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
We have already alluded to the dream-life of Christmas Evans; we should
say, that if dreams come from the multitude of business, the daily
occupation, the ordinary life he lived was well calculated to foster in
him the life of dreams. Here is one,—a strange piece, which shows the
mind in which he lived:—“I found myself at the gate of hell, and,
standing at the threshold, I saw an opening, beneath I which was a vast
sea of fire, in wave-like motion. Looking at it, I said, ‘What infinite
virtue there must have been in the blood of Christ to have quenched, for
His people, these awful flames!’ Overcome with the feeling, I knelt down
by the walls of hell, saying, ‘Thanks be unto Thee, O great and blessed
Saviour, that Thou hast dried up this terrible sea of fire!’ Whereupon
Christ addressed me: ‘Come this way, and I will show you how it was
done.’ Looking back, I beheld that the whole sea had disappeared. Jesus
passed over the place, and said: ‘Come, follow Me.’ By this time, I was
within what I thought were the gates of hell, where there were many
cells, out of which it was impossible to escape. I found myself within
one of these, and anxious to make my way out. Still I felt wonderfully
calm, as I had only just been conversing with Jesus, and because He had
gone before me, although I had now lost sight of Him. I got hold of
something, with which I struck the corner of the place in which I stood,
saying, ‘In the name of Jesus, open!’ and it instantly gave way; so I did
with all the enclosures, until I made my way out into the open field.
Whom should I see there but brethren, none of whom, however, I knew,
except a good old deacon, and their work was to attend to a nursery of
trees; I joined them, and laid hold of a tree, saying, ‘In the name of
Jesus, be thou plucked up by the root!’ And it came up as if it had been
a rush. Hence I went forth, as I fancied, to work miracles, saying, ‘Now
I know how the Apostles wrought miracles in the name of Christ!’”
It was during the earlier period of Christmas Evans’s ministry at
Anglesea, that a great irruption took place in the island, and, indeed,
throughout the Principality; and the Sandemanian controversy shook the
Churches, and especially the Baptist Churches, almost beyond all
credibility, and certainly beyond what would have been a possibility, but
for the singular power of the chief leader, John Richard Jones, of
Ramoth. Christmas Evans himself fell for some time beneath the power of
Sandemanian notions. Our readers, perhaps, know enough of this peculiar
form of faith and practice, to be aware that the worst thing that can be
said of it is, that it is a religious ice-plant, religion in an
ice-house,—a form chiefly remarkable for its rigid ritualistic
conservation of what are regarded as the primitive forms of apostolic
times, conjoined to a separation from, and a severe and cynical
reprobation of, all other Christian sects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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