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
But it was hard work in Caernarvon. The debt upon the chapel was a
perpetually-recurring trouble. We have said when he went there eight
hundred pounds was the burden, and that the people were very poor. Of
this eight hundred, four hundred seems to have been collected by a Mr.
John Edwards, who used, as his introduction, in asking for contributions,
the specimen of Welsh eloquence to which we have referred (The Graveyard
World); so that Christmas Evans may, really, be regarded as the
liquidator of the debt to that extent. The time came when the whole
remaining sum had to be paid. What could be done? Over seventy years of
age, the old man started forth, on a tour through the south, to attempt
to raise the sum. In April, 1838, when he had been four years in
Caernarvon, he set off with his wife, and a young preacher, the Rev. John
Hughes. Before he set out, he wrote a circular to his brethren, which
was published in the _Welsh Magazine_. It is scarcely possible, we
think, to read it, remembering who wrote it, and the circumstances under
which it was written, without tears of feeling:—
“DEAR BRETHREN,—We have received notice to pay up three hundred
pounds. The term of the lease of life has expired in my case, even
threescore and ten years, and I am very much afflicted. I have
purposed to sacrifice myself to this object, though I am afraid I
shall die on the journey” (he did die on his journey); “and I fear I
shall not succeed in my errand for Christ. We have no source to
which we can now repair, but our own denomination in Wales, and
brethren, and friends of other communities, that may sympathize with
us. Oh, brethren, pray, with me, for protection on the journey—for
strength, and health this _once_, on occasion of my bidding farewell
to you all! pray for the light of the Lord’s countenance upon me in
preaching; pray for His own glory, and that His key may open the
hearts of the people, to contribute towards His cause in its present
exigency. Oh, help us, brethren!—when you see the old brother, after
having been fifty-three years in the ministry, now, instead of being
in the grave with his colleagues, or resting at home with three of
them who are yet alive—brethren Lewis of Llanwenarth, Davies of Velin
Voel, and Thomas of Aberduar,—when you see him coming, with the
furrows of death in his countenance, the flowers of the grave on his
head, and his whole constitution gradually dissolving; having
laboured fifty years in the ministry in the Baptist denomination. He
comes to you with hundreds of prayers, bubbling, as it were, from the
fountain of his heart, and with a mixture of fear, and confidence.
Oh, do not frown upon him!—he is afraid of your frowns. Smile upon
him, by contributing to his cause, this once for all. If you frown
upon me, ministers and deacons, by intimating an _irregular case_, I
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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