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JOSHUA THOMAS is celebrated as their leading historian. He was born at Caio, 1719, but at the age of twenty resided at Hereford. At that time he did not profess religion, but yet walked thirteen miles to Leominster to worship with the Baptists every other Sunday. He was baptized there in 1740, and entered the ministry in 1746; he afterward became pastor at Leominster, where he remained for fifty years. He wrote a ‘History of the Welsh Baptists,’ also a ‘History of the Baptist Association in Wales,’ being better acquainted with these subjects than any man of his day.

WILLIAM WILLIAMS, justice of the peace and a deputy lieutenant of the counties of Cardigan and Pembroke. Born, 1732; died, 1799. His parents were wealthy Episcopalians, but, leaving him an orphan at the age of six, he was educated in the best manner under trustees. He married young but lost his wife, and was led to Christ by this affliction, entering the ministry. In Cardigan he built a commodious chapel and filled it with devout hearers. He labored under the odious Test and Corporation Acts, but yet was appointed to civil office under the government. The law required him to qualify by taking the Lord’s Supper in the Established Church within a year of his appointment, and annually thereafter, but he filled his office for many years without submission to this test of conformity. He moved in the higher classes of society, and for a long period served as Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, and when he died his loss as a magistrate was mourned as national.

MORGAN JOHN RHEES was the Welsh Baptist hero of religious liberty. Born at Graddfa, 1760; after his baptism at Hengoed he went to the Bristol Academy, and entered the ministry in 1787. Before going to Bristol he established night-schools and Sunday-schools, far and near, teaching the pupils himself gratis, in chapels, barns and other places, and supplying them with books. When he became a pastor he aroused the denomination to the need of Sunday-schools before any other denomination had taken them up in Wales. Aided by others he founded a society in 1792 for the circulation of the Bible in France, believing that the Revolution had prepared that people for the Gospel. But this work was arrested by the war of 1793. This is the first attempt known to form a Bible Society for purely missionary purposes, as he connected with it a mission to Bologne. This failing, he left France and threw himself into the effort to maintain the doctrine of political liberty and religious equality in Wales. He established the ‘Cylchgrawn,’ a magazine, which eulogized the American Constitution, and demanded that religious support in Wales should be patterned by that in the United States. Spies were put upon his track, and an officer from London appeared at Caermarthen for his arrest. His landlord misled the officer, and gave Rhees a hint that he had better make for Liverpool, whence he left for America, where he was welcomed by Dr. Rogers, of Philadelphia. There he took a band of Welsh emigrants into the Allegheny Mountains in 1797, and organized them into a Church at Beulah, Cambria County, Pa. He died at Somerset, December 7th, 1804.

JOSEPH HARRIS (Gomer), pastor at Swansea, was born 1773. So great was his thirst for knowledge, that, without any early educational advantages, he became one of the chief men of letters in the nation and wielded great influence. He first made his mark as a controversial theologian in various pamphlets, and in his work on ‘The Proper Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ published in 1816. Bishop Burgess and other eminent members of the English clergy pronounced high eulogies upon this book. At that time no magazine or weekly was published in Welsh, and in 1814 Harris established the ‘Star of Gomer,’ a weekly; in that language. As a weekly this enterprise failed, but in 1818 he started a monthly under the same name, which met with great success. It was so broad and thorough in its discussions that it attained national celebrity, and earned for him the title ‘Father of Welsh Journalism.’ He also published a Welsh and English Bible; and a hymn book for his own denomination, which is yet in use. He came to his grave in sorrow, some say of a broken heart, for the loss of his favorite son, whose memoirs he wrote in grief and tears, making its composition one of the most touching productions in the Welsh tongue.

CHRISTMAS EVANS, the prince of Welsh preachers, was born on the 25th of December, 1766, and named after that day. His father was very poor, and died when Christmas was about the age of nine, leaving him in such neglect that he could not read when he was fifteen. Mourning this ignorance he resolved to learn, and soon plodded through ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ At eighteen he was converted and united with the Arminian Presbyterians. Soon he held religious services in cottages, having memorized one of Bishop Beveridge’s sermons and one of Mr. Roland’s. These were delivered in such a wonderful manner, that when a hearer knew them to be mere recitations, he remarked that ‘there must be something in that unlettered boy, for the prayer was as good as the sermon.’ Alas! master, that also was taken from a book. Evans went to school for a time to Rev. Mr. Davis, but, having no means to prosecute his studies, started for England to labor as a farmer in the harvestfield. Discouraged, he nearly abandoned the idea of entering the ministry, and, in fact, became almost indifferent to religion. Just then he fell into the hands of a mob, and received a blow which left him insensible, and his right eye blind for life. His narrow escape aroused him to new diligence, and shortly after he was immersed on his faith in Christ in the river Duar, by Rev. Timothy Thomas, and united with the Baptist Church at Aberduar. At the age of twenty-two he was ordained at Lleyn as the pastor of five small Baptist Churches there. Frequently he walked twenty miles and preached four or five times on the Sabbath with marked results, he was captivated by the preaching of Robert Roberts, a hunch-backed Calvinistic Methodist, of marked eccentricities, and said that from him he had ‘obtained the keys of the level,’ whatever that may be. In a short time Evans evinced remarkable preaching powers. He traveled on foot through town and village, crowds gathering into chapels and burying-grounds, on week-days and in the midst of harvest, while many were converted and immersed. His fame spread on the wings of the winds, and multitudes followed him from place to place.

In 1791 he removed to the isle of Anglesea, taking charge of the two Baptist Churches there, on a salary of ,17 per annum. Besides the two chapels, he had eight preaching stations and no other Baptist minister near him. The Churches were in a cold and distracted state, but his labors were soon followed by powerful religious revivals. In 1794 he went far to attend the meetings of the Association, which met at Velin Voel, in the open air and in the hottest of weather. Two ministers had preached in a tedious way and the heat had almost stupefied the people, when Evans commenced the third sermon. In a few minutes the people began to weep and praise God, to leap and clap their hands for joy, and the greatest excitement continued through the entire day and night, the crowd saying to each other: ‘The one-eyed man of Anglesea is a prophet sent from God!’ For years he attended the meetings of this body, and here he preached his famous sermon on the demoniac of Gadara. That sermon held the vast throng spell-bound for three hours; for Christinas drew such a picture before them as even Jean Paul Richter never drew. The vast throng was beside itself, numbers threw themselves on the ground, as if an earthquake rocked beneath them. They had a clear vision of the naked maniac, full of burning anger and wild gesture, with fiend’s eyes, fierce and full of flame. They saw his paroxysms which broke the chains that held him, as threads of tow, when he bounded away like a wild beast, to leap upon harmless men. He lived in rocks, slept in tombs with the dead, haunted these dismal abodes like a midnight ghost and made them echo with loud blasphemies. All feared him as a demon and none dared approach him. His wife was broken-hearted, and his children desolate. In lucid moments he was gentle, then he roared like a lion, howled like a wolf, raved like a tiger, the terror of Gadara; until Jesus came, quelled the storm, restored the tortured mind and filled the land with joy. Then came his picture of the swine wallowing in destruction, the punishment of their selfish owners and great doctrinal truths, which produced an effect scarcely credible, but for full and clear testimony.

In 1826, when the preaching stations in Anglesea had increased to scores and the preachers to twenty-eight, he left that island and settled as pastor at Caerphilly, where he soon added one hundred and forty members to his Church by baptism. He remained here but two years when he removed to Cardiff, and in two years more to Caernarvon, where he contended with great difficulties from church debts and dissension. When on a collecting tour for that Church he died suddenly at Swansea, July 19th, 1838, in the seventy-second year of his age and the fifty-fourth of his wonderful ministry. As he passed from earth he said: ‘I am leaving you; I have labored in the sanctuary fifty-three years, and this is my comfort, that I have never labored without blood in the basin!’ With his last breath he referred to a verse in an old Welsh hymn, then waved his hand as if with Elijah in the chariot of fire, and cried: ‘Wheel about, coachman; drive on!’

He had preached one hundred and sixty-three times before Baptist Associations and paid forty visits to South Wales, so that he held front rank in the Welsh ministry for more than half a century without a stain on his moral character. In person he stood about six feet high, with an athletic frame--a very Anakim--and his head covered with thick, coarse, black hair. His bearing was dignified, notwithstanding an unwieldy gait, arising from an inequality of limbs, inducing an able writer to say that ‘he appeared like one composed on the day after a great battle out of the scattered members of the slain;’ or as a Yorkshire man expressed it to the writer, ‘like a book taken in numbers, with some wanting.’ His face betokened great intelligence and amiability, his eyebrows were dark and heavily arched. and his one, large, dreamy eye was very brilliant. Robert Hall said of him that he was ‘the tallest, stoutest, greatest man he ever saw; that he had but one eye, if it could be called an eye; it was more properly a brilliant star; it shined like Venus! and would light an army through a forest on a dark night.’ This evangelical seraph of one eye, like all seraphs, had a warm and quick temperament, held under perfect control; and though his sustained power of imagination was astonishing, he was very dignified in debate. His piety was simple, modest and ardent. The writer thinks that one of the best tests of true power in a preacher is the character of his public prayers, and once asked an old and intelligent Welshman who had often heard Evans, to describe these. He replied: ‘They were commonly short, but he seldom stopped until the tears rolled down his cheeks from his one eye and the empty socket of the other, while pleading for the special influences of the Holy Spirit that day.’ Here was a secret of his eloquence which cannot be described more than the warm breathings of seraphim can be depicted. His voice had great compass and melody, his gestures were easy and forceful, and his composition crowded with metaphor and allegory. His style was more than original, it was unique, bearing the stamp of high genius, as every sentence carried his own spirit and its expression to others in the nicest shadings of fervent thought. The press has given us two hundred of his sermons, which were methodical and strong in their unity. The Bible was as real to him as his own life, and hence, he drew the history and doctrine of the cross in true lines. He was more luminous in exposition, and fuller of imagery than Whitefield. His descriptions were pure inspirations of the imagination, and his sentences were the joint language of feeling and logic. After the ideal of Horace, men wept when he shed real tears. He breathed that vehement thought and passion into his speech which Longinus called ‘a divine frenzy.’ But his preaching was governed by a sense of obligation to God and the grandeur of love to man. These took his own soul by storm and stormed the souls of others. His one theme was Christ, his one aim to save guilty men, pulling them out of the fire, and so his pulpit power increased to the last. God put honor upon him, as he always has upon such men, ‘and much people was added unto the Lord.’

JOHN JERKINS was another splendid specimen, of self-educated ministers in Wales. His parents were very lowly and he never spent a day in school. At the age of fourteen he found one of John Rhees’s evening-school books and learned to read the Welsh Bible. The next year he was baptized at Llanwenarth, and became a pastor at the age of twenty-one on a salary of £3 per year. Thus humbling himself, in 1808 he was exalted to a salary of £16 per annum as pastor at Hengoed. There he built up one of the strongest Churches in the principality, and became a leading writer in the denomination. In 1811 he published a body of divinity under the title of the ‘Silver Palace,’ and followed it, in 1831, by a Commentary of the whole Bible. The Lewisburg University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1852; and he died in Clirist on June 5, 1853, aged seventy-four years.

TIMOTHY THOMAS, of Aberduar, was a most robust, servant of Christ; the son of the ‘Thunderer’ of the same name. He was rough and ready, loved to ride the best horse in Wales, and made the whole country his parish. He celebrated his baptismal services in the open air, and would smite into the dust any disturber of his services, holding up his license in one hand and his Bible in the other, demanding ‘order’ by virtue of two warrants, one from the King of England and the other from the King of Heaven. When he was fourteen years of age his father died, but his father’s mantle fell upon him. On returning from his funeral his mother mourned, saying, that the family altar had fallen and there was no one to build it up.’ Timothy replied: ‘Mother, it shall not fall;’ and that night he conducted worship in the stricken home. After his ordination, in 1772-73, he went everywhere preaching the word. During his ministry he baptized about 2,000 converts, and with a touch of honest pride he loved to name amongst them Christmas Evans. He died in 1840, aged eighty-six years, protesting that there was nothing in his life worth recording for another generation.

JOHN WILLIAMS was the thorough scholar and translator of the New Testament into modern Welsh, he was born at Waen in 1806, and his youth was characterized by many eccentricities, one of which was that he constantly hid himself in the hedges and woods with his books, and at the age of twenty, without a master, had acquired a good knowledge of English and Latin, with considerable attainments in Greek, Hebrew and mathematics. At twenty-one he published an English grammar in Welsh and English, which brought him pressing invitations to enter the Episcopal ministry; but he was ordained a home missionary amongst the Baptists in 1834. He devoted himself, however, to the translation of the New Testament and finished the task in four years. To reach the simple sense of the original by the best texts was his first aim, and his next, its faithful translation into his mother-tongue. Conviction obliged him to give an immersionist version, and while nobody pretended that his renderings were unfaithful, the cry was raised that he had made a ‘Baptist Bible.’ He expressed the act of baptism by the word trochi, which has no ecclesiastical meaning, and answers to dip, or immerse, in English, instead of retaining the word bedydd, which by ecclesiastical use has come to mean many things in Welsh, as the word baptize does in English. He suffered the greatest possible abuse, as if he were a God-fearing criminal. Wales produced few harder workers or more diligent inquirers after the truth. But the coarse abuse of men who could not understand how an honest scholar can hold himself responsible to God only deeply wounded his loyal soul. He was retiring, modest, unobtrusive, and his health sank under the cruel calumny of many of his own brethren. He died in 1856, at the age of but fifty years.

THOMAS REES DAVIES was a character, known amongst the irreverent as ‘Old Black Cap,’ because he wore a velvet cap in the pulpit. For years he stood second to Christmas Evans in popularity. He itinerated, and so great was his work that he said there were few rivers, brooks, or tanks in Wales in which he had not baptized. His wife being wealthy, he sustained himself. Some disagreement with the Baptists led to his expulsion in 1818, and he spent about seven years amongst the Wesleyans, with whom he was very useful: but he delighted in telling them that he was ‘a Baptist dyed in the wool.’ At one of their great missionary meetings he said: ‘The Baptists think much of themselves, but they cannot do all the work in the world. We Wesleyans must be in the field, too; but as to that, we shall all be Baptists in the end.’ When he returned to the Baptists he said to his Methodist brethren: ‘Good-bye, I am going home.’ He was welcomed back and labored successfully. During forty-seven years he preached 13,145 sermons, averaging above five a week and left a minute record of the time, place and text of each sermon. He preached the same sermon over and over again for twenty times, and the people were newly delighted each time, and each discourse came to be known by some peculiar name. His sermons were so natural that they seemed to have been born with him, and he said they would ‘always go, because he kept them in a safe place.’ They were quaint productions and antithetic, but clear and-pointed. Then he flavored them with homely mother-wit and delivered them in an easy oratory, which made them impressive, despite a slight impediment in his speech, so that there was a great mystery about his eloquence. He best describes himself when about visiting London. Writing to a deacon there, who did not know him, but was to meet him, he says: ‘At Euston Station, December 3d, 1847, and about nine o’clock in the evening, expect the arrival by train of a gray-headed old man; very tall, like the ancient Britons, and without an outward blemish, like a Jewish high-priest. Like Elijah, he will wear a blue mantle, not shaggy, but superfine, and like Jacob, he will have a staff in his hand, but will not be lame, it is hoped. But most especially, he will have a white string to his hat, fastened to his coat button. There will be many there with black strings, but his will be white. Let the friend ask, "Are you Davies?" and his answer will be, "Yes."’ He started on a preaching tour through South Wales in 1859, but told his friends that he was going there to die, and to be buried in the same grave with Christmas Evans. On the 22d of July he preached his last sermon at Morristown, near Swansea, when he was taken sick. He said: ‘I am very ill. Let me die in the bed where Christmas Evans died.’ That was impracticable. But on the following Sunday he fell asleep, and was buried in Evans’s grave!

ROBERT ELLIS was a prodigy, after his order. Although nine months’ training under John Williams was all the schooling that he ever had, he excelled as an antiquarian, hard, lecturer, preacher and biblical interpreter. He came to be regarded as an authority in almost every branch of Welsh literature, and was one of the most idiomatic Welsh writers of his day. He was the author of many poems, and of ‘Five Lectures on Baptism,’ but his greatest work was his ‘Commentary of the New Testament,’ in three volumes. Born, 1812; died, 1875.

WILLIAM MORGAN, D.D., one of the ablest ministers of North Wales, devoted his life to the interests of the Baptists at Holyhead, from the year 1825. He was the first biographer of Christmas Evans, and published three volumes of sermons. The Georgetown College, Kentucky, honored him with the title of D.D. After a very useful ministry, he died in 1873.

JOHN EMLYN JONES, M.A., LL.D., was born in 1820. He was pastor of Baptist Churches at Nebo, Cardiff, Merthyr, Tydvil and Llandudno. He was a very eloquent preacher, and distinguished himself as an author in works of theology, history and general literature; also as the translator of Gill’s Commentary into Welsh. He was a poet of eminence, attaining the honor of Chair-Bard, B.B.D., by winning a chair at Denbigh, and another at Llanerchymedd. He prepared a Topographical Dictionary of the whole world, but left it incomplete. He died in 1873. His Doctor’s degree was conferred by the University of Glasgow.

HUGH JONES, D.D., was born at Anglesea, July 10th, 1831. His parents possessed unusual talents, especially his mother. He was baptized at Llanfachreth by Rev. R.D. Roberts at the age of fourteen, and preached his first sermon in what the Welsh call ‘Gyfeillach,’ the weekly experience meeting, which is greatly prized in their Churches. His first public discourse was preached in 1851, and he entered the college at Haverfordwest in 1853. There he remained for four years, and became proficient in mathematics, the classics and Hebrew. He wished to enter the foreign mission work, but was prevented by ill health. In 1857 he became associate pastor to Mr. Griffiths at Llandudno, and remained there for two years, when he took the same service for Dr. Pritchard at Llangollen. The Baptist College was established there in 1862, and these co-pastors were appointed co-tutors, Mr. Jones being classical tutor. Dr. Pritchard resigned his connection both with the Church and the College in 1866, and Mr. Jones became principal of the College, resigning his pastoral relation. Under his labors the institution attained great prosperity, but he overworked himself, and in 1877 was obliged to seek relief and health on the Continent, where he appeared to improve and returned to his post. In 1883 his health suddenly failed again, and on the 28th of May he was unexpectedly called to his reward above. He left a widow and eleven children to mourn their loss, and in about two years his children became full orphans, for their mother died and was buried in the same grave with their father. In every respect Dr. Jones was a man of rare mark. His intellect was keen, his will strong, his heart large and his application close. His pure character and quiet courage, his simple habits and genial manliness, endeared him to all who knew him, and he has left a deep impression on the Baptist interests of the principality. His thorough consecration to Christ and profound biblical scholarship are abundantly seen in his works, ‘The Bible and its Interpretation,’ and the ‘Act of Baptism.’

These sketches of Welsh Baptists might be continued at great length, but a long list of illustrious names must be passed in silence, as well as all that relates to the influence of Welsh Baptists in other parts of Great Britain, for their laymen and ministers have filled the highest posts of influence and usefulness in all parts of the United Kingdom. The above are sufficient to show the strong elements which our principles have developed in Welsh character. They bring out its vigor of intellect, its heroic courage, its high moral sentiment, its glow of holy feeling and its benevolent zeal. When we take into account the soft and liquid flow of the Welsh language, the patriotism of the Welsh people, their devotion to civil and religious liberty, and their enthusiastic religious emotion, we are not astonished at their success; nor can we wonder at the great molding influence which they have exerted upon the Baptist Churches of the New World.

The statistics of the United Kingdom, including the Channel Islands, shows 2,713 churches, 315,939 members, with 1,893 pastors.

The Baptist Churches in Wales were never in a more prosperous condition than at the present time. They not only stand firmly by the truth, but year by year they are resisting that anomaly of the nineteenth century, the incubus of a State Church. Since the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church the Welsh people feel more and more the galling yoke, and are attempting to shake it off with greater spirit. Recently, not only the Baptists, but the Independents and Calvinistic Methodists have arisen with almost one accord to resist the enforcement of tithes in behalf of the Established Church. The ‘tithe-war’ as it is called, broke out recently in the parish of Llanarmon, and distraint upon the goods of the farmers there has aroused the resistance of all Non-conformists. It is strange that this blot upon Christianity should have remained unwiped out so long, but this relic of barbarism must soon disappear in Wales. At this moment the auctioneer is selling confiscated property in all directions, and every fall of his hammer drives a new nail into the coffin of the politico-ecclesiastical State Church, but not before its time to fall. In 1868 compulsory church rates were abolished, 1880 the Burial Act was passed, relieving Dissenters from abominable annoyances in burying their dead, and it is not meet that the twentieth century should be disgraced by one vestige of Welsh oppression in this direction. It is strange that the Welsh have endured this yoke so long, and the sooner they rise in their strength and shake it off the better.

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