SWEET SINGERS OF WALES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Their Lord they will praise,
Their language they will keep,
Their land they will lose
Except wild Wales.
So sings an ancient poet of Wales--generally
alleged to be Taliesin. On whatever lonesome
peak he stood, a companion of clouds and storms
and far-off dawns, he heard the prayer, and knew
the hope of a nation. Wild Wales is still their
home; its ancient speech is still their own. The
praise of God has been in the land since early
Christian days: it has been often subdued, sometimes
almost an exile music, but never quite lost.
To-day more than ever the best song of the land is
the song of God: and the prophetic words haunt
its valleys and hills like an immortal echo--'Their
God they will praise.'
A Bardic Hymn
Where hymnal preludes first entered Welsh
literature, it is not easy to say. There are
remainders still extant which go so far back as
the twelfth century. Naturally, these are tinged
with Catholic sentiment; but for the most part
the tinge is very slight, and scarcely hurts their
delicate simplicity. The following free translation
of a bardic hymn out of the Black Book of
Caermarthen will show the character of these
earlier compositions:
In the Name of the Lord,
Be it mine Him to praise,
Who is great in praises:
Him as Ruler I adore,
For He hath increased the fruit
Of His charity.
God hath guarded us,
God hath made us,
God will save us:
God is our Hope,
Worthy and perfect--
Fair is His destiny.
We are ownèd of Him,
Who is in the heights
King of Trinity:
God was sorely tried,
When He was entering
Into affliction.
God has come forth,
Though He was prisoned
In His gentleness
Sovereign most happy,
He shall make us free
For the day of doom.
He shall bring us to the feast,
In His mildness
And His lowliness:
In His Paradise,
Holy shall we dwell
From sin's penalty.
We have no health
But in His chastisement
And the five strokes:
Unsparing His grief was,
In human defence,
When He took our flesh.
Unto God we were lost,
Except for the ransom
By a blameless decree:
From the blood-stained rood
Came salvation forth
To the wide universe:
Mighty Shepherd,
Never shall the merit
Of Christ decay.
Welsh Music
Davydd Ddu of Hiraddug, who flourished in the
Fifteenth century, produced a metrical version of
the Officium B. Mariae and of several psalms.
Whether any of these were brought into the
service of the Welsh Church of that age, or not,
we have no means of discovering. In any case
they could not have touched a nation's heart.
They are correct and refined, but they have no
native warmth. However, before another hundred
years had passed, the nation had a Welsh Bible;
and with the native Bible appeared the firstfruits
of a native bymnody.
If the translations included in this volume have
to any extent reproduced the tone of the original,
scarcely will any one fail to perceive their national
characteristics. They are hymns of the heart
everywhere touched by a light and pleasant fancy.
From first to last they preserve a general feature of
picturesqueness. Almost every verse is a transcript
from Nature--spiritualized and illuminated. We
walk in a song-land of rocks and mountains; of
valleys and running brooks; of beautiful dawns
struggling into day on mist-covered hills, and calm
sunsets of gold breathing peace on land and sea
after a storm of thunder and lightning and rain;
of long winter nights with every song hushed under
the starless skies, and happy spring mornings when
every leaf is a murmur of resurrection. The
verses which are borne in the hearts of Welshmen
wherever they go, and are sung on Western prairie
or beneath the Southern Cross--they are verses
with a picture of some well-remembered scene
changed into a spiritual idea.
English hymnody has become far more picturesque
than it used to be. Some of the most
popular of modern hymns are set round with
pleasant hints of Nature. Verses moving drearily
without any light of fancy have had to give place
to a brighter poesy. This little collection may
not, therefore, be considered out of season.
But it is impossible not to feel that only one half
of the story is given. However characteristically
Welsh the words and sentiments of these hymns
may be, the native melodies to which they have
been wedded are perhaps even more so. The
minor tunes of the Welsh sanctuary are as much
a part of the people's religion as Snowdon is of
the county of Arvon. Strangers have been much
impressed with their sweet melancholy--as if they
had come down through the funerals of the
centuries, and rose heavenward from beneath a
yew-tree. Why they have been so studiously kept
out of English tune-books is a question worth
asking. Possibly the harmony would have to be
modified: otherwise I can see nothing to keep
them out. Some of these melodies have of recent
years been introduced locally, and with agreeable success.
As to the inner meaning of these hymns, it will
be unfolded in the course of the story. They form
a biography in outline of the devotion of the
Christian Church in Wales from the close of the
sixteenth century. Especially do they reflect the
lights and shades of the National Revival of
the last century. Many of them are born of fire
and storm: they are cries of unknown distress--the
cries of those who awoke 'in the region and
shadow of death,'--and remembered where they
were. But through and above all the pain and
joy, the sorrow and relief, the anxiety and trust of
these hymns, there shines one light with even ray--the
light of the Cross and the Lamb of God.
CHAPTER II.
MAURICE AND EDWARD KYFFIN--CAPT. MIDDLETON--EDMUND
PRYS--DAVID JONES.
A land without hymn or psalm--such seems to
have been the condition of Wales at the beginning
of the sixteenth century. But the spiritual awakening
which resulted in a translation of the whole
Bible into Welsh, turned the mind of contemporary
poets to the study of hymnology. The first edition
of the Welsh Bible was published in 1588; and its
appearance heralded the new era of sacred song.
There were pious patriots who sorrowed much that
while England, Scotland, France, and Italy, had
each its voice of praise in the temple of the
Christian Faith, 'poor little Wales' stood at the
gate, hymnless and forgotten. The first to give
public expression to this sorrow was MAURICE
KYFFIN; of whom very little is known, except his
able translation of Bishop Jewel's Apologia Ecclesiae
Anglicanae. It is in the introduction (dated
London, 1594) to this book that he laments the
absence of song in the church and the home; and
remarks--'Whoever beginneth this sacred labour
must have understanding of several learned languages,
so that he give no word in the rhyme but
shall be entirely consonant with the mind of the
Holy Ghost. Had I the quiet and leisure which
many have, the first thing, and the most desirable
pain I would take upon me, were to approach this
work, after a conference with the learned men of
Wales as to what form and what kind of metre
would be best and fittest for such piety.'
Captain Middleton
Even while he was writing thus, another religious patriot,
in another part of the world, was making leisure
for himself to 'begin the sacred labour.'
This was Captain WILLIAM MIDDLETON, who
joined to the congenial task of fighting the
Spaniards this gentler exercise of translating the
Psalms into the language of his beloved motherland,
'keeping as near as he could to the mind of
the Holy Ghost.' No doubt the warlike tones of
many of these sacred ballads of the Hebrew nation
found a ready response in his heart, as he pursued
those whom the theology of the day classified as
enemies of the Lord. In 1591, six ships were told
off under the command of Admiral Howard to go
and plunder a portion of the Spanish fleet on its
return with large booty from America. Captain
Middleton's ship was one of the six, and he was
charged to watch the arrival of the enemy. He
found, however, that the Spaniards had obtained
large reinforcements to defend their treasure, and
the mission of plunder had to be abandoned. The
captain, we are told, was worthy of a place, even
among the brilliant array of brave soldiers that
made England's name a terror to the terrible
Armada. But in the midst of his naval duties his
heart was secretly devoted to a far nobler purpose.
He wanted to give his country the Book of Psalms
in verse, that the praise of God might no longer
be silent. The work was finished at the Island of
Scutum, in the West Indies, on the 24th day of
January, 1595. But, alas, for good intentions
without due regard to practical results! His
metres were all so intricate that no music could
fit them, and no mouth could sing them. So the
book has always remained a pious failure; one
of the many fruitless works of well-meaning
devotion which lie on the road to heaven, like
broken columns of white marble, covered with
dust--of very little value here, but in heaven
surely remembered 'for the Name that is dear.'
While the sailor-poet was finishing his version
in the West Indies, another kindred spirit at
home--EDWARD KYFFIN, supposed by some to be
a brother of Maurice--was preparing some of the
Psalms 'for such of his beloved countrymen as
love the glory of the Lord and the cherishing of
their own mother tongue.' In his introduction
he is careful to explain, with a touch of true
Elizabethan 'sea-divinity,' that Englishmen were
not only zealous to rob and kill the Spaniards, but
bad also an anxious desire to save their souls; for
had they not printed a large number of religious
books in Spanish, and distributed them very
diligently--when not otherwise engaged? If a
foreign nation merited so much Christian consideration,
how much more his own nation? for
assuredly no people bad been so favoured of God
for long centuries, and were they to be last and
latest in speaking of His glory?
He only versified thirteen Psalms; but he prays
most earnestly that this may be an incitement to
some other mind to finish the work: 'hoping that
since God has kept us so long, He may have in His
thought some chef d'oeuvre and mighty conquest for
the increase of His own glory among the ancient
Britons, whom He has so miraculously preserved
until now in liberty and safety.' The introduction
breathes throughout a spirit of exalted devotion:
and after three hundred years every sentence seems
as if the touch of Heaven were fresh upon it.
'Let no true Welshman give sleep to his eyes or
slumber to his eyelids, as the prophet David said,
until he has seen the glory of the Lord, by facilitating
the completion of this godly task in the
language of his own country!'
Edmund Prys
His appeal was not in vain. EDMUND PRYS,
before twenty years had passed, published a
complete Welsh Psalter. He was an Archdeacon
of Merioneth, a man of scholarly attainments,
and an eminent poet. Born, about 1541, in the
romantic neighbourhood of Harlech, the fellowship
of Nature in the charming ruggedness of hill and
glen, and in the shining blue of the sea, would
establish a community of thought, and of sacred
fancy between him and the poet-king of Israel,
who read the signature of the Divine hand on
every page of creation. I am afraid, nevertheless,
that this poetic genius was sometimes scarcely
under control. Among all the bardic quarrels of
Welsh literature, his quarrel with William Cynwal
must be counted as its Iliad. The latter was a
smith by trade, and received one day a message in
verse from the archdeacon, asking for a steel bow
to be sent to a friend, according to promise. The
smith--who was also a poet--made a long delay,
and sent his excuses back in verse. So the battle
began and went on, poem for poem; till the
archdeacon began to treble his blows, sending
three satires together, and receiving the same
number of fiery missiles in return. The archdeacon
then thought he would finish his adversary
with a fusillade of nine poems, but the sturdy
blacksmith was sufficiently alive still to reply with
another nine. Three times nine poems was the
next intended onslaught, but when the archdeacon
had finished sixteen of them, a messenger brought
him tidings that his rival had reached the dark
and silent land where 'there is no work, nor device,
nor knowledge, nor wisdom'--nor any noise of
warfare! He threw his sword far into the sea,
and there and then commenced an elegy bewailing
the loss of so brave a foe, so skilful a poet!
So much for the archdeacon's celebrated fight,
in which he laboured hard and gained nothing.
More profitable is it to chronicle that he found a
new mission in the work mapped out by Maurice
Kyffin, and already initiated by Edward Kyffin.
In turning the whole of the Psalms into verse--and
verse that could be sung--he has given all
coming ages cause to bless the regeneration of his muse.
It is said that his custom was to prepare a
Psalm for each Sunday, to be chanted in the
church. His intimate knowledge of Hebrew
helped him to give sometimes a better rendering
of the original than that even in the Authorized
Version of the Welsh Bible. The whole was
published in 1621. While the version has suffered
somewhat from a lack of variety in its metre, it
has nevertheless been, ever since its first appearance,
one of the chief treasures of Welsh
hymnology. Many a single verse, rugged and
massive of form, has done yeoman service on 'the
field of Association' (maes y Gymanfa); when, as
in the earlier part of the present century, it was
uttered by the lips of a John Elias, and taken up
by the large assembly in unison, at first in slow
and halting tones, gradually rising and swelling,
till at last with overwhelming force it seemed to
break on the shore of ten thousand souls like
the splendid rush and roar of a mighty sea. On
occasions like this, a favourite verse of that famous
preacher was the archdeacon's rendering of Psalm
lvii. 11: 'Be Thou exalted, O God, above the
heavens: let Thy glory be above all the earth.'
And another--equally appropriate before speaking
the eternal word to the great assembly--was the
rendering of Psalm cxli. 3: 'Set a watch, O Lord,
before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.'
How effective such a verse, spoken by such a
man in such a place, might be, let the following
graphic description of him bear witness--drawn
by Gwalchmai, a living poet and preacher:
'Mr. Elias rises up to the desk. He casts a
glance over all the congregation. He requests
those who stand on the edge of the crowd to close
in toward the centre. The sight of him is very
striking; his whole aspect is winning; there is a
noble dignity in his look; greatness is interwoven
with humility in his personal appearance. He
comes forward as a general to lead an army--a
captain of the host of the Lord; or rather as an
ambassador for his King. No one asks to see his
seals of office every one reads his authority in his
appearance. . . . His thought fills every line,
every muscle, every vein in his face. Sparks of
fire leap out of his eyes, and still at the same time
the most diffident tenderness clothes his countenance.
He looks as anxious as if this were to be
the last association in which he would ever appear
publicly to deliver his message for his great Master;
he seems as if he thought that he is on the point of
being summoned to render an account to his King;
and on that account he commands every feeling,
every nerve, every faculty, and every purpose he
possesses, to his important and solemn task. He
is as if he wanted to make one immortal exploit.
To-day or never, to save the souls in his presence!
He gives out a verse to sing, with a sonorousness
like that of a golden bell in his mouth:
"Set on my mouth a seal, O Lord,
Lest witty word offendeth;
Cover my lips, lest I speak ill
What now Thy will me sendeth."'
The severe, rugged strength of the words in the
Welsh original moves like a torrent in its course;
and the preacher used the mighty and awful words
to bring himself into the current of Divine
eloquence. No wonder that, with 'the door' of
God upon his lips, his sermon was as the visible fire of heaven.
The above gives some hint of the place taken by
the archdeacon's Psalter in the national history.
Perhaps a still clearer glimpse of its power is
afforded by this memorable incident connected with
the singing of his version of Psalm cxxi. 1, 2.
One of the evangelist preachers of the eighteenth
century ventured to cross over to Anglesey to publish
the glad tidings of God. His appearance was
the signal for violent opposition; and how it fared
with him on one occasion shall be told in the words
of one who ought to know:
'Saul of Tarsus was never more determined to
imprison the disciples of Jesus than I, and the
persecuting band that had gathered together with
staves to meet the Roundhead who was coming to
preach at Penmynydd. We had all agreed, if he
tried to preach, to make an end of him there and
then. When he had arrived, we began to push
forwards close to him; and when he had mounted
a large stone which stood beside the house, and
turned his face toward Carnarvon, and gave out
this stanza, to be sung by his scanty followers:
"I lift mine eyes unto the hills
Whence willing help shall come,"
we, supposing him to be expecting some armed
men from the hills of Arvon, began to retreat a
little. And after consultation, some of us decided
to hear what the preacher had to say; and so we
went over the fence, and crept slowly and noiselessly
under cover of it till we came over against
where he stood. He could not see us, and we did
not want to see him; but we could hear every word
he said as plainly as if we stood beside him.
Under that sermon, on the most wonderful day of,
my life, I came to know myself as a lost sinner--lost
everywhere, and in everything, outside of
Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.'
David Jones
A century passed away from the death of
Edmund Prys before Providence in its own strange
wayfound another sacred poet; this time in the person of a cattle-dealer.
DAVID JONES, of Cayo,
Caermarthenshire, was accustomed to buy cattle
from the fairs about his home, and take them
over to Barnet and Maidstone to sell. He had
received a fair education in his youth, and being
quick-witted and sociable, he soon obtained a
considerable command of the English language
and so he must have been a rara avis in his native
district, when 'no English' was the order of the
day. During his travels he picked up many a
marvellous tale and choice bit of gossip: this
made him a charming and valued guest in the
country inns far and near. His ready verse also
was 'violin and harp' for merry comrades during
the long evenings of winter; or even on the
Sabbath day when some festival of devilry was to
be held, as was not unfrequently the case. But
an unexpected change came over him--came in a
simple but wondrous fashion. One Sunday morning,
when he was returning from an expedition into England,
he caught the sound of singing in the
old Independent chapel of Troedrhiwdalar, Breconshire,
and was attracted thereby to enter. A message
from God was there for him that morning.
He left the chapel with the old life of vanity
and sin for ever judged; and before him rose the
hope of Jesus Christ, like a summer dawn on the
hills which sheltered his Vale of Towy. His heart
once changed, his poetic talents were soon touched.
by the fire from the seraph's hand. The minstrel
of the public-house became the sweet singer of
Zion. The religion of the day was becoming so
profoundly Christ-conscious, that the classical
Psalter of Archdeacon Prys was inadequate to
express its emotion. But the evangelical Psalter
of Dr. Watts had in England largely satisfied this
religious fervency. So David Jones gave himself
with eager sympathy to the work of translating Dr. Watts'
Psalms and Hymns;
and in this he achieved decided success.
Many of his verses remain the most popular and
homely of all versions of Israel's national songs,
and are household treasures of Welsh piety. But
he was not satisfied with merely doing the work of
a translator: he composed several hymns of permanent
merit, touched with the spirit of the Great
Revival of the eighteenth century. It was the day
when the living gospel had to be preached in some
humble cottage or on the public street. Once, when
a service was being held near Lampeter, where
David Jones had gone, according to his wont, to
accompany the evangelist, a band of hired ruffians
set on the house and dragged the worshippers out
to the street with great violence. There the poet
knelt down on the ground, and began to pray. He
was a man of prayer; and in that hour of trial
every word seemed to find the Almighty God. The
persecutors stood still; they were startled; they
became terrified. Without waiting further they
escaped for their lives, lest they should be smitten
by the God of the man who prayed in the street.
It was the day of religious ecstasy. He himself
used to break out sometimes into exalted expressions
of religious fervour, praising God aloud
in the assembly, and 'laughing tears' in the vision
of Divine Love. Belonging, as he did, to the
'dry Dissenters'--a term of contempt applied to
the quieter religionists of the day--he was sometimes
called to task by his brethren for what they
considered his extravagance. His reply to all such
accusations is given in some characteristic verses,
of which the following is a free translation:
Men of the world are asking,
Much wondering at me,
When I my Lord am praising,
'What can this folly be?'
I am released from bondage,
And though the mockers throng,
The precious blood of Jesus
Shall always be my song.
A cloud once darkened o'er me,
No praises could I sing;
Sin and its guilty sorrow
Pierced through me with its sting:
But that has been removèd,
And all its weight of pain--
The precious blood of Jesus
I sing, and sing again.
I stood at Sinai trembling,
Where God upon me frowned;
Dark threatenings broke in thunders,
The lightning flashed around:
I came to peaceful Zion--
How can I songless be?--
The precious blood of Jesus
Is all the world to me.
What, though I leap rejoicing?
Sweet reverence guides my thought;
Like David's godly dancing
When home the ark was brought;
Or, like the lame man's rapture,
Healed at the temple gate--
The precious blood of Jesus
Brought health and good estate.
Another simple and earnest hymn of his is the following:
Come, brethren, unite
In holy delight,
To praise our Belovèd--redemption's great Light:
How sweet is the care
His love to declare--
That He should our chastisement faithfully bear.
Great God upon high,
The Lord from the sky,
He came as a Lamb without blemish, to die!
While under the sun,
Our duty is one--
To publish the merits and gifts of the Son.
A poor man He came,
Enduring our shame,
To be our Redeemer--our Brother by name:
Declare His renown,
The rights of His crown--
His life for the sheep hath the Shepherd laid down!
His blood hath made peace,
And brought us release;
And now the old bondage for ever must cease:
Who trust in His might
He leads into light;
Nor can any enemy break on His right.
CHAPTER III.
WILLIAM WILLIAMS, PANTYCELYN.
What Paul Gerhardt has been to Germany, what
Isaac Watts has been to England, that and more
has William Williams, of Pantycelyn, been to the
little principality of Wales. His hymns have both
stirred and soothed a whole nation for more than
a hundred years: they have helped to fashion a
nation's character and to deepen a nation's piety.
They have been sung by the shepherd on the moor
and on the mountain, in the midst of romantic
solitudes; or by the smith to the accompaniment
of his ringing anvil; or by the miner in the weird
halls of buried forests underneath the ground; or
by the milkmaid, with a fresh, clear voice, as she
brushed from the clover the dewdrops of an early
morning in May; or by the reaper in the harvest-field
as he gathered in the golden grain.
The mother hums one of his tender musings
above the cradle of her child, surrounding its soft-winged
slumbers with the praises of Him whose
'very name is music.' The funeral procession
takes up one of his strains of sorrow touched with
hope, and sings it when accompanying the dead
to the long home-sings it musingly, measuredly,
moaningly. The young man in the day of trial
will take some smooth stones out of this brook
of Christian poetry, and with them overcome the
enemy. The veteran soldier of God thirsts for the
water out of this 'well of Bethlehem,' and 'pours
it out before the Lord.' Through some memorial
verse of his the family of the Lord Christ has often
expressed its sweet sorrowfulness of heart, as it
looked on the breaking of the bread. Many a time
has the sad Angel of Death heard one of his
victorious strains fall from some trusting soul as it
passed through the dark gateway--heard the echo
of the song far down in the Valley of the Shadow:
a strange thing of joy: like a warm sunbeam
piercing through the chill eternal twilight of some
ancient forest of pine. It was a verse of his that
Christmas Evans--one of the immortal 'three' of
the Welsh pulpit--sang when nearing home; taking
it as a staff in his hand, 'and smiting Jordan
with it, so that the waters were divided hither and
thither, and he went over on dry ground':
O Thou Righteousness eternal!
Righteousness of boundless store!
Soon my naked, hungry spirit
Must enjoy Thee evermore:
Hide my nakedness, oh! hide it,
With Thy robe of shining white;
So that, fearless, I may ever
Stand before Thy throne of light.
Like all poets that have deeply stirred a people,
he was brought up in troublous times. His father
was the deacon of a famous Independent church in
Caermarthenshire, which had to meet for a time in
a cave during the hours of twilight, on account of
the persecution to which a large number of the
sincerest Christians of the age were subjected. But
when the poet was very young he lost his father,
and was left to the care of his mother. He spent
some years at college, purposing to devote himself
to the medical profession. It was on his way home
from college that an incident happened which
changed his whole career. He was passing through
the little village of Talgarth, in Breconshire, on a
Sunday morning, when he was attracted by the
sound of a bell to enter the parish church. The
service was cold and spiritless, and left scarcely
any impression whatever on the young man's mind.
The people on leaving church, instead of scattering
and wending their way home, grouped themselves
together in the churchyard, and every face
was alive with expectation, as though eagerly
waiting for something more. And more did come.
It affords a striking picture of the religious life of
Wales near the middle of the eighteenth century.
On one of the gravestones a man of short stature
and exceedingly sombre face takes his stand. In
a moment every eye is fastened upon him in a
solemn, nervous suspense. Then the voice begins
to ring deep and clear and earnest among the grey
tombstones--like the voice of some ancient prophet
of Israel summoning the people with words of fire
to repent forthwith and escape for their life. The
congregation is stirred, startled, confounded: it
moves to and fro, 'as the trees of the wood are
moved by the wind.' Strong men are there, weeping
like little children, terrible to see; while others
in their rage against the preacher curse like a
demoniac at the approach of the Lord Christ.
Here a woman falls fainting: another cries out
through a storm of sobs and tears, 'What must we
do?' And the young poet? 'There he is, his
face deathly pale, and his whole body shaken with
excitement and terror. He is a very image of
fearfulness. He stands each moment expecting
to see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of
heaven: a sharp, glowing arrow from the bow of
the doctrine of the man on the gravestone has
pierced through his heart.' He came out of that
historic churchyard with the light of eternity in his eyes.
Two or three years afterwards he was ordained
deacon of the Church of England. But in those
days the Church of England was her own unrelenting
enemy in Wales. Like many another
of her servants of best worth, he was excommunicated
on an indictment of committing twenty-four
crimes--chief among them being his refusal
to make the sign of the cross in baptism, and his
zeal in preaching the gospel outside of places
properly consecrated. He had come under the
influence of Whitefield, who urged him to go forth
to the highways to proclaim the glad tidings. And
preach he did from Holyhead to Cardiff, having
travelled on an average 3,000 miles every year for fifty years.
As a preacher, he was a son of consolation. His
sermons, like his hymns, were expressions of profound
experience--the sorrow and joy of a pilgrim
who had travelled for a long time heavy-laden, and
at last had 'his burden loosed from off his
shoulders' at the place where 'stood a cross,
and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre.'
He was a poet in the pulpit, with all a poet's swift
change of feeling. In a conversation with his coworker,
the Rev. Peter Williams--well known in
Wales still for his annotated Bible--he remarked,
with his usual quaint humour: 'As for thee, Peter,
thou couldest get through it well enough if the Holy
Spirit were in America; but I can make nothing of
it unless He is near.'
Williams first exercised his gift of sacred song at
an association held in the earliest days of Welsh
Calvinistic Methodism. The hymns hitherto used
were foreign to the spirit of the new movement;
but as soon as be began to pour forth his varied
strains of passionate sweetness, Howell Harris,
the preacher of Talgarth Churchyard, pronounced
him a master of song. His hymns seemed to fly
abroad as on the wings of the wind, and soon
became the sacred ballads of the whole nation. As
Luther sang Germany into Protestantism, so did
Williams sing the Wales of the eighteenth century into piety.
His hymns are full of pictures from Nature. It
could be almost said that the natural aspects of his
native land through all the changes of the twelve
months are reflected and reproduced in his hymns.
The heavy clouds of storm, and the white clouds of
a summer day--clouds gathering with dark forebodings
on the horizon, clouds beautifully passing
away at eventide after a rainy day--clouds of
thunder with fringes of chilly white, and the fleeting
clouds of April: they are all here. He has
watched the dawn deepening in the east, be has
walked in the glow of noon, he has looked with
sobering eye on the sunset glories of the west. He
has wandered beside the mountain brook and the
calm river, and he has seen the brown torrents
raging on the hillsides. He knows the charm of a
spring day after a long winter; and the sweet
pensiveness of yellow corn-fields and tinted autumn
leaves. He has found quiet havens of the sea, and
felt the joy of the morning star rising above the
waves. Some of these pictures will appear in the
hymns reproduced here: but to reproduce all his
etchings from Nature would be to give almost all his hymns.
Once, during a long season of drought, he was
walking through the fields, and found some little
beasts of prey making busy mischief among the
green corn; whereon he pertinently asked:
Why should beasts of prey be suffered
To destroy the tender blade?
Why should sweet and youthful blossoms
In the drought be left to fade?
Bring the pleasant showers refreshing,
That the grain may flourish soon;
Bring a shower the early morning,
Bring one more the afternoon.
Jesus, turn the living rivers
O'er the dry and rocky land;
So make beautiful the corn-fields
With the blessings of Thy hand;
From the cool and crystal fountain
Give to him who fainting lies;
Who has toiled without a shelter
All the day 'neath burning skies.
On another occasion he was staying for the
night not far from the Prescelly Hills. Being up
early next morning, he saw the whole range
lying dark and frowning under the inist; but in
the east the dawn was breaking up the shadows
of night, and the sky was brightening with the
promise of a new day--a picture which he
has introduced into his well-known missionary
hymn--
O'er the gloomy hills of darkness.
This, and 'Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,' are
the only two translated hymns of his that have
found favour with editors of English hymnals. I
believe the missionary hymn was written originally
in English, and translated by his son into Welsh.
The other is found in a little volume of English
hymns he published under the title of Gloria in
Excelsis, for use in Mr. Whitefield's Orphans' House
in America. It was prepared at the request of
Lady Huntingdon, who had been much impressed
by some other writings of his. Mr. Whitefield
included it in his collection of hymns published in
1774; and since then it has had a place in most hymnals.
He suffered sometimes from absent-mindedness,
as the following tradition indicates. He was one
day far away from home, holding a service beside
the sea-shore. A friend bad taken the devotional
portion of the service, when, as he drew near the
close of his prayer, a cuckoo began to sing.
Williams stood up to give out a hymn before
preaching: it was an appeal to the cuckoo to fly
away to Pantycelyn and tell 'Mally' his wife that
he was alive; to proceed from thence to Builth and
tell 'Jack' his son to 'keep his place'; concluding
with the pious wish that should they fail to meet
again on earth, they might meet in heaven. His
friend touched him and hinted that the doctrine of
salvation was rather scanty in his verse. 'Very
true,' replied the poet at once; and, without any
more ado, gave out another verse, which seems to
carry in it everywhere the sound of the everlasting
sea--the music of an infinite hope for man:
Salvation like a boundless sea
Keeps swelling on the shore;
Here shall the weak and helpless find
Enough for evermore.
Another instance of his ready wit was recently given by a South Wales
correspondent.'Cosmos' in The South Wales Daily News.
It seems that he was at Aberdare one day preaching from
the text--'The harvest truly is great, but the
labourers are few; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of
the harvest that He would send forth labourers into
His harvest.' After the sermon he gave out a
hymn in a metre which was not known to any of
the masters of song present. Apprehending their
difficulty, he immediately put them right again by
giving out an extempore verse, of which the following is a translation
To-day are ye not saying--
'Four months will come and go,
And then with fruitful harvest
The fields will be aglow':
But saith the King of heaven--
'Lift up your eyes around!'
White are the fields already
Where His good wheat is found.
So much for tales of eccentric origins; which
prove, besides, how lively a sympathy existed
between the poet's mind and the varying phases
of Nature. In further illustration of this, the
following group of four hymns is given; showing
successive reflections of a summer evening, a
winter's night, a clear morning after a stormy
night, and a calm sea after contrary winds.
In the first hymn we seem to be gazing on the
sunset sky of a peaceful summer evening; and the
heavenly quiet of the scene awakens in the soul
infinite longings that are sad in their very sweetness:
I look beyond the far-off hills,
O gentle Christ, for Thee:
Come, my Belovèd, it is late,
The sun goes down on me.
These captive weeks of Babylon
Make sorrow long delay:
Oh! that I heard the jubilee
Opening the gates of day.
If from these fetters hard and cold
My feet were only free,
Long as I lived I would but sing
The grace of Calvary.
A pilgrim in a desert land
I wander far and near,
Expecting every hour to find
My Father's house appear.
Next comes this winter-night's hymn:
While the stormy winds are blowing
From the north so bleak and ebill,
Saviour, keep my soul defended
From the fear of coming ill:
Change the winter
Into balmy days and still.
Oh! that now the world would leave me,
Oh! that now the skies would clear,
And the land of pleasant ranges
O'er the distant hills appear!
Then my spirit
Would be calm with holy cheer.
But the strength of passion paineth,
And I feel my guilt unspent,
While I cannot cease from sinning--
Failing even to repent:
Light of sunrise,
Break this long imprisonment!
Waiting through the long night-watches,
Waiting for the break of day;
Waiting for the gates to open,
And my chains to fall away:
All in darkness,
For the light of God I pray.
And my soul shall keep on trusting,
Looking every day for Thee;
For Thy hand can save the weakest,
Yea, the weakest--even me!
I must tarry
Till the blessed Jubilee.
Dawn at last! the dawn is coming,
And the clouds shall pass away;
In the valleys, on the mountains,
Shall the mist no longer stay:
Hours of heaven,
Long I waited--now 'tis day.
The last verse is the victory of faith over Nature:
the world continues dark outside; but the dayspring
from on high has visited the soul. In the next
hymn, Faith and Nature stand side by side in the morning light.
The cloud has almost cleared,
That filled me with unrest;
The northwind too has veered
A little to the west:
After the storm there comes to-day
Fair weather on the heavenly way.
Dark night tempestuous
Will very soon be gone;
Long ages of the cross
Have been ordained for none:
The dawnlight in the eastern sky
Tells of a glorious morning nigh.
The sun is on the hills
Around my Father's house;
And through these earthly ills
The light eternal grows:
My hope is sure: who can efface
My name in God's own book of grace?
Upon His word I rest,
Come all things contrary;
When in the night distressed
My safe stronghold is He:
Nearer with each return of sun
The promise comes. It shall be done.
But it is neither Winter night nor summer eve
that has touched the poet's mind in this last hymn
of the group. It may have come to him partly
through reading the experiences of Columbus when
in search of a new continent.
Here I know myself a stranger,
And my native country lies
Far beyond the ocean's danger,
In the lands of Paradise:
Storms of trial blowing keenly
Drove me on this foreign strand;
Come, O South-wind, blow serenely,
Speed me to my Fatherland.
Though the voyage should be stormy,
Though the raging billows foam;
Even were the worst before me,
I shall sometime be at home:
Waves and seas are strong; but stronger
Is the word of God than all;
Trusting Him I fear no longer,
Safely in His hands I fall.
Now the air is full of balm
With the fragrance of the land;
And the breezes clear and calm
Tell of Paradise at hand:
Come, ye much-desired regions,
With the best of joy in store:
Country of the singing legions,
Let me reach thy restful shore!
Williams possessed to a considerable extent the
Shakspearean faculty of seeing many aspects of
human nature, especially on its religious side.
His hymns give expression to every grade of
experience, from the lowest deep of despair to the
clearest height of full assurance. It is himself
speaking; but in his voice we hear the sobs and
cries, the joys and transports of a thousand hearts.
He gives us a view of his early struggles and
defeats: how seven times back and fore he broke
the commandments of God, and attempted to confirm
his deliverance with 'seven great vows': but
all in vain, until he saw from the depths the Face
that is 'altogether lovely,' and driven by a flame
of guilt he came to the pleasant hill of Zion: he
had found heaven on the brink of bell, in the
thunders of Sinai he had his first meeting with
God--hours never to be forgotten, the hours of his
marriage with heaven. But though the violence
of the early conflict is smoothed down, he has not
yet, come to the possession of perfect peace:
Once again my sigh of sorrow
Riseth to His gracious ears;
For His pity, for His presence,
Weeps my soul these flowing tears.
Who can tell but He who founded
Earth and heaven shall hear my cry,
And that all these mournful longings
God Himself shall satisfy!
Oh! to hear the silver trumpet
Now proclaim my full release,
That my heavy-laden spirit
May at last have joy and peace.
Oh! that now like mighty torrents
Strength descended from above!
Not the strongest of my passions
Could withstand His conquering love.
In another hymn we see him a solitary wanderer
on the high and dangerous mountain footpath;
the path is very narrow, and underneath him is a
fearful depth. What if he miss his footing!
In Thy hand I cannot fall,
Though the weakest of them all;
In Thy hand at length I come
From my trials safely home.
He had promised to himself in the morning to
be at home early, having overcome all his enemies--but
'the noise of battle is yet in the country
where I live.' He is sometimes afraid even that
he has not yet received 'efficacious grace,' and
that his sins may yet win the day. What can he
do but pray God to lift him out of the pit? And
even if it is growing late, he must wait until 'the
Morning Star rise over yonder hills.' His trial,
too, had bound him in sweet fellowship with all
who strive upward to God:
Much I love the faithful pilgrims,
Who the rugged steeps ascend;
On their hands and knees they labour
To attain the heavenly end:
To the summit
On my knees shall I come too.
Bruisèd hands, oh! stretch ye upward,
Tired feet, walk ye with care;
The reward, the crown is yonder,
My Belovèd--He is there!
Earth forsaking;
Now the journey's end is all.
In the company of the same singer, what a
burst of triumphant faith we have in this martial strain:
The standard is ahead,
The gospel of His grace:
And hell is filled with dread,
And shakes before His face
Down! down! with shame it shall be brought,
Before my Jesus it is nought.
Great hosts from prisons free
Already have marched on,
And great their joy must be
To know the day is won:
From strife and toil on high they fled,
And in their footsteps we must tread.
Leave we the world behind,
The world that made us smart,
The world, of evil mind
Each day to break our heart:
Between the stars behold the light
Of that far better world in sight!
The blood of Jesu's cross
Was never shed in vain;
There is not any loss
Of His most precious pain:
This is the great, the finished plan
To open heaven's door for man.
Let all bow down and own
The sacrificèd Lamb!
Among all titles known
His is the greatest name:
Praise, laud, and blessing to our Lord,
Let Him be evermore adored!
Side by side with this call of Christian soldiers
to battle we may place a hymn to the Lord of
Battles, the Captain of the Christian host.
Ride to battle, ride victorious,
Gird, O Christ, Thy glittering sword!
Earth can never stand before Thee,
Nor can hell itself, my Lord:
In Thy name such glory dwelleth,
Hostile armies faint with fear;
And the wide creation trembleth
When it feels Thee coming near.
Now release my soul from bondage,
Let the heavenly day be known:
Burst the iron bars in sunder,
Raze the gates of Babylon:
Thrust the captives hence in armies,
Like the torrents of a flood;
Thousand after thousand singing,
Countless--ransomed--multitude!
Even now methinks I hear them,
Voices singing from afar;
They extol the great redemption,
In the land where freemen are:
All of them have snow-white garments,
And aloft the palms they bear;
Crowned with glory all-abounding
Into life they enter there.
Be it mine to share the gladness
Of that joyful day of days;
Every word that Christ has spoken
Shall fulfil itself in grace:
North and south--ten times ten thousand,
From the night that covered them,
Come with sound of silver trumpets
To the New Jerusalem.
The Christ of the glittering sword and the
glorious terror--can He speak to the broken heart
and bring glad tidings to the frightened conscience? Yes, verily:
Speak, O Christ! the gentle-hearted,
For Thy words are God's best wine;
All within me peace creating,
Peace of endless worth divine;
All the voices of creation,
Every passion and delight,
At Thy voice of quiet sweetness,
Pass away in hushed affright.
This world's empty noises vanish
When Thou speakest but a word;
And the tumult is dispersèd,
By opposing passions stirred;
Though the afternoon was stormy,
Cloudless is the evening sky,
And the south wind bloweth softly,
When Thou speakest peace on high.
Quite other fields of experience are traversed in this hermit's hymn:
In lonely desert place,
Without one human friend,
If God would daily show His face,
I could my lifetime spend.
He is in every thing,
All-present every hour;
There is no creature that can bring
Its strength to help His power.
The fearful desert night,
Perils in every place,
And fear of death--all take their flight,
Where God reveals His face:
His beauty passing fair,
His peace, and perfect love,
Make holy festivals, where'er
He shineth from above.
Where Thou art, in all things
Immortal life abounds;
Like streams from out the rock it springs,
And reaches heaven's bounds:
From Thee alone have come
All dawns of shining white,
To guide, through wastes and lowlands home,
The children of the light.
Ye sun and moon, farewell;
Farewell, ye stars of night;
Where God's sweet presence comes to dwell,
There needs no other light:
A vast eternal day
Comes from His smiling face;
A better, greater light than they--
The radiance of His grace.
In his day the work of foreign missions was
scarcely more than a Christian dream. But it was
a dream that often filled his mind and his song.
Indeed, it is exceedingly interesting to see the
profound missionary colouring of Welsh hymns of
the last century. It was as the singing of birds in
the dawn before the sun has risen. Now that the
missionary enterprise has passed beyond a dream--has
advanced so far as to be thought fit for
arraignment--it may not be amiss to associate
our thoughts with the childlike faith and happy
dreamings of earlier days:
The glory is coming, God said it on high,
When light in the evening will break from the sky;
The north and the south and the east and the West
With joy of salvation and peace will be blest.
The winter shall pass that has lingered so long,
Throughout the wide earth shall the birds sing Thy song;
The hills will be covered with harvests for Thee,
And flowers shall blossom from mountain to sea.
Thy promise shall spread over valley and hill,
Thy promise most precious of peace and good-will;
The Spirit shall gather Thy people of old,
The children of Israel, again to the fold.
The sons and the daughters shall prophesy then,
And praise and exalt the Redeemer of men;
The old men shall dream of the joys that await,
And scarcely believe when the peace is so great.
O summer of holiness! hasten along,
The purpose of glory is constant and strong:
The winter will vanish--the clouds pass away--
O South-wind of heaven, breathe softly to-day!
No one can read the Welsh hymns of the last
century without noting how every sentiment turns
lovingly to the cross. The cross absorbs the
themes of sermon and song; for it was the sun
and shield of the National Revival. There is
scarcely a hymn of Williams' in which it does not
stand forth clear and towering. The passion of
these verses is not of earth:
Who'll give me balm of Gilead--
Forgiveness, with its peace?
Then fear of death would vanish,
My soul would be at ease:
And who can soothe the anguish
Of guilt and evil will?
I know of none but Jesus,
Once nailed upon the hill.
Hard were the nails and cruel,
To pierce that form of grace;
But now they hold the compass
Of heaven in its place:
The hope of Adam's children
Flows from that awful hour,
When earth beheld its Maker
Abused by human power.
If ever the authority
Of Calvary should fail,
No hope, nor any comfort,
Would then for me avail:
Most wretched, oh! most wretched
Would I of all men be:
The dreadful grave would swallow
My soul, full surely.
Oh! vast, and ever vaster,
The mercy He made known:
Behold, the wide creation
Doth last in Him alone:
The moan of that dark mountain--
Lama sabachthani!
Is now the pearl most precious
Of any land or sea.
Unbearable the burden
To man--yea, to the best;
And on my God's own shoulder
It terribly did rest:
Justice was there demanding
The price to be made good;
And sin's eternal ransom
Was paid in sweat and blood.
The vast unmeasured mountain
Upon Himself He took,
From off the feeble shoulders
Of guilty man forsook:
When Nature saw the burden
Of infinite disgrace,
The very earth was shaken,
And heaven hid its face.
If thousand worlds were ransomed
By that one sacrifice,
Too dear would they be counted,
Redeemed at such a price:
No angel can, or seraph,
Tell e'en a thousandth part
Of that great price of ransom--
The blood of God's own heart.
A fire in thousand bosoms
Through heaven ravisheth--
A new white flame of wonder,
Remembering His death:
It silences their music
With ever new surprise:
They look on God Incarnate,
And say--'Behold! He dies!'
To Thee, my God, my Saviour,
Praise be for ever new;
Let people come to praise Thee
In numbers like the dew;
Oh! that in every meadow
The grass were harps of gold,
To sing to Him for coming
To ransom hosts untold!
Williams died January 11, 1791, at Pantycelyn,
near Llandovery. An obituary notice,
which appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine of
that year, speaks of 'the true poetic fire, striking
imagery, and glowing expressions, united with the
plaintive muse of the country' in his hymns; and
says further--'His imagination gave variety and
interest to his orations; his piety was warm, yet
candid and charitable; his manners simple, yet
affectionate and obliging; and his moral conduct
without blemish or imputation.' When, however,
it is therein prophesied that 'he is, perhaps, the
last lyric poet of South Wales, the language of the
country giving way'--we learn once more that it
is not wise for a prophet to prophesy aloud.
In a quiet village churchyard in the Vale of
Towy, 'he awaits the coming of the Morning Star
which shall usher in the glories of the first resurrection.'
So reads the inscription over his grave,
written by his son. And his hymns fill the long
night-watches with blessed hope, 'until the day break.'
CHAPTER IV.
ANN GRIFFITHS.
As the song of Moses was seconded by the song
of Miriam, so the song of
Williams, Pantycelyn,
and his contemporaries was seconded by a young
prophetess of Christ.
This is ANN GRIFFITHS, a farmer's daughter,
born in the year 1776, at Dolwar, near Llanfyllin,
in the county of Montgomery. As a young
woman, she was full of gay spirits, and used to
speak very flippantly of the deepened religious
earnestness of the age. She used to point to tha
crowds of people which journeyed from all parts,
of the country to the Association at Bala, and say--'See
the pilgrims going to Mecca.' She was
extremely fond of dance and merry song and rustic gaiety.
She had gone to attend one of these merrymaking
festivals at Llanfyllin, when she was
induced by an old servant of her father's to enter
the Independent chapel. She did so without any
afterthought whatever. But, like David Jones, of
Cayo, she found a message waiting for her there.
She did not stay for the festival, but went home
forthwith in a storm of troubled thought and dark
questionings. She went to her parish clergyman:
he met her heart-breaking distress with light jokes
and most untimely jests. Taking hold of her hand,
he said--'Let me see, Ann, if the veins of vanity
have all gone out of thy hand.' She went away
more distracted than ever. Her brother was
already one of 'the pilgrims of Mecca.' She went
with him to the chapel he frequented, and the
message of dawning hope came to her there. An
affinity of religious feelings led her soon afterwards
to join the society, and she became a strong and
shining influence in the quiet valleys around her home.
But she was only permitted to keep the lamp
burning during the hours of a brief watch for her
Lord. She died when twenty-nine years of age,
after a married life of about ten months, and
having led a Christian life of about eight years.
And yet in another sense the lamp was never put
out at all: for hymns and letters, unsurpassed for
spiritual fervour, keep that brief life burning with quenchless light.
The story of her first hymn beautifully images
one phase of her religion. Once, when returning
home after an exciting service, full of her own
unworthiness and of the glory of Christ, she turned
down a narrow, sheltered lane, in order to be alone
to pray. There she knelt; and in her communion
with God the spirit of sacred song touched her soul;
and by the time she reached her home she had
composed her first verse--the fourth in the following hymn:
Great Author of salvation
And providence for man,
Thou rulest earth and heaven
With Thy far-reaching plan:
To-day, or on the morrow,
Whatever woe betide,
Grant us Thy strong assistance,
Within Thy hand to hide.
What though the winds be angry,
What though the waves be high,
While Wisdom is the ruler,
The Lord of earth and sky!
What though the flood of evil
Rise stormily and dark,
No soul can sink within it--
God is Himself the ark!
Give us the faith of angels,
That we may look and see
Salvation's depths of radiance
And holy mystery:
Two natures in one person,
Harmonious, part and whole:
The blood divine availing
To ransom every soul.
My soul, behold the fitness
Of this great Son of God;
Trust Him for life eternal,
And cast on Him thy load:
A Man!--touched with the pity
Of every human woe;
A God!--to claim the kingdom,
And vanquish every foe.
One association of the first verse in the above
hymn gives it a strange pathos. A large number
of miners in a town of Glamorganshire having
been turned out of employment lately, they used
to gather in an open place for conference. The
proceedings were opened more than once by the
singing of this verse. A scene peculiarly Welsh,
surely!--and a scene aglow with the light of
heavenly romance. When their daily bread
seemed to fail them, and the world looked dark
around them, their Bible and their native song
taught them to look upward to the Author of
human Providence--in whose hand they could
verily hide without fear of evil.
But to return to the writer of the hymn and her
story: she who once laughed at the pilgrims of
Bala became now one of the most devout of them.
She used to attend there on the Communion
Sabbath, although it meant for her, as for
hundreds more, a rugged mountainous journey of
over twenty miles. Once on her way home she
became so absorbed in holy contemplation that she
rode many miles out of her way over the Berwyn
Hills before ever awakening to the fact. The
result of those hours of thought is kept in this hymn:
Blessed day of rest eternal
From my labour, in my place!
On a shoreless sea of wonders,
The unfathomed depths of grace:
Finding an abundant entrance
To the Triune God's abode:
Seas to sail and never compass;
God as man, and man as God,
Neither shall the sun light on them,
Nor the fear of death give pain;
Tears forgotten in the anthem
Of the Lamb which once was slain:
Sailing on the crystal river
Of the peace of One in Three,
Underneath the cloudless beamings
Of the death of Cavalry.
Nothing could mark the intensity of feeling
more strikingly than the broken sentences and
rapid interchange of thoughts. 'The cloudless
beamings of the death of Cavalry:'--the confused
eloquence reveals the divine anguish of imagination.
Reference has been made to her letters. Their
intrinsic worth, and their intimate connection with
her hymns, make it unnecessary to give an excuse
for a larger reference. They are the autobiography
of a sacred passion, and exquisitely reflect the
lights and shadows of a mind that lived within itself in Christ.
The letters were mostly written to a young friend
in the ministry, and became a valuable means of
unburdening a mind that was bowed down with an
exceeding weight of glory. They are the revealed
secrets of an unresting heart, told in simple and devout speech.
The Bible was her fountain of life--a fountain
of water clear and cool as the dewdrops of a June
morning, embosomed in fadeless flowers of spring.
She drank of the living stream, she carried away
choice flowers of peace to lie close to her soul.
Her piety had in it a sweet tyranny, which compelled
each verse to yield the comfort she needed
at the time. For instance, in one letter we read:
'I have had some trials like stormy winds, until
I was nearly breathless on the steep paths of the
hill; but I was brought up to the summit as
by these two chains--"A man shall be as an
hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the
tempest;" and--"Come, My people, enter thou
into thy chambers: hide thyself as it were for a
little moment." My spirit felt the peace and warmth for a while.'
And in another letter:
'Lately the following words were of great value
and comfort to my soul--"Thy neck is like the
tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon
there hang a thousand buckles, all shields of
mighty men." In myself, I am but helpless and
unarmed against my foes; but if I shall have the
privilege of turning into the tower, I shall there
find armour and strength to run through the hosts.
These words also were to me of great comfort--"For
it pleased the Father that in Him should all
fulness dwell;" and again--"A garden inclosed
is my sister, my spouse." I am greatly bound to
speak well of God, and to be grateful to Him for
some degrees of the fellowship of the mystery.
But this is my grief--I fail to stay--I am always
forsaking Him. I see how great is my loss on
that account: but more than all is the dishonour
and disrespect thrown upon God. Grant me help to stay!
She could even reverently thank God for using
His Word as an instrument of trouble, destroying
the strong root of self-conceit, without doing the soul injury.
Her sacred passion brought with it a precious
pain and grief. The very fervour of her devotion
to Christ made her judge herself with all the
severity of a Paul:
'For a long time I have been sorely troubled.
I have many disappointments in myself continually;
but I must say that all trials and all
storms of every kind have wrought me to this:
that is, they have brought me to see more of the
corruptions of my nature and more of the Lord in
His goodness and unchangeableness toward me.
Lately I was far from the Lord in the backsliding
of my soul; and yet I held up against His
ministry, as if I were not refusing to stay and
walk in His fellowship. But for all my art,
the Lord visited me in these words--"If I be
a Father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a
Master, where is My fear?" . . .
'In view of my path after forsaking God, and
hewing out broken cisterns, this word anew raised
me a little on my feet--"The Lord is my
Shepherd; I shall not want." I the one going
astray, He the Shepherd; I unable to return, He
the Almighty Lord. Oh! Rock of our salvation!
entirely dependent upon Himself, saving and
cherishing sinners! I would wish to be always
under the treatment, be it ever so bitter.'
This is more cheerful, but still the spiritual
element is of the same self-searching earnestness:
'I feel renewed affection toward the doctrine of
the Gospel, because it shows a way to cleanse the
unclean. I think I have no need to change my
garment, only to be purer in it. I feel a stronger
longing than ever I felt before to be pure; and
these words are on my mind--"And the house,
when it was in building, was built of stones made
ready." I feel an earnest desire to be shaped
by Him, until I am made fit for the heavenly building.'
The Rev. Thomas Charles, Bala, once made a
remark to her that touched her soul to the quick.
Considering the depth and rareness of her experiences,
and the marvellous dispensations through
which God led her spirit, he said that she seemed
very likely to meet with one of three things: either
she would meet with severe trials, or her life would
soon be ended, or she would fall back, When she
heard of falling back, she burst into tears. That
fear is touchingly echoed in these sentences:
'What presses most heavily on my mind at
present is the sinfulness of permitting anything
seen to have too large a place in my thoughts. I
am reverently ashamed, and wonderingly rejoice,
to think that He who humbles Himself in looking
at the things of heaven has made Himself an
object of love to a creature as poor as I am; and
in view of such a dishonour upon God as to give
the first place to second things, I simply think that
I would prefer my nature to be crushed to death (if
need be), on account of its weakness to bear the
heat of fiery trials. I sometimes think I could
joyfully endure that, rather than the glory of God
should be clouded before my mind, through granting
my material nature its pomp and its desires.'
Mercifully did the Providence of God respond to her prayer.
Her mind was eager to discern the vivid outline
of Christian doctrine, but mostly in its practical
relations. How modestly, how devoutly she takes
herself to task in these words for having unwittingly
ignored the personal office of the Holy Spirit!
'The most particular thing on my mind is the
great evil and great danger of grieving the Holy
Ghost. The following words have struck me--"Know
ye not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost which is in you?"
'In penetrating somewhat into the wonders of
that Person, and that He dwells and abides in the
believer, I simply think that I was never possessed
with the same degrees of reverent fear lest He should
be grieved; and along with that it was given to me
to see that one cause, and the chief cause, of this
great sin having such a slight impression of uneasiness
on ray mind was, that my thoughts about the
Divine greatness of His person were too low. My
whole conception of the Persons of the Trinity was
too low; to think of it my mind is held with
shame: but I owe it to myself to say that my
mind has changed. I used to think of the Persons
of the Father and Son as equal: but I held an
opinion of the Person of the Holy Ghost as if He
were an officer inferior to the Father and the Son.
Oh! fanciful and mistaken opinion concerning One
who is Divine, all-present, all-knowing, all-powerful
to bring forward and perfect the good work which
He has begun, according to the conditions of the
covenant of grace, according to the decree of
Three in One on behalf of the objects of heaven's
morning Love! Oh! to be of their number! I
thirst to rise higher in the belief that there is a
personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost in my
soul--a belief brought through revelation--not
fancifully, expecting to comprehend the form and
manner in which He dwells; this would be idolatry.
In considering the sinfulness in itself of grieving
the Holy Ghost, and, on the other hand, in looking
down to the depths of the Great Fall, and that I
am dispossessed of every power, except of being
able to grieve Him--my soul is sorely pressed.
The following words are on my mind--"Watch
and pray." As if the Lord were saying, though
the commandment is strong, and thou art unable
to fulfil one out of a thousand things there, on
the ground where thy mind stands, go forth, prove
the Throne of Grace; for "the effectual fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much"--"My
grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is
made perfect in weakness." Blessed be the God
who fulfils His promises!'
Her hymns and her letters form an interchangeable
commentary. Both are the simple
and fresh outpourings of her soul. In one of her
letters we find her tremulously approaching the
mystery of the Creator becoming a Sufferer:
'My mind at present is looking on Jesus
bearing the crown of thorns and the scarlet robe,
and afterwards in His great sufferings upon the
cross. It is not to be wondered at that the sun
should hide its beams when its Creator was pierced
with nails! My mind stands astonished when I
consider the Person who suffered on the cross--He
whose eyes are as a flame of fire piercing
through heaven and earth, at the same time
unable to see the work of His hands when darkness
was over all the earth! My mind is overwhelmed
with too much astonishment to say any more.
No wonder that word is written down--"The Lord
is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He
will magnify the law and make it honourable":
and the other word--"Kiss the Son, lest He be
angry." Would that the remainder of my days were
a season of unfaltering fellowship with Christ and
His sufferings, and with the Father through Him!'
The same spiritual emotion can be traced in
these verses, almost line by line:
Heaven sweetly will remember
The decree of Three in One,
Ever gazing on the Person
Who became a Son of Man:
In fulfilling the conditions
Dying sorrow pierced His soul;
Now the host no man can number
Mightily His praise extol.
In remembering the battle,
All my tears for joy are dried;
Free for ever stands the sinner,
While the law is magnified:
For the peace of man behold Him--
Life's Almighty Author slain!
And the Resurrection buried
For an endless human gain!
In the midst, between two robbers,
There the great Atonement died;
And by Him the arm was strengthened
Which could dare to pierce His side:
When His Father's law was honoured,
And the sinner's ransom paid,
Justice stood in shining glory--
We were free and undismayed.
King of kings, and great Rest-giver!
See, my soul, His lowly bed!
All creation in Him movèd,
He within the grave lay dead!
Wonder of the holy angels,
Life of those who once were lost:
Unto Him, the God Incarnate,
Sing the great adoring host.
Her latter days were spent close to the frontiers
of the Better Land. Her soul was filled with the
thoughts and desires of her eternal home. We
can almost watch the flame of the spirit's life
burning higher and higher--burning up the earthliness
of her nature and the last remainders of
unheavenly interests. Thus she writes:
'I see more need than I have ever seen before
to spend what there is left of my days in giving
myself daily, body and soul, to the care of Him
who is able to keep that which is committed unto
Him against that day. Not giving myself once,
but living in giving myself, until, and even when
this tabernacle is put off. The thought of putting
it off is specially sweet sometimes. I can say, it
is this of all things which gives me most joy in
these days. Not death in itself, but the great gain
to be had after passing through it; every inclination
contrary to the will of God left behind, every
inclination to dishonour the ordinance of God left
behind--all infirmity swallowed up of strength--perfectly
conformable to the law--in the likeness
of God to enjoy Him for ever. I am sometimes so
carried away with these things that I fairly fail to
stand on the way of my duty in the things of time;
but waiting for the hour when I shall be dissolved
and be with Christ, for it is much better, although
it is very good with me here sometimes. When
my Beloved showeth Himself through the lattice,
He sometimes reveals, in a glass darkly, as much
of His glory to me as my feeble faculties can bear.
I rejoice to say in closing--I would wish to say it
with thankfulness--in spite of my sinfulness, and
the cunning of hell, of the world and its charms,
through the good grace of God I have not changed
the object of my affection till to-night: rather from
my heart I rest in His love, and joy over Him with
singing, although I cannot obtain that in the least
degree on this side of death, except with effort and violence.'
And thus she sings:
Must I face the stormy river?
There is One to break its flood--
Christ, my great High-priest and faithful,
Christ, my all-sufficient good:
Through His blood shall come the triumph
Over death and hell to me;
And I shall be in His likeness,
Sinless through eternity.
Disembodied of all evil,
I shall pierce with earnest eyes
Into Calvary's deep wonders,
And its infinite surprise:
The Invisible beholding,
Who is living and was dead;
In a pure, unbroken union
With the ever-living Head.
There I shall exalt the Person,
God's own Sacrifice Divine,
Without any veil or fancy--
And my soul like Him shall shine:
With the mystery revealèd
In His wounds, I shall commune;
Losing sight no more for ever
Of the all-belovèd Son.
From salvation's highest fountains,
Oh, to drink with each new day!
Till my thirst for earthly pleasures
Has completely passed away:
Waiting always for my Master,
Quick to answer to His call;
Then to hold the door wide open,
And enjoy Him, all in all.
These letters and hymns were not written and
sung in a cloister. They are Divine breathings
rising out of the quiet stir of country life, like a
lark out of the wind-swept heather. She lived a
woman's ordinary life of a century ago. When
her mother died, she became her father's helpmate.
She was busy from morn till eve with the
daily duties of the farmstead. She had no hour
of prayer and song marked out, nor was there
any need. Her prayers accompanied this work
of her hands; her hymns were often composed in
the midst of her household tasks. She became
a 'priest unto God,' and the golden bells round
about the hem of her spirit's robe were not often silent.
If she had a deep concern for personal piety,
she was equally concerned for social religion. A
member of the Calvinistic Methodist Church at a
place called the Bont, she carried all its joys
and sorrows in her heart. When the Church was
wounded 'by the stroke of the world and of those
falling back,' her own soul was also wounded.
Her prayers breathed revivingly on the Lord's
'faded garden.' And when the Church had its
bright awakening, her joy was full. She had
heavy and rugged paths to travel from her home
to the chapel, but the darkest winter night made
no difference to her. She could sing on the way.
It was a narrow way, too, her soul had to travel,
and she met some wintry nights of doubt before
she reached the gate of the temple. But she sang
for the Light that was to come.
There's a day to journey homewards
For the children of the King;
God shall from the fields of bondage
To the throne His loved ones bring:
There shall faith to sight be changèd,
Feeble hope to perfect gain;
And the song shall grow for ever
To the Lamb which once was slain.
Pilgrim, worn with stress of tempests,
Look, and see the dawning light!
There the Lamb makes intercession,
In His flowing robes of white:
Faithfulness, His golden girdle;
Round His garment's hem, the bells;
Token of the full forgiveness
Which in His atonement dwells.
A noteworthy fact in connection with her hymns
is their preservation. A servant in her father's
house, named Ruth, possessed a remarkable
memory. To her Ann Griffiths used to recite her
hymns as they were composed; and then the two
would sing them over time after time. After the
death of the young authoress, Ruth used to repeat
these verses to her husband. He saw their worth,
and wrote them down from her dictation. To-day
they cannot be lost: they have a home in too many hearts.
CHAPTER V.
MORGAN RHYS--DAVID WILLIAMS--BENJAMIN FRANCIS.
We are still in the eighteenth century; and we
must linger in the romantic though little known
Vale of Towy, to make the acquaintance of two
more sacred poets of Wales. One of these is
MORGAN RHYS, the story of whose life is almost
entirely lost. We have, however, the memoir of
his soul safely kept in his hymns and elegies.
Being a contemporary and neighbour of David
Jones and William Williams, he seems to have
felt the stress and storm of the same religious
conflict; and his devotion has very much of the
same deep and fervent colour. He was influenced
largely by the potent spirit of Griffith Jones, of
Llanddowror, the Morning Star of the Great
Revival; and for a time undertook the care of one
of his Circulating Schools.
These schools were instituted to impart the
simplest forms of elementary knowledge in country
villages. After a schoolmaster had been for a
while engaged in removing the dense ignorance of
one district, he had to leave it for another; so the
'little knowledge' was scattered far and wide,
although in very small instalments. In the latter
part of his life, Mr. Rhys established a stationary
school on his own responsibility: most probably
in order that he might have more of personal
freedom in hig evangelistic work. For he was one
of the band of Calvinistic Methodist itinerant
preachers that rendered noble service in that age
to the renaissance of national piety. His hymns
reflect strongly the theological lights and shades
of his day; when the human side of Redemption
was to a very considerable extent ignored, so as to
emphasize the divine side of it. The total depravity
of man--the impossibility of salvation by
means of legal obedience--the need of the atonement,
and its sufficiency--these are the doctrines
which his harp translates into song. When he
once went to Williams, Pantycelyn, and read out
to him one of his hymns, that master of sacred
song told him that it contained the experience of
a 'good Christian and a half.' His hymns reveal
a mind dwelling much in pleasant melancholy,
as in the shadow of leafy branches flecked with sunlight.
I promise every day
To keep The narrow way,
But daily fail:
God of the bush of yore,
Strengthen me more and more;
If Thou but walk before,
I shall prevail.
A thousand evil foes
Around my pathway close,
And I am weak:
Give me Thy hand, I pray,
To hold me in the way;
And in the latter day,
Lord, for me speak!
In the two following verses we seem to hear the
far-off noise of battle--a dim echo from the theological
conflicts of bygone days, when the term
'Antinomian' was a favourite missile to hurl at an opponent.
All praise to Christ the Righteous
Who for my sin has died,
And from the grave has risen
That I be justified:
Upon His throne of pity
He intercedes for me,
And names His life of sorrow,
His death upon the tree.
Now in the face of Moses,
No friend shall have my plea:
But Jesus Christ the Righteous
Who died for one like me!
In Jordan's swelling torrent,
Or in that 'day to come,'
I know His hand will hold me,
And safely bring me home.
'Now in the face of Moses,' has in it the martial
ring of some famous old battle-cry.
A similar theme is handled in these glowing verses:
Lord, open mine eyes to behold
The worth of Thy wondrous decree:
Far better than silver and gold,
The law of Thy mouth is to me:
The fire shall consume all below,
But Thou art the same, and Thy plan--
'Tis life everlasting to know
My Saviour as God and as Man.
O wonder of infinite cost!
The way that He took in His grace,
To rescue a man that was lost,
By dying Himself in His place!
He conquered the serpent's despite,
And stood there alone as my King
He leadeth us now in His might--
Let those on the Rock shout and sing.
The Mighty One has overcome,
His foes in confusion retire;
And Zion is on its way home
In terrible chariots of fire;
The saints and the angels unite,
A white-shining numberless throng,
To bear through the realms of the light,
To Him the all-conquering song.
The other illustration from the hymns of Morgan
Rhys comes in less familiar form:
O welcome, blessed morrow!
No foe, nor any sorrow
Can reach the land of life:
The conquering throng
Shall gather with song,
From all this world of strife.
In Salem's tranquil regions
No sound of warring legions
Breaks on the music fair:
The Saviour will be
My heaven for me--
And no one sinneth there!
The grave will be so peaceful,
Until the dawning blissful
Shall wake me from my rest:
And then I shall rise
With joy to the skies,
In Jesu's likeness drest.
There is the crown of brightness,
And robes of purest whiteness,
And holy festival:
No evil is there,
No enemy dare
Approach its pearlèd wall.
There God is ever glorious,
The Lamb is all-victorious,
O blessed Three in One!
My soul was a brand
Plucked out by His hand--
When shall His praise be done?
David Williams
Another schoolmaster under Griffith Jones, and a maker of sacred songs
also, was DAVID WILLIAMS,
who was born near Llandovery, in the year 1718;
and died October 1, 1794, at Llandilo-fach, in the
county of Glamorgan. Very little is known of
him; and it seems probable that still less would
be known, were it not for the severity of his
domestic trials. His wife was an advanced, pupil
of the school of Xantippe; and her violent temper
kept the poet's sensitive spirit in exquisite torment.
Among other troubles, he had to change his
denomination on her account. But whatever of
that, as in the case of another sweet singer who
had to practise 'on an evil spirit,' his harp lost
none of its tenderness of devotion. Some of his
verses rank among the best in Welsh hymnology;
and one especially is known wherever the Welsh
tongue is spoken. He has not enclosed so much
systematic theology in his hymns as
Morgan Rhys:
rather is he the minstrel of the mortal strife of
men, with their sorrow and joy and divine endeavour.
Many a troubled soul can join him in this
remonstrance with doubt:
Unbelief, let me have quiet,
Else my cry of pain shall rise
From this valley of affiction
To the gracious dawning skies:
There for me my Brother pleadeth,
Unforgetting day or night:
He will come and break my fetters,
He will lead me into light.
Little Faith, where art thou hiding?
For thy ministry take heart:
Why, sweet Hope, art thou so timid?
For the feeble do thy part:
Soon the battle will be over--
Unbelief, away! away!
Though I am so faint and helpless,
I am gaining ground each day.
In another hymn we are still touched with the
anguish of the strife:
Hear my grief! believe I cannot
That for me there is a hope,
Who, between two weak opinions
Halting, in the darkness grope:
Fearing much and trusting little,
Shall I stand at last or fall?
Fearing evil hosts of darkness,
Fearing self the most of all!
Sometimes in the gloomy valley,
Sometimes on the sunny height;
Sometimes drinking Marah's waters,
Sometimes wine of pure delight:
Sometimes sighs and bitter meanings,
Sometimes joy on every string;
Sometimes low beneath the billows,
Sometimes sunward on my wing.
I am trusting, come what happen,
Trusting in the word of grace--
That the riven Rock of Ages
Is my perfect hiding-place:
In the cleft there is a Refuge,
In the cleft is sweetest calm;
In the cleft alone is safety--
Wounds of Christ, unblemished Lamb.
In most of his hymns he keeps the same figure
or phrase through all his verses. In the following
he sings of the 'breezes of Mount Zion':
Lord, let the gladdening breezes
Revive this soul of mine,
And raise it, weak and wearied,
To Heaven's air benign:
The breeze will break and scatter
The clouds that hang so low;
I long to feel its freshness--
From heaven let it blow!
The breezes of Mount Zion
Kindle the holy flame;
The breezes of Mount Zion
Renew the feeble frame:
Oft in the breeze of Zion
My soul with song would fill;
And I shall yet be singing,
Before I reach the hill.
The breezes of Mount Zion
Shall fill the sails again;
And lift the stranded vessel
To voyage o'er the main:
The breezes of Mount Zion
Leave all the sky aglow;--
In Canaan's sunny valleys
No cold winds ever blow.
It must have been during one of his sunward
flights that he saw this radiant vision of Eternal
Love standing in the midst of all change without
a cloud on its brow, without a fear in its soul:
Oh! the grace no will can conquer!
The omnipotence of love!
Changeless is my Father's promise,
It will never, never move:
In the storm this is my anchor--
God can never change His mind;
In the wounds of Christ He promised
Life to me: and He is kind.
But the verse that has undoubtedly travelled
wherever the Welsh language has, is the one of
which I give the first line as it stands in the original:
Yn y dyfroedd mawr a'r tonnau.
It is the popular tradition that one stormy night,
on reaching home after having been away preaching,
he was hailed with all the bitterness the
practised tongue of his wife could command. It
was more than he could bear: he preferred the
company of the storm without to the mad rhetoric
within, so away he went, and stood on the banks
of the River Llwchwr. The rush of the raging
torrent and the noise of the wild night brought
to his mind another river and another night, when
his soul would be overwhelmed by the desolate
presence of death. What hope would remain loyal
then? What help would be at hand?
In the waves and mighty waters
No one will support my head,
But my Saviour, my Belovèd,
Who was stricken in my stead:
In the cold and mortal river
He will hold my head above;
I shall through the waves go singing
For one look of Him I love!
A touching incident has given to this verse the
title of 'The Miners' Hymn.' In the mouth of
April, 1877, a colliery at Cymmer, in the Rhondda
Valley, was flooded, and fourteen miners found
themselves in a prison of darkness and terror,
waiting helplessly for death. The whole nation
seemed to turn its thought towards that coal-pit,
and every day made the suspense more painful.
The rescue-party toiled manfully day and night;
and when seven days had passed without any
reward to their labour, the last hope was almost
given up. But on the eighth day nine of those
imprisoned were found: and they were alive,
though exhausted to the verge of death. Without
air, without food, despair would have driven them
mad were it not for the above hymn, which
they sang over and over again with a feeling of
terrible reality. 'The waves and mighty waters'
were there; so was their Saviour, their Beloved.
And they sang for one look of Him!
Benjamin Francis
The Rev. BENJAMIN FRANCIS was
born at Pengelli, near Newcastle-Emlyn, in the year 1734. His
father was a Baptist minister, a man of large
talents and many labours, his name being associated
with the origin of several churches on the
confines of the three counties of Cardigan, Caermarthen,
and Pembroke. The son spoken of here
was only six years old when his father died; but
there were faithful friends who cared for him till
he could care for himself. He commenced preaching
at the age of nineteen; and soon after he
entered the Academy at Bristol. In the year 1758
he was ordained minister of the Baptist church at
Horsley, in Gloucestershire; and there he laboured
in Christ for nearly half a century--until be was
called to rest. His love for his native land constrained
him to make contributions towards its
church-song. His hymns are very correct and
well finished; but only a few of them have found a
permanent place in the sanctuary. Even these do
not lend themselves to translation, being mostly free
versions of the Psalms or of English hymns. He
also published several English hymns; of which
two at least are fairly well known--although in each
case there is some confusion as to the authorship.
Hark! the voice of love and mercy
is generally attributed to him, with a query on
behalf of the Rev. Jonathan Evans.
Jesus! and shall it ever be
is again put down to Grigg, but altered by Benjamin Francis.
CHAPTER VI.
THOMAS WILLIAMS--CHARLES O'R BALA--DAVID CHARLES.
With the close of the eighteenth century the
Golden Age of Welsh hymnody began to decline.
There has been a succession of great national poets
since; but they are bards of the Eisteddvod rather
than singers of the sanctuary. At the same time
it deserves to be noted that the chief Eisteddvod
poems of the present century have nearly all
some sacred subject. The great poets have failed,
as usual, to write great hymns. Still, the period is
not void of interesting illustrations of the songs of the Church.
THOMAS WILLIAMS, of Bethesda, in
the Vale of Glamorgan, was originally a well-to-do farmer;
but, owing to a bitter controversy concerning the
alleged heresy of an eminent Methodist divine of
the time--the Rev. Peter Williams--he, with a
number of sympathizers, organized an Independent
church, of which he afterwards became
minister. Religiously, he was a child of the
eighteenth century; and his hymns have a close
spiritual affinity to the hymns of
David Jones and
Morgan Rhys and
William Williams.
But here and there we find traces of the natural reaction which
followed the fervour of the Great Revival. A chill
melancholy steals sometimes over his faith--like
the sound of an autumn breeze shuddering among
the brown leaves after sunset. But it passes, and
be rejoices again. His volume of hymns, entitled
Waters of Bethesda, was published in 1823. It
takes its name from its first, and one of his best-known hymns.
I also, like so many more,
Am here beside the pool;
Waiting the Holy Ghost to stir
These waters deep and cool.
Within salvation's crystal flood,
Through time's long ages proved,
How many hearts found health again,
And all disease removed!
Beside the pool for many a day
My soul has been in grief;
And every hour is like a year,
In waiting God's relief.
And shall it be that I must die,
Who have remained so long?
Before me others always go
And wash, and they are strong.
I was the first of all to come,
But they were first made whole!
When shall the day of healing dawn
On my unhappy soul?
Here I shall tarry, come what may,
For who is there can tell
But the Physician will Himself
Come soon, and make me well?
Some of his best-known hymns--as in the case
of nearly all Welsh hymn-writers--relate the vision
of death: the favourite theme being that of
natural fear gradually overcome by the Christian
faith, as in the following
Where is Elijah's God?
Wilt Thou not come at length?
For all my hope and stay
Is only in Thy strength:
The fathers I have loved are gone;
I have but Thee to lead me on.
The breeze is blowing chill
Since early afternoon;
And as I feel its cold
I know that Death comes soon:
Nought but Thy peace can take away
The grave's dark sorrow and dismay.
The river is at hand,
I see its highest wave:
And how can one so weak
Its stormy torrents brave?
God of Elijah, come once more,
Divide the waters as of yore!
Confirm my feeble faith,
So fearful to advance--
Afraid to trust the word
That never failed me once!
And Christ is in His sovereign right,
The resurrection's Life and Light.
O morning full of peace!
Its light is in the skies;
The prisons of the grave
Shall fall, and never rise:
Nor death nor grave shall then be known,
From dawn till eve, from eve till dawn.
It would not be well to pass from him without
including this little hymn, so simple in form, and
its thought so sunny:
The Tree of Life in barren soil
At length has taken root,
And bends its branches to the ground,
That all may taste its fruit.
Through wintry months of dark and cold,
The fruit is on it still;
Its leaves bring healing to the wounds
Of mind and heart and will.
If on this side the stream we find
The fruit of Christ so good,
It will be better, better far,
The other side the flood.
When strength has failed within my heart,
When human help is past,
In Thine own bosom, Jesu, Lord,
Grant me to rest at last.
Charles O'r Bala
In the good Providence of God the national
revival of the eighteenth century was followed by a
period of wise constructive energy. After the
solemn awakening came the broad and sober reign
of education. Catechisms were used largely, and
with much profit: theology was organized, and
church polity was defined. Among those approved
workmen in constructive religion, no name is more honoured than that of
CHARLES O'R BALA.
The memorable little incident of 'Mary Jones and her
Bible' has made him known everywhere as the
pioneer and one of the founders of the British and
Foreign Bible Society. He was born at Pant-dwvn,
in the county of Caermarthen, October 14, 1755, of
a respectable family of farmers. He came under
the influence of the new religious movement in the
days of boyhood, and it left a deep and permanent
impression upon his spirit. Having taken his
degree at Oxford, he was ordained priest May 21,
1780, and spent the next three years in a curacy at
Halifax. Afterwards he returned to Wales, having
been appointed to the curacy of Llanymowddwy: but
his work there came suddenly to a close. Some of
the parishioners, in their zeal for national ignorance,
accused him of giving free instruction to the children
after vespers. His rector considered this to
be such a shocking innovation that he was at once
dismissed. Like many another earnest spirit of
the time, he had to forsake the Church of his
fathers in order to have a free field for his heroic
devotion. He publicly joined the Calvinistic Methodist
movement, and found the work was 'great and
large.' John Newton had asked him to come over
to England: but he preferred to stay at home and
bear the cross in his native land. His splendid
toil in the interest of elementary and religious
education, his part in the founding of the Bible
Society, his Catechism and Bible Dictionary--both
of them still treasures of the household and the Church--need only be
mentioned here.See 'Short Biographies for the People': Thomas
Charles, by Rev. Dr. Herber Evans.
One bitterly cold night in the winter of 1799-80, he was returning
over the mountains from Carnarvonshire to
Bala, when his hand was bitten by the frost, and
a severe illness succeeded. Much prayer was made
on his behalf: but in the annals of those prayers
nothing is more remarkable than this strange
petition of one old Christian--'Fifteen years more,
O Lord! We pray for fifteen years to be added to
the days of his life; and wilt Thou not grant fifteen
years, O our God, for the sake of Thy Church and
Thy cause?' Nearly fifteen years later--in the
summer of 1814--he told his wife at Barmouth,
'Well, Sali, the fifteen years are nearly up.' A
few weeks later, a friend called to see him one
morning, and said, 'Well, Mr. Charles, the day of
trouble is come!' And he answered, 'There is
Refuge!' His first word after that was spoken
beyond the veil. What better mapping out of
his spiritual course than these verses from his
only hymn, written early in the fifteen years' trial?
O Salvation, full Salvation,
Love's device for man's release!
What can shake the firm foundation
Of this covenant of peace?
Here my soul in trouble resteth,
Here through life is my abode:
When the stormy wind molesteth,
Days of calm have I with God.
Should my health be from me taken,
And my very life be done;
The decree remains unshaken
Made of old by Three in One:
Unremoved the promise liveth,
And the counsel standeth fast;
Unto him, who now believeth
Christ is life, and death is past.
Bitter things are changed to sweetness,
Darkness into clearest day;
Trials give my spirit meetness,
And they soon shall pass away:
By the covenant sustainèd,
Strong in comfort shall I be,
Till my soul at last hath gainèd
What my Father willed for me.
Once, I thought my little vessel
Had the wild waves overpast;
I was in the tranquil haven,
And my anchor had been cast!
Then I cried in fear, 'My Father,
Wilt Thou drive me back again?
In Thy bosom take me rather,
Let me bid farewell to pain!'
'Hush, My child, and wait My leisure,
Know there is no God but Me;
Be at rest in My good pleasure,
Trust My care--My care for thee:
In the struggle I shall hide thee
From the evil hand of foes;
I shall always walk beside thee,
I, thy succour and repose.'
Lord, it is enough for ever,
If Thou only be my God;
For Thy Son didst Thou deliver
To redeem me with His blood:
In His shelter I have hidden,
In the mortal bruise divine;
Be all other joys forbidden,
But the joy that He is mine.
David Charles
The youngest brother of the above--Rev. DAVID
CHARLES, of Caermarthen--has the Christ-given
honour of having written one of the foremost
hymns in the language. He was born in 1762;
and, like his brother, he was under spiritual impression
from early childhood. During the days
of his apprenticeship he learnt by heart the whole
of Young's Night Thoughts. A book, and an
English book, was also the means of helping him
to final decision for Christ--the sermons of Ralph
Erskine. He spent several years of his young
manhood in Bristol; and all these English influences
served him well in after years, enabling
him to preach effectively in both languages. He
preached several times with and for Rowland Hill
in Gloucestershire; and twice at least he occupied
the famous pulpit of Surrey Chapel. He was a
true builder of the churches; and early Methodism
in Wales owed a great deal to his soberness and wisdom.
He wrote several hymns, but one has singled
itself out from among the rest. The biography of
'O fryniau Caersalem ceir gweled,' like that of the
'Miners' Hymn' already referred to, can only be
written in the light of the Home-land. The poet
had heard 'the shout of them that triumph,' and
he was no longer afraid of the weariness and perplexity
of his pilgrimage in the desert. Some day
he would reach the cloudless hills of Zion, and look
back on the meanderings of the journey, to find that
it was the nearest way home.
To us from the desert ascending
God giveth in Paradise rest;
Our soul after weary contending
Shall peacefully lean on His breast:
There we shall escape from affliction,
From sin with its shame and its pain;
Enjoying the full benediction,
The love of the Lamb that was slain.
From the hills of the Beautiful City
The way of the desert is clear;
What joy will be there in reviewing
The journey's meanderings here!
To look on the storms as they gather,
On terrible death and the grave;
While we shall be safe with the Father,
In peace on love's shadowless wave.
While dying lips have murmured in anticipation
this joy of the heavenly retrospect from the hills of
the City, the gate of pearl has opened to many a
soul; and the faltering strain of earth has glided
imperceptibly into the choral song of seraphim and saints redeemed.
CHAPTER VII.
HUGH JONES--EDWARD JONES--PEDR FARDD--R. AB GWILYM DDU.
The sacred singers grouped together in this chapter
had one quality in common: they were extravagantly
fond of intricate rhymes and peculiar metres.
This has seriously limited the use of their hymns,
except in rare instances. Like Captain Middleton's
Psalter, the greatest portion of their verse is so
much fruitless piety; leaving, however, a saving
remainder of serviceable work.
HUGH JONES (of Maesglasau), son of a
well-to-do farmer, was born in the neighbourhood of Dinas
Mawddwy, Merioneth, in the year 1749. He spent
the life of a literary recluse, devoting himself and
losing his money in enriching the literature of
Wales. Among the books he translated into Welsh
were the works of Josephus. He also interested
himself in church psalmody, and wrote several
psalm-tunes. His name lives, however, more in
one hymn he wrote than in all his other work.
The following is an attempted rendering of it:
Remove
The veil in this dear Mount of love,
And let the sun stand still above
Where once, reprovèd and beshrewed,
The Lamb of God was made to feel
The piercing steel, for my great good.
For me
No refuge anywhere can be,
But in His wounds on Calvary:
A fount I see in that dear side
Which hath received the cruel spear--
My soul, draw near the healing tide.
Mine, mine,
The virtue of that cross of Thine,
To cleanse my soul from evil sign:
The woe divine--the tearful plea
Incessant at the throne of light--
Have won the right of heaven for me.
Oh, cleanse
My life of every sinful sense
In that pure stream of innocence--
My sole defence and benison:
Its tide shall never ebb again,
But shall remain when time is done.
Edward Jones (Maesyplwm)
EDWARD JONES (Maesyplwm) was born
near the town of Denbigh, March 19, 1761. He had
the misfortune to lose his father when about ten
years old, and the far worse misfortune--to come
in early youth under the influences of evil companionship.
He was twenty-six years old before
be joined a Christian church, being one out of
about fifteen members of the Calvinistic Methodist
communion who were accustomed to hold their
services in the parlour of a farmhouse. From
that time he became a very useful worker. In
spite of having received but few advantages of
early education, he had used his native talent so
wisely as to be able to add to the occupation of
a farmer that of a village schoolmaster. He was
more or less a verse-maker from his childhood,
amusing his father with making verses when, a boy
of six, he led the oxen at the plough. He died at
Cilcain, near Mold, December 27, 1836. One of
his carols was a great favourite of the famous
Welsh preacher, Christmas Evans, who used at
times to repeat portions of it in his sermons with
most powerful effect. The hymn rendered below
is one of his best;
All heaven and earth are filled with God,
Hell knows His present sight;
Eternity is His abode,
His name the Infinite:
He fills all distances of space,
And reigns almighty as He lists;
His years, His strength can grow no less,
He in Himself exists.
Existing in Himself, before
He framed the depth, the height,
Beyond the past eternal shore,
He was the Infinite;
Without beginning of His days,
No end of life to Him can be;
Eternal still in all His ways,
The Perfect Trinity.
There is no measure of His grace,
And therefore it is well;
We have been told His wondrous praise,
His rule invisible:
And as we heard, so have we seen
The endless marvels of His plan:
Unchangeable His truth has been,
Though great the sin of man.
No spirit bright is left to faint,
Of His regard denied;
No angel, no redeemèd saint
But in His care abide:
Each in His presence stands revealed,
To His good pleasure consecrate;
Their comely praise to Him they yield,
And magnify their state.
We too on earth are seen to stand
For ever in His sight;
We live in Him, we feel His hand
In darkness as in light:
He knows what secret sin we bear,
He watches all we do amiss;
For at each moment everywhere
In heaven and earth He is.
Each evil thought or good unknown
Lies open to His eye;
He hears the sigh, the silent moan,
As well as terror's cry:
He takes the heart of man to read,
He knows how empty each design:
The wish undone is as a deed,
Writ in the book divine.
My soul, thou art a Father's care,
He sees thy purpose weak:
Thou hast a Brother pleading there
Before thou ever speak:
Thy Father--He will not despise
To hear desire's softest call;
Although thy lips be dumb, His eyes
Can see and pity all.
When in some secret place I mourn
Beneath some cross of care,
By heavy burdens overborne,
Too hard for me to bear;
One memory will cheer me still--
To God's dear Son my state is known;
I shall not always bear this ill,
A better life will dawn.
Peter Jones (Pedr Fardd)
PETER JONES (Pedr Fardd) was born
in the parish of Dolbemnaen, Caernarvonshire, May 7,
1775; but in his early youth he removed to Liverpool,
and spent the remainder of his days there
till his death on the 26th of January, 1845. He
was connected with the Welsh Calvinistic Church
at Pall Mall, and exercised a large power for good
among his countrymen in the city. He was especially
a friend and teacher of young men, both in
literature and religion. One of his best known
hymns is a hymn of youth:
Now let the firstfruits of our days
Be sacred to the Saviour's praise;
The pleasure of His work is more
Than earth can bring from all its store.
Early beneath His yoke to be
Is better far than vanity;
The paths of wisdom yield each day
The peace that passeth not away.
Oh! that my youth were wholly spent
Beneath His yoke in calm content:
For He who bought me on the tree
Owns every hour of life from me.
From among his more mechanical hymns the following is chosen:
Sweet streams of pleasantness
Came flowing free,
Our stricken life to bless,
From heaven's decree:
Salvation's early thought
Passed o'er the desert place,
And thousand blessings brought--
Oh! wondrous grace!
Christ made His very own
Our mortal frame,
And for His saints He won
A glorious claim:
Of His good-will came He
To take a servant's place
Fruit of the great decree--
Oh! wondrous grace!
Our Helper in our stead
Was sacrificed;
He bruised the serpent's head--
Our Rock is Christ:
Ended is sin's control;
We yet shall see His face,
His likeness in our soul--
Oh! wondrous grace!
Grapes from the thorns were found
Upon the cross;
Balm from the cruel wound,
To heal His foes:
Soon shall our song arise,
In endless joy of praise,
To Christ, our Sacrifice--
Oh! wondrous grace!
Robert Williams (R. ab Gwilym Ddu)
ROBERT WILLIAMS (R. ab Gwilym Ddu)
was born in the parish of Llanystundwy, Caernarvonshire,
in the year 1767. He spent his life on his
own farm, removed far from the world, in the
company of Arvon's mountains. His days seem
to have passed by evenly till the death of his
only daughter, the child of his old age, in her
seventeenth year. His heart never recovered from
the sorrow; and the elegy he wrote on her death
is an expression of most vivid grief. He and
another famous bard--Dewi Wyn o Eifion--were
Baptists; and by their efforts a chapel was built,
which still goes by the name of 'The Bards'
Chapel.' He died June 11, 1850. The original
of the following hymn has woven itself around
some of the tenderest recollections of Welsh communion services:
From age to age the memory
Of Jesu's blood grows fonder;
Too short eternity will be
To tell of all its wonder.
The chiefest theme of heavenly song
Is Jesu's dying glory;
In highest hymn each harp is strong
To tell again the story.
The virtue of His sufferings,
His grief in our restoring,
Sound louder on celestial strings
Than seraphim adoring.
The song will but begin to rise
When ages vast are over;
For ever shall His sacrifice
New miracles discover.
When these shall reach the sacred hill,
The sons of tribulation;
Then every string Divine shall thrill
With louder exultation.
The music shall for ever swell,
Host unto host replying;
But oh! the song will never tell
The worth of Jesus dying.
CHAPTER VIII.
DANIEL DDU--NICANDER--IEUAN GLAN GEIRIONYDD.
THE REV. DANIEL
EVANS (Daniel Ddu) was born at
Llanfihangel-Ystrad, in the county of Cardigan, in
the year 1792. He studied at Oxford, and afterwards
became a Fellow of Jesus College. He used
to spend much of his time between the terms in
the neighbourhood of his birth, where he was half
worshipped by the peasantry. They held some
strange notions with regard to Oxford; and nothing
could put out of their heads the belief that its
ancient colleges were the favourite haunts of a
motley crew of ghosts of a very doubtful character.
He himself was considered an expert in 'raising
spirits'; and as to his familiarity with the 'black
art'--how could there be a doubt of it, when he
could speak Latin as well as Mephistopheles himself?
If he never abused his power to do them ill,
it was only another proof of his good nature. In
the latter part of his life he was much troubled
with melancholy, and died when he was fifty-four
years of age. He wrote some very successful
Eisteddvodic poetry; but nothing that he has
written is so well known as the following hymn-poem
on the Prodigal Son, with its effective
arrangement of light and shade. Its dramatic cast
stands in the way of its being used as a whole;
but some of the verses are extensively known.
Daniel Evans (Daniel Ddu)
Who is yonder weary pilgrim
From the desert now appears,
Coming home with cheerless footsteps,
And his cheek bedewed with tears?
Worn and tattered is his garment,
There is famine in his face:
Peace has made a vain endeavour
In his heart to find a place.
Hear him to himself bemoaning--
'Father! in Thy house make me
But a servant!--me, unworthy
Any more Thy son to be!'
What is this--this strain celestial
Now I hear above the sky?
Harps ten thousand times ten thousand
In sweet harmony on high?
Oh! the softly flowing echo
From the instruments of gold:
'Journey on, thou weary pilgrim,
Welcome home from deserts cold!
The inhabitants of Light-land
Now with joy thy spirit greet:
See, the robe is ready for thee--
Soon shalt thou the Father meet.
'Journey on, thou weary pilgrim,
Through the desert journey on;
Though thy face is marked with sorrow,
Song for weeping cometh soon:
Heaven's eyes watch every footstep,
Haste thee on, O sorely tried!
Flow, ye tears, a little longer,
Till at home ye shall be dried.'
Who is He that brings the garment
Beautiful as light of dawn?
Kisses him, the weary lost one,
To His bosom closely drawn?
Loud and louder swells the music
Of each glowing golden string:
Little soul, art thou so precious
In the palace of the King?
Yes, there will be joy in heaven,
If from evil ways thou flee
There is always, always welcome
In the Father's house for thee:
Leave the husks and vanished shadows,
And a world of falsehood spurn:
Thine the fulness and affection,
Thine the home: return! return!
Morris Williams (Nicander)
Two other clergymen of the Established Church
in Wales have rendered valued service to the
national psalmody. One of these is the Rev.
MORRIS WILLIAMS (Nicander), who,
in the spirit of the High Church revival, published The Church's
Year. He also undertook a new version of the
Psalms; but he did not succeed in supplanting the
old Psalter of Edmund Prys. Like almost all the
hymn-writers of this century, his best work in
poetry belongs to the Eisteddvod. From his seventeenth
year, when he came into notice through a
poetical curiosity--a metrical ode made up entirely
of Biblical proper names--from thence up to the
close of his life, he made large contributions to
native literature. He had come personally under
the influence of the Oxford movement; and be
worked manfully for the revival of his Church
in his native land. His labour, and that of likeminded
men, was not in vain: the results of his
devotion have reached wide and far.
The Church's Year (Y Flwyddyn Eglwysig) was
published in 1843, reflecting in every part the influence of Keble's
Christian Year.
How far he copied the original, and where he added something
of his own, may be judged from a comparison of
the following hymn for Quinquagesima Sunday
with that of Keble--both being based on the rainbow
in Noah's covenant (Gen. ix. 13).
Noah beheld the wondrous sign
On darksome clouds reclining;
God's peace and covenant benign
Were through its glory shining.
As mounts the lark to yonder sky
Whene'er the rain is ended,
So from the earth again made dry
Their song to God ascended.
The Lord Himself in heaven wrote
His peace in one bright letter:
Expression of a tranquil thought--
Give grace to read it better!
Bow of the covenant of grace,
God's loving-kindness sent it!
The earth it seemeth to embrace--
The hands of God have bent it!
My Father's flaming bow I sing,
Its flame in love was given:
Inwrought with peace and void of string,
No arrow from it driven!
As Jacob's ladder showed erewhile
Heaven and earth in union;
The frowning cloud, the sunny smile,
Are here in calm communion.
Type of the Saviour, God and Man,
The Rainbow o'er us bending;
He made the earth and heaven one
In peace that hath no ending.
How can I bear the sun's strong light?
The rainbowed cloud is dearer:
O Son of God! too far, too bright--
The Son of Man comes nearer.
This other and simpler hymn is for St. Philip
and St. James's Day--'I am the way, the truth, and the life.'
Christ opened on the tree
A way to heaven's door;
And Thou Thyself, O Jesus, art
The Way for evermore.
Truth is the homeward way
These erring feet must wend;
And Thou art still the Perfect Truth,
O Jesu, dearest Friend.
The way is life indeed
To all that walk therein;
And Thou, O Christ, art very Life,
Who savest us from sin.
Give grace to keep the Way,
The paths of Truth made straight:
And follow as Thy flock before,
Until we reach the gate.
Give strength to keep the Way,
Heedless of human sign:
Where Thou hast walked let me be led,
Thy very steps be mine!
Evan Evans (Ieuan Glan Geirionydd)
While the services of Nicander, from their very
purpose and form, were largely confined to the
psalmody of his own Church, another clergyman--the
Rev. EVAN EVANS (Ieuan Glan Geirionydd)
has given some choice hymns to the nation at
large. He was born at Trefriw, and had his early
imagination charmed by the picturesque surroundings
of his home. His parents were renowned for
their piety, and were the pioneers of Calvinistic
Methodism in the neighbourhood. Like most
great men, he owed his greatness largely to his
mother. He started life as a schoolmaster; but
a marked success at an Eisteddvod having brought
him into public notice, he was induced to devote
himself to the ministry of the Church. He held
successively the curacies of Christleton and Ince,
in Cheshire. Ill-health compelled him to leave
Ince, and he spent some time in retirement among
the beloved hills of Trefriw. When he had partially
recovered, he was appointed to the curacy
of Rhyl. This took place in the month of July,
1854. On the 21st day of the following January
death came and led him into rest.
Nearly all his hymns are prayers--prayers full
of the tenderest appeals, as if his faith trembled
in approaching the Golden Gate. The following
is given as an instance:
To Him who bends to hear the weak,
I bring my simple plea:
In every pain and sore distress,
Turn not away from me!
Although unworthy to enjoy
Thy presence full and free,
Deserving but to be cast out--
Turn not away from me!
When my acquaintance, one by one,
Leave me in misery;
And friend and comrade stand afar,
Turn not away from me!
For Thy dear cross and precious death
On lonely Calvary,
And for Thine intercession now,
Turn not away from me!
When I must face the stormy flood,
Where many sorrows be;
And through the valley walk alone,
Turn not away from me!
When Thou shalt come the second time,
With awful majesty,
To judge the living and the dead,
Turn not away from me!
The technical intricacies of these two verses
have not debarred them from the attainment of wide popularity:
My race beneath the sun
Is very nearly run;
Life fades away in sad decay,
Soon shall my day be done:
My fragile tent is sorely rent,
My strength is spent well-nigh;
The hour is near--I must appear
In doubt and fear within the clear
Immortal sphere on high.
Grant, Lord, Thy peace to me,
And Thy dear face to see;
Before my day has passed away,
All sinless may I be!
Thy gracious light in death's dark night
Shall soon my fright dispel:
In Thy right hand on yonder strand,
Where fears disband my soul shall stand--
Sweet land! where all is well!
While for years the thought of death was so
present to his mind, it was natural for him to sing this wistful:
I linger sadly near
The stormy river;
And long to cross, but fear
Lest none deliver:
Oh I that I might but soar
Above its rush and roar,
And on the other shore
Be safe for ever
From every dismal wave
Come dark foretellings;
I think of all the brave
Lost in its swellings:
O soul of mine, so frail!
What if the flood prevail,
And thou at last should'st fail
To reach those dwellings!
But see! from yonder shore
On high ascended,
My comrades in the war,
Their sorrow ended:
Why should I feel alarm?
They crossed on Jesu's arm,
And I shall know no harm,
By Him befriended.
A version of this hymn, changed so as to be an
address to the poet, and beginning
Thou, often wandering near
The stormy river,--
is inscribed over his grave in Trefriw Churchyard,
where he lies beside his parents and his wife, under
the sombre shadow of 'the twin yew-trees.'
CHAPTER IX.
HIRAETHOG-EMRYS-ISLWYN.
In some respects the Rev. Dr. William Rees
(Hiraethog) ranks as the greatest Welshman of
the nineteenth century. Preacher and lecturer,
journalist and reformer, poet and essayist, there
are whole pages in the national history of Wales
covered with his broad and sturdy handwriting.
But his poetical genius was too massive to produce
hymns of the first order. Most of them lack the
smoothness of expression and neatness of form so
necessary in the making of a good hymn.
One of the gifts of his muse is a new poetical
version of the Psalms. How the ministry of
affliction helped him to accomplish this undertaking
is told in his own words:
'Failing health kept me almost wholly at home
during the winter and spring of 1872-3, even as
late as the middle of the month of April scarcely
venturing out of the house, except on the Sabbath.
I consecrated every hour of every day that my
weary nature could endure, through the space of
the time mentioned, to the task of completing
what remained of this work, together with attending
to the calls of the pulpit:--and when the clock
was striking four, in the afternoon of Friday,
March 21, 1873, I was letting the pen out of my
hand, having written the last line of the versification.
It would not be easy for me to forget how I
felt that moment. I gave thanks from my heart,
I believe, to the Father of all mercies for having
suffered me to live to see this labour completed;
and I tried to dedicate it to the blessing of Him
who had supported and strengthened me to carry
it through, with a degree of confidence that some
might derive benefit and pleasure from its perusal
through that blessing. Many a time when, suffering
and afflicted, I was at the task, I thought of
the words of the Psalmist--"Unless Thy law had
been my delights, I should then have perished in
mine affliction." So I said:--Had the Psalms not
been my delights, I would have perished, from
suffering of body and depression of spirit, many a
day during that season when I was like Paul, to
some extent as it were a prisoner in my own hired house.'
Of the two Psalters of the present century that of
Nicander is more marked for smoothness; but that
of Hiraethog possesses more originality, and makes,
a very useful companion of the Psalms in the study.
The hymn-poem of which a version is given
below gains an additional interest from the undertone
of personal experience easily recognized
among the broader movements of a universal
theme. its dramatic cast, however, renders it,
like his Psalter, more useful for private devotion
than for public worship. It has found its way into
most of the later hymn-books of Wales, and is known far and wide.
The Search of a Tired Soul for Rest.
I went searching through creation
For my soul a place of rest--
Disappointment and vexation
Everywhere repaid my quest.
From the world and flesh to tempt me
Came a thousand promised joys;
But I found them false and empty,
Lying dreams and gilded toys.
Then I asked the white and holy
Angel--thousands of the skies--
'With a sinner poor and lowly
Have you one will sympathize?'
Gabriel answered my appealing--
'Not with us; no, there is none
That can have a fellow-feeling
With a soul unclean--undone!
Hope in utter darkness vanished,
And I cried in agony--
'All deliverance is banished!
It is over now with me!'
Stormy clouds on Sinai setting,
And my spirit trembling sore--
Oh! there can.be no forgetting
Of that anguish evermore!
On the throne of high possession,
Through my tears at last I see,
In His robes of intercession,
Him who bowed the head for me:
'There He is!' my soul exclaimèd,
'I can read it in His face--
He will never be ashamèd
To receive me in His grace.'
To His throne my soul proceeded,
Deigning at His feet to fall;
And for love and pardon pleaded
Through the blood that saveth all:
'What?'--I mused--'Should I conceal it,
All this grief and broken cheer?
Hide the wound while He can heal it?
It is Christ!--why need I fear?'
When I opened, slowly, sadly,
My dark bosom, sin-oppressed,
Then He opened quickly, gladly,
For my shelter His own breast:
All my burden He removèd,
Yea, He gave me full release;
With the smile of my Belovèd
Came the joy of perfect peace.
Body, spirit, now I owe Him,
I belong to Him henceforth--
Oh, that I might live to show Him
Everywhere in all His worth!
When I join the host surrounding
His serene, eternal throne,
I shall sing of grace abounding,
And the song shall be His own.
The other hymn of his we give has for its
theme Christ weeping over Jerusalem
(Luke xix. 28-48).
Lo, He wept! Who, then, is He?
Christ the Lord! What shall we say?
Thousands wept before; but see
God as Man in tears to-day.
Lo, He wept! And why should He?
Oh, not for Himself one tear!
It was human misery
That had touched His soul so near.
Lo, He wept! And all around
See the crowd exulting leaps;
Loud and far the songs resound;
They rejoice--He only weeps.
Lo, He wept! He sees the doom
Of the city close at hand:
Soon to fall in awful gloom,
In the fire a burning brand!
Lo, He wept! What love hath He
For His enemies revealed!
Tears of gentle charity--
'Tis the heart of God unsealed.
Lo, He wept! Ah, sinner, see--
See, the tears are falling fast!
He of pity wept for thee--
And wilt thou not weep at last?
Dr. Rees was born in the month of November,
1802, at the foot of Hiraethog Hill, near Denbigh.
It was in the same month, eighty-one years later,
that he fell asleep in the city of Chester. 'The
search of a tired soul for rest' came to an end,
when the Saviour met him at the door and asked him to come in.
William Ambrose (Emrys)
A close friend and fellow-worker of the last was
the Rev. WILLIAM AMBROSE (Emrys). He was born
at the Penrhyn Arms Hotel, Bangor, August 10,
1813. The course of his life was even and calm as
the flowing of a river through a level land, his
death alone adding an incident of startling impressiveness
to his earthly story. He was preaching
in his own pulpit at Portmadoc on Sunday,
April 27, 1873. For some time he had been
suffering much from the effect of a paralytic stroke;
but that was a day of marked power, and the
people felt the peculiar nearness of the spirit land.
The text of the evening sermon was Isaiah vii. 15:
'For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth
eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in
the high and the holy place, with him also that is of
a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of
the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite
ones.' It was a remarkably powerful sermon; and
hundreds were rejoicing that night in the hope of
restored eloquence and further guiding of their soul
through him into the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
But he had scarcely come down from the pulpit
when he was seen to grow pale and lean heavily
back. It was the final stroke--the hand of death
was laid upon him as he was coming out of the
shining cloud. For six months he lingered; and
all that time the silver tongue was speechless. It
was on the 31st of October, the same year, that
the silent Hand once more was laid upon him,
and more heavily. But it was only to make his
spirit free, and to lead him to the land where
the word of eloquence can never be hushed any more.
His poetry, like his life, is beautifully clear and
tranquil. This hymn, for instance does it not
sound like the footsteps of the Spirit of Peace in the house of life?
Give me quiet resting-places,
Lord, beneath the shade of palms;
Where the heavenly pilgrims gather,
Where they sing their joyful psalms:
There they linger to make mention
Of Thy faithfulness and grace,
Till their sorrows are forgotten
In the pleasure of Thy praise.
Happy is the brethren's discourse,
As they seek the better land;
Not an evil tongue to flatter,
Nor a traitor's cruel hand:
Heavenly dew on each experience,
Words of faith in glad refrain--
All are filled with sweet home-longing,
Where the end is glorious gain.
Lord, until we reach uphold us!
It is but a little while;
When the journey darkly closes
Let Thy sunlight on us smile:
Let the breezes of the Home-land
Meet us in the valley's gloom;
Till our feet are safely treading
Hills of light and fadeless bloom.
William Thomas (Islwyn)
The Rev. WILLIAM THOMAS (Islwyn) was born
at Mynydd-islwyn, in the county of Monmouth, April
3, 1832. His life was spent in the secluded and
undisturbed neighbourhood of his birth; and there
he died November 20, 1878. Purposing in his
early youth to become a land surveyor, at the age
of twenty-two the inward impulse led him to the
pulpit. He was ordained at Llangeitho Association
in 1859, but he never took a pastoral charge.
He suffered much from melancholy. In consequence
his preaching engagements were not kept as faithfully
as they should have been. Sometimes an elder
would announce him in the following significant
terms: 'Islwyn will preach here next Sunday--if he comes.'
His poetry stands among the best in Welsh
literature, deeply tinged as it is with the unfamiliar
idealizings of a mystic soul. Only three
of his hymns are published. The one given below
has already found a place in the hymnody of the
Welsh Church, and has its record among the songs
ordained of the Holy Spirit to give stay and
patience of hope to the righteous in the hour of
sorrow and death.
See, my soul, the land of brightness
Far above the clouds of time;
Where the breeze with balmy lightness
Bloweth through a genial clime;
Joyful thousands!
Moving in its rest serene.
Life has there its crystal fountains,
Peace--whose rivers softly flow,
To refresh its vales and mountains,
To immortalize its glow;
And salvation
On the sunny shores is breathed.
Never can a mortal arrow
On its nearest province fall:
Death's dominion is but narrow--
There it cometh not at all:
Life abundant;
Immortality at home!
Every breeze of winter changes
On the shore to heavenly calm;
O'er its fields no sorrow ranges,
Every sigh becomes a psalm:
Into Jordan
Falls the last most bitter tear.
There--there is not one that mourneth,
There--there is not any sad;
There--the gall to honey turneth,
There--the bound is free and glad:
Joyful thousands!
There abiding evermore!
Now my heart is filled with blessing,
And a sacred joy is mine,
In the hope of soon possessing
That inheritance Divine:
Joyful thousands!
Drawing near that promised land!
CHAPTER X.
S. R.--DAVID JONES OF TREBOBTH--ROGER
EDWARDS--THOMAS REES, D.D.
The Rev. SAMUEL ROBERTS--better known
as S. R.--was born at Llanbrynmair, on the 6th of March,
1800. His father before him was a preacher of
high worth, and a father of many churches; he
contributed largely to theological literature, and
was a trustee and correspondent of The Evangelical
Magazine. The son was also an indefatigable
worker, and divided his life between America and
Wales. He used his pen lavishly on behalf of all
reforms, whether in public economy or church
principles, whether in social movements or in
religious progress. He was an uncompromising
iconoclast, and possibly spent too much of his
time and talent in 'handling the bow.' He died
at Conway in the month of October, 1885.
In 1841 he published a collection of over two
thousand hymns, which passed through at least
eight editions. It is a very fine collection, and
has several hymns and translations by the editor.
The names of authors, however, are not given.
I must therefore give the following selections as anonymous:
THE FRUITS OF
CHRIST'S TRAVAIL.
Our dearest Lord went forth to sow in tears,
When days were dark, when He was weary too;
But now the joy of harvest-tide appears,
And for His toil shall endless praise be due.
As firstfruits went He to the blessed land,
And from His woe shall fields of harvest rise;
It shall be gathered by the Lord's own hand,
From earth's four corners to th' eternal skies.
MINISTERING ANGELS.
Great God, to what glory and lofty estate
Thine Only-begotten was raised, and made great!
The angels in dazzling white garments are known
As ministers of His untarnishèd throne.
The angels are bidden to guide us who roam,
To lead us and bring us the narrow way home
Whatever the dangers that crowd on the road,
They meet us in journeying homeward to God.
When I must depart from this frail tent of dust,
When I must appear at the throne of the Just,
Oh, let a kind angel from Paradise come,
To guide and defend me and bring me safe home.
WHAT OF THE NIGHT?
Watchman, say, what of the night?
Is the dawning still afar?
Pilgrim, see, so fair and bright,
O'er the hills the Morning-Star:
Watchman, what denotes its sign?
Is it better time for man?
Pilgrim, 'tis the dawn Divine
Of the everlasting plan.
Watchman, say, what of the night?
Is it still not nearing day?
Pilgrim, night is done! the light
Spreads upon its glorious way:
Watchman, why departest thou?
Why turn home when all is gain?
Pilgrim, o'er the wide earth now
Comes the Prince of Peace to reign!
John Roberts, Llangwm
THE MARRIAGE OF THE
LAMB.These verses are by Rev. John Roberts, Llangwm.
I.
Who the Prince?--and what the chariot
O'er the starry pathways led?
Armies follow on white horses,
Many crowns are on His head:
King of glory!
On His robe the name is read.
His look pierceth through creation,
Flames within His eyes abide:
Who is this--but Zion's Bridegroom?
Gently smiles He on His bride:
His the garment
With His life-blood deeply dyed.
II.
Who is this fair Bride approaching
Through the gates of death serene?
Lo, the beauteous light of dawning
Blushing leaves the radiant scene:
She is Zion,
In fine linen white and dean.
Through the shining realms of starlight
Let the angels clear the way;
Let all Nature wear its glory,
And each flower its sweet array:
Sing the marriage
Of the Lamb in many a lay.
THE LORD'S TABLE.
The table of Thy grace,
Lord, here I take my place;
Let me Thy face behold well pleased:
Thy face, my dearest Lord,
Doth highest joy afford,
And love's sweet word lights up the feast.
When musing I draw near
The woe of nail and spear,
With reverent fear my spirit guide:
Let me Thy freedom share,
Make strong my faith to bear
Thine ark with care till eventide.
Soon, soon doth time remove
These earthly feasts of love--
The sorrow of the world remains:
But in that sweet countrie
No sword to bear have we,
For charity unending reigns.
David Jones (of Treborth)
The Rev. DAVID JONES (of Treborth) was born
June 2, 1805, in the parish of Dolyddelen,
Caernarvonshire. His eldest brother was the
celebrated Welsh preacher--John Jones, Talysarn.
Neither of them as children had any
opportunities of education beyond what the Sunday
school provided. Their father died when
the eldest brother was only ten and the youngest
only two. So, as they grew up, the former went
to work in the slate quarry, and the latter stayed
at home to work on the farm for his mother.
David Jones, from his boyhood, was fond of
preaching: often he would retire to some unfrequented
spot and become both preacher and
audience himself. He was twenty-one years
old when he gave his first sermon in public,
and soon came into note. He, like his brother,
had the true instinct of self-culture, which saved
him to a large extent from the misfortune of
early disadvantages. He was ordained at Bala
in 1834, and laboured successively at Caernarvon,
Treborth, and Llanfairfechan, where he died
June 23, 1868. He published three extensive
poems on the subjects of 'The Prodigal Son,'
'Christ's Sacrifice,' and 'Man.' The spirit of his
poetry is well represented by such verses as these:
The Sacrifice wickedly slain
On Calvary one afternoon,
Did God for atonement ordain,
And He is well pleased in the Son:
His merit no language can tell,
The title of Godhead is His;
No praises can ever excel
The worth of a Saviour like this.
The earth is so little, beside
Creation's unmeasurèd reach--
A small speck of dust undescried,
A drop of the sea on the beach:
But Love wrought its victory here,
A conquest of glory supreme;
And Calvary's accent is clear
Through heaven in each rapturous theme.
Awake! it is time, oh! my soul,
Be strong to forget every pain;
The Church of all nations extol,
The praise of the Lamb that was slain:
The work is so vast in its plan,
Too few are the words of the earth,
Too feeble the talents of man,
To tell the Atonement's full worth.
The Feast of Atonement is nigh,
The world is to share in the feast--
Let all the bright stars of the sky
Be bells of fine gold for the Priest!
His praise let all powers make known--
'He reconciled us unto God!
The Aaron who died to atone,
He liveth, with glory endowed.'
Let all worlds in concert unite
To give the Redeemer His due,
Until their rejoicing delight
Th' eternal dominions of blue:
All space be an ocean of praise,
And waves of harmonious refrain
Surge back over infinite ways
To the shores of creation again!
Oh! sinner, hast thou not a voice
For Him who is Refuge alone!
The angels adoring rejoice
That He for us all did atone:
Their wonder they ever confess,
To think of His death in our room:
But is their astonishment less,
That man should keep silent and dumb?
Awake! to the Lamb be thy song!
Whose debt can be ever so great?
In singing His praises grow strong;
Begin,--'tis already so late!
The song of the white-wingèd quire
Is weak for that triumph of love:
Stand thou in thy part, and aspire
To add to the rapture above.
The angels in singing proclaim,
'Christ Jesus! our Wonder is He:'
But man has much more in the Name--
'Christ Jesus is Life unto me!'
They wonder to think of Him dead--
For thee did He journey that way:
The angels can call Him their Head--
'My Brother' canst thou to Him say?
Roger Edwards
The REV. ROGER EDWARDS
was born January 22, 1811, at Bala--a name associated for ever
with some of the noblest and most romantic
traditions of Methodist piety. He received a good
education, and preached his first sermon on the
verge of his twentieth year. In the year 1834
he settled at Mold, and there he remained till
the end of his days. No one ever deserved a
title better than he did that of 'Bishop of Flintshire,'
given him by the unanimous voice of the
people. His memory remains beloved in all the
Churches. Possibly, however, in after years his
name will be remembered more through his intimate
connection with the rise of Welsh periodical
literature, He settled at Mold for the purpose
of editing one of the pioneer newspapers of the
Principality. In 1846 he was appointed sole
editor of Y Drysorfa, the monthly organ of the
Calvinistic Methodists; and he held the appointment
until his death. But perhaps still more
important was his connection with the premier
review of Wales--Y Traethodydd--started, in 1845,
under the joint-editorship of himself and the late
Dr. Edwards, of Bala. In 1840 he edited a denominational
hymn-book, for which he wrote
several hymns. He also published, in 1855, a
volume of moral and sacred songs, which has
passed into a second edition. Simple, chaste,
and serious is the note of all he did. The first
given is a song of early piety:
Dear is the advent of the spring,
With sunny smiles aglow;
When Nature leaves her languishing,
And all things beauteous grow.
Dear is the face of early rose
Where'er it first appears;
How fair its purple mantle shows,
Softened with dewy tears!
Dear is the plant that yields its spoil
The first of all the rest;
It pays for all the anxious toil,
And care itself is blest.
Dear is the innocent delight
Of lamb in gleesome play;
And sweet to hear the birds unite
In song at break of day.
But only some frail shadowing
Is all on earth we see;
Dearer than every joy of spring
Is early piety.
Oh! scene most fair--some glad young heart
Walking with Christ in light;
Thus earth and heaven take a part
In witnessing the sight.
The zeal that works with quiet rule,
Bright looks, affections warm,
Make him in God's work beautiful,
As morning's pleasant charm.
True piety in early days
Its joy through life supplies;
It brings its heir through all rough ways
To live in Paradise.
The next is a favourite Christmas hymn:
What is in Ephrata heard?
Angels bringing joyful word:
What new song of heaven have they?
Christ is born! is born to-day!
Haste to David's city, haste!
God is there made manifest;
See the King of glory, see,
Brother of us all is He!
Silent babe, what name has He?
Lord of all eternity:
What hath brought Him down so low?
Love for sinful man to show:--
Wings of tender mercies bright
Brought Him down from heaven's height;
Let the beauty of His praise
Ever be on all our days.
To the angels what is He?
Their high Prince of majesty;
What to us who sin and fall
He is Brother of us all:
Then if angel-harps be His,
What we owe much larger is:
Christ the Lord--He is our own!
Let the wide earth be His throne.
Thomas Rees
The author of the History of Protestant Nonconformity
in Wales is by no means an unknown
name in England. The Rev. Dr. REES, of Swansea,
was an interpreter of Welsh religious movements
to his English brethren. He anxiously
watched the growth of English speech in South
Wales, and the large inflow of English people; he
also saw how urgent it became to meet the new
conditions. So he kept pleading for sympathy and
help in a work that may well be called missionary;
and he had the satisfaction of seeing his pleadings
honoured, and a great movement inaugurated. He
was born December 13, 1815, in the parish of
Llanfynydd, Caermarthenshire, amid circumstances
poor enough. His school-days were limited to one
quarter; but, luckily--like many others who have
become princes of the Welsh pulpit--he knew how
to be his own teacher. As a boy he was put down
as good-for-nothing; but the moment he found
entrance into the pulpit his life-work was begun.
He was abundant in labour, whether for the pulpit
or for the press. He translated the commentary
of Albert Barnes on the New Testament into Welsh;
and in his latter years he published an edition of
the Bible with devotional annotations. In 1884 he
was elected chairman of the Congregational Union
of England and Wales--the first Welsh minister to
be so honoured. And his chairmanship was to be
honoured of heaven; for a few days before the May
meetings of 1885 had come he lay at rest. His
address was ready, on 'The Power of the Pulpit;'
but on the 29th of April God called him to join
the congregation of the first-born, leaving the
vacant chair for another to fill. He is doubly
deserving of a place here--both for the hymns he
wrote and for the affectionate care with which he
has saved the scant history of several hymn-writers
from being utterly forgotten. Several of his hymns
were meant for harvest thanksgivings; and one of
these is given below:
Let us thank the Lord together
For the mercies of His hand;
Once again the crown of plenty
Blesses all this happy land:
Gracious, are the Father's ways,
Let us bring Him comely praise.
Though our faults have cried in heaven
For His vengeance on our head,
Yet hath He preserved unbroken
For our good the staff of bread:
God of patience is He named,
Loud His praises be proclaimed!
Give us grace, Lord, in receiving
Bounteous gifts of Thy left hand,
Lest we may forget the riches
Of another, better land:
May each precious soul be fed
With the true and living Bread!
The truth of the following hymn is well illustrated
in the author's own life, remembering his
lowly beginning and the honoured end:
A pilgrim to the pleasant Land,
Oft hindered on the way,
I keep the path and trust my God--
For strength comes with the day.
Often have foes beset my soul,
Which would my faith betray;
But they have failed to lay me low--
For strength came with the day.
And should worse enemies arise
In pitiless array,
My way is forward, fearing nought--
For strength comes with the day.
When Death, the king of terrors, comes,
To break my tent of clay,
I shall not fear his ruthless arm--
For strength comes with the day.
When I shall stand on Canaan's hills,
In freedom's perfect way,
How sweet will be the joy of praise
For strength with every day!
CHAPTER XI.
PICTURES AND CONCEITS.
Where the whole range of hymnody is so largely
picturesque, it may seem superfluous to mark any
hymns in particular as pictures. But there are
Welsh verses--many of them not found in the
ordinary hymn-book--which are so popular, that
it would be unfair to leave them unmentioned.
They are folk-songs--more often recited than
sung. Some striking picture or pretty conceit has
appealed successfully to public favour, and passes
down from generation to generation, the name of
the author being either lost or doubtful.
The late Rev. Paxton Hood has made the name
and style of CHRISTMAS EVANS familiar to
English readers. He allowed his fancy free range in
allegory; and this verse admirably represents the
boldness of his style:
On Calvary together
Two flames were seen to shine;
A flame of love for sinners,
A flame of wrath Divine:
Their smoke on high ascended,
And hid the stars of light;--
Between the two flames, dying,
Was Jesus--wondrous sight!
The author of the next verse was the Rev.
David Davies, Ebenezer, Swansea:
Golgotha! the greatest battle
Ever fought was on its height;
There the Lamb without a weapon
Crushed the dragons in His might:
There He thirsted, there He languished,
Overcoming hell's despite;
Yet within His heart a fountain
That can wash the Ethiop white.
Anonymous are the two following verses, given
as examples of the poetry of quaint conceits--after
the manner much affected by such writers
as Herrick, and Crashaw, and George Herbert.
The first is a conceit on Christ as the Rock:
Come and see! A Rock appears,
Bound by men with swords and spears:
Come and see! Alone and still
Hangs a Rock upon the hill:
In a rock a Rock is laid,
Till three days their course have made:
Spite of stone and soldiery,
From the rock a Rock breaks free.
The second is a conceit on Christ as the San:
In sight of the sun was stricken
The Sun on Calvary's height;
The Sun made the sun to darken--
Was it not a wondrous sight?
The Sun without sun was buried,
And lay in the silent tomb,
Till the two suns rose together,
When the third day's dawn was come.
Thomas Williams (Bethesda'r Fro)
The author of the next verse is the Rev. Thomas
Williams, Bethesda'r Fro, already referred to:
May He who once at midday
Sat down by Jacob's well,
In passing through Samaria--
Now come with us to dwell:
Athirst to save the people
Was Jesus Christ of yore;
Athirst is He in heaven
To save yet many more.
Dr. Phillips (Newaddlwyd)
The name of Dr. PHILLIPS, Neuaddlwyd, can
never be separated from the history of religion in
Wales during the first half of the present century.
He was a pioneer of education--especially in the
training of young men for the ministry. It was
pre-eminently a labour of love; his influence therefore
on his pupils, and through them on the churches,
was immense. He was an enthusiast of foreign
missions, and had the pleasure of ordaining three
young men out of his own Church as missionaries.
He was born in the parish of Llanvihangel-ar-Arth,
Caermarthenshire, March 29, 1772, and died
December 2, 1842. A few single verses of his
are very popular--none more so than the one translated thus:
Once again the world shall see
Him who went to Calvary,
Sitting throned in high command,
With the balance in His hand:
All of every time and place
Shall be weighed before His face:
Seek, my soul, the pearl most rare,
That will turn the balance there!
The River of Death--a favourite picture of
every Welsh hymn-writer--is the theme of the next verse:
I must cross a mighty river,
Deep between two worlds it flows;
And the sounding of its waters
Are these many earthly woes:
In its waves in sorest anguish
I shall very soon be found--
Oh! for Christ as my foundation!
Then my feet shall touch the ground.
Titus Lewis
A variation on the same theme is the following:
Seek thou, my soul, in earnest,
The Rock to build upon,
The only place of resting,
The sure foundation-stone:
How sweet within the river
The Rock that will not fail,
When every storm is breaking
This soul of mine so frail.
The author of the latter was the Rev. TITUS
LEWIS, a celebrated Baptist minister. He was
born at Cilgerran, Pembrokeshire, Feb. 21, 1774,
and died at Caermarthen, May 1, 1811. He was
a contemporary and co-worker with Christmas
Evans, and he spent his brief life in unwearied
labours for the pulpit and for native literature.
He had very few advantages of early education,
and yet he wrote a Political and Religious History
of Great Britain, he published a Welsh-English
Dictionary, and had most to do with translating
Dr. Gill's commentary into Welsh, as well as several other works.
John Roberts (J. R.)
Another variation on the same theme is from the pen of the Rev.
JOHN ROBERTS, Conway--a brother of
S. R.,
and better known also by his initials as J. R.:
A weary traveller
Beside the River stood;
His lamp was in his hand,
And shone across the flood:
It brought the other shore in sight,
Where many angels walked in white.
In fear he took his steps
Down to the water's brim;
But through the darkness vast
Clear shone the lamp for him:
And through the surge the angels bright
Can see him coming in its light.
Behold, his great High Priest
Among the shining throng!
And He is coming down
To break the current strong:
The land in safety he hath won,
That needs not any lamp or sun.
S. R. himself is the author of this song--
Afar on the ocean, one dark and cold night,
A little boat sailed without star or moon-light;
The roar of the wind and the rush of the wave
That night even frightened the heart of the brave.
The child of the captain was free from alarm,
All happy and merry he dreaded no harm:--
'In spite of the wild waves what is there to fear?
We are sure to reach home--for my father doth steer.'
Oh, dear child of heaven, what makes thee afraid?
When high seas are raging be thou not dismayed
When wildest and blackest the great depths appear,
Thy life is still safe--for thy Father doth steer.
Rejoicing eternal for thee is at hand;
Thy loved ones are waiting on yonder fair strand:
Thy home is the mansion that shineth so clear,
And Canaan is nearing--thy Father doth steer.
Then spread forth thy sails to the favouring breeze,
The bosom of Jesus will soon give thee ease:
Thine anchor is safe, and thy Captain is here,
Thy boat's in the haven--thy Father doth steer.
To close this chapter of pictures and conceits, we
give this spiritual romance in miniature, from the
pen of a living writer--Mr. WILLIAM JONES
(Ehedydd Ial), Llandegla:
The sky became at noon
As black as very night;
With neither sun nor moon,
Nor any star of light:
And from the cloud stern Justice hurled
Its lightning through the darkened world.
With guilty fears beset,
My conscience cried dismayed;
And ne'er shall I forget
That bitter cry for aid:
In agony I turned and fled,
Not knowing where to hide my head.
I reached the Law's strait door,
Hoping to find release;
I pleaded, faint and sore,
For refuge and for peace:
'Flee for thy life,' she said, 'from me,
To the Son of Man on Calvary!'
Fleeing, I tried to flee,
Amid the thunders' roar;
The lightning followed me,
Like some red host of war:
I came at last to Calvary--
There Jesus only could I see.
What though my flesh be grass,
And all my bones but clay,
I'll sing where lightnings pass--
'God took my sins away!'
The Rock of Ages--there I've stood:
Quenched are the lightnings in His blood!
CHAPTER XII.
VERSES WITH A HISTORY
No story of the Welsh hymns would be complete
without a note on the influence of single verses.
The hymn-book in the pew is an innovation--quite
within recent years--of Welsh church-life. The
hymn-book used to be the private property of the
pulpit; consequently the people had to learn their
favourite hymns by heart--and a very profitable
exercise it always is. A hymn within the heart is
life. But in learning hymns it often happens that
one special verse stands out from among its sister
verses. The latter may be forgotten; the one
clings to the memory.
This single verse of
Williams, Pantycelyn, has been the password of
many a powerful revival, the last two lines being
doubled and trebled over and over again, as the
hearts of the congregation were moved by the
breath from Calvary:
Jesu's blood can raise the feeble
As a conqueror to stand;
Jesu's blood is all-prevailing
O'er the mighty of the land:
Let the breezes
Blow from Calvary on me.
Another verse, vividly associated with times of
refreshing, is the following by Morgan Rhys:
Thy gracious ancient promise
Has saved a countless host,
Who sing its praise for ever--
Once they were of the lost:
Though often sorely wounded
With evil in the strife,
They found the leaves of healing
Upon the tree of life.
It is an old funeral custom in country districts
of the Principality to sing on the road from the
house to the churchyard. The funerals are
mostly public, and there is generally a large concourse
of people. The procession moves slowly
on, singing here and there, as it moves, some
measured, mournful melody, with a wondrously
touching effect. If any one has ever heard this
music of the dead coming with muffled far-off
tones from some narrow, lonely glen, he will
never forget it. It is a minor melody that is
sung, whether the words be of sorrow or of hope.
Among the verses I have often heard on these
occasions is this, by
#Thomas Williams:
Oh! what distances eternal
Are to-day before my face;
Never staying, never resting,
I must journey to my place:
Though so narrow,
I must through the gateway pass.
And this other, by Williams, Pantycelyn:
When human help is at an end,
God's pity shall not languish;
He will be Father, Brother, Friend,
In death's relentless anguish.
But no verse has so hallowed the presence of
death as the following, the author of which seems to be unknown:
There shall be thousand wonders,
At break of day, to see
The children of the tempests
From tribulation free;
All in their snow-white garments,
In new and perfect guise,
Upon their Saviour's likeness,
Out of the grave they rise.
This verse having been of late rather prominently
brought before the English public, through its being
sung at the London National Eisteddvod and beside the
grave of the late Henry Richard, M.P., several attempts
have been made to translate it. Below is a rendering
by Mr. Josiah D. Evans (Ap Daniel), New York:
Ten thousand glorious wonders
Shall greet the morning ray;
When earth's storm-beaten children
Shall wake to endless day;
All clad in robes of whiteness,
And crowned with fadeless bloom;
In their Redeemer's likeness,
Ascending from the tomb!
Sung to a tune of its own, the impressiveness of
the verse in the original is most profound. Every
separate line--almost every word--seems to have
a history. However neatly translated, this history
is always wanting in the new language. Hence
the translator's despair.
Perhaps no single verse in Welsh hymnody has
such a romantic incident in its history as the one
given below, written, as it was, by Williams on
the occasion of the memorable Lisbon earthquake:
If Thou would'st end the world, O Lord,
Accomplish first Thy promised word,
And gather home with one accord
From every part Thine own:
Send out Thy word from pole to pole,
And with Thy blood make thousands whole,
Till health has come to every soul,
And after that--come down!
In February, 1797, the French effected a landing
near Fishguard, in Pembrokeshire. Napoleon was
then a name of terror to England; and the news
of the landing spread through the country with
the rushing violence of a prairie fire, bringing
with it wherever it went an overwhelming sense
of doom. Mounted heralds posted through the
length and breadth of Wales, without waiting to
ascertain the force of the enemy. In every village
and town the terrible message was left, and people
generally made ready for the bitter end of all
things. One of these fiery heralds happened to
pass by the Independent Chapel at Rhydybont,
Cardiganshire, where a preaching service was
being held at the time. Mysteriously he whispered
his wild message to some one near the door, and
away he went again to scatter broadcast the seeds
of a storm. From one to another in the chapel
the news mysteriously flashed--the curiosity of
those who did not know being almost as tragic
as the consternation of those who knew. The
preacher was confounded, and he was compelled
to stop and ask for the cause of such unseemly
commotion. Some one shouted--'The French
have landed at Fishguard!' Bad before, it was
worse now. Had a lightning struck the house,
the panic could scarcely have been more overpowering.
No one durst move or speak; the
preacher himself sat down in the midst of his
sermon utterly overborne. Only one soul was
found equal to the occasion--and that a woman's
soul. Let the name of Nancy Jones not be forgotten
in the chronicles of noble women who have
dared and endured. She never for a moment
slackened her hold of the Higher Will. She was
a true daughter of the Great Revival: a neighbour,
too, of David Jones, of Cayo. At many a
service before that day her voice had been sweetest
and fullest in the fervour of song. She called to
the preacher when he stopped--'Go on: if the
French are at Fishguard, we have God to take
care of us.' But the preacher still declined. A
neighbour of hers--David John Edmund by name--was
present, remarkable for his gift in prayer.
To him she turned next, and asked him to pray.
But even he was not one of five that could chase
a hundred that day. 'Well, then,' she said,
'give a verse out for us to sing.' No; David John
had no heart for so much as that. 'Very well,'
this mother in Israel added, 'I shall give out a
verse myself, and you start the tune.' Calm and
solemn and sweet echoed the words through the
building--
If Thou would'st end the world, O Lord,
and so on to the end of the verse. Great was the
fall of David John; even his tunes had taken
unto themselves wings. She had to start the tune
herself; but scarcely had she struck the first notes
before her courage with an electric thrill restored
the congregation to spiritual consciousness. They
joined in the song, of their new Deborah; faith
grew more steady and clear; the French were
well-nigh forgotten in the glorious inspiration of
'the promised word.' A woman's faith has often
in it something of a miracle.
CHAPTER XIII.
HYMNS OF TO-DAY.
For all the hymns which have been written, there
is room in the Wales of to-day for a new school
of hymnody. Every age has its peculiar mode of
religious expression; the age now dawning in
Wales emphatically so. It will be an age of
transition and suspense; it will claim the guidance
of strong, progressive thought. I trust the
Eisteddvod will not exhaust the muse of all its
bards. Some of them, surely, will not consider it
a vain thing to give the Church of Christ the psalm
that will sanctify its anxiety, that will teach it
where to find rest and hope and light.
It will not be amiss, therefore, to close the
present volume with a few gleanings from contemporary poetry.
Herber Evans
The first is from the pen of a preacher as
well known almost in England as he is in Wales--the
Rev. Dr. HERBER EVANS, of Caernarvon:
Keep me very near to Jesus,
Though beneath His cross it be;
In this world of evil-doing
'Tis the cross that cleanseth me:
Should there come distress and darkness,
Let this hope with me abide--
After all the gloom and sorrow,
Light shall be at eventide.
Bring to mind my past experience--
That shall take my fears away;
For Thy goodness and Thy mercy
Shall be mine till close of day:
Through the tears, the clouds, the tempest,
Shine on me, O Crucified!
There's a promise in God's rainbow--
Light shall be at eventide.
Lead me onward to the future,
Where I fear one step to move;
Still the love of God will keep me--
Love beyond a mother's love:
Calvary has said sufficient--
Hear them sing on yonder side:
Though the cross stand in the pathway,
Light shall be at eventide.
Thomas Levi
The Rev. THOMAS LEVI, Aberystwith, through
his popular children's monthly--Trysorfa y Plant--has
been for years a close friend of the children of
the Principality: and among other things he has
written several charming hymns for their use. The
following is one of his:
The ark upon the deluge
Was Noah's safe abode;
Though sail and helm were wanting,
His Captain then was God:
The Lord was very angry,
And all the world was drowned:
Not even lofty mountains
Could anywhere be found.
Though sail and helm be wanting,
If the ark be our abode,
We'll sing above the deluge--
Our Captain still is God!
Eight souls alone were rescued
To walk the earth again--
Through them a thousand counsels
Wrought out the good of men:
The Babe adored of shepherds
In little Bethlehem,
And Calvary's great Passion--
All came of saving them.
The Lord of Hosts remembered
His covenant of peace;
And He remembered Noah,
And made the waters cease:
A gracious sign He granted,
His faithfulness to prove--
The tender leaf of olive
Brought by the white-winged dove.
Though sail and helm be wanting,
If the ark be our abode,
We'll sing above the deluge--
Our Captain still is God!
The next two are by well-known bards of the
Eisteddvod,--the first by the Rev. EVAN REES
(Dyfed):
Calvary, with radiance glowing,
Thither now I turn my face;
Immortality is flowing
From above in streams of grace;
'Heights of Calvary!'
Build thy nest there, O my soul!
There I hear in breezes mellow
Sounds from far of heavenly themes,
Learnt of yore beneath the willow
On the bank of Babel's streams:
'Heights of Calvary'
Join the earth to heaven's land.
Scorchèd in the flame of burning,
See the thief's uncared-for soul,
At the last to heaven turning,
Pitied--rescued--and made whole:
'Heights of Calvary'
Shall his song for ever be.
In the vale with shadows crowded,
When I sink with sore dismay,
Calvary will stand unclouded
In its baptism of day:
'Heights of Calvary'
Are transfigured by the cross.
Once its summit was benighted
With a cloud of wrath Divine,
But Atonement's sun has lighted
All the hill as mercy's shrine:
'Heights of Calvary!
Never more shall night come there.
Oh, to climb in holy fancies,
On my knees, this Mount of love!
There I see, through tearful glances,
Nothing save the cross above:
'Heights of Calvary'
Make my tears a stream of peace!
'Heights of Calvary' (Pen Calfaria)--it should
be noted--is a well-known refrain in a revival verse of Williams.
The closing hymn of the book is by Mr.
BENJAMIN DAVIES (Tafolog).
'Unto Him' (Iddo Ef) has become a separate phrase in the language
of Welsh devotion:
Through the eternal blue
The circling worlds renew
Their joyful hymn:
They sing in mighty chord,
Like mountain floods outpoured--
'Not unto us, O Lord,
But--Unto Him!'
Great winds and waves unite
With thunders to recite
The choral theme:
The pleasant whispering rill,
The voice of torrent shrill,
The storm from hill to hill,
Sing--'Unto Him!'
The winged quires of Spring
Make all the woodlands ring
With grateful hymn:
Each leafy bush ablaze
Its altar doth upraise,
For festivals of praise
Held 'unto Him.'
Soul! would'st thou turn aside
This praise to thine own pride,
Making it dim?
The song of self in thee
Would break the harmony
Which floweth fall and free,
All--'Unto Him.'
Like some frail shower-drop,
Losing itself in hope
To find the sea,--
Let charity's sweet reign
Grant me the sacred gain,
To lose, and still retain
Myself in Thee.
Myself no more I know
By Jesu's cup of woe,
Filled to the brim:
Dying beside God's rood,
Beneath the tears and blood,
Is life's beatitude,
Sealed 'unto Him.'
If Jesus sowed in tears
The harvest of the years,
When days were dim;
One day shall stand revealed
His golden harvest-field,
And all the worlds shall yield,
Praise--unto Him.