any specimens we might furnish of his style | comrade, he was stabbed in the breast so savof preaching, as they must lose much of agely as to render his recovery for some time their wild music from their translation into precarious. These things stirred within him the English dialect. Still, however, an ex- that belief in what is preternatural, which tract or two will give some notion of the gro- from time to time became apparent in the tesqueness of his imagery; and will furnish private converse, and even the public adan incidental illustration of the susceptibil- dresses of his after life. Speaking about acity of the Welsh character to the influence cidents, although the mishap which deprived of a luxuriant and perfectly unbridled im-him of his eye occurred some time after those agination. It will be seen that Christmas related above, it may as well be mentioned Evans did not trouble himself much about now. He was a lad of about eighteen, and, consecutiveness of thought or illustration, stirred by the impassioned fervor of the "rebut crowded metaphor on metaphor, and ab-vivals " which were continually rife in Wales solutely precipitated his soul into the wild turmoil of excitement he was creating in others.

Possibly, however, it may be well to postpone our extracts until we have furnished a very hasty account of his life, with a few of its more amusing incidents.

From among the picturesque hills of Cardiganshire there runs down a mountain stream known as the Tify, or, according to our English mode of pronunciation, the Tivy. Until a few months ago the angler found here congenial sport, and many a brave salmon has been landed on its banks. But business enterprise, always unromantic and unsportsmanlike, has discovered a rich vein of lead amongst the mountain slopes which dip into these leaping waters; and their impregnation with the lead ore has banished the Waltonian from the spot, while the undermining of the hills has also undermined the constitutions of the fish. This part of the Principality has hitherto escaped the relentless invasions of the outer world, and has remained shut up in a sort of intramural seclusion and aboriginal retirement. It was in one of the sparsely sprinkled hamlets of this neighborhood that Christmas Evans first looked upon the light. He saw the world with two eyes at his birth, though an accident closed up one before he reached to man's

estate.

in the latter half of the eighteenth century, had already begun to preach, though with little satisfaction to himself or profit to others. He had run to a fair at a place called Capel Cynon, and was returning home with a copy of "The Pilgrim's Progress " he had purchased, when he was attacked by a number of the "roughs" who frequented these fairs, and in the struggle received a blow in the eye, which permanently closed it, and necessitated the truthful artist to present our hero with the unsightly wink upon his countenance which his portraits bear.

Christmas Evans showed much of his natural energy in the uphill work of self-education. For the first ten or more years of his life he could neither read nor write, but contrived to teach himself these accomplishments very perfectly as far as his own language was concerned. The prospects of his life beginning, however, to shape themselves more definitely in the direction of the Christian ministry, he began to acquire a very slender smattering of the classics under the Rev. D. Davies of Castell Hywel. This Mr. Davies' appears to have been quite a phenomenon. He was a man of gigantic stature and proportions. The neighbors round were afraid to lend him their little Welsh ponies, lest he should break their backs; and his tailor was wont to speak of him after his death with a kind of awful veneration. He was educated at the Caermarthen Presbyterian College, but he wandered widely from the orthodox faith.

While occupied as a farm laborer, he met with a series of narrow escapes, which fomented in his mind a kind of faith in special | He was led into these aberrations, not from a and supernatural agency. He had a fall from a tall tree whose boughs he was engaged in cutting, and was found senseless with his open pruning knife in his hand. On another occasion he fell into a swollen torrent of water, and by almost a miracle, escaped drowning. Subsequently, on quarrelling with a

skeptical habit of mind, but from the essential tenderness of his nature, which caused him to shrink from all doctrines which seemed to him in any way to interfere with the happier hopes of mankind. He declared his belief alike in the true piety of John Calvin, and Dr. Priestley, though he condemned the ma

terialism of the latter in the following humor- | the following comparison between adroit and ous stanza :awkward plagiarism: "G- goes to Llandovery fair, sees his chance, runs away with a horse, and at the first smithy gets it newly

"Here lie at rest, in oaken chest, Together packed up neatly,

The bones and brains, flesh, blood, and veins, shod, docks the mane and tail, and transforms And Soul of Dr. Priestley.'

Despite his cultured scholarship and refinement of mind, he retained a more than rustic uncouthness of appearance. A Welsh bard, happening to see him in a deluge of rain all swathed from head to foot in twisted bands

of straw, delivered an impromptu upon him, of which the following is a translation :—

"O Bard and Teacher, famed afar!
Such light I never saw;

It ill becomes a house like thine
To wear a roof of straw."

to which Davies is said to have replied :—

"The rain is falling fast, my friend;
You know not what you say:

A roof of straw, methinks, does well
Beseem a house of clay."

goes

the animal as much as possible; W
to the fair, steals a horse too, but leaves it
precisely as he found it;-the consequence
is, W- is caught as a thief, while G-
passes for an honest man."

I fear I have related nothing yet of this
Cambrian apostle to recommend him to the
reader's esteem; certainly nothing to account
for the wondrous popularity he afterwards
attained. I had nearly said, "his unbounded
popularity;" but that would have been a
mistake, for it never extended beyond the
hills of the Principality." Of course the
fame of his "sensations" made his name
well known throughout the United Kingdom,
insomuch that his sermons and memoirs have
met with a considerable Transatlantic circu-
lation; and within the last twelve months,
or little more, he figured conspicuously in a
meritorious French publication. Still, I can
never believe, from reading translations of
his most notable discourses, that he would
ever have attained anything like the legiti-
mate popularity and position in England or
Scotland which he attained in Wales. There
was an unbridled and an inconsecutive rev-
elry about his pictorial conceits which would
have been regarded as savoring of coarseness,
and would have repelled any people in whom
a taste for what is essentially grotesque and
wild did not predominate over more literary
and chastened predilections.
He was a
Welshman to the backbone, and as such we
must regard him. And the extravagancies
which would have caused him to rank amongst
the most iliterate of revivalists here, raised
him to a pinnacle of notoriety amongst the
élite of his own province; and have placed
his compositions amongst the seclectest of
Cambrian classics! So strong were all his
Welsh propensions, that he jealously watched
and strenously censured any appearance of
a tendency on the part of the younger minis-
ters with whom he came in contact to import
any English idioms or mannerisms, or to se-
lect the basis of their discourses from any
English source.

Such was the tutor of Christmas Evans; a congenial mentor for such a pupil. That pupil continued to preach first under Presbyterian auspices, afterwards nominally as a Baptist, but actually as a Christmas Evansite, with an increasing degree of acceptance. At first he did not seem very particular how he obtained his sermons, but it appears he had more confidence in other people's resources than his own. One of his earliest successful efforts was a discourse readily extracted from the "Thesaurus Theologicus" of Beveridge. The plagiarism was not detected at the time, though probably confessed by himself after his popularity had been achieved. A second attempt, however, proved less successful;-for having committed to memory and appropriated another published sermon, he was found out and taxed with the fact, which he could not deny. Some of his friends, by way of excuse, were loud in their praises of the young preacher's prayer, but it subsequently transpired that he was indebted also for this prayer to a minister of the name of Griffith Jones! He even went so far as to vindicate to some extent this doubtful policy, for in a charge to a young minister many years after, he is reported to have said, " You may steal the iron, brother, if you like, but be sure you always make your own nails;-then, if needs be, But with all this uncouthness, and apparyou can swear they are your own property."ent intolerance of that which we should deem In accordance with this principle, he gave simply becoming and seemly in an aspirant

to prelectorial influence, there was a true deeper as well as its more grotesque appearpower and poetry in his mind, which entitle ances. Fully persuaded that he had received him to stand out as a man of mark. It was a "commission from on high" to undertake his advantage to find his birthplace in a land the journey, the fervid evangelist would start which has been the nursery of rugged fan- forth upon an excursion extending from one cies; to speak in a language the most fitting extremity of the Principality to the other. his mind, and which gave a sort of Æolian At first, during the time he was travelling melody to what in any other dialect would the northern counties, his success was not have been harsh; and to flourish at a time quite equal to that which his sanguine prewhen the public mind around him was heated sentiments had presaged. Discomfited by with hectic influences, and the pulse of pie- this discovery, his tender conscience troubled tism was at fever point. He had an imagina- him with tormenting misgivings that he had tion, and a strong one; and so impetuous not been "called" to the work of the minwas his temperament, that he could scarcely istry. And as he arrives at that well-known help pouring forth the wild fancies which dis- road which lies through the lovely and maturbed him. If his imagination had been jestic "Pass of Aberglaslyn," there commore chaste, and his taste more scrupulous, mences a strong heart-wrestling with the Suhe would undoubtedly have been less popular. There was more of the audacious than the sublime about his flights, if flights they could be called. He seemed fonder of diving than of soaring, and sometimes there would be an unshrinking precipitancy in his descents which seems almost shocking to our reverential sensibilities. Verily, of him it might be said, "Facilis decensus Averni," for he would pitch headlong into some boiling Phlegethon of his own creation—if he could not find one in his text and flounder there in energetic convulsions until both himself and his audience were almost frenzied by the fervent heat.

The great Carthaginian rival of Scipio lost his eye in a quagmire; and if we had been assured that Christmas Evans sustained a similar loss by tumbling into some sulphurous cauldron, which the hags of his imagination, like Macbeth's witches, had mixed under his pulpit, we could scarcely have marvelled at the fact.

preme, which is most touching in its sacred earnestness. We love him better, believe him more, and feel more tender towards his extravagances now that we have seen him weighed down by modest self-distrust-alighting from the pony which has been lent him for a few miles, and going into a field to pray that some inward witness may be given him to attest the truth of his mission, and to assure him of his divine credentials in its discharge. The heart even of the Christian man of taste and culture cannot fail to warm towards the poor wayfarer as he turns aside into those mountain glens and kneels down apon the heather to implore an assurance of his high commission. And as he carries that assurance with him on his further way, in place of the weight of misgiving which had surcharged his soul, we can scarcely wonder at the spreading enthusiasm which his appeals created amongst the population, and that by the time he reached the south his ascendency over the simple-minded multitude should have become strong and influential. Behold him now amongst the valleys of Glamorganshire in the midst of one of his greatest excitements. The trumpet has been sounded before him, a voice has prepared the way in the wilderness in the shape of

When his popularity was at its height, itinerancy was prevalent amongst the country ministers of the Principality; so our hero was much engaged in journeying from place to place, principally on foot, preaching as he went. As he advanced, his fame went before him, and his admirers clustered round him in publications" from all the pulpits in every vast force. Preaching now in a chapel, whose hamlet and town, and the one-eyed evangeevery corner would be crowded, and whose list is expected by a mighty crowd at every vicinity would be besieged by as many thou- halting place. Chapels are by this time out sands as there were hundreds within; and of the question, and nothing but a twentynow in the open air, his congregations gath-acre field will accommodate the worshippers. ered and swelled like a rolling snowball until In the middle of a working day at harvest they attained prodigious proportions. This time Christmas Evans will arrive. A most Pilgrim's Progress "' must have had its inconvenient time! No matter, service at

“What ails all the hogs? Look sharp there, boys-keep them in-use your whips. Why don't you run-Why, as I live, there's one of them bolted headlong over the cliff! There! there peers Morgan yonder goes another! Drive them back, Tom.'

two o'clock. Hodge flings down his sickle concerning the demoniac, whose spirits were and Polly her fork, and away they rush to transmitted to the swine: "By this time the the field where Christmas is to preach. They devil became offended with the Gadarenes, and perspire more over the sermon than they did in a pout he took the demoniac away and over their work. Christmas is to preach drove him into the wilderness. He thought again at seven o'clock that evening. Long the Gadarenes had no right to meddle with his before the time appointed the stir begins. property; and he knew that 'a bird in the The housewife cannot keep her servants to hand is worth two in the bush.' He could their work, and perhaps she would not if she not send him home, so he thought he would could; but the dairy-maid forgets her milk- try to persuade him to cut his own throat. ing pail, and leaves the kine to low untended But here Satan was nonplussed, his rope was in the meadow, and all set off to the great too short; he couldn't turn executioner himpoint of attraction. Wayfarers from all the self, as then the act would have been his own country-side come crashing through the sin and not the man's. The poor demoniac hedge, sadly destroying the poor farmer's must therefore go and hunt up a sharp stone fences, who cannot interfere, because he or anything he could get. It was while lookstands in the cart with Christmas, with his ing for this that he met the Son of God." steel spectacles across his nose, and his best After a little more similar description the top-boots on, to give out the hymns; and he preacher goes on: "Methinks that one of the feels that it will be a much easier job for men who fed the hogs kept a better look-out him to stop the gaps with hurdles in the than the rest of them, and said,— morning, than to spell out the hymns and pitch the tune: so, like a true philosopher, he concentrates his energies on the matter in hand, and leaves the rest to take its chance. And now the preacher rises. He queerly at the throng out of his one eye as he gives out the text. A very few moments suffices for exposition, for that is not his forte. Soon the stir amongst the crowd begins. The Cambrian clown stands open-mouthed, splashed to the eyes with the soil of many strata; for the orator has slackened the reins, and his wild fancy begins to plunge and grow ungovernable. Very soon the steed becomes as frantic as that of Phaeton himself, and carries its driver nolens volens up hill and down dale with fearful randomness. But the charioteer has no sense of fear,there seems to be something in the wild motion which exhilarates and delights him, and away he goes, flinging aside the bridle, and postilioned by relays of "spirits from the vasty deep," who ply whip and spur to make the pace still madder. Judgment and taste run still panting up and make a dive at the heads of the prancing coursers; but the "fast and furious" Tam o'Shanter strikes them down and runs over them, turning back to laugh at them as they lay sprawling in the dust. One can almost fancy the shade of some learned gardener amongst Hebrew roots and Greek derivations rising from the grave, and lifting up its flaccid hands in horror as old Christmas flings all sober commentaries to the winds, and dramatizes away as follows

"Never was such running and whipping and hallooing; but down go the hogs, before they were aware of it. One of them said,— They are all gone!'

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sea?'

No, sure, not all of them gone into the

"Yes, every one of them; and if ever the devil entered anything in this world, he has entered into those hogs.'

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What,' says Jack, and is the noble black hog gone?'

"Yes! yes! I saw him scampering down that hill as if the very devil himself were in him; and I saw his tail take the last dip in the water below.""

Then he goes on most ludicrously to describe the meeting of the drovers with their master—their rueful tale-and the owner's anger at the loss of his pigs. Then he gives a wierd account of the delivered demoniac going through the cities declaring his deliverence, which, if he did it after the fashion which old Christmas ascribes to him, must have left some doubt upon the public mind as to the perfectness of his cure! The preacher makes him shout,

“Oh, yes! Oh, yes!-Please to take notice of me the demoniac among the tombs-I am the man"-and so on-describing the

666

Mary, my dear, come from the window; don't be standing there."

“Why, mother, I can hardly believe that it is father! that man is well dressed.'" I should like to extract the whole of this grotesque scene; but space will not permit, for the preacher's description are so very minute. Suffice it to say, the demoniac comes tapping at the window; and when the wife has been in strong hysterics and “ brought to" by the usual appliances, she finds her husband sitting quietly beside her, tenderly consoling and soothing her, and giving an account of the deliverance wrought upon him. And then he winds up with a chorus of "Glory in the highest! Hosanna! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Let the whole earth praise Him. The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!" And this chorus would be taken up by the vast concourse who had been swaying to and fro in unrestrained excitement, until the very air resounded with the shouts of "Gogoniant! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!"

The following is part of a most grotesque description of the search of the Wise Men after the young child :

about him,' says the smith, but ask at the public-house.' The Wise Men go to the inn. Do you know anything of the young child?' The landlord shouts to the servant, Be quick, a quart of porter for the strangers.' No, no, we want neither porter nor ale; but can you tell us anything about the young child?' No; but in the shop to the left there is a person who reads all the newspapers (!), and perhaps he can tell you.' At the shop they ask. Do you know anything here about the young child?' Half a quarter of tobacco for the strangers,' says the shopkeeper to his apprentice. We don't want any tobacco, but we want to hear about the young child.'"

And so old Christmas sends these unfortunate wise men here and there, afflicting all his creations with deafness, until at last they meet with John the Baptist, with his camel's hair, and leathern girdle, who says he knows all about him-"Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world!

Such are specimens of the wild pictorial style of Christmas Evans. Many other extracts might be given, manifesting greater power and poetry than these, and savoring a little less of the grotesque. But it will be easy to draw from such as have been given some idea of the effects such a man would be likely to produce when speaking vehemently in a language suited to his style, and to a multitude of kindred temperaments with his own. I have made these few transcriptions from a great number of specimens furnished by the Rev. D. M. Evans, of Llanelly, in a able memoir* of Christmas Evans revery

cently published.

His

It will be plainly seen that there is something more than the illiterate rant of vulgarity and ignorance in this good man. imagination was by no means of a lofty type; but it was potent of its kind. It made common things available for illustration, and "I imagine them entering a village, going of men. It might be said that he degraded spoke at once to the meaner comprehensions up to the gate and inquiring, Do you know lofty and sacred themes by bending them anything of the child?' The gatekeeper down to a too material standard; but this comes to the door, and, mistaking their ques- fault was not the result of irreverence, or of tion, answers, 'You have to pay three half- a desire to popularize himself at the expense pence for each of the asses.' They explain, of his theme, but only a necessary part of a We didn't ask whether there was anything nated over every moderating faculty-a mind nature wherein fancy and emotion predomito pay, but whether you knew anything of which was nothing if not pictorial, and which the child.' I know nothing of him,' says was so natural and unrestrained in its paintthe gatekeeper, but a little further on you ing and dramatic tendency that even in the will find a blacksmith's shop, inquire there.' article of death it could not curb the inspiraThe Wise Men go to the shop. Do you tion of its visions, but with a wave of the know anything of the young child?' The hand and a whispered adieu to the weepers smith answers, The asses can't be shod just round his bed, cried," Drive on! as though now, you will have to wait two hours.' You he saw some heavenly chariot waiting to mistake us,' say the Wise Men, we don't carry him away to the homes of the "spirits want the asses shod, but we want to hear of of the just.' ARTHUR MURSELL. the young child.' 'I don't know anything *Published by Heaton & Son, 21 Warwick Lane.

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