In 1794, the South West Baptist Association was held at Velin Voel, in
Caermarthenshire. Mr. Evans was invited, as one of the preachers on the
occasion. It was a journey of about two hundred miles. He undertook it
on foot, with his usual fortitude, preaching at different places as he
went along. The meeting was to commence with three consecutive sermons,
the last of which was to be preached by Mr. Evans. The service was out
of doors, and the heat was very oppressive. The first and second sermons
were rather tedious, and the hearers seemed almost stupefied. Mr. Evans
arose and began his sermon. Before he had spoken fifteen minutes, scores
of people were on their feet, some weeping, some praising, some leaping
and clapping their hands for joy. Nor did the effect end with the
discourse. Throughout the evening, and during the whole night, the voice
of rejoicing and prayer was heard in every direction; and the dawning of
the next day, awaking the few that had fallen asleep through fatigue,
only renewed the heavenly rapture. “Job David, the Socinian,” said the
preacher afterwards to a friend, “was highly displeased with this
American gale.” But all the Socinians in Wales could not counteract its
influence, or frustrate its happy effects.
Mr. Evans continued to visit the associations in South Wales for many
years: and whenever he came, the people flocked by thousands to hear “the
one-eyed man of Anglesea.” It was on one of those occasions, and under
circumstances somewhat similar to the above, that he preached that
singularly effective sermon on the demoniac of Gadara. The meeting had
been in progress three days. Several discourses had been delivered with
little or no effect. Christmas Evans took the stand, and announced as
his text the evangelical account of the demoniac of Gadara. He described
him as a naked man, with flaming eyes, and wild and fierce gesticulation;
full of relentless anger, and subject to strange paroxysms of rage; the
terror and pity of all the townsfolk. They had bound him with great
chains, but he would break them as Samson broke the withes. They had
tried to soothe him by kindness, but he would leap upon them like a
furious wild beast, or burst away with the speed of a stag, his long hair
streaming on the wind behind him. He inhabited the rocks of a Jewish
cemetery; and when he slept, he laid down in a tomb. The place was a
little out of town, and not far from the great turnpike road, so that
people passing often saw him, and heard his dreadful lamentations and
blasphemies. Nobody dared to cross his path unarmed, and all the women
and children ran away as soon as they saw him coming. Sometimes he
sallied forth from his dismal abode at midnight, like one risen from the
dead, howling and cursing like a fiend, breaking into houses, frightening
the inhabitants from their beds, and driving them to seek shelter in the
streets and the fields. He had a broken-hearted wife, and five little
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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