Christmas Evans, the Preacher of Wild Wales: His country, his times, and his contemporaries — John Shaqi
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
service, the missiles of offence in their hands; when, suddenly, a
well-dressed gentleman, mounted on a noble horse, rode over the village
bridge; he hastily alighted, gave his bridle to a bystander, walked
briskly into the middle of the little flock; the inimical members of the
mob set him down for a magistrate at the least, and expected that he
would give the word to disperse; but instead of doing so, he took the
nearest candidate by the hand, and walked himself down into the stream,
booted and spurred as he was. Before the mob had done gaping, he had
done this part of his work; after this, however, he stood upon the brink
of the stream, still in his wet attire, and preached one of his ardent
sermons. He certainly conciliated the homage of the opposing forces, and
left them under the impression that the “dippers,” as the Baptists were
generally called, had certainly one gentleman among them. We do not know
how our Baptist brethren would like to submit to this kind of service,
but it certainly seems to resemble more closely the baptism of Enon, near
to Salem, and that of the Ethiopian prince by Philip, than some we have
seen.
The anecdotes of this Timothy Thomas are too good and too numerous to be
entirely passed by. Once he was preaching in the enchanting
neighbourhood near Llandeilo, to which we referred in the first
chapter—the neighbourhood of Grongar Hill, and Golden Grove; the
neighbourhood of Dyer, Steele, and Jeremy Taylor. It was a still Sabbath
morning in the summer, and in that lovely spot immense crowds were
gathered to hear him. He had administered baptism, and preached, without
interruption, when someone came up to him and told him, with startled
fear and trepidation, that the clergyman,—the rector,—on his way to the
church, had been detained, utterly unable to pass through the crowd,
through the greater part of the service. Instantly, with admirable tact
and catholicity, he exclaimed: “I understand that the respected clergyman
of the parish has been listening patiently to me for the last hour; let
us all go to the church and return the compliment by hearing him.” The
church, and the churchyard as well, were instantly crowded; the clergyman
was delighted with the catholic spirit displayed by the Baptist minister,
and of course not a word further was said about the trespass which had
been committed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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