Of course, there was considerable uncertainty about the services,—excepting those more imposing and important occasions; and this gave, very frequently, a tone of the ludicrous to their announcement of the services. Thus, if a stranger asked what time the service would commence, it would often have been quite impossible to get any information; and failures, says Mr. D. M. Evans, were so frequent, that the announcement was often made with perfect gravity, “— will be here next Sunday, if he comes.” Mr. Evans continues, that he well knew a deacon who claimed the prerogative to make announcements to the congregation, but who every week was guilty of such blunders, that he was implored to resign the honour to some other brother; to which he indignantly replied, that it was his crown, and was he not told in Scripture, “Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown”? Often, when the preacher appeared, he showed himself in the pulpit almost out of breath, sometimes in sad disarray, sometimes apparently as if smothered with wrappers and top-coats; and by his panting and puffing, as someone said, “seeming to show that God Almighty had asked him to preach the Gospel, but had given him no time for it.” In a word, it is impossible, knowing Wales as we know it in our own day, to form any very distinct idea of the country as it was when these great preachers arose; and, when the tides of a new spiritual life rolled over the Principality, the singular relics of even heathenish superstition were loitering still among the secluded valleys and mountains of the land. No doubt, the proclamation of the Gospel, and the elevated faith which its great truths bring in its train, broke the fascination, the charm, and power of many of these; but they lingered even until within the last forty or fifty years,—indeed, the superstition of the Sin-Eater is said to {23} linger even now in the secluded vale of Cwm-Aman, in Caermarthenshire. The meaning of this most singular institution of superstition was, that when a person died, the friends sent for the Sin-Eater of the district, who, on his arrival, placed a plate of salt and bread on the breast of the deceased person; he then uttered an incantation over the bread, after which, he proceeded to eat it,—thereby eating the sins of the dead person; this done, he received a fee of two-and-sixpence,—which, we suppose, was much more than many a preacher received for a long and painful service. Having received this, he vanished as swiftly as possible, all the friends and relatives of the departed aiding his exit with blows and kicks, and other indications of their faith in the service he had rendered. A hundred years since, and through the ages beyond that time, we suppose this curious superstition was everywhere prevalent.