Chapter III (1)

_THE MINISTRY IN THE ISLAND OF ANGLESEA_.

Journey to Anglesea—Cildwrn Chapel, and Life in the Cildwrn
Cottage—Poverty—Forcing his Way to Knowledge—Anecdote, “I am the
Book”—A Dream—The Sandemanian Controversy—Jones of Ramoth—“Altogether
Wrong”—The Work in Peril—Thomas Jones of Rhydwilym—Christmas’s
Restoration to Spiritual Health—Extracts from Personal
Reflections—Singular Covenant with God—Renewed Success—The Great
Sermon of the Churchyard World—Scenery of its Probable
Delivery—Outline of the Sermon—Remarks on the Allegorical
Style—Outlines of Another Remarkable Sermon, “The Hind of the
Morning”—Great Preaching but Plain Preaching—Hardships of the Welsh
Preacher.

In 1792 Christmas Evans left Lleyn. He speaks of a providential intimation conveyed to him from the Island of Anglesea; the providential intimation was a call to serve all the Churches of his order in that island for seventeen pounds a year! and for the twenty years during which he performed this service, he never asked for more. He was twenty-six years of age when he set forth, on his birthday, Christmas Day, for his new and enlarged world of work. He travelled like an Apostle,—and surely he travelled in an apostolic spirit,—he was unencumbered with this world’s goods. It was a very rough day of frost and snow,

“The way was long, the wind was cold.”

He travelled on horseback, with his wife behind him; and he arrived on the evening of the same day at Llangefni. On his arrival in Anglesea he found ten small Baptist Societies, lukewarm and faint; what amount of life there was in them was spent in the distraction of theological controversy, which just then appeared to rage, strong and high, among the Baptists in North Wales. He was the only minister amongst those Churches, and he had not a brother minister to aid him within a hundred and fifty miles; but he commenced his labours in real earnest, and one of his first movements was to appoint a day of fasting and prayer in all the preaching places; he soon had the satisfaction to find a great revival, and it may with truth be said “the pleasure of the Lord prospered in his hand.”

Llangefni appears to have been the spot in Anglesea where Christmas found his home. Llangefni is a respectable town now; when the preaching apostle arrived there, near a hundred years since, its few scattered houses did not even rise to the dignity of a village. Cildwrn Chapel was here the place of his ministrations, and here stood the little cottage where Christmas and his wife passed their plain and simple days. Chapel and cottage stood upon a bleak and exposed piece of ground. The cottage has been reconstructed since those days, but upon the site of the queer and quaint old manse stands now a far more commodious chapel-keeper’s house. As in the Bedford vestry they show you still the chair in which John Bunyan sat, so here they show a venerable old chair, Christmas Evans’s chair, in the old Cildwrn cottage; it is deeply and curiously marked by the cuttings of his pocket-knife, made when he was indulging in those reveries and daydreams in which he lived abstracted from everything around him.

The glimpses of life we obtain from this old Cildwrn cottage do not incline us to speak in terms of very high eulogy of the Voluntary principle, as developed in Anglesea in that day; from the description, it must have been a very poor shanty, or windy shieling; it is really almost incredible to think of such a man in such a home. The stable for the horse or pony was a part of the establishment, or but very slightly separated from it; the furniture was very poor and scanty: a bed will sometimes compensate for the deprivations and toils of the day when the wearied limbs are stretched upon it, but Christmas Evans could not, as James Montgomery has it, “Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head, upon his own delightful bed;” for, one of his biographers says, the article on which the inmates, for some time after their settlement, rested at night, could be designated a bed only by courtesy; some of the boards having given way, a few stone slabs did some necessary service. The door by which the preacher and his wife entered the cottage was rotted away, and the economical congregation saved the expense of a new door by nailing a tin plate across the bottom; the roof was so low that the master of the house, when he stood up, had to exercise more than his usual forethought and precaution.

Here, then, was the study, the furnace, forge, and anvil whence were wrought out those noble ideas, images, words, which made Christmas Evans a household name throughout the entire Principality. Here he, and his Catherine, passed their days in a life of perfect naturalness—somewhat too natural, thinks the reader—and elevated piety. Which of us, who write, or read these pages, will dare to visit them with the indignity of our pity? Small as his means were, he looks very happy, with his pleasant, bright, affectionate, helpful and useful wife; he grew in the love and honour of the people; and to his great pulpit eminence, and his simple daily life, have been applied, not unnaturally, the fine words of Wordsworth—

“So did he travel on life’s common way
In cheerful lowliness; and yet his heart
The mightiest duties on itself did lay.”

And there was a period in Wordsworth’s life, before place, and fame, and prosperity came to him, when the little cottage near the Wishing Gate, in Grasmere, was not many steps above that of the Cildwrn cottage of Christmas Evans. The dear man did not care about his poverty,—he appears never either to have attempted to conceal it, nor to grumble at it; and one of his biographers applies to him the pleasant words of Jean Paul Richter, “The pain of poverty was to him only as the piercing of a maiden’s ear, and jewels were hung in the wound.”

It was, no doubt, a very rough life, but he appears to have attained to the high degree of the Apostle,—“having food and raiment, let us be therewith content;” and he was caught up, and absorbed in his work: sermons, and material for sermons, were always preparing in his mind; he lived to preach, to exercise that bardic power of his. That poor room was the study; he had no separate room to which to retire, where, in solitude, he could stir, or stride the steeds of thought or passion.

During those years, in that poor Cildwrn room, he mastered some ways of scholarship, the mention of which may, perhaps, surprise some of our readers. He made himself a fair Hebraist; no wonder at that, he must have found the language, to him, a very congenial tongue; we take it that, anyhow, the average Welshman will much more readily grapple with the difficulties of Hebrew than the average Englishman. Then he became so good a Grecian, that once, in a bookseller’s shop, upon his making some remarks on Homer in the presence of a clergyman, a University man, which drew forth expressions of contempt, Christmas put on his classical panoply, and so addressed himself to the shallow scholar, that he was compelled, by the pressure of engagements, to beat a surprisingly quick retreat.

Very likely the slender accoutrements of his library would create a sneer upon the lips of most of the scholars of the modern pulpit: his lexicons did not rise above Parkhurst,—and _we_ will be bold to express gratitude to that forgotten and disregarded old scholar, too; Owen supplied him with the bones of theological thought, the framework of his systematic theology; and whatever readers may think of his taste, Dr. Gill largely drew upon his admiration and sympathy, in the method of his exposition. But, when all was said and done, he was the Vulcan himself, who wrought the splendid fancies of the Achilles’ shield,—say, rather, of the shield of Faith; he did not disdain books, but books with him were few, and his mind, experience, and observation were large.

A little while ago, we heard a good story. A London minister of considerable notoriety, never in any danger of being charged with a too lowly estimate of himself, or his powers, was called to preach an anniversary sermon, on a week evening, some distance from London. Arrived at the house of the brother minister, for whom he had undertaken the service, before it commenced, he requested to be shown into the study, in which he might spend some little time in preparation: the minister went up with him.

“So!” said the London Doctor, as he entered, and gazed around, “this is the place where all the mischief is done; this is your furnace, this is the spot from whence the glowing thoughts, and sparks emanate!”

“Yes,” said his host, “I come up here to think, and prepare, and be quiet; one cannot study so well in the family.”

The Doctor strode up and down the room, glancing round the walls, lined with such few books as the modest means of a humble minister might be supposed to procure.

“Ah!” said the Doctor, “and these are the books, the alimentary canals which absorb the pabulum from whence you reinvigorate the stores of thought, and rekindle refrigerated feeling.”

“Yes, Doctor,” said the good man, “these are my books; I have not got many, you see, for I am not a rich London minister, but only a poor country pastor; you have a large library, Doctor?”

The great man stood still; he threw a half-indignant and half-benignant glance upon his humble brother, and he said, “_I_ have no library, _I_ do not want books, _I_ am _the_ Book!”

Christmas Evans, so far as he could command the means,—but they were very few,—was a voracious reader; and most of the things he read were welded into material for the imagination; but much more truly might he have said, than the awful London dignitary and Doctor, “I have no books, I am the book.” His modesty would have prevented him from ever saying the last; but it was nevertheless eminently and especially true, he _was_ the book. There was a good deal in him of the self-contained, self-evolving character; and it is significant of this, that, while probably he knew little, or nothing, of our great English classical essayists, John Foster and his Essays were especially beloved by him; far asunder as were their spheres, and widely different their more obvious and manifested life, there was much exceedingly alike in the structure of their mental characters.

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.

Christmas Evans says of himself at this period: “The Sandemanian heresy affected me so far as to quench the spirit of prayer for the conversion of sinners, and it induced in my mind a greater regard for the smaller things of the kingdom of heaven, than for the greater. I lost the strength which clothed my mind with zeal, confidence, and earnestness in the pulpit for the conversion of souls to Christ. My heart retrograded, in a manner, and I could not realize the testimony of a good conscience. Sabbath nights, after having been in the day exposing and vilifying, with all bitterness, the errors that prevailed, my conscience felt as if displeased, and reproached me that I had lost nearness to, and walking with, God. It would intimate that something exceedingly precious was now wanting in me; I would reply, that I was acting in obedience to the Word; but it continued to accuse me of the want of some precious article. I had been robbed, to a great degree, of the spirit of prayer, and of the spirit of preaching.”

And the man who headed and gave effect to this Sandemanian movement, which was regarded as a mighty reform movement, was Jones of Ramoth. No doubt a real and genuine character enough, a magnificent orator, a master of bitter wit, and vigorous declamation. That is a keen saying with which Richard Hooker commences his “Ecclesiastical Polity:” “He that goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers; because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment is subject; but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider.” This seems to have been the work, and this the effect, of John Richard Jones: very much the sum and substance of his preaching grew to be a morbid horror of the entire religious world, and a supreme contempt—one of his memorialists says, a superb contempt—for all preachers except himself, especially for all itinerant preachers. In fact, Ramoth Jones’s influence in Anglesea might well be described in George MacDonald’s song, “The Waesome Carl:”—

“Ye’re a’ wrang, and a’ wrang,
And a’thegither a’ wrang;
There’s no a man aboot the toon
But’s a’thegither a’ wrang.

“The minister wasna fit to pray,
And let alane to preach;
He nowther had the gift o’ grace,
Nor yet the gift o’ speech.

“He mind’t him o’ Balaam’s ass,
Wi’ a differ ye may ken:
The Lord He opened the ass’s mou’,
The minister opened’s ain.

“Ye’re a’ wrang, and a’ wrang,
And a’thegither a’ wrang;
There’s no a man aboot the toon
But’s a’thegither a’ wrang.”

Compared with the slender following of the Sandemanian schism now,—for we believe it has but six congregations in the whole United Kingdom,—it seems strange to know that it laid so wonderful a hold upon the island of Anglesea. It did, however; and that it did was evidently owing to the strong man whose name we have mentioned. He was a self-formed man, but he was a man, if not of large scholarship, of full acquaintance with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; he was a skilful musician; he understood the English language well, but of the Welsh he was a great master. But his intelligence, we should think, was dry and hard; his sentiments were couched in bitter sarcasm: “If,” said he, “every Bible in the world were consumed, and every word of Scripture erased from my memory, I need be at no loss how to live a religious life, according to the will of God, for I should simply have to proceed in all respects in a way perfectly contrary to the popular religionists of this age, and then I could not possibly be wrong.” He was very arrogant and authoritative in tone and manner, supercilious himself, and expecting the subordination of others. He was so bitter and narrow, that one naturally supposes that some injustice had embittered him. Some of his words have a noble ring. But he encouraged a spirit far other than a charitable one wherever his word extended; and it has been not unnaturally said, that the spread of this Sandemanian narrowness in Anglesea, realized something of the old Scotch absurdity of having two Churches in the same cottage, consisting of Janet in one apartment, and Sandy in the other; or of that other famed Scottish Church, which had dwindled down to two members, old Dame Christie, and Donald, but which seemed at last likely to dwindle yet farther into one, as Christie said she had “sair doubts o’ Donald.”

The work of Christmas Evans, so far successful, seemed likely to be undone; all the Churches seemed inoculated by these new and narrow notions, and Christmas Evans himself appears, as we have seen, to have been not altogether unscathed. There is something so plausible in this purism of pride; and many such a creed of pessimism is the outgrowth of indifference born, and nurtured, upon decaying faith,—a faith which, perhaps, as in the instance of Ramoth Jones and his Sandemanian teachers, continued true to Christ, so far as that is compatible with utter indifference to humanity at large, and an utter separation from the larger view of the Communion of Saints.

There was, however, a grand man, who stood firm while ministers and Churches around him were reeling, Thomas Jones, of Glynceiriog, in Denbighshire; he is said to have been the one and only minister, at all known to the public, who remained in his own denomination firm, and, successfully in his own spirit, withstood, and even conquered, in this storm of new opinion. And this Thomas Jones did not stand like an insensible stone or rock, but like a living oak, braving the blasts of veering opinion. Most men think in crowds,—which is only to say they are the victims of thoughtless plausibilities. This Thomas Jones appears to have known what he believed; he was eminent for his politeness, and greatly deferential in his bearing; but with all this, his courtesy was the courtesy of the branch which bows, but retains its place. He was a man of marvellous memory, and Christmas Evans used to say of him, that wherever Thomas Jones was, no Concordance would be necessary. He was a great master in the study of Edwards “On the Freedom of the Will,” and his method of reading the book was characteristic; he would first seize a proposition, then close the book, and close his eyes, and turn the proposition round and round that it might be undisturbed by anything inside the treatise, or outside of it, and in this way he would proceed with the rigorous demonstration. He was a calm and dignified knight in the tournament of discussion; and, before his lance, more vehement but less trained thinkers and theologians went down.

Thus it was that he preached a great Association sermon at Llangevni, in 1802, which dealt the Sandemanian schism a fatal blow; the captivity beneath the spell of the influence of Ramoth Jones was broken, and turned as streams in the south. While the sermon was being preached, Christmas Evans said, “This Thomas Jones is a monster of a man!” Then the great revival sprang up,—the ice reign was over; but shortly after, he was called away to Rhydwilym, in Caermarthenshire. Young as he was, when John Elias heard of his departure, he said, “The light of the north is removed.” He died full of years, full of honours, full of love; closing a life, says one, of quiet beauty, which perhaps has never been surpassed, at Rhydwilym, in 1850.

This irruption of Sandemanian thought, as we have said and seen, affected the spiritual life and earnest usefulness of Christmas Evans. It is well we should place this passing flower upon the memory of Jones of Rhydwilym, for he, it seems, broke the spell and dissolved the enchantment, and bade, in the heart of Christmas Evans, the imprisoned waters once more to flow forth warm, and rejoicing, in the life and enthusiasm of love. May we not say, in passing, that some such spell, if not beneath the same denomination of opinion, holds many hearts in bondage among the Churches in our time?

The joy which Christmas Evans felt in his deliverance, realizes something of the warm words of the poet of the _Messiah_—

“The swain in barren deserts, with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.”

“I was weary,” he says, referring to this period, “of a cold heart towards Christ, and His sacrifice, and the work of His Spirit—of a cold heart in the pulpit, in secret prayer, and in the study. For fifteen years previously, I had felt my heart burning within, as if going to Emmaus with Jesus. On a day ever to be remembered by me, as I was going from Dolgelly to Machynlleth, and climbing up towards Cadair Idris, I considered it to be incumbent upon me to pray, however hard I felt in my heart, and however worldly the frame of my spirit was. Having begun in the name of Jesus, I soon felt, as it were, the fetters loosening, and the old hardness of heart softening, and, as I thought, mountains of frost and snow dissolving and melting within me. This engendered confidence in my soul in the promise of the Holy Ghost. I felt my whole mind relieved from some great bondage; tears flowed copiously, and I was constrained to cry out for the gracious visits of God, by restoring to my soul the joys of His salvation; and that He would visit the Churches in Anglesea that were under my care. I embraced in my supplications all the Churches of the saints, and nearly all the ministers in the Principality by their names. This struggle lasted for three hours; it rose again and again, like one wave after another, or a high flowing tide, driven by a strong wind, until my nature became faint by weeping and crying. Thus I resigned myself to Christ, body and soul, gifts and labours—all my life—every day, and every hour that remained for me; and all my cares I committed to Christ. The road was mountainous and lonely, and I was wholly alone, and suffered no interruption in my wrestlings with God.

“From this time, I was made to expect the goodness of God to Churches, and to myself. Thus the Lord delivered me and the people of Anglesea from being carried away by the flood of Sandemanianism. In the first religious meetings after this, I felt as if I had been removed from the cold and sterile regions of spiritual frost, into the verdant fields of Divine promises. The former striving with God in prayer, and the longing anxiety for the conversion of sinners, which I had experienced at Lëyn, were now restored. I had a hold of the promises of God. The result was, when I returned home, the first thing that arrested my attention was, that the Spirit was working also in the brethren in Anglesea, inducing in them a spirit of prayer, especially in two of the deacons, who were particularly importunate that God would visit us in mercy, and render the Word of His grace effectual amongst us for the conversion of sinners.”

And to about this time belongs a most interesting article, preserved among his papers, “a solemn covenant with God,” made, he says, “under a deep sense of the evil of his own heart, and in dependence upon the infinite grace and merit of the Redeemer.” It is a fine illustration of the spirit and faith of the man in his lonely communions among the mountains.

Covenant with God.

I. I give my soul and body unto Thee, Jesus, the true God, and
everlasting life; deliver me from sin, and from eternal death, and
bring me into life everlasting. Amen.—C. E.

II. I call the day, the sun, the earth, the trees, the stones, the
bed, the table, and the books, to witness that I come unto Thee,
Redeemer of sinners, that I may obtain rest for my soul from the
thunders of guilt and the dread of eternity. Amen.—C. E.

III. I do, through confidence in Thy power, earnestly entreat Thee
to take the work into Thine own hand, and give me a circumcised
heart, that I may love Thee; and create in me a right spirit, that I
may seek thy glory. Grant me that principle which Thou wilt own in
the day of judgment, that I may not then assume pale-facedness, and
find myself a hypocrite. Grant me this, for the sake of Thy most
precious blood. Amen.—C. E.

IV. I entreat Thee, Jesus, the Son of God, in power grant me, for
the sake of Thy agonizing death, a covenant interest in Thy blood
which cleanseth; in Thy righteousness, which justifieth; and in Thy
redemption, which delivereth. I entreat an interest in Thy blood,
for Thy _blood’s_ sake, and a part in Thee, for Thy Name’s sake,
which Thou hast given among men. Amen.—C. E.

V. O Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, take, for the sake of Thy
cruel death, my time, and strength, and the gifts and talents I
possess; which, with a full purpose of heart, I consecrate to Thy
glory in the building up of Thy Church in the world, for Thou art
worthy of the hearts and talents of all men. Amen.—C. E.

VI. I desire Thee, my great High Priest, to confirm, by Thy power
from Thy High Court, my usefulness as a preacher, and my piety as a
Christian, as two gardens nigh to each other; that sin may not have
place in my heart to becloud my confidence in Thy righteousness, and
that I may not be left to any foolish act that may occasion my gifts
to wither, and I be rendered useless before my life ends. Keep Thy
gracious eye upon me, and watch over me, O my Lord, and my God for
ever! Amen.—C. E.

VII. I give myself in a particular manner to Thee, O Jesus Christ
the Saviour, to be preserved from the falls into which many stumble,
that Thy name (in Thy cause) may not be blasphemed or wounded, that
my peace may not be injured, that Thy people may not be grieved, and
that Thine enemies may not be hardened. Amen.—C. E.

VIII. I come unto Thee, beseeching Thee to be in covenant with me in
my ministry. As Thou didst prosper Bunyan, Vavasor Powell, Howell
Harris, Rowlands, and Whitfield, O do Thou prosper me. Whatsoever
things are opposed to my prosperity, remove them out of the way.
Work in me everything approved of God for the attainment of this.
Give me a heart “sick of love” to Thyself, and to the souls of men.
Grant that I may experience the power of Thy Word before I deliver
it, as Moses felt the power of his own rod, before he saw it on the
land and waters of Egypt. Grant this, for the sake of Thine
infinitely precious blood, O Jesus, my hope, and my all in all.
Amen.—C. E.

IX. Search me now, and lead me into plain paths of judgment. Let me
discover in this life what I am before Thee, that I may not find
myself of another character when I am shown in the light of the
immortal world, and open my eyes in all the brightness of eternity.
Wash me in Thy redeeming blood. Amen.—C. E.

X. Grant me strength to depend upon Thee for food and raiment, and
to make known my requests. O let Thy care be over me as a
covenant-privilege betwixt Thee and myself, and not like a general
care to feed the ravens that perish, and clothe the lily that is cast
into the oven; but let Thy care be over me as one of Thy family, as
one of Thine unworthy brethren. Amen.—C. E.

XI. Grant, O Jesus, and take upon Thyself the preparing of me for
death, for Thou art God; there is no need but for Thee to speak the
word. If possible, Thy will be done; leave me not long in
affliction, nor to die suddenly, without bidding adieu to my
brethren, and let me die in their sight, after a short illness. Let
all things be ordered against the day of removing from one world to
another, that there be no confusion nor disorder, but a quiet
discharge in peace. O grant me this, for the sake of Thine agony in
the garden. Amen.—C. E.

XII. Grant, O blessed Lord, that nothing may grow and be matured in
me to occasion Thee to cast me off from the service of the sanctuary,
like the sons of Eli; and for the sake of Thine unbounded merit, let
not my days be longer than my usefulness. O let me not be like
lumber in a house in the end of my days, in the way of others to
work. Amen.—C. E.

XIII. I beseech Thee, O Redeemer, to present these my supplications
before the Father; and oh, inscribe them in Thy Book with Thine own
immortal pen, while I am writing them with my mortal hand in my book
on earth. According to the depths of Thy merit, Thine undiminished
grace, and Thy compassion, and Thy manner unto Thy people, O attach
Thy Name in Thine Upper Court to these unworthy petitions; and set
Thine Amen to them, as I do on my part of the covenant.
Amen.—CHRISTMAS EVANS, _Llangevni_, _Anglesea_, _April_ 10, 18—.

Is not this an amazing document? It is of this time that he further writes:—“I felt a sweet peace and tranquillity of soul, like unto a poor man that had been brought under the protection of the Royal Family, and had an annual settlement for life made upon him; and from whose dwelling painful dread of poverty and want had been for ever banished away.” We have heard of God-intoxicated men; and what language can more appropriately describe a covenant-engagement so elevated, so astonishing, and sublime?

Now, apparently strengthened as by a new spirit, with “might in the inner man,” he laboured with renewed energy and zeal; and new and singular blessings descended upon his labours. In two years, his ten preaching places in Anglesea were increased to twenty, and six hundred converts were added to the Church under his own immediate care. It seemed as if the wilderness and the solitary place were glad for him, and the desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose.

Probably, Christmas Evans’s name had been scarcely announced, or read, in England, until his great Graveyard Sermon was introduced to a company of friends, by the then celebrated preacher, Dr. Raffles, of Liverpool. As the story has been related, some persons present had affected contempt for Welsh preaching. “Listen to me,” said Raffles, “and I will give to you a specimen of Welsh eloquence.” Upon those present, the effect was, we suppose, electrical. He was requested to put it in print; and so the sermon became very extensively known, and has been regarded, by many, as the preacher’s most astonishing piece.

To what exact period of Evans’s history it is to be assigned cannot be very well ascertained, but it is probably nearly sixty years since Raffles first recited it; so that it belongs, beyond a doubt, to the early Anglesea days. It was, most likely, prepared as a great bardic or dramatic chant for some vast Association meeting, and was, no doubt, repeated several times, for it became very famous. It mingles something of the life of an old Mystery Play, or Ober-Ammergau performance; but as to any adequate rendering of it, we apprehend that to be quite impossible. Raffles was a rhetorician, and famous as his version became, the good Doctor knew little or nothing of Welsh, nor was the order of his mind likely very accurately to render either the Welsh picture or the Welsh accent. His periods were too rounded, the language too fine, and the pictures too highly coloured.

It was about the same time that, far away from Anglesea, among the remote, unheard-of German mountains of Baireuth, a dreamer of a very different kind was visited by some such vision of the world, regarded as a great churchyard. Jean Paul Richter’s churchyard, visited by the dead Christ, was written in Siebinckas, for the purpose of presenting the misty, starless, cheerless, and spectral outlook of the French atheism, which was then spreading out, noxious and baleful, over Europe.

Very different were the two men, their spheres, and their avocations; overwhelming, solemn, and impressive as is the vision of Jean Paul, it certainly would have said little to a vast Welsh congregation among the dark hills. Christmas Evans’s piece is dramatic; his power of impersonation and colloquy in the pulpit was very great; and the reader has to conceive all this, while on these colder pages the scenes and the conversations go on. It appears to have been first preached in a small dell among the mountains of Carnarvonshire. The spot was exquisitely romantic; it was a summer’s season, the grass was in its rich green, brooks were purling round, and the spot hemmed in by jagged crags and the cliffs of tall mountains; a beautiful spot, but an Englishman spoke of it as “beauty sleeping on the lap of terror.”

A preliminary service, of course, went on,—hymns, the sounding of the slow, plaintive minor melody from thousands of tongues, rising and loitering, and lingering among the neighbouring acclivities, before they finally fade off into silence; then there is reading, and prayer, singing again, and a short sermon before Christmas Evans comes. He has not attained to the full height of his great national fame as yet; he is before the people, however, “the one-eyed man of Anglesea,”—the designation by which he was to be known for many years to come. He stands six feet high, his face very expressive, but very calm and quiet; but a great fire was burning within the man. He gave out some verses of a well-known Welsh hymn, and while it was being sung took out a small phial from his waistcoat-pocket, wetting the tips of his fingers and drawing them over his blind eye; it was laudanum, used to deaden the excruciating pain which upon some occasions possessed him.

He gave out his text from Romans v. 15: “If through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” Naturally, he does not begin at once, but spends a little time, in clearly-enunciated words, in announcing two things,—the universal depravity and sinfulness of men, and the sighing after propitiation. _Mene_! _Tekel_! he says, is written on every human heart; wanting, wanting, is inscribed on heathen fanes and altars, on the laws, customs, and institutions of every nation, and on the universal consciousness of mankind; and bloody sacrifices among pagan nations show the handwriting of remorse upon the conscience,—a sense of guilt, and a dread of punishment, and a fear which hath torment.

As he goes on the people draw nearer, become more intense in their earnest listening; they are rising from their seats, their temporary forms. Some are in carriages; there is a lady leaning on her husband’s shoulder, he still sitting, she with outstretched neck gazing with obviously strange emotion at the preacher; some of the people are beginning to weep. There is an old evangelical clergyman who has always preached the Gospel, although laughed at by his squire, and quite unknown by his Bishop; he is rejoicing with a great joy to hear his old loved truths set forth in such a manner; he is weeping profusely.

Christmas Evans, meantime, is pursuing his way, lost in his theme. Now his eye lights up, says one who knew him, like a brilliantly-flashing star, his clear forehead expands, his form dilates in majestic dignity; and all that has gone before will be lost in the white-heat passion with which he prepares to sing of Paradise lost, and Paradise regained. One of his Welsh critics says: “All the stores of his energy, and the resources of his voice, which was one of great compass, depth, and sweetness, seemed reserved for the closing portions of the picture, when he represented the routed and battered hosts of evil retreating from the cross, where they anticipated a triumph, and met a signal, and irretrievable overthrow.” Thus prepared, he presented to his hearers the picture of

“THE WORLD AS A GRAVEYARD.”

“Methinks,” exclaimed the impassioned preacher, “I find myself
standing upon the summit of one of the highest of the everlasting
hills, permitted from thence to take a survey of the whole earth; and
all before me I see a wide and far-spread burial-ground, a graveyard,
over which lie scattered the countless multitudes of the wretched and
perishing children of Adam! The ground is full of hollows, the
yawning caverns of death; and over the whole scene broods a thick
cloud of darkness: no light from above shines upon it, there is no
ray of sun or moon, there is no beam, even of a little candle, seen
through all its borders. It is walled all around, but it has gates,
large and massive, ten thousand times stronger than all the gates of
brass forged among men; they are one and all safely locked,—the hand
of Divine Law has locked them; and so firmly secured are the strong
bolts, that all the created powers even of the heavenly world, were
they to labour to all eternity, could not drive so much as one of
them back. How hopeless is the wretchedness to which the race is
doomed! into what irrecoverable depths of ruin has sin plunged the
people who sit there in darkness, and in the shadow of death, while
there, by the brazen gates, stands the inflexible guard, brandishing
the flaming sword of undeviating Law!

“But see! In the cool of the day, there is one descending from the
eternal hills in the distance: it is Mercy! the radiant form of
Mercy, seated in the chariot of Divine Promise. She comes through
the worlds of the universe; she pauses here to mark the imprisoned
and grave-like aspect of our once fair world; her eye affected her
heart as she beheld the misery, and heard the cry of despair, borne
upon the four winds of heaven; she could not pass by, nor pass on;
she wept over the melancholy scene, and she said, ‘Oh that I might
enter! I would bind up their wounds, I would relieve their sorrows,
I would save their souls!’ An embassy of angels, commissioned from
Heaven to some other world, paused at the sight; and Heaven forgave
that pause. They saw Mercy standing by the gate, and they cried,
‘Mercy, canst thou not enter? Canst thou look upon that world and
not pity? Canst thou pity and not relieve?’ And Mercy, in tears,
replied, ‘I can see, and I can pity, but I cannot relieve.’ ‘Why
dost thou not enter?’ inquired the heavenly host. ‘Oh,’ said Mercy,
‘Law has barred the gate against me, and I must not, and I cannot
unbar it.’ And Law stood there watching the gate, and the angels
asked of him, ‘Why wilt thou not suffer Mercy to enter?’ And he
said, ‘No one can enter here and live;’ and the thunder of his voice
outspoke the wailings within. Then again I heard Mercy cry, ‘Is
there no entrance for me into this field of death? may I not visit
these caverns of the grave; and seek, if it may be, to raise some at
least of these children of destruction, and bring them to the light
of day? Open, Justice, Open! drive back these iron bolts, and let me
in, that I may proclaim the jubilee of redemption to the children of
the dust!’ And then I heard Justice reply, ‘Mercy! surely thou
lovest Justice too well to wish to burst these gates by force of arm,
and thus to obtain entrance by lawless violence. I cannot open the
door: I am not angry with these unhappy, I have no delight in their
death, or in hearing their cries, as they lie upon the burning hearth
of the great fire, kindled by the wrath of God, in the land that is
lower than the grave. But _without shedding of blood there is no
remission_.’

“So Mercy expanded her wings, splendid beyond the brightness of the
morning when its rays are seen shooting over mountains of pearl,—and
Mercy renewed her flight amongst the unfallen worlds; she re-ascended
into the mid air, but could not proceed far, because she could not
forget the sad sight of the Graveyard-World, the melancholy prison.
She returned to her native throne in the Heaven of heavens; it was a
glorious high throne, unshaken and untarnished by the fallen fate of
man and angels. Even there she could not forget what she had
witnessed, and wept over, and she weighed the woes of the sad world
against the doom of eternal Law; she could not forget the prison and
the graveyard, and she re-descended with a more rapid and radiant
flight, and she stood again by the gate, but again was denied
admission. And the two stood there together, Justice and Mercy; and
Justice dropped his brandishing sword while they held converse
together; and while they talked, there was silence in heaven.

“‘Is there then no admission on any terms whatever?’ she said. ‘Ah,
yes,’ said Justice; ‘but then they are terms which no created being
can fulfil. I demand atoning death for the Eternal life of those who
lie in this Graveyard; I demand Divine life for their ransom.’ And
while they were talking, behold there stood by them a third Form,
fairer than the children of men, radiant with the glory of heaven.
He cast a look upon the graveyard. And He said to Mercy, ‘Accept the
terms.’ ‘Where is the security?’ said Justice. ‘Here,’ said Mercy,
pointing to the radiant Stranger, ‘is my bond. Four thousand years
from hence, demand its payment on Calvary. To redeem men,’ said
Mercy, ‘I will be incarnate in the Son of God, I will be the Lamb
slain for the life of this Graveyard World.’

“The bond was accepted, and Mercy entered the graveyard leaning on
the arm of Justice. She spoke to the prisoners. Centuries rolled
by. So went on the gathering of the firstfruits in the field of
redemption. Still ages passed away, and at last the clock of
prophecy struck the fulness of time. The bond, which had been
committed to patriarchs and prophets, had to be redeemed; a long
series of rites and ceremonies, sacrifices and oblations, had been
instituted to perpetuate the memory of that solemn deed.

“At the close of the four thousandth year, when Daniel’s seventy
weeks were accomplished, Justice and Mercy appeared on the hill of
Calvary; angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, principalities
and powers, left their thrones and mansions of glory, and bent over
the battlements of heaven, gazing in mute amazement and breathless
suspense upon the solemn scene. At the foot of Calvary’s hill was
beheld the Son of God. ‘Lo, I come,’ He said; ‘in the bond it is
written of me.’ He appeared without the gates of Jerusalem, crowned
with thorns, and followed by the weeping Church. It was with Him the
hour and the power of darkness; above Him were all the vials of
Divine wrath, and the thunders of the eternal Law; round Him were all
the powers of darkness,—the monsters of the pit, huge, fierce and
relentless, were there; the lions as a great army, gnashing their
teeth ready to tear him in pieces; the unicorns, a countless host,
were rushing onwards to thrust him through; and there were the bulls
of Bashan roaring terribly; the dragons of the pit unfolding
themselves, and shooting out their stings; and dogs, many, all round
the mountain.

“And He passed through this dense array, an unresisting victim led as
a lamb to the slaughter. He took the bond from the hand of Justice,
and, as He was nailed to the cross, He nailed it to the cross; and
all the hosts of hell, though invisible to man, had formed a ring
around it. The rocks rent, the sun shrank from the scene, as Justice
lifted his right hand to the throne, exclaiming, ‘Fires of heaven,
descend and consume this sacrifice!’ The fires of heaven, animated
with living spirit, answered the call, ‘We come! we come! and, when
we have consumed that victim, we will burn the world.’ They burst,
blazed, devoured; the blood of the victim was fast dropping; the
hosts of hell were shouting, until the humanity of Emmanuel gave up
the ghost. The fire went on burning until the ninth hour of the day,
but when it touched the Deity of the Son of God it expired; Justice
dropped the fiery sword at the foot of the cross; and the Law joined
with the prophets in witnessing to the righteousness which is by
faith in the Son of God, for all had heard the dying Redeemer
exclaim, ‘It is finished!’ The weeping Church heard it, and lifting
up her head cried too, ‘It is finished!’ Attending angels hovering
near heard it, and, winging their flight, they sang, ‘It is
finished!’ The powers of darkness heard the acclamations of the
universe, and hurried away from the scene in death-like feebleness.
He triumphed over them openly. The graves of the old Burial-ground
have been thrown open, and gales of life have blown over the valley
of dry bones, and an exceeding great army has already been sealed to
our God as among the living in Zion; for so the Bond was paid and
eternal redemption secured.”

This was certainly singular preaching; it reads like a leaf or two from Klopstock. We may believe that the enjoyment with which it was heard was rich and great, but we suppose that the taste of our time would regard it as almost intolerable. Still, there are left among us some who can enjoy the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and the _Fairy Queen_, and we do not see how, in the presence of those pieces, a very arrogant exception can be taken to this extraordinary sermon.

A more serious objection, perhaps, will be taken to the nomenclature, the symbolic language in which the preacher expressed his theology. It literally represented the theology of Wales at the time when it was delivered; the theology was stern and awful; the features of God were those of a stern and inflexible Judge; nature presented few relieving lights, and man was not regarded as pleasant to look upon. Let the reader remember all this, and perhaps he will be more tolerant to the stern outline of this allegory; it is pleasant, now, to know that we have changed all that, and that everywhere, and all around us, God, and nature, and man are presented in rose-hued lights, and all conditions of being are washed by rosy and pacific seas; we see nothing stern or awful now, either in nature or in grace, in natural or in supernatural things; Justice has become gentlemanly, and Law, instead of being stern and terrible, is bland, and graceful, and beautiful as a woman’s smile!

In Christmas Evans’s day, it was not quite so. As to objections to the mode of preaching, as in contrast with that style which adopts only the sustained argument, and the rhetorical climax and relation, we have already said that Christmas must be tried by quite another standard; we have already said that he was a bard among preachers, and belonged to a nation of bards. It was a kind of primeval song, addressed to people of primeval instincts; but, whatever its merits or demerits may be, it fairly represents the man and his preaching. It does not, indeed, reflect the style of the modern mind; but, there are many writers, and readers at present, who are carrying us back to the mediæval times, and the monastic preachers of those ages, and among them we find innumerable pieces of the same order of sustained allegory which we have just quoted from Christmas Evans. What is it but to say, that the simple mind is charmed with pictures,—it must have them; and such sermons as abound in them, have power over it?

We believe we have rendered this singular passage with such fairness that the reader may be enabled to form some idea of its splendour. When it was repeated to Robert Hall, he pronounced it one of the finest allegories in the language. When Christmas Evans was on a visit to Dr. Raffles, the Doctor recited to him his own version, and, apparently with some amazement, said, “Did you actually say all that?” “Oh, yes,” said Christmas, “I did say all that, but I could never have put it into such English.” And this we are greatly disposed to regard as impairing the bold grandeur and strength of the piece; any rendering of it into English must, as it seems to us, add to its prettiness, and therefore divest it of its power.

Probably to the same period of the preacher’s history belongs another sermon, which has always seemed to us a piece of undoubted greatness. It is upon the same subject, the Crucifixion of Christ. We should think that its delivery would, at any time, from such lips as his, produce equally pathetic emotions. The allegory is not so sustained, but it is still full of allegorical allusions derived from Scriptural expression.

“THE HIND OF THE MORNING.

“It is generally admitted that the twenty-second Psalm has particular
reference to Christ. This is evident from His own appropriation of
the first verse upon the cross: ‘My God! my God! why hast Thou
forsaken Me?’ The title of that Psalm is ‘_Aijeleth Shahar_,’ which
signifies ‘A Hart, or the Hind of the Morning.’ The striking
metaphors which it contains are descriptive of Messiah’s peculiar
sufferings. He is the Hart, or the Hind of the Morning, hunted by
the Black Prince, with his hell-hounds—by Satan, and all his allies.
The ‘dogs,’ the ‘lions,’ the ‘unicorns,’ and the ‘strong bulls of
Bashan,’ with their devouring teeth, and their terrible horns,
pursued Him from Bethlehem to Calvary. They beset Him in the manger,
gnashed upon Him in the garden, and well-nigh tore Him to pieces upon
the cross. And still they persecute Him in His cause, and in the
persons and interests of His people.