Our God is a big man: a tall man much higher than the highest chapel in
Wales and broader than the broadest chapel. For the promised day that He
comes to deliver us a sermon we shall have made a hole in the roof and
taken down a wall. Our God has a long, white beard, and he is not unlike
the Father Christmas of picture-books. Often he lies on his stomach on
Heaven's floor, an eye at one of his myriads of peepholes, watching that
we keep his laws. Our God wears a frock coat, a starched linen collar
and black necktie, and a silk hat, and on the Sabbath he preaches to the
congregation of Heaven.
Heaven is a Welsh chapel; but its pulpit is of gold, and its walls,
pews, floor, roof, harmonium, and its clock--which marks the days of the
month as well as the hours of the day--are of glass. The inhabitants are
clothed in the white shirts in which they were buried and in which they
arose at the Call; and the language of God and his angels and of the
Company of Prophets is Welsh, that being the language spoken in the
Garden of Eden and by Jacob, Moses, Abraham, and Elijah.
Wales is Heaven on earth, and every Welsh chapel is a little Heaven; and
God has favored us greatly by choosing to rule over us preachers who are
fashioned in his likeness and who are without spot or blemish.
Every Welsh child knows that the preacher is next to God; "I am the Big
Man's photograph," the preacher shouts; and the child is brought up in
the fear of the preacher.
Jealous of his trust, the preacher has made rules for the salvation of
our bodies and souls. Temptations such as art, drama, dancing, and the
study of folklore he has removed from our way. Those are vanities, which
make men puffed up and vainglorious; and they are unsavory in the
nostrils of the Big Man. And look you, the preacher asks, do they not
cost money? Are they not time wasters? The capel needs your money, boys
bach, that the light--the grand, religious light--shall shine in the
pulpit.
That is the lamp which burns throughout Wales. It keeps our feet from
Church door and public house, and it guides us to the polling booth
where we record our votes as the preacher has instructed us. Be the
season never so hard and be men and women never so hungry, its flame
does not wane and the oil in its vessel is not low.
White cabbages and new potatoes, eggs and measures of corn, milk and
butter and money we give to the preacher. We trim our few acres until
our shoulders are crutched and the soil is in the crevices of our flesh
that his estate shall be a glory unto God. We make for him a house which
is as a mansion set amid hovels and for the building thereof the widow
must set aside portions of her weekly old age pension. These things and
many more we do, for forgiveness of sin is obtained by sacrifice. Such
folk as hold back their offerings have their names proclaimed in the
pulpit.
Said the preacher: "Heavy was the punishment of the Big Man on Twm Cwm,
persons, because Twm speeched against the capel. Was he not put in the
coffin in his farm trowsis and jacket? And do you know, the Big Man cast
a brightness on his buttons for him to be known in the blackness of
hell."
It is no miracle that we are religious. Our God is just behind the
preacher, and he is in the semblance of the preacher; and we believe in
him truly. It is no miracle that we are prayerful. Our God is by us in
our hagglings and cheatings. Becca Penffos prays that the dealer's eyes
are closed to the disease of her hen; Shon Porth asks the Big Man to
destroy his pregnant sister into whose bed Satan enticed him; Ianto
Tybach says: "Give me a nice bit of haymaking weather, God bach. Strike
my brother Enoch dead and blind and see I have his fields without any
old bother. A champion am I in the religion and there's gifts I give the
preacher. Ask him. That's all. Amen."
Although we know God, we are afraid of to-morrow: one will steal our
seeds, a horse will perish, our wife will die and a servant woman will
have to be hired to the time that we find another wife, the Englishman
whom we defrauded in the market place will come and seek his rights.
We are what we have been made by our preachers and politicians, and thus
we remain. Among ourselves our repute is ill. Our villages and
countryside are populated with the children of cousins who have married
cousins and of women who have played the harlot with their brothers; and
no one loves his neighbor. Abroad we are distrusted and disdained. This
is said of us: "A Welshman's bond is as worthless as his word." We
traffic in prayers and hymns, and in the name of Jesus Christ, and we
display a spurious heart upon our breast. Our politicians, crafty pupils
of the preachers and now their masters, weep and moan in the public
places as if they were women in childbirth; in their souls they are
lustful and cruel and greedy. They have made themselves the slaves of
the wicked, and like asses their eyes are lifted no higher than the
golden carrot which is their reward from the wicked. Not of one of us it
can be said: "He is a great man," or "He is a good man," or "He is an
honest man."
Maybe the living God will consider our want of knowledge and act
mercifully toward us.
I