We do not suppose that, amidst his depressing griefs, these desolating beliefs, or unbeliefs, had any mastery over him. What did the men who tormented him know of those mighty springs of comfort, which came from those covenants he had made with God, amidst the lonely solitudes of his journeyings among the wild Welsh hills? He had not built his home, or his hopes, on the faithfulness of men, or the vitality of Churches; the roots of his faith, as they had struck downward, were now to bear fruit upward.
There was a fine healthfulness in his spirit. There is nothing in his life to lead one to think that he had ever been much intoxicated by the fame which had attended him; he appears to have been always beneath the control of the great truths in which he believed, and it was not the seductive charms of popularity for which he cared, but the power of those truths to bring light, conviction, and rest, to human souls. All his sermons look that way; all that we know of his preaching, and experience, turns in that direction.
Rose-leaves are said to act as an emetic, and have much the same effect on the constitution as senna-leaves. It is so with those sweet things which fame offers to the imagination; the conserves of its fragrance, by-and-by, become sickening. So, the robust nature of our fine old friend had to rise over grief, and disappointment, and unfriendliness, and diaconal dictation and impertinence. Only one thing he remembered. He appears to have been sustained, even as Edward Irving was, in his conviction that the truth of his message, the lamp of the ministry which he carried, gave to him a right, and a prerogative which he was not to relinquish; he had proved himself, he had proved the Spirit of God to be in him of a truth. He was not a wrangler, not disposed to maintain debates as to his rights; nor was he disposed to yield to caprice, faction, and turbulence; and so, he began to think of retiring, old as he was, from the field, the fragrance of which had proclaimed that the Lord had blessed him there.
Christmas Evans, as he draws near to the close of his work in Anglesea, only illustrates what many a far greater, and many a lesser man than he, have alike illustrated. There is a fine word among the many fine words of that great, although eccentric teacher, John Ruskin:—“It is one of the appointed conditions of the labour of man, that in proportion to the time between the seed-sowing and the harvest, is the fulness of the fruit; and that generally, therefore, the further off we place our aim, and the less we desire to be the witnesses of what we have laboured for, the more wide and rich will be the measure of our success.” This was, no doubt, the consolation of Christmas; but as we look upon him, a friendly voice reminds us, that, as he leaves Anglesea, he realizes very much of Robert Browning’s soliloquy of the martyred patriot:—
“Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs people have dropped down dead.
Paid by the world,—what dost thou owe
Me? God might question; now, instead,
’Tis God shall repay! I am safer so.”
So the candlestick was removed out of its place in Anglesea, and Anglesea soon, but too late, regretted the removal. Christmas Evans, however, seems to illustrate a truth, which may be announced almost as a general law, from the time of the Saviour and his Apostles down to our own, that those who have wrought most unselfishly, and serviceably for the cause of God, and the well-being of man, had to receive their payment in themselves, and in the life to come. In proportion to the greatness of their work was the smallness of their remuneration here.
If we refer to the painful circumstances in connection with the close of the ministry of Christmas Evans at Anglesea, it is, especially, to notice how his faith survived the shock of surrounding trouble. He himself writes: “Nothing could preserve me in cheerfulness and confidence under these afflictions, but the assurance of the faithfulness of Christ; I felt assured that I had much work yet to do, and that my ministry would be instrumental in bringing many sinners to God. This arose from my trust in God, and in the spirit of prayer that possessed me; I frequently arose above all my sorrows.”
And again he writes: “As soon as I went into the pulpit during this period, I forgot my troubles, and found my mountain strong; I was blessed with such heavenly unction, and longed so intensely for the salvation of men, and I felt the truth like a hammer in power, and the doctrine distilling like the honey-comb, and like unto the rarest wine, that I became most anxious that the ministers of the county should unite with me to plead the promise, ‘If any two of you agree touching anything,’ etc. Everything now conspired to induce my departure from the island: the unyielding spirit of those who had oppressed, and traduced me; and my own most courageous state of mind, fully believing that there was yet more work for me to do in the harvest of the Son of Man, my earnest prayers for Divine guidance, during one whole year, and the visions of my head at night, in my bed—all worked together towards this result.”
Few things we know of are more sad than this story. “It was an affecting sight,” says Mr. William Morgan, quoted by Mr. Rhys Stephen in his Memoir, “to see the aged man, who had laboured so long, and with such happy effects, leaving the sphere of his exertions under these circumstances; having laboured so much to pay for their meeting-houses, having performed so many journeys to South Wales for their benefit, having served them so diligently in the island, and passed through so many dangers; now some of the people withheld their contributions, to avenge themselves on their own father in the Gospel; others, while professing to be friends, did little more; while he, like David, was obliged to leave his city, not knowing whether he should ever return to see the ark of God, and his tabernacle in Anglesea again. Whatever misunderstanding there was between Mr. Evans, and some of his brethren, it is clear that his counsels ought to have been received with due acknowledgment of his age, and experience, and that his reputation should have been energetically vindicated. I am of opinion, I am quite convinced, that more strenuous exertions should have been made to defend his character, and to bear him, in the arms of love, through the archers, and not to have permitted him to fall in the street without an advocate.”
The whole aim of Mr. Evans’s life, as far as we have been able to read it, was to get good from heaven, in order that he might do good on earth. Clearly, he never worked with any hope of a great earthly reward for any personal worthiness; perhaps there arose a sense that he had always been unjustly remunerated, that burdens had been laid upon him he ought not to have been called upon to bear; and now the sense of injustice sought, as is so frequently the case, to vindicate itself by ingratitude. It seems so perpetually true, in the sad record of the story of human nature, that it is those who have injured us who seek yet further to hurt us.
The Great Welsh Preachers unknown in England—The Family of the Williamses—Williams of Pantycelyn—Peter Williams—Evan Williams—Dr. Williams—Williams of Wern—The immense Power of his Graphic Language—Reading and Thinking—Instances of his Power of Luminous Illustration—Early Piety—A Young Preacher—A Welsh Gilboa—Admiration of, and Likeness to, Jacob Abbot—Axiomatic Style—Illustrations of Humour—The Devils—Fondness for Natural Imagery—Fondness of Solitude—Affecting Anecdotes of Dying Hours—His Daughter—His Preaching characterised—The Power of the Refrain in the Musician and the Preacher, “Unto us a Child is born.”
We pause here for a short time, in our review of the career, and character, and pulpit power of Christmas Evans, to notice some of those eminent men, who exercised, in his day, an influence over the Welsh mind. We will then notice some of those preachers, of even the wilder Wales, who preceded these men. So little is known of many of them in England, and yet their character, and labours, are so essentially and excellently instructive, that we feel this work, to those who are interested, to be not one of supererogation. The men, their country, the people among whom they moved, their work in it, the singular faith in, and love for preaching, for the words these men had to utter,—they must seem, to us, remarkable, and memorable. In this time of ours, when preaching, and all faith in preaching, is so rapidly dying out, that it may be regarded, now, as one of the chief qualifications of a candidate for the pulpit, that he cannot preach a sermon, but can “go to those who sell, and buy for himself”—this study of what was effected by a living voice, with a real live soul behind it, must seem, as a matter of mere history, noteworthy. And first among those who charmed the Welsh ear, in the time of Christmas Evans, we mention Williams of Wern.
It is not without reason, that many eminent Welshmen can only be known, and really designated after the place of their birth, or the chief scene of their labours. The family of the Williamses, for instance, in Wales, is a very large one—even the eminent Williamses; and William Williams would not make the matter any clearer; for, always with tenderest love ought to be pronounced the name of that other William Williams, or, as he is called, Williams of Pantycelyn—the obscure, but not forgotten, Watts of Wales. His hymns have been sung over the face of the whole earth, and long before missionary societies had been dreamed of, he wrote, in his remote Welsh village,
“O’er the gloomy hills of darkness;”
and he has cheered, and comforted many a Zion’s pilgrim by his sweet song,
“Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah!”
He was born in 1717, and died in 1791. This sweet and sacred singer ought to receive more than this passing allusion. Little is known of him in England; and it is curious that Mr. Christopher’s volume on “Hymn Writers and their Hymns” neither mentions his hymns, nor his name.
A writer in the Quarterly Review, evidently not very favourable to that denomination of religious sentiment which Williams represented, has spoken of the “unmixed pleasure” his name and character awakens: “He was a man in whom singular purity of sentiment added grace to a truly original genius.” “His direction to other composers was, never to attempt to compose a hymn until they feel their souls near heaven. His precept, and his practice, in this respect, have been compared to those of Fra Angelico.” Would that some competent Welsh pen would render for us, into English, more of these notes of the sweet singer of Pantycelyn.
William Williams came from the neighbourhood of Llandovery, the parish of Pritchard of the “Welshman’s Candle;” he was, as his hymns would indicate, well educated; he studied for, and entered upon the medical profession; but, converted beneath the preaching of Howell Harris, in Talgarth churchyard, he turned from medicine to the work of the ministry. He was a member of the Established Church; he sought, and received ordination, and deacon’s orders, but, upon application for priest’s orders, he was refused. He then united himself with the Calvinistic Methodists, but still continued to labour with the great Daniel Rowlands, at Llangeitho. His sermons were, like his hymns, often sublime, always abounding in notes of sweetness. During the forty three years of his ministry, it is said, he travelled about 2,230 miles a year, making in all 95,890 miles! He wrote extensively, also, in prose. There is a handsome edition of his works in the Welsh language, and an English edition of some of his hymns. Among the most beautiful, our readers will remember—
“Jesus, lead us with Thy power
Safe into the promised rest.”
This was William Williams of Pantycelyn.
Then, there was Peter Williams, a famous name in the Principality, and of about the same period as Williams of Pantycelyn. No man of his time did so much to cultivate religious literature in Wales. He was a great preacher, and an exemplary man; when a minister within the Church of England, he was persecuted for his opinions, and practices; and, when he left that communion, he suffered even a more bitter persecution from his Methodist brethren. His life, and his preaching, appear to have been full of romantic incidents.
Then there was Evan Williams, who is spoken of as a seraphic man, and whose life appears to justify the distinctive designation, although he died at the age of twenty-nine, very greatly in consequence of ill-usage received in persecution.
Then, in England, we are better acquainted with Daniel Williams, the founder of what is called Dr. Williams’s Library; and who, in addition to this magnificent bequest, left sums of money to Wales for schools, endowments of ministers, annual grants of Bibles, and religious books, and for widows of ministers; by which Wales has received since, and receives now, the sum of about £700 a year. His ministry, however, was in London, at Hand Alley, Bishopsgate Street, nearly two hundred years since. His works are contained in six octavo volumes; but he scarcely falls beneath the intention of these pages.
Besides these, there are many others; so that, as we said above, the name of Williams represents, not only a large family, but a family remarkable for Christian usefulness in Wales. But, in this catalogue of eminent preachers, Williams of Wern, among those of his name, is singularly eminent. He had that power, to which we have referred, of using his language in such a manner, that people, in a very awful way, realized the scenes he described. Dr. Rees mentions of him, that when preaching on the resurrection of the dead, from the window of Ynysgan Chapel, Merthyr Tydvil, he so riveted the attention of the vast multitude, who were on the burying-ground before him, that when he reached the climax, all the crowd moved together in terror, imagining that the graves under their feet were bursting open, and the dead rising. Yet Williams was a singularly quiet preacher; these effects were wrought by the power of that language, so wonderfully fitted to work on the emotions of a very imaginative people, and which he knew how to play upon so well.
This great preacher had quite as remarkable an individuality as either of the eminent men, whose characters we may attempt faintly to portray. Christmas Evans, we have seen, led his hearers along through really dramatic, and pictorial representations. Davies was called the “Silver Trumpet” of Wales; his voice was an instrument of overwhelming compass, and sweetness. Elias was a man of severe, and passionate eloquence,—all the more terrible, because held in the restraint of a perfect, and commanding will. Williams differed from all three; nor must it, for a moment, be said that he “attained not to the first three.” His eminence was equal to theirs, and, in his own walk, he was quite as highly esteemed; but his department of power was completely different. Perhaps, he was less the vehicle of vehement passion than either Elias, or Davies; and it was altogether apart from his purpose to use the amazing imagery of Christmas Evans. His mind was built up of compacted thought; his images were not personifications, but analogies. So far as we are able to form a conception of him, his mind appears to have moved in a pathway of self-evidencing light.
Thus, if we were to speak of these four men as constituting a quartette in the harmony of the great Welsh pulpit, we should give to John Elias the place of the deep bass; to Davies, the rich and melting soprano; to Christmas Evans the tenor; reserving, for Williams of Wern, the place of the alto. His teaching was eminently self-evolved. None of the great Welsh preachers dealt much with pen, and paper. They wrought out their sermons on horseback, or whilst moving from place to place. With Williams it was especially so. Two ministers called upon him in 1830. One of them was something of a bookworm, and he asked him if he had read a certain book which had just been published. Williams said he had not. “Have you,” continued his friend, “seen so-and-so?” naming another work. “No, I have not.” And, presently, a third was mentioned, and the answer was still in the negative. “I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Williams, “you read too much; you do not think sufficiently. My plan in preparing sermons is to examine the connection of a passage, extract its principle, and think it over in my own mind. I never look at a Commentary, except when completely beaten.”
It has often been said that, in the very proportion in which eloquence is effective, and commanding in delivery, in the degree in which it is effective as heard, it is impossible to be read; and, with some measure of exception, this is, no doubt, true. Williams, certainly, is an illustration of this general principle; yet he was, perhaps, one of the most luminous of speakers; only, this alone, without accompanying passion, does not make the orator. Take the following as an illustration of his manner. On ejaculatory prayer:—
“Ejaculatory prayer is the Christian’s breath; the secret path to his hiding-place; his express to heaven in circumstances of difficulty, and peril; it is the tuner of all his religious feelings; it is his sling, and stone, with which he slays the enemy, ere he is aware of it; it is the hiding of his strength; and, of every religious performance, it is the most convenient. Ejaculatory prayer is like the rope of a belfry; the bell is in one room, and the handle, or the end of the rope which sets it a-ringing, in another. Perhaps the bell may not be heard in the apartment where the rope is, but it is heard in its own apartment. Moses laid hold of the rope, and pulled it hard, on the shore of the Red Sea; and though no one heard, or knew anything of it, in the lower chamber, the bell rang loudly in the upper one, till the whole place was moved, and the Lord said, ‘Wherefore criest thou unto me?’”
This is luminous preaching. Unfortunately, as with others, we have very little—scarcely anything, indeed—left of Williams’s pulpit talk.
William Williams was born in the year 1781, at Cwm-y-swn-ganol, in Merionethshire. There his parents occupied a farm, and were much respected. It seems, to us, an odd thing that their name was not Williams, but Probert, or Ap-Robert. He received his name of Williams from the singular practice, then prevalent in many parts of Wales, of converting, with the aid of the letter S, the Christian name of the father into the surname of the son. His father, although an orderly attendant upon Divine Worship, never made a public profession of religion; but his mother was a very pious, and exemplary member of the Calvinistic Methodist connexion.
The decisive hour of real religious conviction came to the youth when he was very young—only about thirteen years of age. Impressions deep, and permanent, were made on his mind, and heart, and at fifteen he was received into Church fellowship; but he suffered greatly from diffidence. Although it was expected of him, he could not pray either in the family, or in public, because, as he used to say, he would then be required, by all his acquaintance, to conduct himself like a perfect saint. But one night, when all the family, with the exception of his mother, and himself, had retired to rest, she engaged in prayer with him, and then said, “Now, Will, dear, do you pray,” and he did so; and from this moment dated the commencement of his courage, and confidence.
It was in his twenty-second year that he entered Wrexham Academy. He was a thorough Welshman—a monoglot. He made some progress in the acquisition of English, and Greek; but he could never speak English fluently, and was advanced in life before he knew a word of it; and he used to say, “When I violate English, I am like a child that breaks a window; I do not go back to mend it, but I run away, hoping I shall not be seen.” As linguists, most of his fellow-students outshone him; in the pulpit, from his very first efforts, he not only outshone them all, but it was soon seen that he was to transcend most of the teachers, and speakers of his time.
Perhaps his example will not commend itself to some of our modern writers, as to preparation for the ministry; for when he was recommended to continue longer under tuition, he said, “No—no; for if so, the harvest will be over while I am sharpening my sickle.” Young as he was, he took a singular view of the leadings of Providence, which, however, eminently marks the character of the man. He received a most unanimous invitation from a large, and influential Church at Horeb, in Cardiganshire, and was just about accepting the invitation, when the smaller, and, in comparison, quite insignificant sphere of Wern was put before him, with such commendations of the importance of the work as commanded his regards. He declined Horeb, and accepted Wern.
His field of labour appears to have comprehended a cluster of villages, such as Llangollen, Rhuabon, and Rhosllanerchrugog; and in this region the greater number of his days were passed, excepting that brief period, towards the close of his life, when he became the minister of the great Welsh tabernacle in Cross Hall Street, Liverpool. But he left Wales with a heavy heart, amidst the pretty distinctly expressed dissatisfaction of the people of the Principality, who, however, still insisted on giving him his designation of Williams of Wern. Nor was he away from them long. His old Church continued unsettled, and after three years’ ministry in Liverpool, he returned to Wern, to close his active, and useful life.
His pastorate consisted, really, of three places—Wern, Rhos, and Harwood. It was a singular circumstance, that whilst large crowds thronged round him at the first two places, and while his name was becoming as a sharp arrow through the whole Principality, he made little impression on Harwood. He used to say that Harwood had been of greater service to him than he had been to it; for it was “the thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure;” and if he ever felt disposed to be lifted up when he saw the crowds gathering round him at other places, he had only to go over to, or think about Harwood, and this became an effectual check to the feelings of self-inflation, in which he might have been tempted to indulge. It was so, whilst other places, Churches, and congregations, “waited for him as for the rain, and opened their mouths wide as for the latter rain;” whilst upon other fields his “doctrine distilled as the dew,” his stubborn Harwood appears to have been a kind of Welsh Gilboa, upon which no dew fell.
He was claimed as a kind of public property, and Churches at a distance seemed to think they had a right to his services, frequently very much to the irritation of his own people, to whom he might have given the consolation he once administered to a brother minister; “I understand that your people complain a good deal because you so often leave them. Well, let us be thankful that the reverse is not the case; for our own people might have tired of us, and be pleased to hear strangers, and preferred our absence, regarding us as ‘a vessel wherein is no pleasure.’” Unfortunately, in such cases, congregations do not take the matter as philosophically as the old Scotchwoman, who, when she met a neighbouring clergyman one Sabbath morning, wending his way to her own kirk, expressed her surprise at meeting him there, and then. He explained that it was an exchange of services. “Eh, then,” said the old woman, “your people will be having a grand treat the day.”
Something of the nature of Williams’s mind, and his method of ministration, may be gathered from his exceeding admiration of Jacob Abbot, and especially his work, “The Corner Stone.” “Oh! what a pity,” he said, “that we cannot preach as this man writes.” But, so far as we have been able to judge from the scanty means we possess, he did preach very much after the manner of Jacob Abbot’s writings. His words appear, first, to have been full of strong, seminal principles, and these were soon made clear in the light of very apt illustrations. Truly it has been said, that, first, the harper seizes his harp, and lays his hand firmly upon it, before he sweeps the strings. In an eminent manner, Williams gave to his people the sense, as soon as he commenced, that a subject was upon his heart, and mind; and he had a firm grasp of it, and from his creative mind each successive stroke was some fine, apt, happy evolution.
Illustration was his forte, but of a very different order from that of Christmas Evans; for instance, illustrating the contests of Christian creeds, and sects with each other, “I remember,” he said, “talking with a marine, who gave to me a good deal of his history. He told me the most terrible engagement he had ever been in, was one between the ship to which he belonged, and another English vessel, when, on meeting in the night, they mistook each other for a French man-of-war. Many persons were wounded, some slain; both vessels sustained serious damage from the firing, and, when the day broke, great was their surprise to find the English flag hoisted from the masts of both vessels, and that, through mistake, they had been fighting all night against their own countrymen. It was of no avail, now, that they wept together: the mischief was done. Christians,” said the preacher, “often commit the same error in this present world. One denomination mistakes another for an enemy; it is night, and they cannot see to recognise each other. What will be their surprise when they see each other in the light of another world! when they meet in heaven, after having shot at each other through the mists of the present state! How will they salute each other, when better known, and understood, after having wounded one another in the night! But they should wait till the dawn breaks, at any rate, that they may not be in danger, through any mistake, of shooting at their friends.”
The Welsh language is, as we suppose our readers well know, especially rich in compact, proverbial, axiomatic expressions. The Welsh triads are an illustration of this. The same power often appears in the pulpit. The latter, and more recent, languages are unfavourable to the expression of proverbs. Williams we should suppose to have been one of the most favourable exemplifications of this power. General tradition in Wales gives him this kind of eminence—poem, and proverb united in his sentences. We have not been able to obtain many instances of this; and we fear it must be admitted, that our language only in a clumsy way translates the pithy quaintness of the Welsh, such as the following: “The door of heaven shuts from below, not from above. ‘Your iniquities have separated, saith the Lord.’” “Of all the birds,” he once said, “the dove is the most easily alarmed, and put to flight, at hearing a shot fired. Remember,” he continued, “that the Holy Ghost is compared to a dove; and if you begin to shoot at each other, the heavenly Dove will take wing, and instantly leave you. The Holy Spirit is one of love, and peace, not of tumult, and confusion. He cannot live amongst the smoke, and noise of fired shots: if you would grieve the Holy Spirit, and compel Him to retire, you have only to commence firing at one another, and He will instantly depart.” “The mind of man is like a mill, which will grind whatever you put into it, whether it be husk or wheat. The devil is very eager to have his turn at this mill, and to employ it for grinding the husk of vain thoughts. Keep the wheat of the Word in the mind; ‘keep thy heart with all diligence.’”
Some of his words seem very odd, although he was a most grave, and serious man. Thus; “Our prayers often resemble the mischievous tricks of town-children, who knock at their neighbours’ houses, and then run away; we often knock at Heaven’s door, and then run off into the spirit of the world: instead of waiting for entrance, and answer, we act as if we were afraid of having our prayers answered.” Again: “There are three devils which injure, and ravage our Churches, and congregations,—the singing devil, the pew-letting devil, and the Church officers’ appointment devil: they are of the worst kind of devils, and this kind goeth not out but by prayer, and fasting.” “The old ministers,” he used to say, “were not much better preachers than we are, and, in many respects, they were inferior to us; but they had a success attendant upon their ministry that can now seldom be seen. They prayed more than we do. It was on his knees that Jacob became a prince; and if we would become princes, we must be more upon our knees. We should be successful as our fathers, could we be brought to the same spirit, and frame of mind.”
But Williams is like Elias in this; we have had none of his sermons rendered into English, and, therefore, the descriptions we have are rather tantalizing. Mr. Parry, the Congregational minister of Llandudno, a man well fitted to judge—himself one of the most distinguished living poets in the Welsh language, and who has carried many prizes from the Eisteddfodd—says of him: “I shall never forget his eloquence. It poured forth like a swollen torrent. I cannot help referring to a sermon he preached at an annual Association at Llanerchmedd, Anglesea. The meeting was, as usual, held in the open air. The weather was very sultry; the congregation seemed drowsy. His manner, before preaching, showed considerable restlessness, and when he came to the desk, he looked rather wild. It was evident his spirit was on fire, and his mind charged brimful with ideas. He read his text in a quick, bold tone; ‘But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly.’ He poured forth such a flood of eloquent description, that he completely enchanted our feelings, and made us imagine we felt the field move under our feet. He himself thought this occasion one of the most remarkable in his life; for I spoke to him about the sermon years after. I believe it served to raise our Churches throughout the whole land.”
He was a more extensive reader than any of his brethren in the ministry; a keen observer, too, in the departments of natural history, and natural philosophy. It was, indeed, much like his own method, and it illustrated the reason of his great admiration for Jacob Abbot’s “Corner Stone,” when he very prettily says, “The blessed Redeemer was very fond of His Father’s works.” He used to say, “If we understood nature better, it would help us to understand the Bible better. The kingdom of nature, and the kingdom of grace, are very like each other. There is a striking resemblance between the natural principles of the one, and the moral principles of the other.” He entered with a kind of joy into the sublime moods of nature; was fond of watching the play of the lightning, and listening to the voice of the thunder. “Jesus,” he used to say, “loved to look at the lily, and to listen to the birds; to speak upon the mysteries of the seed, and to draw forth principles from these things. It was no part of His plan to expound the laws of nature, although He understood them more perfectly than any one else; but He employed nature as a book of reference, to explain the great principles of the plan of salvation.”
A clergyman writes of him, that “his appearance when preaching was very remarkable, and singularly beautiful. When standing in a great crowd, every soul seemed agitated to its centre, and cheeks streaming with tears. It is but justice that every one should have his likeness taken when he appears to the greatest advantage; and so Williams. His picture, on such an occasion, would be an honour to the country which reared him, a treasure to the thousands who heard him, and a name to the painter.” The likeness is before us now, and in the firm, composed thoughtfulness, a kind of sad, far outlook in the eyes, and the lips which seem to wait to tremble into emotion—we think we can well realize, from the inanimate engraving, what life must have been in the speech of this extraordinary man. His mind was cast in a sweetly meditative mould. He was fond of retreating by himself among the trees, and walking beneath their shadows, as they formed a canopy over his head. He said of one such place, “I think I must love that spot through all eternity, for I have felt a degree of heaven there.”
And thus he died. He had lost his wife some time before. It is very affecting to read the account of himself, and his daughter, dying together in different rooms of the same house. As he said to her, one day, “We appear to be running, with contending footsteps, to be first at the goal.” They spent much time in talking together, with unruffled composure, of death, and heaven, and being “absent from the body, and present with the Lord.” Every morning, as soon as he was up, found him by the bedside of his daughter.
Once he said to her, “Well, Eliza, how are you this morning?”
“Very weak, father.”
“Ah!” said he, “we are both on the racecourse. Which of us do you think will get to the end first?”
“Oh, I shall, father. I think you must have more work to do yet.”
“No,” he said; “I think my work is nearly over.”
“It may be so, father; but, still, I think I shall be the first to go.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “it is best it should be so, for I am more able to bear the blow. But,” he continued, “do you long to see the end of the journey?”
“Oh, from my heart!” she replied.
“But why?”
“Because I shall see so many of my old friends, and my mother; and, above all, I shall see Jesus.”
“Ah, well, then,” he said, “tell them I am coming! tell them I am coming!”
She died first. Her last words were, “Peace! peace!” He followed her shortly after—on the 17th of March, 1840, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.
Amongst the great preachers of Wales, not one seems to have won more upon the tender love of those who knew him. Dr. Raffles said of him, “What he was as a preacher, I can only gather from the effects he produced on those who understood the language in which he spoke, but I can truly say, that every occasion on which I saw him only served to impress me more with the ardour of his piety, and the kindness of his heart. He was one of the loveliest characters it has been my lot to meet.”
High strains of thought, rendered into the sweet variety, melting tenderness, and the grand strength of the language of Wales, seem to have been the characteristics of the preaching of Williams of Wern; tender, and terrible, sweetness alternating with strength. We have already said how much Welsh preaching derived, in its greatest men, from the power of varying accent; the reader may conceive it himself if ever listening to that wonderful chorus in Handel’s “Messiah,” which Herder, the great German, called truly the Christian Epos; but the chorus to which we refer, is that singular piece of varying pictorial power, “Unto us a Child is born,” repeated, again and again, in sweet whispered accents, playing upon the thought; the shepherds having kept watch over their flocks by night in the fields, and having heard the revelation voices of the angels say it—“For unto us a Child is born;” and then rolls in the grand thunder, “And His name shall be called Wonderful;” and then, you return back to the sweet silvery accents, “For unto us a Child is born;” and the thought is, that the Wise Men are there offering their gifts; and then roll in, again, the grand, overwhelming words, “And His name shall be called Wonderful;” and yet again that for which we waited, the tender, silvery whisperings, “Unto us a Child is born;” until it seems as if flocks, and herds, and fields, shepherds, and wise men, all united with the family of Jesus, beneath the song-singing through the heavens in the clear starry night, “Unto us a Child is born, and His name shall be called Wonderful.” Those who have listened to this chorus, may form some idea of the way in which a great Welsh preacher—and Williams of Wern as a special illustration—would run his thought, and its corresponding expression, up and down, through various tones of feeling, and with every one awaken, on some varying accent, a fresh interpretation, and expression. Perhaps, the nearest approach we have heard, in England, to the peculiar gifts of this preacher, has been in the happiest moods of the beloved, and greatly honoured Thomas Jones, once minister of Bedford Chapel, London.
Fire and Smoke—Elias’s Pure Flame—Notes in the Pulpit—Carrying Fire in Paper—Elias’s Power in Apostrophe—Anecdote of the Flax-dresser—A Singular First Appearance in the Pulpit—A Rough Time in Wales—The Burning of the Ravens’ Nests—A Hideous Custom put down—The Great Fair of Rhuddlan—The Ten Cannon of Sinai—Action in Oratory—The Tremendous Character of his Preaching—Lives in an Atmosphere of Prayer—Singular Dispersion on a Racecourse—A Remarkable Sermon, Shall the Prey be taken from the Mighty?—Anecdote of a Noble Earl—Death and Funeral.
We have already implied that Welsh preaching has had many varieties, and very various influences too. Even the very excitements produced by these famous men, whose names we are recording, varied considerably; but one characteristic certainly seemed to attend them—the influence was real, and very undoubted. When Rowland Hill was in Wales, and witnessed some of the strong agitations resulting from great sermons, he said, he “liked the fire, but he did not like the smoke.” It was, like so many of the sayings of the excellent old humorist, prettily, and wittily said. But it may, also, be remarked, that it is, usually, impossible to have real fire without smoke; and it has further been well said, that the stories of the results of such preaching make us feel that, could we only get the fire, we need not object to a little of the smoke.
We are introducing to our readers, now, in John Elias, one who, certainly, does not seem to have surrounded the clear flames of his eloquence with unnatural excitement. If the effects of his oratory seem to rival all that we have heard of the astonishing power of George Whitefield, the material of his sermons, the severity of their tone of thought, and the fearfulness of their remorseless logic, remind us of Jonathan Edwards. He had read extensively, especially in theology; and, it has been truly said, his mind was a storehouse, large, lofty, and rich. Like his great coadjutors, he prepared for the pulpit with amazing care, and patience, but apparently never verbally—only seeing his ideas clearly, and revolving them over and over until, like fuel in the furnace, they flamed. He tells us how, having done his part, by earnest, and patient study, he trusted to God to give to his prepared mind its fitting expression, and speech. Of course, like the rest, he disclaimed all paper in the pulpit. An eminent brother minister, Thomas Jones, of Denbigh, was coming to London to preach what was considered the great annual sermon of the London Missionary Society, at Surrey Chapel. In his own country, Mr. Jones preached always extempore; but, being in company with Matthew Wilkes, and John Elias, he inquired of old Matthew whether, for such an occasion, he did not think that he had better write his sermon.
“Well, for such an occasion,” said Matthew, “perhaps it would be better to write your discourse; but, at any rate, let us have plenty of fire in it.”
“But,” said John Elias, “he cannot carry fire in paper!”
“Never mind,” said Matthew; “paper will do very well to light the fire with!”
Mr. Wilkes’ witty rejoinder seems to give the entire value to notes, and writing in the pulpit; but, no doubt, Elias expressed his conviction, and the conviction of all these men, that you cannot carry fire in paper. But we have before said that it was by no means wild-fire. One of the great poets of Wales imagined a conversation going on between the soul and the body of Elias, before they both went up together in the pulpit, when the soul said to the body, “Now, you must be a sacrifice for an hour. You must bear all my fire, and endure all my exertion, however intense it may be.” And another writer says of him that, while some preachers remind us of Pharaoh’s chariots, that drove heavily, Elias reminded us, rather, of that text, “He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.”
Whatever is to be said of the peculiarities of other great Welsh preachers, it seems to be admitted, on all hands, that John Elias was the Demosthenes of the group. Let no reader smile, however high his regard for the classic orator. The stories told of the effects of the preaching of John Elias, greatly resemble those of the great Grecian orator, who, at the close of his tremendous orations, found the people utterly oblivious to all the beauty, and strength of his discourses—utterly indisposed to admire, or criticise, but only conducted to that point of vehement indignation, and passionate action, which had been, all along, the purpose of the speaker, exclaiming, “Let us march against Philip!”
If profound passionate conviction, persuasion altogether insensible of anything besides its own emotions, be the chief attribute of the gifted orator, John Elias must stand, we will not say matchless, but, from all that we have heard of him, unsurpassed. We have no means of testing this by any published sermons; scraps and fragments we have, and traditions of the man, and his soul-piercing eloquence, float about over Wales; but we apprehend it was an order of eloquence which would not submit itself to either penmanship, or paper, either to the reporter, or the printing-press.
How extravagant some things seem when quietly read, unaccompanied by the passion, and excitement which the preacher has either apprehended, or produced! The reader remembers very well—for who does not?—Whitefield’s vehement apostrophe, “Stop, Gabriel!” Who could deliberately write it down to utter it? and what an affectation of emotion it seems to read it! But that was not the effect produced on David Hume, who heard it; and we may be very sure that man,—the most acute, profound, cold philosopher, and correct writer, had no friendly feelings either to Whitefield, or Gabriel—to the message which the preacher had to give, or the archangel to carry. A quiet, ordinary, domestic state of feeling scarcely knows how to make allowances for an inflamed orator, his whole nature heaving beneath the passion produced by some great, and subduing vision, an audience in his hands, as a river of water, prepared to move whithersoever he will. Thus Elias, when he was handling some weighty subject, would suddenly say, “Stop! silence!” (Disymwth! Gosteg!) “What are they saying in Heaven on the subject?” His hearers testify that, in such moments, he almost brought them within the precincts of the glory. The effect was thrilling. And, dealing with alarming truths, he would exclaim, “Stop! silence! What do they say in hell on this subject?”
The man who can do these things must be no hearsay man, or such questionable excursions of speech would be likely to provoke laughter, and contempt, rather than overwhelming awe. The effect of this preacher was unutterable. It is said that upon such occasions, had the people heard these things from the invisible world, as he expatiated on the things most likely to be uttered, either in Heaven or hell, upon the subject, they could scarcely have been more alarmed.
His biographer, Mr. Morgan, Vicar of Syston, in Leicestershire, tells how he heard him preaching once to a crowd in the open air, on “the Last Day,” representing the wicked as “tares gathered into bundles,” and cast into the everlasting burnings. There was a certain flax-dresser, who, in a daring and audacious way, chose to go on with his work in an open room opposite to where Elias was preaching from the platform; but, as the preacher grew more and more earnest, and the flames more flashing, the terrible fire more and more intense in its vehemence, the man was obliged to leave his work, and run into a yard behind his house, to get out of the reach of the cruel flames, and the awful peals of the thunder of the preacher’s subduing voice. “But the awful language of that Elias followed me there also,” said the panic-stricken sinner.
There was a preacher of Caernarvon, one Richardson, a preacher of peculiar tenderness, and sweetness, who made his hearers weep beneath the lovely message he generally carried. On one occasion, while Elias was pouring forth his vehement, and dreadful words, painting the next world in very living, and fearful colours, his audience all panic-stricken, and carried along as if they were on the confines of the darkness, and the gates opening to receive them, a man, in the agony of his excitement, cried out, “Oh, I wish I could hear Mr. Richardson, of Caernarvon, just for five minutes!” No anecdote could better illustrate the peculiar gifts, and powers of both men.
John Elias was a native of Caernarvonshire. His parents were people in very humble circumstances, but greatly respected. His paternal grandfather lived with them. He was a member of the Church of England. His influence over the mind of Elias appears to have been especially good; and it is, perhaps, owing to this influence that, although he became a minister, and the eminent pride of the Calvinistic Methodist body, he, throughout his life, retained a strong affection for the services, and even the institution, of the Church of England. Through his grandfather, he acquired, what was not usual in that day, the rudiments of education very early, and as a young child, could read very well and impressively. Thus, when quite a child, they went together to hear some well-known Methodist preacher. The time for the service had long passed, and the preacher did not arrive. The old gentleman became impatient, and said to his little grandson, “It’s a pity the people should be idling like this; go up into the pulpit, John, and read a chapter to them;” and, suiting the action to the word, he pushed the child up into the pulpit, and shut the door after him. With much diffidence, he began to read portions of the Sermon on the Mount, until, venturing to withdraw his eye from the Bible, and look aside, lo! to his great dismay, there was the preacher quietly waiting outside the pulpit door. He gently closed the book, and slipped down the pulpit stairs. This was his first appearance in the pulpit. Little could any one dream that, in after years, he was to be so eminent a master in it.
But he was only twenty years of age when he began to preach, indeed; and it is said that, from the first, people saw that a prophet of God had risen amongst them. There was a popular preacher, with a very Welsh name, David Cadwalladr, who went to hear him; and, after the sermon, he said, “God help that lad to speak the truth, for he’ll make the people believe,—he’ll make the people believe whatever he says!” From the first, John Elias appears to have been singularly like his two namesakes, John the Baptist, and Elias the prophet. He had in him a very tender nature; but he was a severe man, and he had a very severe theology. He believed that sin held, in itself, very tremendous, and fearful consequences, and he dealt with sin, and sinners, in a very daring, and even dreadful manner.
He appeared in a rough time, when there were, in the neighbourhood, rough, cruel, and revolting customs. Thus, on Whitsunday in each year, a great concourse of people used to assemble together to burn the ravens’ nests. These birds bred in a high and precipitous rock, called Y gadair (that is, “the chair”). The birds were supposed to prey on young poultry, etc., and the people thought it necessary to destroy them; but they always did so on the Sabbath, and it became quite a wild festival occasion; and the manner of their destruction was most savage, and revolting. The nests were beyond their reach; but they suspended a fiery fagot by a chain. This was let down to set the nests on fire; and the young birds were roasted alive. At every blaze which was seen below, triumphant shouts rose from the brutal crowd, rending the air. When the savages had put the birds to death, they usually turned on each other; and the day’s amusement closed in fights, wounds, bruises, and broken bones. One of the first of Elias’s achievements was the daring feat of invading this savage assembly, by proclaiming, in their very midst, the wrath of God against unrighteousness, and Sabbath-breaking. Perhaps, to us, the idea of preaching in such a scene seems like the attempting to still a storm by the waving of a feather; but we may also feel that here was a scene in which that terrible eloquence, which was a chief power of Elias, was well bestowed. Certainly, it appears chiefly due to Elias that the hideous custom was put down, and put to an end for ever.
It was no recreative play, no rippling out of mild, meditative, innocent young sermons, these first efforts of young Elias. For instance, there was a great fair which was wont to be held at Rhuddlan, in Denbighshire. It was always held on the Lord’s Day. Thither, into the midst of the fair, went the young man. He took his stand on the steps of the New Inn, the noise and business of the fair going on all around him. His friends had earnestly tried to dissuade, and entreated him not to venture into the midst of so wild, and dangerous a scene. Farmers were there, to hire labourers; crowds of rough labourers were there. It was the great market-day for scythes, and reaping-hooks. In the booths all round him were the sounds of harps, and fiddles; it was a wild scene of dissipation. There stood the solemn young man, thoughtful, grave, and compassionate. Of course, he commenced with a very solemn prayer; praying so that almost every order of person on the ground felt himself arrested, and brought, in a solemn way, before God. Singular effects, it is said, seemed to follow the prayer itself. Then he took for his text the fourth commandment; but he said he had come to open upon them “the whole ten cannon of Sinai.” The effects could hardly have been more tremendous had the congregation really stood at the foot of the mountain that “might not be touched.” In any case, Elias was an awful preacher; and we may be sure that upon this occasion he did not keep his terrors in reserve.
One man, who had just purchased a sickle, was so alarmed at the tremendous denunciations against Sabbath-breakers, that he imagined that the arm which held the sickle was paralysed; he let it fall on the ground. He could not take his eye from the preacher; and he feared to stoop to pick it up with the other hand, lest that should be paralysed also. It ought, also, to be said this man became an entirely changed character, and lived, to an advanced age, a consistent Christian. The great crowd was panic-stricken. The fair was never after held on the Lord’s Day. Some person said to Elias, afterwards, that the fair was an old custom, and it would recover itself, notwithstanding his extraordinary sermon. Elias, in his dreadful manner, replied, “If any one will give the least encouragement to the revival of that fair, he will be accursed before the Holy Trinity, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!” A dreadfully earnest sort of man this. We are not vindicating his speeches, only giving an account of them.
Mr. Jones, the Rector of Nevern, one of the most eminent of the Welsh bards, says, “For one to throw his arms about, is not action; to make this, or that gesture, is not action. Action is seen in the eye, in the curling of the lip, in the frowning of the nose—in every muscle of the speaker.” Mentioning these remarks to Dr. Pugh, when speaking of Elias, he said he “never saw an orator that could be compared to him. Every muscle was in action, and every movement that he made was not only graceful, but it spoke. As an orator,” said Dr. Pugh, “I considered him fully equal to Demosthenes!”
It was tremendous preaching. It met the state of society—the needs of the times. What is there in a sermon?—what is there in preaching? some have flippantly inquired. We have seen that the preaching of Elias effected social revolutions; it destroyed bad customs, and improved manners. He lived in this work; it consumed him. Those who knew him, applied to him the words of Scripture: “The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up.” In estimating him, and his work, it ought never to be forgotten, that, as has always been the case with such men, he lived in a life of wondrous prayerfulness, and spiritual elevation. He was called to preach a great Association sermon at Pwlheli. In the whole neighbourhood the state of religion was very low, and distressingly discouraging to pious minds; and it had been so for many years. Elias felt that his visit must be an occasion with him. It may almost be said of that day, that “Elias prayed, and the heavens gave rain.” He went. He took his text, “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered!” It was an astonishing time. While the preacher drove along with his tremendous power, multitudes of the people fell to the ground. Calm stood the man, his words rushing from him like flames of fire. There were added to the Churches of that immediate neighbourhood, Mr. Elias’s clerical biographer tells us, in consequence of the powerful impetus of that sermon, two thousand five hundred members.
The good man lived in an atmosphere of prayer. The stories which gather about such men, sometimes seem to partake of the nature of exaggerations; but, on the other hand, it ought to be recollected that all anecdotes and popular impressions arise from some well-known characteristic to which they are the correspondents. There was a poor woman, a neighbour’s wife. She was very ill, and her case pressed very much upon the mind of Elias in family prayer. But one morning he said to his wife, “I have somehow missed Elizabeth in my prayer this morning; I think she cannot be alive.” The words had scarcely passed from his lips when the husband was at the door, to tell him of his wife’s departure.
There is a singular circumstance mentioned of some horse-races, a great disturbance to the best interests of the neighbourhood; on the day of the great race, Elias’s spirit was very much moved, and he prayed most passionately and earnestly that the Lord would do something to put a stop to them. His prayer was so remarkable, that someone said, “Ahab must prepare his chariot, and get away.” The sky became so dark shortly after, that the gas was lighted in some of the shops of the town. At eleven o’clock the rain began to pour in torrents, and continued until five o’clock in the afternoon of the next day. The multitudes on the race-ground dispersed in half-an-hour, and did not reassemble that year; and what seemed more remarkable was, that the rainfall was confined to that vicinity. It is our duty to mention these things. An adequate impression could not be conveyed of the place this man held in popular estimation without them. And his eminence as a preacher was astonishing; wherever he went, whatever day of the week, or whatever hour of the day, no matter what the time or the season, business was laid aside, shops were closed, and the crowds gathered to hear him. Sometimes, when it was arranged for him to preach in a chapel, and more convenient that he should do so, a window was taken out, and there he stood, preaching to the crowded place within, and, at the same time, to the multitudes gathered outside. Mr. Morgan, late vicar of Christ Church, in Bradford, gives an account of one of these sermons. There was a great panorama exhibiting at the same time. Elias took the idea of moving succession—the panorama of all the miracles wrought by Christ. It is easy to see how, from such lips, a succession of wonderful pictures would pass before the eye, of living miracles of Divine working,—a panorama of wonderful cures. Mr. Morgan says, “I was very ill at the time, but that striking sermon animated me, and I have often stirred the cold English with the account of it.”
We have said that no sermons are preserved; Elias himself regretted, in his advanced life, that some, which had been of a peculiar interest to him, had gone from him. Fragments there are, but they are from the lips of hearers. Many of these fragments still present, in a very impressive manner, his rousing, and piercing, and singularly original style; his peculiar mode of dealing at will, for his purposes of illustration, with the things of earth, heaven, and hell.
Take one illustration, from the text, “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive be delivered?” “Satan!” he exclaimed, “what do you say? Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? ‘No, never. I will increase the darkness of their minds; I will harden more the hardness of their hearts; I will make more powerful the lusts in their souls; I will increase the strength of their chains; I will bind them hand and foot, and make my chains stronger; the captives shall never be delivered. Ministers! I despise ministers! Puny efforts theirs!’ ‘Gabriel!’ exclaimed the preacher, ‘messenger of the Most High God: shall the prey be taken from the mighty?’ ‘Ah! I do not know. I have been hovering over this assembly. They have been hearing the Word of God. I did expect to see some chains broken, some prisoners set free; but the opportunity is nearly over; the multitudes are just upon the point of separating; there are no signs of any being converted. I go back from this to the heavenly world, but I have no messages to carry to make joy in the presence of the angels.’” There were crowds of preachers present. Elias turned to them. “‘What think you? You are ministers of the living God. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty?’ ‘Ah! who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have laboured in vain, and spent our strength for nought; and it seems the Lord’s arm is not stretched out. Oh, there seems very little hope of the captives being delivered!’ ‘Zion! Church of Christ! answer me, Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? What do you say?’ And Zion said, ‘My God hath forgotten me; I am left alone, and am childless. And my enemies say, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.’ Oh, I am afraid the prey will not be taken from the mighty—the captive will not be delivered. Praying Christians, what do you think? ‘O Lord, Thou knowest. High is Thy hand, and strong is Thy right hand. Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, and come down! Let the sighing of the prisoner come before Thee. According to the greatness of Thy power, preserve Thou them that are appointed to die. I am nearly wearying in praying, and yet I have a hope that the year of jubilee is at hand.’” Then, at this point, Elias assumed another, higher, and his most serious manner, as if about to speak to the Almighty; and, in quite another tone, he said, “What is the mind of the Lord respecting these captives? Shall the prey be taken from the mighty?” Then he exclaimed, “‘Thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered.’ Ah!” he exclaimed, “there is no doubt about the mind and will of the Lord—no room for doubt, and hesitation. ‘The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.’”
This is the fragment of a sermon preached when Elias was about thirty years of age. Of course it can give but a very slender idea, but perhaps it shows something of the manner of the master. His imagination was very brilliant, but more chastened, and subdued, than that of many. His eloquence, like all of the highest order, was simple, and he trusted rather to a fitting word, than to a large furniture of speech. It is said that, to his friends, every sermon appeared to be a complete masterpiece of elocution, a nicely-compacted, and well-fitted oration.
Among the great Welsh preachers, David Davies, and Williams of Wern were, like Rowlands of Llangeitho, comparatively fixtures. Of course, they appeared on great Association occasions. But John Elias, and Christmas Evans itinerated far, and wide. Unlike as they were in the build of their minds, and the character of their eloquence, they had a great, and mutual, regard, and affection for each other; and it is told how, when either preached, the other was seen with anxious interest drinking in, with the crowd, the words of his famous brother. Theirs are, no doubt, the two darling names most known to the religious national heart of Wales. To John Elias it is impossible to render such a mede of justice, or to give of his powers even so comprehensive a picture, as is attempted, even in this volume, of Christmas Evans.
Something like an illustration of the man may be gathered from an anecdote of the formation of one of the first Bible Societies in North Wales. It was a very great occasion. A noble Earl, the Lord Lieutenant of the county, was to take the chair; but when he heard that John Elias was expected to be the principal speaker, he very earnestly implored that he might be kept back, as “a ranter, a Methodist, and a Dissenter, who could do no good to the meeting.” The position of Elias was such that, upon such an occasion, no one could have dared to do that; so the noble Lord introduced him, but with certain hints that “brevity, and seriousness would be desirable.” The idea of recommending seriousness to John Elias, certainly, seems a very needless commendation; but when Elias spoke,—partly in English, and partly in Welsh,—especially when, in stirring Welsh, he referred to the constitution of England, and the repose of the country, as illustrating the value of the Bible to society, and some other such remarks,—of course with all the orator’s piercing grandeur of expression,—the chairman, seeing the inflamed state of the people, and himself not well knowing what was said, would have the words translated to him. He was so carried away by the dignified bearing of the great orator, that he would have a special introduction to him at the close of the meeting. A day or two after, a special messenger came to invite him to visit, and spend some time at the house of the Earl. This, however, was respectfully declined, for reasons, no doubt, satisfactory to Elias, and which would satisfy the peer also, that the preacher had no desire to use his great popularity for his own personal influence, and aggrandisement.
After a life of eminent usefulness, he died, in 1841, at the age of sixty-eight. His funeral was a mighty procession, of about ten thousand persons. They had to travel, a distance of some miles, to the beautiful little churchyard of Llanfaes, a secluded, and peaceful spot,—a scene of natural romance, and beauty, the site of an old Franciscan monastery, about fourteen miles from Llangefni, the village where Elias died. The day of the funeral was, throughout the whole district, as still as a Sabbath. As it passed by Beaumaris, the procession saw the flags of the vessels in the port lowered half-mast high; and as they passed through Beaumaris town, and Bangor city, all the shops were closed, and all the blinds drawn before the windows. Every kind of denomination, including the Church of England, joined in marks of respect, and justified, more distinctly than could always be done, the propriety of the text of the funeral oration: “Know ye not that a prince and a great man has fallen?” Of him it might truly be said, “Behold I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills like chaff.”