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
His appearance in preaching, his entire presence, is described as most
majestic, and commanding: his voice was very loud, and it is said, a word
from his mouth would roll over the people like a mighty wave. “Look at
that window,” said an aged deacon, in North Wales, to a minister, who had
come to preach at the chapel to which the former belonged, “look at that
window! It was there that Ebenezer Morris stood, when he preached his
great sermon from the words, ‘The way of life is above to the wise, that
he may depart from hell beneath,’ and when we all turned pale while we
were listening to him.” “Ah!” said the minister, “do you remember any
portion of that sermon?” “Remember!” said the old deacon; “remember, my
good man? I should think I do, and shall remember for ever. Why, there
was no flesh here that could stand before it!” “What did he say?” said
the minister. “Say! my good man,” replied the deacon; “say? Why, he was
saying, ‘Beneath, beneath, beneath! Oh, my people, hell is beneath,
beneath, _beneath_!’ until it seemed as if the end of the world had come
upon us all in the chapel, and outside!”
When Theophilus Jones was selected as Rowland Hill’s co-pastor at
Wooton-under-Edge, Ebenezer Morris came to preach on his induction. In
that place, the audience was not likely to be a very sleepy one, but this
preacher roused them beyond their usual mark, and strange stories are
told of the sermon, while old Rowland sat behind the preacher,
ejaculating the whole of the time; and many times after, when Mr. Hill
found the people heavy, and inattentive, he was in the habit of saying,
“We must have the fat minister from Wales here, to rouse you up again!”
We know his likeness very well, and can almost realize his grand, solemn
manner, in his black velvet cap, which made him look like a bishop, and
gave much more impressiveness to his aspect, than any mitre could have
done.
This Ebenezer Morris was the son of a man eminent in his own day, David
Morris, of whom it was said, that he scarcely ever preached a sermon
which was not the means of the conversion of men, and in his evangelistic
tours he usually preached two, or three times a day. There is a sermon,
still spoken of, preached at Rippont Bridge, Anglesea. The idea came to
him whilst he was preaching, that many of the people before him might
surely be lost, and he burst forth into a loud dolorous wail, every line
of his countenance in sympathy with his agonizing cry, in Welsh, which no
translation can render, “O bobl y golled fawr! y golled fawr!” The
English is, “O ye people of the great loss! the great loss!” It seems
slight enough to us, but it is said that the people not only moved before
his words, like reeds in a storm, but to this day they speak in Anglesea
of David Morris’s sermon of “The Great Loss.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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