Even when he was quite a child, he would always stand up, and gravely ask a blessing on his meals; and it is said that there was something so impressive, and grave, in the manner of the child, that some careless frequenters of the house always took off their hats, and behaved with grave decorum until the short prayer was ended. His parents were not religious persons, and, therefore, it is yet more remarkable that one day, while he was still in his earliest years, his father heard him fervently in prayer for them behind a hedge. It is not wonderful to learn that he was greatly affected by it. It does not seem that this depth of religious life accompanied him all the way through his boyhood, and his youth; but a very early marriage—in most instances, so grave, and fatal a mistake—would appear to have been the occasion of the restoration of his religious convictions. He was but twenty when he married Jane Evans, a respectable, and lovely young woman of his own neighbourhood; and now his religious life began in real earnest. It is surely very remarkable, as we have already seen, that he, and Christmas Evans were admitted into Church fellowship on the same evening,—the Church to which we have already referred,—beneath the pastorate of the eminent scholar, and bard, David Davies, of Castell Hywel. The singularity did not stop here. Christmas Evans, and the young Davies, preached their first sermon in the same little cottage, in the parish of Llangeler, within a week of each other. The two youths were destined to be the most eminent lights of their different denominations, in their own country, in that age; but neither of them continued long in connection with the Church at Castell Hywel; and as they joined at the same time, so about the same time they left. David Davies, their pastor, was a great man, and an eminent preacher, but he was an Arian, and the Church members were chiefly of the same school of thought; and the convictions of both youths were altogether of too deep, and matured an order, to be satisfied by the Arian view of the person, and work of Christ. Moreover, they both, by the advice of friends, were looking to the work of the Ministry, for which they must have early shown their fitness; and, as we have noticed in the case of Christmas Evans, there was a rule in the Church at Castell Hywel, that no one should be permitted to preach who had not received an academical training.