Christmas Evans, the Preacher of Wild Wales: His country, his times, and his contemporariesHood, Edwin Paxton
History
Christmas Evans, the Preacher of Wild Wales: His country, his times, and his contemporaries
Hood, Edwin Paxton
Evans, Christmas, 1766-1838
“Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs people have dropped down dead.
Paid by the world,—what dost thou owe
Me? God might question; now, instead,
’Tis God 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 illustrate 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
God, 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 circumstances 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 assurance of the faithfulness of Christ; I
felt assured that I had much work yet to do, and that my ministry would
be instrumental in bringing many sinners to God. This arose from my
trust in God, 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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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