Christmas Evans Part 9

"Thus I entered, and thus I go!

In triumphs people have dropped down dead.

Paid by the world,-what dost thou owe Me? G.o.d might question; now, instead, 'Tis G.o.d shall repay! I am safer so."

So the candlestick was removed out of its place in Anglesea, and Anglesea soon, but too late, regretted the removal. Christmas Evans, however, seems to ill.u.s.trate a truth, which may be announced almost as a general law, from the time of the Saviour and his Apostles down to our own, that those who have wrought most unselfishly, and serviceably for the cause of G.o.d, and the well-being of man, had to receive their payment in themselves, and in the life to come. In proportion to the greatness of their work was the smallness of their remuneration here.

If we refer to the painful circ.u.mstances in connection with the close of the ministry of Christmas Evans at Anglesea, it is, especially, to notice how his faith survived the shock of surrounding trouble. He himself writes: "Nothing could preserve me in cheerfulness and confidence under these afflictions, but the a.s.surance of the faithfulness of Christ; I felt a.s.sured that I had much work yet to do, and that my ministry would be instrumental in bringing many sinners to G.o.d. This arose from my trust in G.o.d, and in the spirit of prayer that possessed me; I frequently arose above all my sorrows."

And again he writes: "As soon as I went into the pulpit during this period, I forgot my troubles, and found my mountain strong; I was blessed with such heavenly unction, and longed so intensely for the salvation of men, and I felt the truth like a hammer in power, and the doctrine distilling like the honey-comb, and like unto the rarest wine, that I became most anxious that the ministers of the county should unite with me to plead the promise, 'If any two of you agree touching anything,' etc.

Everything now conspired to induce my departure from the island: the unyielding spirit of those who had oppressed, and traduced me; and my own most courageous state of mind, fully believing that there was yet more work for me to do in the harvest of the Son of Man, my earnest prayers for Divine guidance, during one whole year, and the visions of my head at night, in my bed-all worked together towards this result."

Few things we know of are more sad than this story. "It was an affecting sight," says Mr. William Morgan, quoted by Mr. Rhys Stephen in his Memoir, "to see the aged man, who had laboured so long, and with such happy effects, leaving the sphere of his exertions under these circ.u.mstances; having laboured so much to pay for their meeting-houses, having performed so many journeys to South Wales for their benefit, having served them so diligently in the island, and pa.s.sed through so many dangers; now some of the people withheld their contributions, to avenge themselves on their own father in the Gospel; others, while professing to be friends, did little more; while he, like David, was obliged to leave his city, not knowing whether he should ever return to see the ark of G.o.d, and his tabernacle in Anglesea again. Whatever misunderstanding there was between Mr. Evans, and some of his brethren, it is clear that his counsels ought to have been received with due acknowledgment of his age, and experience, and that his reputation should have been energetically vindicated. I am of opinion, I am quite convinced, that more strenuous exertions should have been made to defend his character, and to bear him, in the arms of love, through the archers, and not to have permitted him to fall in the street without an advocate."

The whole aim of Mr. Evans's life, as far as we have been able to read it, was to get good from heaven, in order that he might do good on earth.

Clearly, he never worked with any hope of a great earthly reward for any personal worthiness; perhaps there arose a sense that he had always been unjustly remunerated, that burdens had been laid upon him he ought not to have been called upon to bear; and now the sense of injustice sought, as is so frequently the case, to vindicate itself by ingrat.i.tude. It seems so perpetually true, in the sad record of the story of human nature, that it is those who have injured us who seek yet further to hurt us.

CHAPTER V.

_CONTEMPORARIES IN THE WELSH PULPIT-WILLIAMS OF WERN_.

The Great Welsh Preachers unknown in England-The Family of the Williamses-Williams of Pantycelyn-Peter Williams-Evan Williams-Dr.

Williams-Williams of Wern-The immense Power of his Graphic Language-Reading and Thinking-Instances of his Power of Luminous Ill.u.s.tration-Early Piety-A Young Preacher-A Welsh Gilboa-Admiration of, and Likeness to, Jacob Abbot-Axiomatic Style-Ill.u.s.trations of Humour-The Devils-Fondness for Natural Imagery-Fondness of Solitude-Affecting Anecdotes of Dying Hours-His Daughter-His Preaching characterised-The Power of the Refrain in the Musician and the Preacher, "Unto us a Child is born."

WE pause here for a short time, in our review of the career, and character, and pulpit power of Christmas Evans, to notice some of those eminent men, who exercised, in his day, an influence over the Welsh mind.

We will then notice some of those preachers, of even the wilder Wales, who preceded these men. So little is known of many of them in England, and yet their character, and labours, are so essentially and excellently instructive, that we feel this work, to those who are interested, to be not one of supererogation. The men, their country, the people among whom they moved, their work in it, the singular faith in, and love for preaching, for the words these men had to utter,-they must seem, to us, remarkable, and memorable. In this time of ours, when preaching, and all faith in preaching, is so rapidly dying out, that it may be regarded, now, as one of the chief qualifications of a candidate for the pulpit, that he cannot preach a sermon, but can "go to those who sell, and buy for himself"-this study of what was effected by a living voice, with a real live soul behind it, must seem, as a matter of mere history, noteworthy. And first among those who charmed the Welsh ear, in the time of Christmas Evans, we mention Williams of Wern.

It is not without reason, that many eminent Welshmen can only be known, and really designated after the place of their birth, or the chief scene of their labours. The family of the Williamses, for instance, in Wales, is a very large one-even the eminent Williamses; and William Williams would not make the matter any clearer; for, always with tenderest love ought to be p.r.o.nounced the name of that other William Williams, or, as he is called, Williams of Pantycelyn-the obscure, but not forgotten, Watts of Wales. His hymns have been sung over the face of the whole earth, and long before missionary societies had been dreamed of, he wrote, in his remote Welsh village,

"O'er the gloomy hills of darkness;"

and he has cheered, and comforted many a Zion's pilgrim by his sweet song,

"Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah!"

He was born in 1717, and died in 1791. This sweet and sacred singer ought to receive more than this pa.s.sing allusion. Little is known of him in England; and it is curious that Mr. Christopher's volume on "Hymn Writers and their Hymns" neither mentions his hymns, nor his name.

A writer in the _Quarterly Review_, evidently not very favourable to that denomination of religious sentiment which Williams represented, has spoken of the "unmixed pleasure" his name and character awakens: "He was a man in whom singular purity of sentiment added grace to a truly original genius." "His direction to other composers was, never to attempt to compose a hymn until they feel their souls near heaven. His precept, and his practice, in this respect, have been compared to those of Fra Angelico." Would that some competent Welsh pen would render for us, into English, more of these notes of the sweet singer of Pantycelyn.

William Williams came from the neighbourhood of Llandovery, the parish of Pritchard of the "Welshman's Candle;" he was, as his hymns would indicate, well educated; he studied for, and entered upon the medical profession; but, converted beneath the preaching of Howell Harris, in Talgarth churchyard, he turned from medicine to the work of the ministry.

He was a member of the Established Church; he sought, and received ordination, and deacon's orders, but, upon application for priest's orders, he was refused. He then united himself with the Calvinistic Methodists, but still continued to labour with the great Daniel Rowlands, at Llangeitho. His sermons were, like his hymns, often sublime, always abounding in notes of sweetness. During the forty three years of his ministry, it is said, he travelled about 2,230 miles a year, making in all 95,890 miles! He wrote extensively, also, in prose. There is a handsome edition of his works in the Welsh language, and an English edition of some of his hymns. Among the most beautiful, our readers will remember-

"Jesus, lead us with Thy power Safe into the promised rest."

This was William Williams of Pantycelyn.

Then, there was Peter Williams, a famous name in the Princ.i.p.ality, and of about the same period as Williams of Pantycelyn. No man of his time did so much to cultivate religious literature in Wales. He was a great preacher, and an exemplary man; when a minister within the Church of England, he was persecuted for his opinions, and practices; and, when he left that communion, he suffered even a more bitter persecution from his Methodist brethren. His life, and his preaching, appear to have been full of romantic incidents.

Then there was Evan Williams, who is spoken of as a seraphic man, and whose life appears to justify the distinctive designation, although he died at the age of twenty-nine, very greatly in consequence of ill-usage received in persecution.

Then, in England, we are better acquainted with Daniel Williams, the founder of what is called Dr. Williams's Library; and who, in addition to this magnificent bequest, left sums of money to Wales for schools, endowments of ministers, annual grants of Bibles, and religious books, and for widows of ministers; by which Wales has received since, and receives now, the sum of about 700 a year. His ministry, however, was in London, at Hand Alley, Bishopsgate Street, nearly two hundred years since. His works are contained in six octavo volumes; but he scarcely falls beneath the intention of these pages.

Besides these, there are many others; so that, as we said above, the name of Williams represents, not only a large family, but a family remarkable for Christian usefulness in Wales. But, in this catalogue of eminent preachers, Williams of Wern, among those of his name, is singularly eminent. He had that power, to which we have referred, of using his language in such a manner, that people, in a very awful way, realized the scenes he described. Dr. Rees mentions of him, that when preaching on the resurrection of the dead, from the window of Ynysgan Chapel, Merthyr Tydvil, he so riveted the attention of the vast mult.i.tude, who were on the burying-ground before him, that when he reached the climax, all the crowd moved together in terror, imagining that the graves under their feet were bursting open, and the dead rising. Yet Williams was a singularly quiet preacher; these effects were wrought by the power of that language, so wonderfully fitted to work on the emotions of a very imaginative people, and which he knew how to play upon so well.

This great preacher had quite as remarkable an individuality as either of the eminent men, whose characters we may attempt faintly to portray.

Christmas Evans, we have seen, led his hearers along through really dramatic, and pictorial representations. Davies was called the "Silver Trumpet" of Wales; his voice was an instrument of overwhelming compa.s.s, and sweetness. Elias was a man of severe, and pa.s.sionate eloquence,-all the more terrible, because held in the restraint of a perfect, and commanding will. Williams differed from all three; nor must it, for a moment, be said that he "attained not to the first three." His eminence was equal to theirs, and, in his own walk, he was quite as highly esteemed; but his department of power was completely different. Perhaps, he was less the vehicle of vehement pa.s.sion than either Elias, or Davies; and it was altogether apart from his purpose to use the amazing imagery of Christmas Evans. His mind was built up of compacted thought; his images were not personifications, but a.n.a.logies. So far as we are able to form a conception of him, his mind appears to have moved in a pathway of self-evidencing light.

Thus, if we were to speak of these four men as const.i.tuting a quartette in the harmony of the great Welsh pulpit, we should give to John Elias the place of the deep ba.s.s; to Davies, the rich and melting soprano; to Christmas Evans the tenor; reserving, for Williams of Wern, the place of the alto. His teaching was eminently self-evolved. None of the great Welsh preachers dealt much with pen, and paper. They wrought out their sermons on horseback, or whilst moving from place to place. With Williams it was especially so. Two ministers called upon him in 1830.

One of them was something of a bookworm, and he asked him if he had read a certain book which had just been published. Williams said he had not.

"Have you," continued his friend, "seen so-and-so?" naming another work.

"No, I have not." And, presently, a third was mentioned, and the answer was still in the negative. "I'll tell you what," said Mr. Williams, "you read too much; you do not think sufficiently. My plan in preparing sermons is to examine the connection of a pa.s.sage, extract its principle, and think it over in my own mind. I never look at a Commentary, except when completely beaten."

It has often been said that, in the very proportion in which eloquence is effective, and commanding in delivery, in the degree in which it is effective as _heard_, it is impossible to be _read_; and, with some measure of exception, this is, no doubt, true. Williams, certainly, is an ill.u.s.tration of this general principle; yet he was, perhaps, one of the most luminous of speakers; only, this alone, without accompanying pa.s.sion, does not make the orator. Take the following as an ill.u.s.tration of his manner. On ejaculatory prayer:-

"Ejaculatory prayer is the Christian's breath; the secret path to his hiding-place; his express to heaven in circ.u.mstances of difficulty, and peril; it is the tuner of all his religious feelings; it is his sling, and stone, with which he slays the enemy, ere he is aware of it; it is the hiding of his strength; and, of every religious performance, it is the most convenient. Ejaculatory prayer is like the rope of a belfry; the bell is in one room, and the handle, or the end of the rope which sets it a-ringing, in another. Perhaps the bell may not be heard in the apartment where the rope is, but it is heard in its own apartment. Moses laid hold of the rope, and pulled it hard, on the sh.o.r.e of the Red Sea; and though no one heard, or knew anything of it, in the lower chamber, the bell rang loudly in the upper one, till the whole place was moved, and the Lord said, 'Wherefore criest thou unto me?'"

This is luminous preaching. Unfortunately, as with others, we have very little-scarcely anything, indeed-left of Williams's pulpit talk.

William Williams was born in the year 1781, at Cwm-y-swn-ganol, in Merioneths.h.i.+re. There his parents occupied a farm, and were much respected. It seems, to us, an odd thing that their name was not Williams, but Probert, or Ap-Robert. He received his name of Williams from the singular practice, then prevalent in many parts of Wales, of converting, with the aid of the letter S, the Christian name of the father into the surname of the son. His father, although an orderly attendant upon Divine Wors.h.i.+p, never made a public profession of religion; but his mother was a very pious, and exemplary member of the Calvinistic Methodist connexion.

The decisive hour of real religious conviction came to the youth when he was very young-only about thirteen years of age. Impressions deep, and permanent, were made on his mind, and heart, and at fifteen he was received into Church fellows.h.i.+p; but he suffered greatly from diffidence.

Although it was expected of him, he could not pray either in the family, or in public, because, as he used to say, he would then be required, by all his acquaintance, to conduct himself like a perfect saint. But one night, when all the family, with the exception of his mother, and himself, had retired to rest, she engaged in prayer with him, and then said, "Now, Will, dear, do you pray," and he did so; and from this moment dated the commencement of his courage, and confidence.

It was in his twenty-second year that he entered Wrexham Academy. He was a thorough Welshman-a monoglot. He made some progress in the acquisition of English, and Greek; but he could never speak English fluently, and was advanced in life before he knew a word of it; and he used to say, "When I violate English, I am like a child that breaks a window; I do not go back to mend it, but I run away, hoping I shall not be seen." As linguists, most of his fellow-students outshone him; in the pulpit, from his very first efforts, he not only outshone them all, but it was soon seen that he was to transcend most of the teachers, and speakers of his time.

Perhaps his example will not commend itself to some of our modern writers, as to preparation for the ministry; for when he was recommended to continue longer under tuition, he said, "No-no; for if so, the harvest will be over while I am sharpening my sickle." Young as he was, he took a singular view of the leadings of Providence, which, however, eminently marks the character of the man. He received a most unanimous invitation from a large, and influential Church at h.o.r.eb, in Cardigans.h.i.+re, and was just about accepting the invitation, when the smaller, and, in comparison, quite insignificant sphere of Wern was put before him, with such commendations of the importance of the work as commanded his regards. He declined h.o.r.eb, and accepted Wern.

His field of labour appears to have comprehended a cl.u.s.ter of villages, such as Llangollen, Rhuabon, and Rhosllanerchrugog; and in this region the greater number of his days were pa.s.sed, excepting that brief period, towards the close of his life, when he became the minister of the great Welsh tabernacle in Cross Hall Street, Liverpool. But he left Wales with a heavy heart, amidst the pretty distinctly expressed dissatisfaction of the people of the Princ.i.p.ality, who, however, still insisted on giving him his designation of Williams of Wern. Nor was he away from them long.

His old Church continued unsettled, and after three years' ministry in Liverpool, he returned to Wern, to close his active, and useful life.

His pastorate consisted, really, of three places-Wern, Rhos, and Harwood.

It was a singular circ.u.mstance, that whilst large crowds thronged round him at the first two places, and while his name was becoming as a sharp arrow through the whole Princ.i.p.ality, he made little impression on Harwood. He used to say that Harwood had been of greater service to him than he had been to it; for it was "the thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure;" and if he ever felt disposed to be lifted up when he saw the crowds gathering round him at other places, he had only to go over to, or think about Harwood, and this became an effectual check to the feelings of self-inflation, in which he might have been tempted to indulge. It was so, whilst other places, Churches, and congregations, "waited for him as for the rain, and opened their mouths wide as for the latter rain;" whilst upon other fields his "doctrine distilled as the dew," his stubborn Harwood appears to have been a kind of Welsh Gilboa, upon which no dew fell.

He was claimed as a kind of public property, and Churches at a distance seemed to think they had a right to his services, frequently very much to the irritation of his own people, to whom he might have given the consolation he once administered to a brother minister; "I understand that your people complain a good deal because you so often leave them.

Well, let us be thankful that the reverse is not the case; for our own people might have tired of us, and be pleased to hear strangers, and preferred our absence, regarding us as 'a vessel wherein is no pleasure.'" Unfortunately, in such cases, congregations do not take the matter as philosophically as the old Scotchwoman, who, when she met a neighbouring clergyman one Sabbath morning, wending his way to her own kirk, expressed her surprise at meeting him there, and then. He explained that it was an exchange of services. "Eh, then," said the old woman, "_your_ people will be having a grand treat the day."

Something of the nature of Williams's mind, and his method of ministration, may be gathered from his exceeding admiration of Jacob Abbot, and especially his work, "The Corner Stone." "Oh! what a pity,"

he said, "that we cannot preach as this man writes." But, so far as we have been able to judge from the scanty means we possess, he did preach very much after the manner of Jacob Abbot's writings. His words appear, first, to have been full of strong, seminal principles, and these were soon made clear in the light of very apt ill.u.s.trations. Truly it has been said, that, first, the harper seizes his harp, and lays his hand firmly upon it, before he sweeps the strings. In an eminent manner, Williams gave to his people the sense, as soon as he commenced, that a subject was upon his heart, and mind; and he had a firm grasp of it, and from his creative mind each successive stroke was some fine, apt, happy evolution.

Ill.u.s.tration was his _forte_, but of a very different order from that of Christmas Evans; for instance, ill.u.s.trating the contests of Christian creeds, and sects with each other, "I remember," he said, "talking with a marine, who gave to me a good deal of his history. He told me the most terrible engagement he had ever been in, was one between the s.h.i.+p to which he belonged, and another English vessel, when, on meeting in the night, they mistook each other for a French man-of-war. Many persons were wounded, some slain; both vessels sustained serious damage from the firing, and, when the day broke, great was their surprise to find the English flag hoisted from the masts of both vessels, and that, through mistake, they had been fighting all night against their own countrymen.

It was of no avail, now, that they wept together: the mischief was done.

Christians," said the preacher, "often commit the same error in this present world. One denomination mistakes another for an enemy; it is night, and they cannot see to recognise each other. What will be their surprise when they see each other in the light of another world! when they meet in heaven, after having shot at each other through the mists of the present state! How will they salute each other, when better known, and understood, after having wounded one another in the night! But they should wait till the dawn breaks, at any rate, that they may not be in danger, through any mistake, of shooting at their friends."

The Welsh language is, as we suppose our readers well know, especially rich in compact, proverbial, axiomatic expressions. The Welsh triads are an ill.u.s.tration of this. The same power often appears in the pulpit.

The latter, and more recent, languages are unfavourable to the expression of proverbs. Williams we should suppose to have been one of the most favourable exemplifications of this power. General tradition in Wales gives him this kind of eminence-poem, and proverb united in his sentences. We have not been able to obtain many instances of this; and we fear it must be admitted, that our language only in a clumsy way translates the pithy quaintness of the Welsh, such as the following: "The door of heaven shuts from below, not from above. 'Your iniquities have separated, saith the Lord.'" "Of all the birds," he once said, "the dove is the most easily alarmed, and put to flight, at hearing a shot fired.

Remember," he continued, "that the Holy Ghost is compared to a dove; and if you begin to shoot at each other, the heavenly Dove will take wing, and instantly leave you. The Holy Spirit is one of love, and peace, not of tumult, and confusion. He cannot live amongst the smoke, and noise of fired shots: if you would grieve the Holy Spirit, and compel Him to retire, you have only to commence firing at one another, and He will instantly depart." "The mind of man is like a mill, which will grind whatever you put into it, whether it be husk or wheat. The devil is very eager to have his turn at this mill, and to employ it for grinding the husk of vain thoughts. Keep the wheat of the Word in the mind; 'keep thy heart with all diligence.'"