Preaching is eminently popular in Wales. It was then, and to a great extent, is still almost the only occasion of public assembling. The people are eminently theological. Stand and listen to two peasants on the mountain side, go to the field at harvest, to the mill, or the smithy, or mingle with Welshmen among the iron and copper, and coal works, aye, go the public house, and in a majority of instances you will find them discussing theology. Points of the most abstruse description, and difficult passages of Scripture, form the staple of their talk, in fair, in market, by the way, throughout the day's labour, and at evening's rest. Thus, we can easily account for that, which so much astonishes strangers visiting the principality in the spring and summer. When during such visits they attend the meeting of a Welsh association, they are astonished to find the most intense sympathy between a mass of four or even ten thousand people of all ages and conditions, and every word the preacher utters; and this when the discourse is so thoroughly doctrinal, that its principal portions would be utterly unintelligible to a congregation of English peasants. John Elias began to preach to such people in their own tongue. His qualification was then rather of the heart than of the intellect. The latter was but scantily furnished, while the former was swelling with love to God and to man. In youth he was mighty in the Scriptures. This gave him great power with a people who refer to the Bible to settle every kind of dispute. His connexional relations were also in his favour. He was engaged in an itinerating ministry. In the comparatively uncultivated state of his mind this circumstance aided him materially, as fewer sermons were necessary, and he had more time to give them completeness, while his repeated delivery of a discourse furnished opportunities for alteration and emendation; which advantages are virtually lost in a stated ministry. We trust we shall not be misunderstood, when we add that a narrower range of intellectual qualifications sufficed for the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales, during the greater portion of John Elias's life, than had been enjoyed by them during the life time of their founders, and than they must have, and are endeavouring to secure for themselves, henceforth. The founders of this denomination were almost to a man clergymen and scholars. When they were dying off, Thomas Charles left the Establishment and cast in his lot among them. As far as he had gone in the walks of literature, he was a ripe scholar. With the original languages of the Bible, and the English tongue, he was exactly and critically acquainted. Of the language of his native mountains he was a perfect master; and there is not in the principality any work to surpass, few to compare, with his Geiriadur as to purity and chasteness of style, apart from its other and manifold excellencies. These great men died and left behind them a large number of preachers, but not, with very inconsiderable exceptions, men of early mental culture. Their ministry has therefore of necessity, been destitute of the many nameless advantages which result from such culture, and this has habituated the people to a less varied kind of preaching than the two congregational denominations have enjoyed. Indeed, and they must not be offended by our plainness of speech, the Welsh Methodists have been most unfaithful to themselves in respect to their ministry. For many years they did nothing towards educating their preachers, beyond sending one now and then to Glasgow, and more often to Cheshunt, and latterly to Highbury. Some of these became congregationalists and settled in England, others settled over Countess of Huntingdon congregations, and with some two or three exceptions only the feeble returned home; latterly they have seen this subject in the same light with Independents and Baptists, and have now promising institutions at Bala and Trevecca.
John Elias as a preacher was created by and for this state of things. His popularity was not confined to Anglesea, or to North Wales — indeed, in this body popularity in one part of Wales is popularity every where. A minister ordained at the Bala association, and residing at Holyhead, is, during his visit, as much the pastor of the Methodist church at Cardiff, as he is of that in the town of his residence. The following is a brief account of one of John Elias's preaching tours. He leaves Anglesea for the association at Llangeitho. He preaches twice or thrice a day during his whole journey, and is followed by crowds from village to village. At length he arrives at the great rendezvous of Welsh Methodism. He preaches the evening before the association. Two strange brethren had been announced the preceding Sabbath, names not given. The principal part of the available population attends. A few strangers have arrived, ten or twelve blaenoriaid from Carmarthen and Pembrokeshires.some of them came last Saturday that they might spend one Lord's-day at Llangeitho before they die 1 Much have they spoken on the Monday about the olden men (yr hen ych). They have been anxious to know whether any body lives who remembers Daniel Rowland, and not taking into account the lapse of time, are disappointed to find that there lives in the neighbourhood but one woman who heard him preach, and that she is bed-ridden; and that the old man who heard his last sermon, and whom he shook hands with the last time he was out, died three weeks ago. Time for commencing divine service arrives — the capacious chapel is crowded — a stranger, in slow and measured accents reads a psalm, gives out one of William William's hymns, and engages in prayer. Another stranger ascends the pulpit, he is sad-looking, his hair straight over his forehead, clad in a blue single breasted coat, a black double breasted waistcoat, buttoned up under his chin, with his legs encased in patent cords and top-boots. He reads his text in a low tone of voice, with somewhat of a drawl; — the people know him not, but he is from the north, and of the connexion, and that is enough. He dwells at some length on the context, then gives his discourse: there is nothing great but it is sound orthodox matter; besides, he quotes Dr Owen, and perhaps Manton, or Flavel. A flash of light gleams, and then another, but he does not allow himself to get excited; and having succeeded in awakening and fixing the people's attention, he closes, invoking the Divine benediction on what they have heard, and, with emphasis, 'on what they shall hear.' John Elias then stands up — his face is strongly marked with clear and distinct expressions of real and personal character, somewhat 'sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought f he is calm, self-possessed, and firm, and with a gravity so profound, that every approach or tendency to levity dies at once in his presence. He is a somewhat tall, slender man, his whole personal make and appearance denoting habits of untiring activity. 'Whoever this is (the observant hearer will say to himself), I feel I shall be bound to listen to him.' He gives out a single verse of Edmund Prys's translation of the Psalms, and then proceeds with his text — read with quiet, but most effective emphasis. He makes some interesting remarks of an obvious, but very appropriate character. Probably he takes some pains to settle the exact force of its principal terms, quoting some critical authority, but in the simplest and most unaffected manner. He divides the subject naturally, and becomes somewhat animated. The first head of discourse has been discussed, every body feeling that no more can be said upon it, so completely has he opened and laid it bare before their eyes. He approaches the salient point of the sermon, and his viva'ity increases, the right hand seems a thing inspired, its motions are an integral part of the matter, deeper and deeper grow the intonations of the voice, while the animation increases mightily. Nothing can be more measured than its cadences — and still they are instinct with living fire: they blaze, they burn, they scorch: the preacher pauses — look, now, at that right hand aloft in the air — look at the poising of that forefinger, once, twice, thrice; look at that face, the firmly compressed lips, the distended nostrils, the sparkling and brilliant eyes reposing themselves for a moment; the expansive forehead, bright and fair in all its manly beauty; a thousand human beings before him, with slightly opened mouths, suspended breath, and rapt attention, all hang on the lips of this once poor weaver boy; yes, he has got it; he has been looking at and into the people he has been catching a thought, and reimpressing his memory and his conscience with it, out it comes with all the splendour and energy and sublimity of the most finished, sustained and impassioned sacred oratory. The people tremble, weep, and are possessed — the charm is upon them — he sways them at his will — they move before him as shocks of corn before the breeze. He closes his discourse in a short prayer. Two men walk home together. The youngest asks, 'Who could that preacher be?' The other, somewhat contemptuously, replies, 'Who? John Elias, to be sure. Who else could preach such a sermon?'
When the whole scene has passed away, and the recollection of it remains, an unimpassioned analysis of the preacher s peculiar qualifications will perhaps produce some such result as this. It is not his personal godliness that distinguishes him; though that be eminent, other men are, in this respect, as eminent as he, and are immeasurably his inferiors in the pulpit. It is not the depth and closeness of his reasoning — many preachers in his own day, and country, and denomination, have been abler logicians, and far less prone to false reasoning—while they are dwarfs beside him before the public. It was not the power and excursiveness of his fancy, for he never excelled in metaphors, and those he employed were never original or striking. It is, firstly, the continued presence and influence of good common sense, and of a sober, if not always a sound judgment, in the selection of his subjects, and the manner of discussing them; secondly, a subtlety, though not a depth of intellectual power, which invested whatever he treated with an interest that freshened and brightened it up for the time, and smote the hearer with admiration and delight; and, above all, a well conceived, and consummately elaborated elocution. His greatness, his one greatness, was, we do not say matchless, but we do say, Unsurpassed Oratory. We think we have read all that has appeared in this country in the shape of accounts of Whitefield's eloquence, and we have no inclination to yield even him the palm; we have no idea that in mere oratory he was at all superior to John Elias. William Williams was eloquent, but it was the eloquence of his conceptions, while he was utterly careless of manner, and even of words. Christmas Evans was, on some occasions, mightier in his eloquence than John Elias, but it was when his imperial fancy led him aloft, and his hearers with him, and no more the result of previous elaborate study than are the complaints of a child But John Elias was The Orator. Inconclusive, and common-place, he might occasionally be, but otherwise than eloquent he could not be. He was The Sacred Orator, who devoted his long and godly life to the best interests of his country and of mankind. His career has closed, his remains lie at peace at Llanfaes, until the morning of the great and awful day, when the Son of God will come with the clouds to ransom 'the purchased possession,' to restore to the souls of his redeemed their glorified bodies, and "to deliver up the kingdom to God and his Father, that God May Be All In All."
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