Owen Jones on Elias 10

CHAPTER 10 CHARACTER OF HIS PREACHING

His great popularity — How far popularity is to be depended upon — Early training for the pulpit — Mode of preparing his sermons — The strength of his character as a preacher — Dramatic power — The true test of eloquence— Effect of his preaching

John Elias was one of the greatest, if not the greatest preacher that ever appeared in Wales. He was undoubtedly the most popular preacher in the land. He became so from the first. We saw him as a young man in the Llanfair Association; they did not, indeed, appoint him to preach, but to commence the service by reading and praying. His fervent prayer made a greater impression upon the congregation than all the sermons of that Association, and when the meetings were over, and the people returned home, it was not the sermons heard they spoke of, but the prayer of the young man. He was always popular even in his own home from the beginning to the end of his life. He was popular with all classes of people; men of wealth and title went to hear John Elias gladly. He could command a congregation, wherever he went, in any part of North or South Wales, and at any hour of the day. And when he went to London, which happened once every two years, ministers and clergymen, literary men, poets, men of learning and culture availed themselves of the opportunity of hearing him. When he visited Liverpool, which was very often, he preached three times, and even four times on the Sunday; and every day during the week there was a service at Pall Mall Chapel, at twelve o'clock. But the place was always full, and the people were never tired of listening to him. He preached in nearly all the Associations. He officiated for the first time in the Bala Association in the year 1797, and he preached in every succeeding one until the time of his death, with the exception of the year 1832, when he was prevented by an accident, which happened unto him while he was on the way there.

Popularity is not the sole test ; but popularity in the good sense of the term, and that continued for a lifetime, is the best test we can go by in the case of a preacher. A preacher is for his day and for his time. He is not a man for posterity in any way. The founder of Christianity was popular enough in his day, and his sermons and work are the foundations of all others. But in the case of all other preachers, the trans- mission of their sermons to posterity is often the result of accident. The great thing is for their sermons to do the work of the day and the time. It may, indeed, yield us an amount of pleasure, when the battle is over, and the warrior is gone, to look at the weapons he employed — the sword, the cannon, and the balls he used, but they are of no more use for the field. We look at the sermon after the preacher is dead, but what we find is not much. The greatest factor in the sermon is the man himself : his spirit, his soul, his body, his face, his eye, his voice, his hands, with all their movements, are essential parts of the sermon. And the effect produced is due much more to these than to that accumulation of ideas and words which we call a "sermon." That is but the dead cannon ball. The real sermon is the cannon, the powder, the fire, the ball, the momentum, the crash, and catastrophe. The difference between two printed sermons may be very great. One is the sermon of a preacher who made but little impression upon the people of his day ; the other is the sermon of a man that was followed by thousands wherever he went. The first sermon may appear much superior to the second in thought and expression; the second contains but the most common truths in ordinary language. The comparison between them, we say, is futile. It matters little how they appear now, the chief element is gone — the man, the body, the soul and spirit are gone. And here the glory of the latter may far exceed the glory of the former. What remains falls very much into the ordinary class of printed essays upon religious subjects. We do not now see much in the sermons of John Elias as they have been handed down to us ; but the fact is, we have but mere skeletons of them. If they had been taken down verbatim at the time they were delivered, we should have been able to judge far better of the great factor that is gone. The same is true of the sermons of Whitefield, Daniel Rowlands, and others. The productions of these men are much on a level to us at the present day. The great truths set forth are the same. But it was not these remains that performed those wonders; it was not these thoughts and these words alone that made something creep over men from head to foot ; it was not these that made the hair stand on end, and caused men to cast themselves on their faces on the ground. It was the man that used them, the spirit whose instrument they were, and the Spirit of God whose personality was felt to be in the near background.

John Elias obtained no University training; he was never at a college ; the only schooling he had was for a few months with Mr. Richardson, Carnarvon ; but he had taken immense pains to make up for the deficiency. He toiled hard day and night in order to know something of Greek and Hebrew, so as to be able to make a better use of commentaries. He attained some proficiency also in the English language. He was a hard student, and he made extraordinary efforts to enrich his mind with useful knowledge, such as history, science, &c. A college training is possibly the best, but it is not the only way of training the mind. This may be done in various ways ; and it is not seldom that we find a business man, with an intellect better trained than he who has gone through his University career. John Elias, however, had a mind that was well trained ; and we have no hesitation in saying that there was no other mind in Wales at the time better equipped with knowledge of every kind.

He took the greatest pains in the preparation of his sermons. He always prayed to God for "something to say" to the people. He told a friend once that he always had a sermon to preach, if required, but that this was a very different thing from having " something to say " to them. How often we hear preachers preaching without anything to say. It is but a mere essay, which neither themselves nor the people care for. How different it is when a man has some- thing to say — a message from God ! John Elias, then, always went to God for something to say. He was in agony of mind till he found it. After fixing upon his text by the guidance of the Spirit of God, he would consult the various commentaries within his reach in order to arrive at the full meaning of the words. But his mind was of an original cast, and, guided by these helps, he always took his own view. He had strong reasoning powers, and was admitted to be the most clear expounder of Scripture that lived in that age. After coming thus to the full meaning of the verse, and seeing its connections, he would meditate upon the truth contained in it, and arrange his ideas in order. Sometimes he would be for a very long time composing a single sermon ; at other times, his ideas would flow spontaneously.

He did not undergo the labour of carefully writing. This is almost always the case with great preachers. They write their sermons in the beginning of their career, in order to attain sufficient accuracy, and then they leave it off, feeling that it only creates a gap between them and the people. Such is also the case with nearly all great orators. John Elias took the greatest care to prepare his sermons in the way of thoroughly mastering his subject, and enriching his mind with thought and meditation upon it ; but as to the language he tells us he did not prepare it. He depended upon the mastery of language which he himself had acquired, and especially upon the help of the Spirit of God at the time, guiding his mind to the most appropriate words. If a man has something to say he is sure to know how to say it. And if he troubles his mind too much about the way of saying it, power will be lost. Pitt's advice to Lord Mornington was " In your speeches you think more of your words than of your ideas. In order to succeed you must think of your ideas, and let the words take care of themselves."Fronto was said to be most "finished" in his speeches; but they were rather empty of ideas. The less he had to say the more trouble he had in saying it. A man of a strong, grasping mind ; a man who grapples with great thoughts; a man with a keen and strong perception of ideas, is not likely to fetter himself much with the way of expression.

We cannot call John Elias a great thinker in the ordinary acceptation of the term. He did not strike out new veins of thought; he would not generally elicit from his hearers the expression, "How original!" He did not in any way take a philosophic view of his theme. When he took a text, he did not endeavour so much to find the great underlying principle or law; he did not concern himself about the "conception" of his sermon, and about developing it into a complete symmetrical whole. Again, he cannot be said to be a poetical preacher. There was in him not much beauty of fancy and richness of imagery. Long, rounded sentences and finished periods he did not at all pride himself in. He does not appear to have rested his power either upon philosophy, poetry, language, or illustration. Not but that he was possessed of each of these. The strength of his character as a preacher lay somewhere else. Where? In the hold which the great truths of the Gospel had taken upon his own spirit.

Everything depends upon what appears important to a man. This it is which rules the life of every one. No man ever becomes greater than his ideals. With some, money, pleasure are greatest; with others, philosophy, poetry, oratory, learning; and so they shape their lives. With John Elias the greatest thing was the salvation of sinners, and the scheme of God for accomplishing it. The truths of God's Word had taken hold of his spirit, and his spirit had taken hold of them with almost infinite intensity. With him, therefore, the beautiful imagery of Plato and Jeremy Taylor, the profound thinking of Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, would appear to be out of place, and even to lack earnestness. What is great with God was great with him, though God does not in any way disregard philosophy and poetry, &c. Nor did he, whenever they served the purpose of his great mission. This, then, we say, was the chief and most prominent characteristic of the preaching of John Elias. A man changes his ideals as he advances in years; but it is generally a long while before a man's ideal comes to this sublime height. John Elias, however, seems to have come to it rather early in his career, and it swayed everything ever after.

Though John Elias did not possess the high imaginative powers of John Jones, Talsarn, yet he possessed an imagination of no inferior kind, some degree of which is always essential to dramatic power. In the dramatic qualities no preacher in Wales ever surpassed him. If the imaginative power of the Welsh pulpit reached its climax in Robert Roberts, Christmas Evans, and John Jones; if the Divine unction in Henry Rees ; and the Welsh intonement in John Jones, Talsarn, certainly the dramatic power of the Welsh pulpit reached its highest intensity in John Elias. The power of language he possessed, the clearness of expression and utterance which he had, the dignity and authority of his person and presence, were eminently helpful in him to the development of the dramatic. His motions and actions were perfect. His descriptive powers were such that his hearers forgot all notions of time and space. We saw him preaching in Bangor upon the words, " And Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian," and describing Paul standing in his chains with such vividness that a seaman who stood near Mr. Jones, Talsarn, cried out, " Shame ! shame ! Strike off those chains from the man's hands ! " We remember, also, the reference made already to a sermon of his in South Wales, when he described the crucifixion in such a manner that the Rev. Ebenezer Richards the father of H. Richards, M.P., said afterwards that he saw it taking place on the hill hard by. We need only refer to the descriptions given of him at the Holyhead Association in pp. 268-70, and again at Bala in pp. 248, 49, &c., in order to justify our assertion that the dramatic intensity of the Welsh Pulpit reached its climax in the eminent orator from Anglesey.

The test of true eloquence is its effect upon the lives of the hearers. Tested by that, the eloquence of John Elias was really great, for, almost without exception, wherever he preached there were many conversions and great additions to the church. When he first came to Anglesey there were but few chapels, and those were small; there were but few members of churches, and those were scattered. But during the time that he ministered in the country the members increased to thousands ; forty-four chapels were built, many of them large and commodious ; and the Sunday- schools flourished in all directions. The year after his death the Rev. Dr. Charles (the eminent grandson of Rev. Thomas Charles, of Bala) wrote from Bala in a letter to the Rev. E. Morgan, Syston, Leicestershire, that in all his journeys through Wales he had not heard of any one minister whose preaching had been so universally blessed to the conversion of sinners as that of John Elias ; that almost in every country place, village, or town, one could find some one ascribing his conversion to the preaching of this man. His preaching was thus accompanied at all times by saving power. Before he arrived, possibly, the people of the place, if they had never heard him, felt the keenest curiosity to see and hear him. They were anxious to put their own measure upon him, and to see whether his sermons were poetical or highly philosophical, and whether he came up with their ideal of a preacher of the Gospel. John Elias came; he preached ; but all this idle curiosity vanished like the mountain mist on a summer day. In the twinkling of an eye their souls and spirits were absorbed with greater things. Trifles vanished; great realities appeared; God became great, and Jesus Christ and His precious blood; and they left the meeting in an agonising struggle for their own salvation.

The effect which followed the preaching of John Elias has been described by eye-witnesses as somewhat similar to the effect of a strong wind upon a field of ripe corn. The rushing wind bursts at first upon one part of the field, and the yellow corn bends and waves to and fro ; then the gust increases and spreads over other parts of the field, till at last the whole field is under the sway of the wind. So with the preaching of John Elias on the Green. At first the rush of feeling would pass over one portion of the congregation — that portion nearest the platform ; then over other portions, then others still ; then another rush, stronger than before, would pass over all the multitude at once; or, like a wave, it would pass over those nearest the desk to begin ; then, the tide coming in, another higher wave would rise, and pass farther over the multitude, until at last, the tide at its highest, the waves passed over the whole congregation over and over again.

The Rev. Simon Lloyd, B.A., Bala, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, and had joined the Calvinistic Methodists, did not believe much in the outward manifestations of feeling which could be seen in some of the meetings at that time. He states that John Elias was once preaching on the Green, at Bala, and that he was unable for a long time to make any impression upon the people. For the first three- quarters of an hour the sermon was, as many said, a very hard one ; but just a little before the end there burst forth a flood of influence and power. The reverend gentleman himself could not help seeing and feeling the effect of it, and he said, "I never saw such a clear evidence of Divine power in my life."