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
Does not the reader call up a very beautiful picture of these two, in
that old and obscure Welsh hamlet, nearly a hundred and fifty years
since?—the conversation of such an one as Paul, the aged, with his young
son, Timothy; and if anything were needed to increase our sense of
admiration of the young clergyman, it would be that he did not disdain to
receive lessons from old age, and an old age covered with the indignities
attaching to an outlawed Nonconformist. In Wales, there were very many
men like Philip Pugh; we may incidentally mention the names of several in
the course of these pages—names well worthy of the commendation in
Johnson’s perfect lines:
“Their virtues walked their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found
Their single talent well employed.
“And still they fill affection’s eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind;
And let not arrogance deny
Its praise to merit unrefined.”
Then there opened a great career before Rowlands, and Llangeitho became
as a shrine in evangelical Wales. He received invitations to preach in
every neighbourhood of the Principality; many churches were opened to
him, and where they were not, he took freely, and cheerfully, to the
chapels, or the fields. His words, and accents were of that marvellous
kind we have identified with Welsh preaching. Later on, and in other
times, people said, he found his successor in Davies of Swansea; and the
highest honour they could give to Swansea, in Davies’ day, was that “it
was another Llangeitho.”
Rowlands had the power of the thunder, and the dew; he pressed an
extraordinary vitality into words, which had often been heard before, so
that once, while reading the Church Service, in his own church, he gave
such a dreadful tenderness to the words, “By thine agony, and bloody
sweat!” that the service was almost stopped, and the people broke forth
into a passion of feeling. Christmas Evans says: “While Rowlands was
preaching, the fashion of his countenance became altered; his voice
became as if inspired; the worldly, dead, and careless spirit was cast
out by his presence. The people, as it were, drew near to the cloud,
towards Christ, and Moses, and Elijah. Eternity, with its realities,
rushed upon their vision. These mighty influences were felt, more or
less, for fifty years. Thousands gathered at Llangeitho for communion
every month, and they came there from every county in Wales.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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