Christmas Evans Part 5

CHAPTER IV.

_THE MINISTRY IN ANGLESEA_ (_CONTINUED_).

Christmas Evans as a Bishop over many Churches-As a Moderator in Public Meetings-Chapel-building and all its Difficulties to Christmas Evans-Extensive Travelling for Chapel-debts-Especially in South Wales-The Cildwrn Cottage again-A Mysterious Life of Poverty but of Hospitality-Catherine's Troubles-Story of a Hat-Wayfaring-Insatiability for Sermons in the Welsh-The Scenery of a Great Sermon-The Demoniac of Gadara-A Remarkable Ill.u.s.tration of the Varied Method of the Preacher-A Series of Ill.u.s.trations of his Power of Allegoric Painting-The Four Methods of Preaching-The Seeking of the Young Child-Satan walking in Dry Places-Christmas Evans in Another Light-Lengthy Letter to a Young Minister-Contributions to Magazines-To be accursed from Christ-Dark Days of Persecution-Threatened with Law for a Chapel Debt-Darker Days-Loss of his Wife-Other Troubles-Determines to leave Anglesea.

The few glimpses we are able to obtain of the life and ministry in Anglesea, a.s.sure us of the supreme influence obtained by Christmas Evans, as was natural, over all the Churches of his order throughout that region. And in a small way, in a circle far removed from the noise of ideas, and the crowds and agitations of the great world, incessant activity was imposed upon him,-so many Societies under his care, so many meeting-houses to be erected, and funds to be procured for their erection, so many cases of Church discipline, so many co-pastors appointed, and set apart to work with him-who, however, were men mostly in business, had their own domestic affairs to manage, and for all the help they could give, needed helping and guidance; who had to receive instructions from him as to what they were to do, and whither they were to go,-so that, in fact, he was here, in Anglesea, a pastor of pastors, a bishop, if ever any pastor deserved that designation; an overseer of many Churches, and of many ministers. And hence, as a matter of course, in all ministerial meetings, and other smaller gatherings, he was usually at once not merely the nominal president, but the presiding spirit.

Rhys Stephen suggests a good many ludicrous aspects to the monthly meetings, and other such gatherings; indeed, they were of a very primitive description, and ill.u.s.trative of what we should call a very rude, and unconventional state of society. Order was maintained, apparently, very much after the patriarchal or patristic fas.h.i.+on. All the preachers he called by their Christian names, and he would certainly have wondered what stranger happened to be in the place had any one addressed him as Mr. Evans; "Christmas Evans," before his face and behind his back, was the name by which he was known not only throughout all Anglesea, but, by-and-by, throughout the entire Princ.i.p.ality.

Affectionate familiarity sometimes pays the penalty in diminished reverence, and in a subtraction from the respect due to a higher gift or superior position. Christmas appears to have been equal to this dilemma, and to have sustained with great natural dignity the post of Moderator, without surrendering his claim upon the affection of his colleagues. In such a meeting, some humble brother would rise to speak a second time, and, perhaps, not very pointedly, to the question; then the Moderator in the pulpit, gathering up his brows, would suddenly cut across the speaker with, "William, my boy, you have spoken before: have done with it;" or, "Richard, _bach_, you have forgotten the question before the meeting: hold your tongue."

On one occasion, a minister from South Wales, although a native of Anglesea, happening to be present, and rising evidently with the intention of speaking, Christmas, who suffered no intrusion from the south into their northern organizations, instantly nipped the flowers of oratory by crying out, "Sit down, David, sit down."

Such instances as these must seem very strange, even _outre_, to our temper, taste, and ideas of public meetings; but they furnish a very distinct idea of time, place, and circ.u.mstances, and give a not altogether unbeautiful picture of a state of society when, if politeness and culture had not attained their present eminence, there was a good deal of light and sweetness, however offensive it might seem to our intellectual Rimmels and Edisons.

Perhaps in every truly great and apostolic preacher, the preaching power, although before men the most conspicuous, is really the smallest part of the preacher's labour, and presents the fewest claims for homage and honour. We have very little, and know very little, of the Apostle Paul's sermons and great orations, mighty as they unquestionably were; he lives to us most in his letters, in his life, and its many martyrdoms. Ah, we fancy, if Christmas Evans had but to preach, to stay at home and minister to his one congregation, what a serene and quiet life it would have been, and how happy in the humble obscurity of his Cildwrn cottage!

But all his life in Anglesea seems to have been worried with chapel-debts. Chapels rose,-it was necessary that they should rise; people in scattered villages thronged to hear the Word; many hundreds appear to have crowded into Church fellows.h.i.+p, chapels had to be multiplied and enlarged; but, so far as we are able to read his biography, Christmas appears to have been the only person on whom was laid the burden of paying for them. Certainly he had no money: his wealth was in his eloquence, and his fame; and the island of Anglesea appears to have been by no means indisposed to lay these under contribution. A chapel had to be raised, and Christmas Evans was the name upon which the money was very cheerfully lent for its erection; but by-and-by the interest pressed, or the debt had to be paid: what could be done then? He must go forth into the south, and beg from richer Churches, and from brethren who, with none of his gifts of genius or of holiness, occupied the higher places in the sanctuary.

Our heart is very much melted while we read of all the toils he accomplished in this way. Where were his sermons composed? Not so much in his lowly cottage home as in the long, lonely, toilsome travels on his horse through wild and unfrequented regions, where, throughout the long day's journey, he perhaps, sometimes, never met a traveller on the solitary road. For many years, it is said, he went twice from his northern bishopric to the south, once to the great a.s.sociation, wherever that might be, and where, of course, he was expected as the chief and most attractive star, but once also with some chapel case, a journey which always had to be undertaken in the winter, and which was always a painful journey. Let us think of him with affection as we see him wending on, he and his friendly horse, through wild snows, and rains, and bleak storms of mountain wind.

Scarcely do we need to say he had a highly nervous temperament. The dear man had a very capricious appet.i.te, but who ever thought of that? He was thrown upon himself; but the testimony is that he was a man utterly regardless of his own health, ridiculously inattentive to his dress, and to all his travelling arrangements. These journeys with his chapel case would usually take some six weeks, or two months. It was no dainty tour in a railway train, with first-cla.s.s travelling expenses paid for the best carriage, or the best hotel.

A man who was something like Christmas Evans, though still at an infinite remove from him in the grandeur of his genius, a great preacher, William Dawson-Billy Dawson, as he is still familiarly called-used to say, that in the course of his ministry he found himself in places where he was sometimes treated like a bishop, and sometimes like an apostle; sometimes a great man would receive, and make a great dinner for him, and invite celebrities to meet him, and give him the best entertainment, the best room in a large, well-furnished house, where a warm fire shed a glow over the apartment, and where he slept on a bed of down,-and this was what he called being entertained like a bishop; but in other places he would be received in a very humble home, coa.r.s.e fare on the table, a mug of ale, a piece of oatmeal cake, perhaps a slice of meat, a poor, unfurnished chamber, a coa.r.s.e bed, a cold room,-and this was what he called being entertained like an apostle.

We may be very sure that the apostolic entertainment was that which usually awaited Christmas Evans at the close of his long day's journey.

Not to be looked upon with contempt either,-hearty and free; and, perhaps, the conversation in the intervals between the puff of the pipe was what we should rather relish, than the more timorous and equable flow of speech in the finer mansion. This is certain, however, that the entertainment of Christmas Evans, in most of his excursions, would be of the coa.r.s.est kind.

And this was far from the worst of his afflictions; there were, in that day, persons of an order of character, unknown to our happier, more Christian, and enlightened times,-pert and conceited brethren, unworthy to unloose the latchet of the great man's shoes, but who fancied themselves far above him, from their leading a town life, and being pastors over wealthier Churches. Well, they have gone, and we are not writing their lives, for they never had a life to write, only they were often annoying flies which teased the poor traveller on his way. On most of these he took his revenge, by fastening upon them some _sobriquet_, which he fetched out of that imaginative store-house of his,-from the closets of compound epithet; these often stuck like a burr to the coat of the character, and proved to be perhaps the best pa.s.sport to its owner's notoriety through the Princ.i.p.ality. Further than this, we need not suppose they troubled the great man much; uncomplainingly he went on, for he loved his Master, and he loved his work. He only remembered that a certain sum must be found by such a day to pay off a certain portion of a chapel-debt; he had to meet the emergency, and he could only meet it by obtaining help from his brethren.

In this way he travelled from North to South Wales forty times; he preached always once every day in the week, and twice on the Lord's Day.

Of course, the congregations everywhere welcomed him; the collections usually would be but very small; ministers and officers, more usually, as far as was possible, somewhat resented these calls, as too frequent and irregular. He preached one of his own glorious sermons, and then-does it not seem shocking to us to know, that he usually stood at the door, as it were, hat in hand, to receive such contributions as the friends might give to him? And he did this for many years, until, at last, his frequent indisposition, in consequence of this severity of service, compelled him to ask some friend to take his place at the door; but in doing this he always apologised for his delegation of service to another, lest it should seem that he had treated with inattention and disrespect those who had contributed to him of their love and kindness.

And so a number of the Welsh Baptist chapels, in Anglesea and North Wales, rose. There was frequently a loud outcry among the ministers of the south, that he came too often; and certainly it was only the marvellous attractions of the preacher which saved him from the indignity of a refusal. His reply was always ready: "What can I do? the people crowd to hear us; it is our duty to accommodate them as well as we can; all we have we give; to you much is given, you can give much; it is more blessed to give than receive," etc., etc. Then sometimes came more plaintive words; and so he won his way into the pulpit, and, once there, it was not difficult to win his way to the people's hearts. It was what we suppose may be called the age of chapel cases. How many of our chapels in England have been erected by the humiliating travels of poor ministers?

Christmas Evans was saved from one greater indignity yet, the encountering the proud rich man, insolent, haughty, and arrogant. It is not a beautiful chapter in the history of voluntaryism. In the course of these excursions, he usually succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng the purpose for which he set forth; probably the contributions were generally very small; but then, on many occasions, the preacher had so succeeded in putting himself on good terms with all his hearers that most of them gave something.

It is said that on one occasion not a single person pa.s.sed by without contributing something: surely a most unusual circ.u.mstance, but it was the result of a manuvre. It was in an obscure district, just then especially remarkable for sheep-stealing; indeed, it was quite notorious.

The preacher was aware of this circ.u.mstance, and, when he stood up in the immense crowd to urge the people to liberality, he spoke of this crime of the neighbourhood; he supposed that amidst that large mult.i.tude it was impossible but that some of those sheep-stealers would be present: he addressed them solemnly, and implored them, if present, not to give anything to the collection about to be made. It was indeed a feat rather worthy of Rowland Hill than ill.u.s.trative of Christmas Evans, but so it was; those who had no money upon them borrowed from those who had, and it is said that, upon that occasion, not a single person permitted himself to pa.s.s out without a contribution.

The good man, however, often felt that a burden was laid upon him, which scarcely belonged to the work to which he regarded himself as especially set apart. Perhaps he might have paraphrased the words of the Apostle, and said, "The Lord sent me not to attend to the affairs of your chapel-debts, but to preach the gospel." There is not only pathos, but truth in the following words; he says, "I humbly think that no missionaries in India, or any other country, have had to bear such a burden as I have borne, because of chapel-debts, and _they_ have not had besides to provide for their own support, as I have had to do through all my life in Anglesea; London committees have cared for _them_, while I, for many years, received but seventeen pounds per annum for all my services. The other preachers were young, and inexperienced, and the members threw all the responsibility upon me, as children do upon a father; my anxiety often moved me in the depths of the night to cry out unto G.o.d to preserve His cause from shame. G.o.d's promises to sustain His cause in the world greatly comforted me. I would search for the Divine promises to this effect, and plead them in prayer, until I felt as confident as if every farthing had been paid. I laboured hard to inst.i.tute weekly penny offerings, but was not very successful; and after every effort there remained large sums unpaid in connection with some of the chapels which had been built without my consent."

Poor Christmas! As we read of him he excites our wonder.

"Pa.s.sing rich with forty pounds a year."

looks like positive wealth as compared with the emoluments of our poor preacher; and yet the record is that he was given to hospitality, and he contributed his sovereign, and half-sovereign, not only occasionally, but annually, where his richer neighbours satisfied their consciences with far inferior bequests. How did the man do it? He had not married a rich wife, and he did not, as many of his brethren, eke out his income by some farm, or secular pursuit; a very common, and a very necessary thing to do, we should say, in Wales.

But, no doubt, Catherine had much to do with his unburdened life of domestic quiet; perhaps,-it does not appear, but it seems probable-she had some little money of her own; she had what to her husband was incomparably more valuable, a clear practical mind, rich in faith, but a calm, quiet, household faith. Lonely indeed her life must often have been in the solitary cottage, into which, a.s.suredly, nothing in the shape of a luxury ever intruded itself. It has been called, by a Welshman, a curious anomaly in Welsh life, the insatiable appet.i.te for sermons, and the singular, even marvellous, disregard for the temporal comforts of the preacher. Christmas, it seems to us, was able to bear much very unrepiningly, but sometimes his righteous soul was vexed. Upon one occasion, when, after preaching from home, he not only received less for his expenses than he naturally expected, but even less than an ordinary itinerant fee, an old dame remarked to him, "Well, Christmas, _bach_, you have given us a wonderful sermon, and I hope you will be paid at the resurrection," "Yes, yes, _shan fach_," said the preacher, "no doubt of that, but what am I to do till I get there? And there's the old white mare that carries me, what will she do? for her there will be no resurrection."

Decidedly the Welsh of that day seemed to think that it was essential to the preservation of the purity of the Gospel that their ministers should be kept low. Mr. D. M. Evans, in his Life of Christmas Evans, gives us the anecdote of a worthy and popular minister of this time, who was in the receipt of exactly twenty pounds a year; he received an invitation from another Church, offering him three pounds ten a month. This miserable lover of filthy lucre, like another Demas, was tempted by the dazzling offer, and intimated his serious intention of accepting "the call." There was a great commotion in the neighbourhood, where the poor man was exceedingly beloved; many of his people remonstrated with him on the sad exhibition he was giving of a guilty love of money; and, after much consideration, the leading deacon was appointed as a deputation to wait upon him, and to inform him, that rather than suffer the loss of his removal on account of money considerations, they had agreed to advance his salary to twenty guineas, or twenty-one pounds! Overcome by such an expression of his people's attachment, says Mr. Evans, he repented of his incontinent love of money, and stayed.

A strange part-glimpse all this seems to give of Welsh clerical life, not calculated either to kindle, or to keep in a minister's mind, the essential sense of self-respect. The brothers of La Trappe, St. Francis and his preaching friars, do not seem to us a more humiliated tribe than Christmas and his itinerating "little _brethren_ of the poor." We suppose that sometimes a farmer would send a cheese, and another a few pounds of b.u.t.ter, and another a flitch of bacon; and, perhaps, occasionally, in the course of his travels,-we do not know of any such instances, we only suppose it possible, and probable,-some rich man, after an eloquent sermon, would graciously patronize the ill.u.s.trious preacher, by pressing a real golden sovereign into the apostle's hand.

One wonders how clothes were provided. William Huntingdon's "Bank of Faith" seems to us, in comparison with that of Christmas Evans, like the faith of a man who wakes every morning to the sense of the possession of a million sterling at his banker's,-in comparison with _his_ faith, who rises sensible that, from day to day, he has to live as on the a.s.surance, and confidence of a child.

Certainly, Wales did not contain at that time a more unselfish, and divinely thoughtless creature than this Christmas Evans; and then he had no children. A man without children, without a child, can afford to be more careless and indifferent to the world's gold and gear. The coat, no doubt, often got very shabby, and the mothers of Israel in Anglesea, let us hope, sometimes gathered together, and thought of pleasant surprises in the way of improving the personal appearance of their pastor; but indeed the man was ridiculous in his disregard to all the circ.u.mstances of dress and adornment. Once, when he was about to set forth on a preaching tour, Catherine had found her mind greatly exercised concerning her husband's hat, and, with some difficulty, she had succeeded in equipping that n.o.ble head of his with a new one. But upon the journey there came a time when his horse needed to drink; at last he came to a clear, and pleasant pond, or brook, but he was at a loss for a pail; now what was to be done? Happy thought, equal to any of those of Mr.

Barnand! he took the hat from off his head, and filled it with water for poor old Lemon. When he returned home, Catherine was amazed at the deterioration of the headgear, and he related to her the story. A man like this would not be likely to be greatly troubled by any defections in personal adornment.

Wordsworth has chanted, in well-remembered lines, the name and fame of him, whom he designates, for his life of probity, purity, and poverty,-united in the pastoral office, in his mountain chapel in Westmoreland,-Wonderful Robert Walker. Far be it from us to attempt to detract from the well-won honours of the holy Westmoreland pastor; but, a.s.suredly, as we think of Christmas Evans, he too seems to us even far more wonderful; for there was laid upon him, not merely the thought for his own pulpit and his own family, but the care of all the Churches in his neighbourhood.

And so the end is, that during these years we have to follow him through mountain villages, in which the silence and desolation greet him, like that he might have found in old Castile, or La Mancha,-through spots where ruined old castles and monasteries were turned into barns, and hay and straw stowed away within walls, once devoted either to gorgeous festivity or idolatry,-through wild and beautiful scenes; narrow glen and ravine, down which mountain torrents roared and foamed,-through wild mountain gorges, far, in his day, from the noise and traffic of towns,-although in such spots Mr. Borrow found the dark hills strangely ablaze with furnaces, seeming to that strange traveller, so he said, queerly enough, "like a Sabbath in h.e.l.l, and devils proceeding to afternoon wors.h.i.+p,"-past simple, and unadorned, and spireless churches, hallowed by the prayers of many generations; and through churchyards in which rests the dust of the venerable dead. We can see him coming to the lonely Methodist chapel, rising like a s.h.i.+loh, bearing the ark, like a lighthouse among the high hills-strolling into a solitary cottage as he pa.s.ses, and finding some ancient woman, in her comfortable kitchen, over her Welsh Bible, and concordance, neither an unpleasant nor an unusual sight;-never happier, we will be bold to say, than when, keeping his own company, he traverses and travels these lone and solitary roads and mountain by-paths, not only through the long day, but far into the night, sometimes by the bright clear moonlight, among the mountains, and sometimes through the "villain mists," their large sheets rolling up the mountain sides bushes and trees seen indistinctly like goblins and elves, till-

"In every hollow dingle stood, Of wry-mouth fiends a wrathful brood."

So we think of him pressing on his way; no doubt often drenched to the skin, although uninjured in body; sometimes through scenes novel and grand, where the mountain looks sad with some ruin on its brow, as beneath Cader Idris (the chair or throne of Idris), where the meditative wanderer might conceive he saw some old king, unfortunate and melancholy, but a king still, with the look of a king, and the ancestral crown on his forehead.

We may be sure he came where corpse-candles glittered, unquenched by nineteenth-century ideas, along the road; for those travelling times were much nearer to the days of Twm or Nant, who, when he kept turnpike, was constantly troubled by hea.r.s.es, and mourning coaches, and funeral processions on foot pa.s.sing through his gate. Through lonely places and alder swamps, where nothing would be heard but the murmuring of waters, and the wind rus.h.i.+ng down the gullies,-sometimes falling in with a pious and sympathetic traveller, a lonely creature, "Sorry to say, Good-bye, thank you for your conversation; I haven't heard such a treat of talk for many a weary day." Often, pa.s.sing through scenes where the sweet voice of village bells mingled with the low rush of the river; and sometimes where the rocks rolled back the echoes like a pack of dogs sweeping down the hills. "Hark to the dogs!" exclaimed a companion to Mr. Borrow once.

"This pa.s.s is called _Nant yr ieuanc gwn_, the pa.s.s of the young dogs; because, when one shouts, it answers with a noise resembling the crying of hounds."

What honour was paid to the name and memory of the earnest-hearted and intrepid Felix Neff, the pastor of the Higher Alps; but does not the reader, familiar with the life of that holy man, perceive much resemblance in the work, the endurance, and the scenery of the toil, to that of Christmas Evans? May he not be called the pastor of our English Engadine?

All such lives have their grand compensations; doubtless this man had his, and _great_ compensations too; perhaps, among the minor ones, we may mention his ardent reception at the great a.s.sociation gatherings. At these his name created great expectations; there he met crowds of brethren and friends, from the remote parts of the Princ.i.p.ality, by whom he was at once honoured and loved. We may conceive such an occasion; the "one-eyed man of Anglesea" has now been for many years at the very height of his popularity; his name is now the greatest in his denomination; this will be one of his great occasions, and his coming has been expected for many weeks. No expectation hanging upon the appearance of Jenny Lind, or Christine Nielson, or Sims Reeves, on some great musical festivity, can reach, in our imagination, the expectations of these poor, simple villagers as they think of the delight they will experience in listening to their wonderful and well-loved prophet.

So, along all the roads, there presses an untiring crowd, showing that something unusual is going on somewhere. The roads are all picturesque and lively with all sorts of people, on foot, on horseback, in old farm carts, and even in carriages; all wending their way to the largest and most central chapel of the neighbourhood. It is the chief service. It is a Sabbath evening; the congregation is wedged together in the s.p.a.cious house of G.o.d; it becomes almost insupportable, but the Welsh like it.

The service has not commenced, and a cry is already raised that it had better be held in an adjoining field; but it is said this would be inconvenient. The doors, the windows, are all thrown open; and so the time goes on, and the hour for the commencement of the service arrives.

All eyes are strained as the door opens beneath the pulpit, and the minister of the congregation comes in, and makes his way, as well as he can, for himself and his friend, the great preacher-there he is! that tall, commanding figure,-that is he, the "one-eyed man of Anglesea."

A murmur of joy, whisperings of glad congratulation, which almost want to burst into acclamations, pa.s.s over the mult.i.tude. And the service commences with prayer, singing, reading a chapter, and a short sermon,-a very short one, only twenty minutes. There are crowds of preachers sitting beneath the pulpit, but they, and all, have come to hear the mighty minstrel-and the moment is here. A few more verses of a hymn, during which there is no little commotion, in order that there may be none by-and-bye, those who have been long standing changing places with those who had been sitting. There, he is up! he is before the people!

And in some such circ.u.mstances he seems to have first sung that wonderful song or sermon,

THE DEMONIAC OF GADARA.

The text he announced was-"_Jesus said unto him_, _Go home unto thy friends_, _and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee_, _and hath had compa.s.sion on thee_."

The introduction was very simple and brief; but, before long, the preacher broke loose from all relations of mere comment and explanation, and seemed to revel in dramatic scenery, and pictorial imagination, and, as was so usual with him in such descriptions, increasing, heightening, and intensifying the picture, by making each picture, each scene, to live even in the kind of enchantment of a present demoniacal possession. He began by describing the demoniac as a castle garrisoned with a legion of fiends, towards which the great Conqueror was approaching over the Sea of Tiberias, the winds hus.h.i.+ng at His word, the sea growing calm at His bidding. Already He had acquired among the devils a terrible fame, and His name shook the garrison of the entire man, and the infernal legion within, with confusion and horror.

"I imagine," he said, "that this demoniac was not only an object of pity, but he was really a terror to the country. So terrific was his appearance, so dreadful and hideous his screams, so formidable, frightful, and horrid his wild career, that all the women in that region were so much alarmed that none of them dared go to market, lest he should leap upon them like a panther on his prey.

"And what made him still more terrible was the place of his abode.

It was not in a city, where some attention might be paid to order and decorum (though he would sometimes ramble into the city, as in this case). It was not in a town, or village, or any house whatever, where a.s.sistance might be obtained in case of necessity; but it was among the tombs, and in the wilderness-not far, however, from the turnpike road. No one could tell but that he might leap at them, like a wild beast, and scare them to death. The gloominess of the place made it more awful and solemn. It was among the tombs-where, in the opinion of some, all witches, corpse-candles, and hobgoblins abide.

"One day, however, Mary was determined that no such nuisance should be suffered in the country of the Gadarenes. The man must be clothed, though he was mad and crazy. And if he should at any future time strip himself, tie up his clothes in a bundle, throw them into the river, and tell them to go to see Abraham, he must be tied and taken care of. Well, this was all right; no sooner said than done.

But, so soon as the fellow was bound, although even in chains and fetters, Samson-like he broke the bands asunder, and could not be tamed.

"By this time, the devil became offended with the Gadarenes, and, in a pout, he took the demoniac away, and drove him into the wilderness.