During the ministry of Erbury and Wroth, arose that morning-star of the Baptist church in Wales, Vavasor Powell. He was born in Radnorshire, South Wales. He was educated for the ministry of the established church. For some time he officiated at Clun, on the borders of Shropshire. While there, his conscience was awakened by a reproof from a Puritan for violating the Sabbath. He was soon afterwards converted, under the preaching of Walter Caradock, a noted preacher among the Independents. In 1636, he joined the Baptists, and shortly became a very popular preacher among them. He was a man of great eloquence and power. Many were converted under his ministry. But the red dragon was roused to pursue him. In 1642, he fled his native land for the safety of his life. In four years, however, he returned, and preached boldly throughout the country. The people flocked to hear him, by thousands, to the market-houses, to the fields, the woods, and the tops of the mountains. His ministry was wonderfully blessed to the salvation of souls. After the death of Cromwell, in 1658, Charles II. returned to England. Now commenced a dreadful persecution of the Baptists in Wales. “Hundreds of them were taken from their beds at night, without any regard to age, sex, or the inclemency of the weather; and were driven to prison, on foot, fifteen or twenty miles; and if they did not keep up with their drivers on horseback, they were most cruelly and unmercifully whipped; and while their drivers stopped to drink at the taverns, they were beaten like cattle, during the pleasure of the king’s friends; and all their property was forfeited to the king, except what was deemed necessary to defray the expenses of their drivers. But all this was only the beginning of sorrows, and nothing to what they suffered for the space of six-and-twenty years afterward.” In these persecutions, Vavasor Powell bore his part. He was immured, at different times, in thirteen prisons. Indeed, he was a prisoner most of the time till his death, which happened in 1670. On his tomb is this inscription:—“He was, to the last generation, a successful preacher; to the present generation, a faithful witness; to the next generation, an excellent example.” Contemporary with Vavasor Powell, and immediately succeeding him, were many faithful laborers in the cause of Christ in Wales. One of them was the noted Roger Williams, who subsequently removed to New England, and founded the Baptist sect in America. But after the death of Powell and his coadjutors, the revival in Wales declined, and the churches gradually settled into a spiritual sleep, in which they remained a century, when they were roused by the trumpet-tongued eloquence of Harris and Rowlands.