the subject, but he took a good brother minister of
the neighbourhood into his counsel, Mr. Davies, of Argoed, and he
persuaded him to take his horse, and to go for him to Anglesea, and to
bring back with him the old, and faithful servant of himself, and his
departed wife, Mary Evans; and, in a short time, he married her, and she
paid him every tribute of untiring, and devoted affection, to the last
moment of his life. A really foolish man, you see, this Christmas Evans,
and, as many no doubt said, old as he was, he might have done so much
better for himself. It is not uninteresting to notice a circumstance,
which Mr. Rhys Stephen discovered, that Christmas Evans was married the
second time in the same parish of Eglwysilian, in Glamorganshire, the
church in which George Whitefield was married: the parish register
contains both their names.
And what will our readers think, when they find that those who knew
Christmas Evans, both at this, and previous periods of his history,
declare that his preaching now surpassed that of any previous period?
Certainly, his ministry was gloriously successful at Caerphilly.
Caerphilly, the village in the valley, became like a city set upon a
hill; every Sabbath, multitudes might be seen, wending their way across
the surrounding hills, in all directions. The homes of the neighbourhood
rang, and re-echoed with Christmas Evans’s sermons; his morning sermon,
especially, would be the subject of conversation, in hundreds of homes,
many miles away, that evening. The old dame with whom we drank our cup
of tea, in her pleasant cottage at Caerphilly, near forty years since,
talked, with tears, of those old days. She said, “We used to reckon
things as they happened, by Christmas Evans’s sermons; people used to
say, ‘It must have happened then, because that was the time when
Christmas Evans preached The Wedding Ring,’ or The Seven Eyes, or some
other sermon which had been quite a book-mark in the memory.”
No doubt, many grand sermons belong to the Caerphilly period: there is
one which reads, to us, like an especial triumph; it was preached some
time after he settled in the south; the subject was, “God manifest in the
flesh, justified in the spirit.” The grand drama in this sermon was the
examination of the evidences of Christ’s resurrection:—
“THE TRIAL OF THE WITNESSES.
“The enemies of Christ, after His death, applied for a military guard
to watch at His tomb, and this application for a military guard was
rested on the fact, that the ‘impostor’ had said, in His lifetime,
that He would rise again on the third day. Without a doubt, had they
found His body in the grave, when the time had transpired, they would
have torn it from the sepulchre, exhibited it through the streets of
Jerusalem, where Jesus had preached, where He had been despitefully
used, and scourged; they would have shouted forth with triumph, ‘This
is the body of the impostor!’ But He had left the grave, that
morning, too early for them. The soldiers came back to the city, and
they went to the leaders of the people who had employed them, and the
leaders exclaimed, ‘Here is the watch! What is the matter? What is
that dread settled in their faces? Come in here, and we charge you
to tell the truth.’ ‘You have no need to charge us, for the fright,
the terror of it, is still upon us.’ ‘How? What has happened at the
grave? Did His disciples come, and take Him away?’ ‘They! no; but
if they had, our spears would have sufficed for them.’ ‘Well, but
how was it? What has taken place?’ ‘Well, see; while we were on the
watch, and early, in the dawn of the morning, a great earthquake,
like to that one that took place on Friday afternoon, _when He died_,
and we all fell powerless to the ground; and we saw angels, bright,
like the lightning; we were not able to bear the sight; we looked
down at once; we endeavoured, again, to raise our eyes, and we beheld
One coming out of the grave, but He passed by the first angel we saw,
who now was sitting on the removed stone; but He who came out of the
grave! we never saw one like unto Him before,—truly He was like unto
the Son of God.’ ‘What, then, became of the angel?’ ‘Oh, a legion
of them came down, and one of them, very fair, like a young man,
entered the grave, and sat where the head of Jesus had lain; and,
immediately, another, also, very fair, and beautiful, sat where His
feet had rested.’ ‘And did the angels say nothing to you?’ ‘No, but
they looked with eyes of lightning.’ ‘Saw you not His friends, the
women?’ ‘Oh, yes; they came there, but He had left the tomb before
their arrival.’ ‘Talked the angels to the women?’ ‘Yes; they seemed
to be of one family, and very well acquainted with one another.’ ‘Do
you remember anything of the conversation?’ ‘Yes; they said, “Fear
you not! let the Pharisees, and Darkness fear to-day! You seek
Jesus! He is not here, for He is risen indeed; He is alive, and
lives for ever. He has gone before you to Galilee.” We heard one
angel say, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” Another angel
spoke to a woman called Mary, and said, “Why weepest _thou_, while
thy Lord is risen indeed, and is alive, so near unto thee? _let His
enemies weep to-day_!”’ ‘WHAT!’ exclaimed the leader of those
priests, and of the council, who had asked for the guard,—‘What! how
say you? _Close that door_! You, _tall_ soldier, approach: was it
not you who pierced His side?’ ‘Yes, it was I; but all that these
soldiers have said is all true; oh, alas! it is all true! He must
have been the Son of God.’ The Pharisees lost their cause, on the
day of their appeal; they gave the soldiers money, to say that His
disciples had stolen the body while they slept! _If they were
asleep_, _how did they know in what manner He had left the grave_?
They, however, suffered themselves to be suborned, and for money
lied, and, to this hour, the kingdom of Satan hangs upon that lie!”
This sermon produced a profound impression. We have said, to render the
sermons of Christmas Evans in print, or by description, is impossible,—as
impossible as to paint tones, and accents, or the varying expressions
which pass over eye, and face, and lip. He was entreated to publish this
sermon, but he could only write out something like an outline of it, and
when it appeared in print, those who had been enraptured with it, in its
delivery, declared that it was not the same sermon; so he was entreated
to preach the sermon again. He made a humorous remark, on the
strangeness of a man preaching his own printed sermon; still, he
complied. His accomplished biographer, Rhys Stephen, heard it then, and
says of it, “While I have the faintest trace of memory, as to sermons I
have heard, this must always be pre-eminent, and distinct; in its
oratorical eminence, it stands alone, even among his great achievements.
One of the most striking parts of the sermon, was in the examination of
the Roman guard, the report of the soldiers to the authorities.” Mr.
Stephens continues, “We heard them talk, had a clear perception of the
difference of the tone, and more especially, when one of the chief
priests, in an anxious, agonizing whisper, said, ‘_Shut the door_!’ And
then, ‘You, tall soldier, approach: was it not you who pierced His side?’
‘Yes, it was I.’ When Christmas Evans simulated the chief priest, and
singled out the tall soldier, and the conversation went on between the
two, such a combined triumph of sanctified fancy, and perfect oratory, I
never expect to witness again.” We may, also, say, that it illustrates
wherein, very greatly, lay the preacher’s power,—seizing some little
circumstance, and, by its homeliness, or aptness, giving reality, and
vivacity to the whole picture.
It must be said, his are very great sermons; the present writer is almost
disposed to be bold enough to describe them, as the grandest Gospel
sermons of the last hundred years. Not one, or two, but several, are
especially noble. One of these we have, already, given: the splendid
embodiment, and personification of the twenty-second Psalm, _The Hind of
the Morning_, from the singular, and most significant designation, or
title of the Psalm itself.
Another sermon which, probably, belongs to this period is
“THE BIBLE REGARDED AS A STONE WITH SEVEN EYES,”
evidently from Zech. iii. 9, “_Upon one stone shall be seven eyes_.”
It was, in fact, a review of
“_The Internal Evidences which prove the Gospel to be of God_.
“God’s perfections are, in some sort, to be seen in all He has done,
and in all He has spoken. He imprints some indication of His
character, on everything that His hand forms, and that His mouth
utters, so that there might be a sufficient difference between the
work, and the speech of God, and those of man. The Bible is the Book
of books, a book breathed out of heaven. It was easy enough for John
to determine, when he saw the Lamb, with the seven horns, and the
seven eyes, in the midst of the throne, that the Godhead was there,
and that such a Lamb was not to be found amongst creatures. When one
saw a stone, with seven eyes, before Zerubbabel, it was not difficult
to conclude that it was a stone from some unusual mine. In looking
at the page of the starry sky, the work of the fingers of the
Everlasting Power is traced in the sun, and moon, and stars; all
proclaim His name, and tell His glory. I am very thankful for books
written by man, but it is God’s book that sheds the light of the life
everlasting on all other books. I cannot often read it, hear it, or
reflect upon it, but I see—
“1. _Eternity_, like a great fiery Eye, looking at me from the
everlasting, and the infinite distance, unfolding mysteries, and
opening before me the doors, windows, and chambers, in the
(otherwise) unknown, and awful state! This Eye leads me to the
source, and cause of all things, and places me in the presence, and
sight of the Almighty, who has in Him something that would destroy me
for ever, and yet something that spares, and animates me; pressing me
down, and at the same time, saying, ‘Fear not;’ something that melts
me into penitence, and, at once, causes me to rejoice in the faith,
inspiring me with the fear of joy; something that creates a wish in
me, to conceal myself from Him, and then a stronger wish, to stay,
for ever, in the light of His countenance.
“2. _Omniscience_ looks at me, also, like a Divine Eye, out of every
chapter, verse, doctrine, and ordinance of the Gospel, and searches
me through and through. The attempt at concealment from it is
utterly vain. To this Eye, darkness is as the light. It has
descried, correctly, into the deepest abysses of my spirit; and it
has truthfully drawn my likeness before I received God’s grace;
having received it; and the future is, also, transparent before it.
There is something in the scanning of this Eye, that obliges me to
confess, against myself, my sins unto the Lord; and to cry out for a
new heart, and a right spirit; for the Author of the Book knows all.
“3. When I yield to pensive reflections, under a sense of sin, and
when I see the tops of dark mountains of disease, and trouble at the
terrors of the grave, I see in the Bible _Infinite Goodness_, fairer
than the Shekinah of old, looking at me, out of eternity; it is like
the smile of the Eternal King, from His throne of mercy. Divine
love, merits of Christ, riches of grace, they are all here, and they
assure me, and I listen to the still, small voice, that follows in
its train, until I feel myself lifted up, out of the cave of despair,
by the dark mountain; and I stand on my feet, and I hope, and hear
the proclamation of the great mystery—‘Behold, I come, as it is
written in the roll of the Book. If I must die, I am willing to die;
for I come to seek, and to save that which is lost.’
“4. _Holiness_, _righteousness_, and _purity_ look at me, out of the
midst of the Book, like the fires of Sinai to Israel, or the I AM,
out of the burning bush; causing me to fear, and tremble, while I am
yet desirous of looking at the radiant glory, because it is
attempered with mercy. I take my shoes from off my feet, and
approach on my knees, to see this great sight. I cannot live, in
sin, in this presence,—still it does not slay me. The Eternal Power
is here, and, with one hand, it conceals me, in the shadow of
redeeming mercy, and, with the other, it points out the glory of the
great, and wondrous truth, that God is, at once, a just God, and
justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. Where Thy glory rests, O
my God, there let me have my abode!
“5. I also see _Infinite might_ radiating from the doctrine of the
Book, like God’s own Eye, having the energy of a sharp, two-edged
sword. Without asking permission of me, it proves itself ‘quick and
powerful, and pierces even to the dividing asunder of the soul, and
spirit, and of the joints, and marrow;’ it opens the private recesses
of my heart, and becomes a discerner, and judge of its thoughts, and
intents. When Lord Rochester, the great wit, and unbeliever of his
day, read Isa. liii. 5, ‘He was wounded for our transgressions,’
etc., Divine energies entered his spirit, and did so thoroughly
pierce, and pervade it, that his infidelity died within him, and he
gladly received the faith, and hope that are in Christ. The power of
the Gospel visited Matthew, at the receipt of custom, the woman at
the well of Samaria, the malefactor on the cross, the converts on the
day of Pentecost, Paul by the way, and the jailer at Philippi; in
them all was exerted this resistless might of grace, the ‘_Let
__there be_’ of the original creation, which none can withstand.
“6. When I am weak, and _distressed_, and _alone_, and none to
receive my tale of sorrow, none to express a word of fellow-feeling,
or of care for me, in the living oracles of the Gospel I see Divine
wisdom, and loving-kindness, looking at me tenderly, compassionately,
through the openings of my prison, and I feel that He, who dresses
the lily of the field, and numbers the sparrows, is near me,
numbering the hairs of my head, listening to my cries; and in all the
treasure of grace, and power, that was able to say to the lost one,
at the very door of the pit, ‘To-day shalt thou be with me in
Paradise,’ fearing no hindrances that might intervene, between
Golgotha and heaven, He is the same gracious Redeemer, and Preserver
to every one, that believes in His name. Who will teach me the way
of wisdom? who will guide me to her dwelling-place? It was in the
Gospel that wisdom came to reside near me, and here she teaches the
most untoward, convinces the most hard-hearted, reforms the most
licentious, and makes the simple wise unto salvation.
“7. _I am sometimes filled with questions of anxious import_. Art
thou from heaven, O Gospel? Thou hast caused me to hope: Art thou a
rock? The reply: Dost thou not see, in my face, the true character
of God, and of the Eternal Power Incarnate? Dost thou not discern,
in Jesus, the image of the invisible God, which, unlike the first
Adam, the second Adam has preserved untarnished? and dost thou not
feel, in looking at it, thyself gradually changed into the same
image, even as by the Spirit of the Lord? In looking at God’s image
in the creature, the vision had no transforming power, but left ‘the
wise men’ of the ancient world where it found them, destitute of true
knowledge, and happiness, without hope, and without God in the world;
but here the vision transforms into the glorious likeness of the
sublime object, even Christ.
“_The character of God_, given in the Gospel, is complete, and
perfect, worthy of the most blessed One, and there is no perfect
portraiture given of Him but in the Gospel. Mohammed’s God is
_unchaste_; Homer gave his Jupiter _revenge_; Voltaire deified
_mockery_; Insurrection and War were the gods of Paine;—but the
character of the God of the Gospel is awful in truth, and lovely in
goodness. In Isa. vi., the vision of the Divine glory caused the
six-winged cherubs to conceal their faces; but in Rev. iv., the
six-winged living things employ five wings to fly, and only one to
veil their faces, while they are full of eyes behind, and before,
looking forth unveiled. All the worshippers under the Gospel, look
with open face—without a veil, and on an unveiled object.”
We have here, evidently, only the rudiments of a sermon, but a very fine
one, a very suggestive one. To most minds, the Bible has, probably,
been, as Thomas Carlyle, or Jean Paul, would express it, “an eyeless
socket, without the eye.” Christmas Evans was expressing, in this very
suggestive sermon, the thoughts of some men whose words, and works he had
probably never met with; as George Herbert says it—
“In ev’ry thing
Thy words do find me out.”
“Beyond any other book,” says Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “the Bible _finds_
me;” while John Keble, in the “Christian Year,”—probably written about
the same time, when Christmas Evans was preparing his sermon,—was
employing the very same image in some of his most impressive words:—
“_Eye of God’s Word_! where’er we turn,
Ever upon us! thy keen gaze
Can all the depths of sin discern,
Unravel every bosom’s maze:
“Who, that has felt thy glance of dread
Thrill through his heart’s remotest cells,
About his path, about his bed,
Can doubt what Spirit in thee dwells?”
In the following extract, we have a more sustained passage, very fresh,
and noble:—
“THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM.
“In this world, every man receives according to his faith; in the
world to come, every man shall receive according to his works.
‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their
labours, and their works do follow them.’ Their works do not go
_before_ them, to divide the river of Jordan, and open the gates of
heaven. This is done by their faith. But their works are left
behind, as if done up in a packet, on this side of the river. John
saw the great white throne, descending for judgment, the Son of man
sitting thereon, and all nations gathered before Him. He is dividing
the righteous from the wicked, as the shepherd divideth the sheep
from the goats. The wicked are set on the left hand—‘Depart from me,
ye accursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels!’ But the righteous are placed on the right hand, to hear the
joyful welcome—‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world!’ The books are
opened, and Mercy presents the packets that were left on the other
side of Jordan. They are all opened, and the books are read, wherein
all their acts of benevolence are recorded. Justice examines the
several packets, and answers—‘All right. Here they are. Thus it is
written—“I was hungry, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye
gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was naked, and
ye clothed Me; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me!”’ The righteous
look upon each other, with wonder, and answer—‘Those packets must
belong to others. We know nothing of all that. We recollect the
wormwood, and the gall. We recollect the strait gate, the narrow
way, and the slough of despond. We recollect the heavy burden, that
pressed so hard upon us, and how it fell from our shoulders, at the
sight of the cross. We recollect the time, when the eyes of our
minds were opened, to behold the evil of sin, the depravity of our
hearts, and the excellency of our Redeemer. We recollect the time
when our stubborn wills were subdued, in the day of His power, so
that we were enabled both to will, and to do, of His good pleasure.
We recollect the time, when we obtained hope in the merit of Christ,
and felt the efficacy of His blood, applied to our hearts by the Holy
Spirit. And we shall never forget the time, when we first
experienced the love of God, shed abroad in our hearts. Oh, how
sweetly, and powerfully it constrained us to love Him, His cause, and
His ordinances! How we panted after communion, and fellowship with
Him, as the hart panteth after the water-brooks! All this, and a
thousand other things, are as fresh in our memory as ever. But we
recollect nothing of those bundles of good works. Where was it?
Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, and fed Thee; or thirsty, and gave
Thee drink; or a stranger, and took Thee in; or naked, and clothed
Thee? We have no more recollection, than the dead, of ever having
visited Thee in prison, or ministered to Thee in sickness. Surely,
those bundles cannot belong to us.’ Mercy replies—‘Yes, verily, they
belong to you; for your names are upon them; and, besides, they have
not been out of my hands since you left them on the stormy banks of
Jordan.’ And the King answers—‘Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as
ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have
done it unto Me.’
“If the righteous do not know their own good works; if they do not
recognize, in the sheaves which they reap at the resurrection, the
seed which they have sown, in tears, on earth,—they, certainly,
cannot make these things the foundation of their hopes of heaven.
Christ is their sole dependence, for acceptance with God, in time,
and in eternity. Christ, crucified, is the great object of their
faith, and the centre of their affections; and, while their love to
Him prompts them to live soberly, and righteously, and godly, in this
present evil world, they cordially exclaim, ‘Not unto us, not unto
us, but to Thy name, O Lord, give glory.’”
In leaving Anglesea behind him, the sufferings, and contradictions he had
known there, did not quench his enthusiastic holiness, and fervent
ardour. We are assured of this when we read his
“SECOND COVENANT WITH GOD.
“While returning from a place called Tongwynlâs, over Caerphilly
Mountain, the spirit of prayer descended, very copiously, upon me. I
wept for some hours, and heartily supplicated Jesus Christ, for the
blessings here following. I found, at this time, a particular
nearness to Christ, as if He were close by me, and my mind was filled
with strong confidence that He attended to my requests, for the sake
of the merits of His own name. This decided me in favour of Cardiff.
“I. Grant me the great favour of being led by Thee, according to Thy
will—by the directions of Thy providence, and Word, and this
disposing of my own mind, by Thy Spirit, for the sake of Thine
infinitely precious blood. Amen.—C. E.
“II. Grant, if I am to leave Caerphilly, that the gale (of the
Spirit’s influence), and religious revival I had there, may follow me
to Cardiff, for the sake of Thy great name. Amen.—C. E.
“III. Grant Thy blessing upon bitter things, to brighten, and
quicken me, more and more, and not to depress, and make me more
lifeless. Amen.—C. E.
“IV. Suffer me not to be trodden under the proud feet of members, or
deacons, for the sake of Thy goodness. Amen.—C. E.
“V. Grant me the invaluable favour of being, in Thy hand, the means
of calling sinners unto Thyself, and of edifying Thy saints, wherever
Thou wilt send me, for the sake of Thy name. Amen.—C. E.
“VI. If I am to stay at Caerphilly, give me some tokens, as to
Gideon of old, by removing the things that discourage me, and are in
the way of the prosperity of religion, in that church. Amen.—C. E.
“VII. Grant, Lord of glory, and Head of Thy Church, that the Ark of
the cause which is Thine, in Anglesea, and Caerphilly, may be
sustained from falling into the hands of the Philistines. Do not
reject it. Aid it speedily, and lift up the light of Thy countenance
upon it; and by Thy Spirit, Word, and providence, so operate, as to
carry things forward in the churches, and neighbourhoods, in such a
manner as will produce changes in officers, and measures, that will
accomplish a thorough improvement, in the great cause, for the
establishment of which, in the world, Thou hast died,—and by
scattering those that delight in war, and closing the mouths of those
that occasion confusion. Amen.—C. E.
“VIII. Grant me way-tokens, by the time I begin my journey to
Liverpool, and from thence to Anglesea, if it is Thy will that I
should go thither this year. Amen.—C. E.
“IX. Oh, grant me succour, beneath the shadow of the sympathy that
is in Thee, towards them who are tempted, and the unbounded power
there is in Thee, to be the relief of such. Amen.—C. E.
“X. Accept of my thanksgiving, a hundred millions of times, that
Thou hast not hitherto cast me from Thine hand, as a darkened star,
or a vessel in which there is no pleasure; and suffer not my life to
be extended beyond my usefulness. Thanks that Thou hast not given me
a prey to the teeth of any. Blessed be Thy name. Amen.—C. E.
“XI. For the sake of Thine infinite merit, do not cast me, Thy
servant, under the feet of pride, and injustice, of _worldly_
greatness, riches, and selfish oppression of any men, but hide me in
the secret of Thy tabernacle, from the strife of tongues. Amen.—C.
E.
“XII. Help me to wait silently, and patiently upon Thee, for the
fulfilment of these things, and not become enraged, angry, and speak
unadvisedly with my lips, like Moses, the servant of the Lord.
Sustain my heart from sinking, to wait for fresh strength from Zion.
Amen.—C. E.
“XIII. Help me to wait upon Thee, for the necessaries of life; let
Thy mercy, and goodness follow me, while I live; and, as it hath
pleased Thee to honour me greatly, by the blessing Thou hast
vouchsafed upon the ministry through me, as an humble instrument, at
Caerphilly, after the great storm had beaten upon me in Anglesea,
like Job, grant that this honour may continue to follow me the
remainder of my days, as Thou didst unto Thy servant Job. Amen.—C.
E.
“XIV. Let this covenant abide, like the covenant of salt, until I
come to Thee, in the world of eternal light. I entreat aid to resign
myself to Thee, and to Thy will. I beseech Thee, take my heart, and
inscribe upon it a deep reverence of Thyself, with an inscription,
that time, and eternity cannot efface. Oh, let the remainder of my
sermons be taken, by Thee, from my lips; and those which I write, let
them be unto Thee for a praise. Unto Thee I dedicate them. If there
should be anything, in them, conducive to Thy glory, and to the
service of Thy kingdom, do Thou preserve it, and reveal it unto men;
else, let it die, like the drops of a bucket in the midst of the
scorching heat of Africa. Oh, grant that there may be a drop of that
water, which Thou, alone, canst impart, and which springs up to
eternal life, running through all my sermons. In this covenant,
which, probably, is the last that will be written between me and
Thee, on the earth, I commit myself, my wife, and the churches
amongst whom I have preached, to the protection of Thy grace, and the
care of Thy covenant. Amen.—C. E.
“XV. Let this covenant continue, when I am in sickness, or in
health, or in any other circumstance; for Thou hast overcome the
world, fulfilled the law, finished justifying righteousness, and hast
swallowed up death, in victory, and all power, in heaven and earth,
is in Thy hand. For the sake of Thy most precious blood, and perfect
righteousness, note this covenant, with Thine own blood, in the court
of the memorials of forgiving mercy: attach unto it Thy name, in
which I believe; and here I, this day, set my unworthy name unto it,
with my mortal hand. Amen.—CHRISTMAS EVANS. Dated Cardiff, April
24th, 1829.”
This document, found among his papers, after death, contains many
affecting words, which give an insight to painful experiences, and
sufferings. The standard set by Christmas Evans, was very high; his
expectations from the Christian profession were such as to give, to his
ideas of the pastoral office, perhaps somewhat of a stern aspect; nor can
we forget that all his life had been passed in a very severe school. He
was, perhaps, disposed to insist somewhat strenuously upon Church
discipline. No doubt, his years at Caerphilly were among the happiest,
and most unvexed in Church relations; his ministerial power, and success
were very great; still, as the covenant we have just recited hints, there
were probabilities of removal to Cardiff.
The appearance of Christmas Evans in Caerphilly was regarded, as we have
seen, as something like an advent, and, to him, it was, for a short time,
a haven of pleasant rest. There were some eminent ministers, men of
considerable knowledge, and real power, residing in the neighbourhood,
with whom he appears to have had most pleasant intercourse; among others,
a Mr. J. P. Davies, in his way a mighty theologian, and clear, and ready
expositor; he was laid by, for some months, under medical care, at
Caerphilly, but was able to attend the ministry of the old preacher every
Sabbath, and became one of his most intimate friends; they met almost
daily, and the younger man was astonished by the elder’s insatiable
thirst for knowledge, and equally astonished by the extensive, and
varied, stores of information he had accumulated, in his busy, and
incessantly toilsome career. He acknowledged, afterwards, with delight,
the variety of lights he had received, both as to the construction of a
text, or the clearer definition of a principle, from his aged friend. As
to the preaching, he said it gave him quite a new impression of the order
of the preacher’s mind: he expected flashes of eloquence, brilliant
pictures,—of these he had long heard,—but what astonished him, was the
fulness, and variety of matter, Sabbath after Sabbath. Mr. Davies only
returned home to die; but he delighted his people, when he returned, by
repeatedly describing the comfort, and light he had received, from the
company of the matured, the aged, and noble man.
The society he enjoyed was, probably, more cultivated, small as was the
village, than that by which he had been surrounded in Anglesea; from all
the inhabitants, and from the neighbourhood, he received marks of great
respect; it was, probably, felt, generally, that, by some singular turn
of affairs, a great man, a national man, a man of the Principality, had
settled in their midst. And he always after, and when he had left,
remembered this brief period of his life with deep gratitude. He was
more able to borrow books: here, for the first time, he read a work,
which was regarded as a mighty book in that day, Dr. Pye Smith’s
“Scripture Testimony to the Messiah;” he read it with intense eagerness,
incorporating many of its valuable criticisms into his sermons, and,
especially, making them the subjects of ordinary conversation. Rhys
Stephen says, “I remember listening to him with wonder, when, in
conversation with Mr. Saunders, of Merthyr, he gave the substance of Dr.
Pye Smith’s criticism on John xvii. 3. And I distinctly remember, that
when Mr. Evans said, ‘Mr. Saunders, you will observe that, on these
grounds, the knowledge of Jesus Christ, here mentioned, is the same
knowledge as that of the only true God, and that the knowledge of the
former is as necessary to salvation, as the knowledge of the
latter—indeed, they are one, and the same thing,’ ‘Yes, yes,’ was the
reply; ‘capital, very excellent. I never heard that interpretation
before.’ I was then a youth, and was not astonished by the
interpretation, which, of course, was new to me, so much as by the
admissions of the aged men that it was new to them.” At any rate, it
illustrates the avidity with which this mind still pursued the rays of
light, from book to book, from conversation to conversation.
On another occasion, he met a young minister at Llantrissant, and, after
a meeting in the morning, he inquired of the young man what he was then
reading; the reply was, that he was going slowly through Beattie on Truth
a second time. Christmas Evans immediately replied, “You must come to
see me before you return to Swansea, and give me the substance of
Beattie: was he not the man that replied to David Hume, eh?” The young
man said he had the book in his pocket, and that he would cheerfully give
it him, but the print was very small. He, with still greater eagerness,
said, “I can manage that. I will take of it, with many thanks.” It was
a pleasure to give it him, and he pocketed it with as much pleasure as
ever a school-boy did the first prize, at the end of the session. In
three days after, the young man called upon him, at his own house, and
spent a couple of hours with him; but he says he could get no farther, in
conversation, than upon Beattie,—he was thoroughly absorbed in the
argument with Hume, and his school of scepticism, and unbelief. Yet he
was now sixty-five years of age; his one eye was very weak, though seeing
well enough, without a glass, at the proper distance; and he was,
otherwise, full of bodily infirmities; but his love of reading was
unabated, as was, also, his earnest curiosity to know what was passing on
in the world of thought.
And among his friends, at this period, we notice some members of the
Edwards family,—David Edwards, of Beaupre, or, as it is commonly
pronounced, Bewper, in Glamorganshire; and Evan Edwards, of Caerphilly,
the son, and grandson of one of the most remarkable men modern Wales has
produced, William Edwards, in his day a mighty engineer. Until his time,
the Rialto, in Venice, was esteemed the largest arch in Europe, but he
threw an arch over the Taff forty-two feet wider, and thus, for a long
time, it held its reputation of being the largest arch in the world. A
wonderful man was William Edwards, entirely self-made, not only a great
engineer, but a successful farmer, and an ordained Independent minister.
He was wealthy, of course, but he insisted upon receiving a good income
from his church, although he distributed every farthing among the poor of
his own neighbourhood, and added, considerably, to the sum he
distributed, from his own property. The successor to Mr. Edwards, as the
pastor of the Independent Church of Y-Groeswen, was the Rev. Griffith
Hughes, a person of about the same age as Christmas Evans, also, although
a polished gentleman, a self-taught man, a wit, a man of considerable
reading, and information, and widely advanced in his religious opinions;
although, professedly, a Calvinist, beyond the narrow, and technical
Calvinism of his time, and even beyond the Fullerism, or doctrines of
Andrew Fuller, which had been charged on Christmas Evans, as a crime, by
his enemies in Anglesea.
It was about this time that he was earnestly entreated to prepare a
volume of sermons for publication, and it seemed to be in connection with
this, and with some fears, and discouragements which still troubled his
mind, that he made the following entry, discovered among his papers after
his death:—
“Order things so, O Lord, that they may not prove a hindrance, and a
discouragement to me, and an obstacle to the progress of Thy cause.
Thy power is infinite, and Thy wisdom infallible. Stand between me,
and all strife, that no evil effect may fall upon me. I flee under
the shadow of Thy wings to hide myself, as the chickens do under the
wings of the hen. Let nothing corrupt, and extinguish my gifts, my
zeal, my prosperity; let nothing hinder the Church.
“I have been earnestly requested, by many of my brethren in the
ministry, to prepare some of my sermons for the press. In Anglesea,
I had no leisure for such work, although I once commenced it, and
wrote out five for the purpose. I let the work rest for two years,
at Caerphilly; but, here, my mind has been moved towards it anew; and
now I come to Thee, O Lord, who art the Head of the Church, and the
chief Prophet and Teacher of the Church, to consult Thee, whether I
shall proceed with the work, or not. Is it a part of my duty, or a
foolish device of my own? I beseech, for Thy name’s sake, Thy
gracious guidance herein. Permit me not to labour, with my weak
eyesight, at a work that Thou wilt not deign to bless, but that shall
be buried in oblivion,—unless it may please Thee (for Thou hast the
keys of the house of David), in Thy providence, to prepare my way to
publish the work, without danger to myself, of debt, and disgrace;
and unless it may please Thee, the great Shepherd of the sheep, to
guide me, to give forth the true Gospel, not only without error, but
with the savour, and unction that pervade the works of Bunyan, and
the hymns of William Williams; and, also, may they prove for the
edification of Thy Church, and the conversion of sinners! If Thou
wilt condescend to take the work under Thy care, help me to
accomplish the design.
“In reading the 91st Psalm, I perceive that he who dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty; and that is so safe a place, and so impenetrable a
protection, that the arrow that flieth by day, and the pestilence
that walketh in darkness, with the sting of the serpent, the asp, and
the viper, cannot hurt or injure him who hath made it his refuge. It
is by faith, I hope, that I have gathered together all my jewels, and
placed them under the shadow of safety that is in God. I have given
my name anew to Christ, my body, my talents, my facility in
preaching,—my name, and character as a man, a Christian, and as a
preacher of the Gospel; my time, the remainder of my preaching
services, my success, my wife, and all my friends, and helpers in the
cause of the Lord, for whom I earnestly pray that they may be blessed
in Anglesea, Caernarvonshire, Caerphilly, Cardiff, and all the
churches in Wales, many of which have helped me in my day.”