tibvavy of Che trheolocjicd ^emmarp PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY BX 5103 .J6 1893 Jones, David, d. 1785. The Welsh church and Welsh nationality Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/welshchurchwelshOOjone THE WELSH CHURCH AND WELSH NATIONALITY. > NOV 29 1949 WELSH CHURCH WELSH NATIONALITY DAVID JONES, B.A. AND THE WELSH CHURCH," AND AUTHOR OF THE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Sicut igitur adjuvat, non laetlit sanitatem corporis ([iiisquis intlicat quae res vitient, aut tueantur sanitatem ; ita non avocat a religione, sed adhortatur potius qui demonstrat verae religionis corruptees et remcdia. Erasmus. ILonOoit SiMpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Limited SJangor JARVIS * FOSTER, LORNE HOUSE Bangor : Printed by Jarvis & FOSTER, Lome House. €av ovu fAT) eidu) Trjv 5vvap.LV tt;? 0cdP7/y, £ Professor Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, p. 314, 1888. xii Giraldus Cambrensis " declaims against Anglican tyranny and the type of bishops whom the Normans were forcing on Wales. He denounces a practice from which both Ireland and Wales have suffered deeply, which began in Norman times, and has scarcely yet ceased. Norman bishops were intruded into Welsh dioceses, which they abandoned to neglect, or visited as seldom as possible, con- centrating all their energies upon efforts to obtain translations to English Sees. Mere wordly policy was the impelling motive of the Norman Kings. They sent Norman bishops to Wales, not as spiritual pastors, but as secular policemen, to watch the princes, and make early reports of their inten- tion to burst into rebellion ; and they then laid, seven centuries ago, the foundations of those religious feuds and distractions which have alienated the masses of the Welsh people from the Communion of their ancient Church." 2 The same policy was working- out the same results in Scotland about the same time. Referring to some customs of the Celtic Church of that country, which were abolished by St. Margaret, a Saxon Princess, who had married King Malcolm III. in 1069, the learned Author of "Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church " says : — " The above charges also indicate that the final extinction of the old Celtic Church in Scotland was partly owing to internal decay, as well as to the line of policy adopted by Queen Margaret and Malcolm Canmore, which was the same as that adopted in the next century by the Anglo-Norman Kings towards Ireland. Neither a National 2 Prof. G. T. Stokes, Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church, pp. 40, 41, 1892. xiii Church nor a religious movement can be easily extinguished by royal authority, unless there are other and co-operating influences at work. St. Margaret was not immediately successful in her attempts at suppression. Fifty years later, in the reign of King David, we learn that the Culdees ' in a corner of their Church, which was very small, used to celebrate their own office after their own fashion.' It is the last spark in the expiring embers of the controversy, and the struggle for supremacy between two elements in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland ; the old National Celtic element represented by the independence of the Scottish Episcopate, and the retention of the Ancient Missal ; and the Anglicising element, patronised by the royal authority of Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret, subjecting the Scottish Episcopate to the supremacy of York, and intro- ducing the Anglicanised (Roman) Missal." 3 Signs are not wanting that the national instincts of the rank and file of the Welsh clergy are asserting themselves — an omen full of significance for the future of our ancient British Church. Indeed, ex- cepting the highest means of all, namely, the more perfect possession by the divine power of her minis- ters and members, nothing is more essential to her success in these days of democratic tendencies, and national awakenings, than a cultured ministry in cordial sympathy with the life of the people. Their language, their national traditions and sentiments, are potent factors in the life of my countrymen, and 3 Rev. F. E. Warren, Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, p. S, lS8i. xiv their cultivation is an effective means of winning their confidence and affections. It has always been so. "The heart of every Welshman leaps for joy in his bosom, when he hears a man of your 4 high station speaking his mother tongue ; for nothing is so powerful to win the hearts of subjects as the cultivation of their language, and to converse with them therein. It was this that made Mithridates so renowned, a man who ruled over twenty two States, while he was able to speak to them all in their own languages. It was this that gave so much power to Charles the fifth, inasmuch as he had no need of an interpreter between him and any of his subjects, though they comprised numerous nationalities. And it is this that makes your Lordship regarded with so much affection in Wales, because your love to our language is so great, and your knowledge of it so masterful." s If this was deemed prudent in the rulers of temporal kingdoms, how much more in the admin- istrators of the kingdom of heaven, whose founda- tion is love, whose chief instrument is language, and whose greatest function is to teach ? " There is no deficiency in a minister like the deficiency of language." 6 And when he who is thus deficient calls himself a Welshman, the prejudice against him is greater, and the damage he inflicts on 4 i.e. The Earl of Pembroke. 5 Griffith Roberts, Preface to Welsh Grammar, 1567. 6 " Nid gwall mewn gweinidog ond gwall iaith."— Welsh Adage. 'xv the Church is more serious. An Anglicised Welshman is less acceptable than an English- man ; the latter is only a stranger, the former is looked upon as a renegade. If the Welsh Church is to regain the affections of the Welsh people, she must be administered by men who are willing, in the strong language of the Apostle, to become anathema from Christ for their brethren, their kinsmen according to the flesh;* men of un- doubted patriotism, like Bishop Morgan, Vicar Pritchard, Griffith Jones, and Dean Edwards, who have left indelible marks on the life of the Church, and the history of the nation. " I am inclined to think that the attitude of the Anglicised native clergy towards the Welsh people, has done even more to give the Church an alien character in the eyes of the latter, than the sins and the follies of the English hierarchy who controlled her general policy." 1 I observe a disposition in some quarters to throw ridicule on Welsh patriotism. For Welsh Churchmen to do this, is to repudiate a position which history assigns as primarily ours, and blindly to fling away its great advantages ; and to do so on the plea that such a position involves disloyalty to our union with England, and the English Church, * I Cor. ix. 3. 7 Professor Darlington. Contemporary Review, June 1893, p. 814. xvi is to tear out three centuries from the history of Wales and the Welsh Church. It is not only the wisdom, but the duty of Welsh Churchmen to search patiently and diligently into the past records of their country ; and though it is only too true that many of those records have perished from time to time ; some during the Saxon invasion, some during the rebellion of Owen Glyndwr, some in the dissolution of the monasteries, some during the turbulent times of the Common- wealth, while others have doubtless been suffered to drop into decay by the negligence of those into whose hands they fell. Still a rich harvest awaits to be gleaned by the hand of a painstaking and discriminating student, which will at any rate largely modify, if not revolutionise, current notions con- cerning the state of Wales and the Welsh Church during the sixteenth and the two following cen- turies. Churchmen might, with all reasonable- ness, be presumed to find the greatest interest in exploring that field, and in bringing its treasures to the light of day ; and yet if we judge by their efforts in that direction during the last fifty years, we may conclude that they have neither part nor lot in it. " When I speak of the services of the Church, I want xvii to say a word under a kind of constraint of conscience, because it is an open point on which I think I differ from many worthy men. The mass of the people believe that the Welsh people have been a very religious people for about 120 or 150 years ; but there are a great many who are in the habit of saying that, before that time, the Welsh were a very godless people. This is a place, I hope, of freedom of opinion ; and will you allow me to say that I do not believe a word of it. 1 believe that they were a religious people, from the time when they harboured the old Christian religion in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, at a time when it was driven out of the great bulk of the English counties." 8 It is well to bear in mind that the testimonies in regard to the Anglicising policy cited in the following pages, are, with few exceptions, those of zealous, and, most of them, illustrious Churchmen, who, for the most part, wrote avowedly in the interest of the Church in Wales. It is inconceiv- able that so many eminent men, covering a period of so many centuries, could have been mistaken either as to the existence, the motives, or the injustice and inexpediency of such a policy. They represent all ranks of life, and the many-sided departments of literature — statesmen, theologians, historians, lexicographers, grammarians, jurists, educationists, poets, and men of letters generally ; 8 The Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone ; Speech at Wrexham Eisteddfod, 1S88. XV111 their testimony is practically unanimous, and it is unequivocal. The value of such a catena of authorities it is impossible to overestimate, whether we regard their number, or their individual weight ; and it would be nothing short of suicidal madness on the part of Churchmen to ignore the practical lesson which they so pointedly and so forcibly teach, at this important crisis in the history of their Church. These are days of unrest — unsettlement and disintegration of belief. Hence the dangers that menace the foundations of religion. When preju- dice and intolerance are strong, convictions are weak, and the violence of passion betrays the absence of fixed principles. Men rush to opposite extremes with sudden haste, and become the nega- tion of their former selves in everything but the spirit in which they assert themselves. Newly found or adopted political or theological opinions are defended with a vehemence that inevitably sug- gests the difficulty of stifling old convictions, or of swallowing new ones — the struggle involved, not merely in repelling the assaults of objective aggres- sors, but in smothering subjective misgivings. Controversy is doing deadly injury to the highest interests of the Principality. Combatants are rais- XIX ing spirits from " the vasty deep" which are no less fatal to themselves than to their opponents. Words are uttered and written that are as poisoned daggers plunged into the vitals of Christianity. Victory won by marching over the prostrate form of spiritual religion, would be the defeat of everything that has made Wales what she is to-day, and is capable of raising her still to higher elevations. The first care of every Christian patriot should be to avert this defeat. In the sharp conflict of opinions and strife of tongues that now disturb and distract an impulsive race, it should ever be remembered that infinitely more precious blessings are im- perilled by the controversy than the mere temporal possessions around which it rages, even the blessings of charity, and peace and good will, which nothing is more calculated to blight than polemical bitterness, and the heated atmosphere of political partisan- ship, and for the loss of which, no possible triumph that either side may gain, can ever bring adequate compensation, either to itself or to the country. The great need of Wales to-day is men of "light and leading," whose vision is clear enough to discern the magnitude of the interests that are at stake, and whose voice is au- thoritative enough to restore to the nation, calmness XX of belief — strength and stability of conviction — men whose individual gifts and character can afford to dispense with the coarse weapons of party tactics and recriminations, and, free from the taint of vulgar ambition, can appeal to the masses from the ground of Christian patriotism. I have confidence in the generosity of my countrymen, that such men would not appeal to them in vain. Meanwhile, let the Apostles' exhortation of "speaking the truth in love" wholly possess the heart of those who deem them- selves compelled to take part in the conflict ; feeling assured that when the thick dust and smoke of the battle-ground subside, it will be discovered, as often before, that those who are engaged in disparaging, discrediting, and despoiling each other, ought to have been comrades in arms, fighting a nobler battle, against a common, deadlier foe, and that, in all struggles for vital principles, the sufferer is always the victor. Qui patitur vincit. * I trust I shall not be misunderstood, from what is stated in the following pages, to be insensible to the many and great obligations imposed upon us, * " We may not in any particular, or any word, be more un- christian in the interest of Christianity than our own . . . Thereare no such conversions as are wrought by doing good to those that despitefully use you." Archbishop of Canterbury, Christ and His Times, pp. 205, 206. 1889. xxi by deeds of kindness and liberality, on the part of English Churchmen. I need only recall a few facts out of many, in illustration of those obligations. The substantial aid and encouragement given, at a trying moment, by Archbishop Whitgift and others, to the principal translator of the Welsh Bible ; the active sympathy shown by such men as Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and Patrick, in the seventeeth century, with a movement for promoting English education in Wales, and for circulating the Holy Scriptures, the Book of Common Prayer, and other good books in the Welsh language ;* the liberal contributions made by the venerable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, during its long career of eminent service to the Church and religion, towards furnishing Wales with Bibles, Prayer Books, and useful devotional works ; the pe- cuniary assistance received by Griffith Jones from his English sympathisers, towards establishing, extending, and sustaining his Circulating Welsh Charity Schools, and in disseminating a vast amount of religious literature for the spiritual instruction of his monoglot countrymen ; the un- stinted liberality of the National Society for the Education of the Poor, without whose aid, the * See Wales, by Sir Thomas Phillips, p. 259. xxii great educational work of the Church in the Principality during the present century could not have been accomplished ; and lastly, the noble response of English Churchmen in recent years to many and frequent calls from Wales for con- tributions towards the erection, enlargement, and restoration of our Churches. As these and similar tokens of sympathy, as well as many other advantages of our union, should not blind us to the losses which an unfortunate administrative policy has entailed upon us ; so neither should those losses render us unmindful of benefits which should awaken in us the most profound and lasting gratitude. Indeed, our interests are so identical, and our union so complete, that our losses as well as our gains are no less theirs than ours. Our essentials are the same, our accidents only are different ; but we live in a world where the accidents of life often exercise the most powerful influence in the development or the suppression of its essentials. toXXoi /j.ey dvrjTois y\ui lb. 7o the hands of Churchmen, their names still remain on the surface of history, while those of their op- ponents of all ages have sunk into merited oblivion, leaving behind them no trace of their existence, save a legacy of troubles and divisions to their successors. They possessed a knowledge of the language, the traditions, and the ancient literature of their country, such as has been rarely equalled since, certainly not surpassed. They never shrank from avowing their patriotism, and asserting its rights. If they lived among us to-day, with what scathing irony, with what withering scorn, they would treat those Anglicised Welshmen, who love to utter their worn-out platitudes against our nationality and patriotism, and reverse the policy which they pursued, though like the Pharisees and scribes of old, they build their sepulchres. For, when the past history of the Church has to be defended against the aspersions and misrepresentations of her assailants, it is the names and labours of those patriotic Churchmen which the Anglicised Welsh Church- man summons to his aid. They saved the Church from spiritual and literary sterility, and the country from a state of paganism ; they rescued the language from a moribund condition ; they fostered the na- tionality of the people ; they evoked their loyalty to 7i the Crown and constitution, and all but extinguished the racial jealousies and feuds that had existed for centuries between the two nations, to the infinite injury of both. " It is to the wise and beneficent action of the leaders of the Welsh Church, that we owe the preservation of our language, and the means of preserving intact our national characteristics, which, but for the translation of the Bible and its results, would have been obliterated." ' It is to the wholesome influence which those leaders had exercised on the national life of Wales, we owe it that the Welsh people stood loyal to the Church and the Throne, during the temporary over- throw of both in the seventeenth century, though the insurrectionary forces were led by a Welshman. This is a fact suggestive of weighty reflections. The men who had shaped the political opinions, and inspired the religious sympathies and sentiments of the Principality at that crisis, were conspicuous for nothing more than for the strenuous resistance they had offered to the Anglicising policy. The in- justice, as well as the results of that policy, has been frequently pointed out by Churchmen of weight in this century. Bishop Heber said : — " If, then, we discourage, or degrade, or neglect the 1 Bishop of Bangoi, Sermon delivered at Llanarth. Reported in Western Mail, Sept. 7th, 1892. 72 language of any nation soever, we neglect, or degrade, or discourage, we cripple and fetter, and, so far as in us lies, we extinguish the native genius of that people. And feeling this so forcibly as I do, I can never look back without sorrow, and shame too, I will not say on the cold neglect, but the systematic and persevering hostility, of which, on the part of your English rulers, the Welsh language was for many years the object." 2 Rev. John Walters, M.A.: — " If it should be objected to the present undertaking that it hath a tendency to revive the Welsh language, or at least to suspend its fate, and prolong its existence, the author begs leave to express his concern at finding that very thing imputed as a fault, and converted to dispraise, which he had long been used to consider as an excellence and a recom- mendation. But is it agreed on all hands, is it the opinion of the learned that the extinction of this language would be an advantage, and not a detriment, to the community ? By no means." 3 Judge Johnes' inferences are : — " That when Wales was blessed with native prelates, they led the van in the progress of religious knowledge. That since she has been ruled by English Bishops, all her great religious benefits have been traceable, either to the influence of Dissenters, or of a class of Clergymen, such as Griffith Jones, who experienced few marks of episcopal favour." 4 The Rev. Thomas Price : — " Doubtless, it was no trifling sense of injury that could compel a people so attached to ancient customs as the 3 Speech at the Wrexham Eisteddfod in 1820. 3 Preface to Welsh Dictionary. 4 Causes of Dissent in Wales, p. 102. Ed. 1 870. 73 Welsh, to forsake the hereditary habits of their country, and abandon those places of worship to which they had resorted in their youth, and where the graves of their forefathers lay. But such was the violence done to their feelings by the unprincipled and oppressive proceedings of those ecclesias- tical traffickers who were sent amongst them, that the strong bands of early attachment, and even of religious associations, were rent asunder, and the people of Wales are at this moment a nation of dissenters, becoming each day more and more exasperated against that Church, out of whose Com- munion they were driven." 5 " When the London Reporters visited the Principality during the late disturbances, though by no means disposed to speak favourably of the Welsh, . . . these men told us distinctly that they have heard the most eloquent and dis- tinguished speakers in Britain, in the Church, the Senate, and at the Bar, and yet for action, delivery, fluency of language, and effect upon the hearers, they never saw a real orator till they came amongst what they designate as ' the inspired peasantry of Wales.' And it is to these people that the English Bishops of Wales send men to preach, who, till within a few months of undertaking that office, have never pronounced one word of the language ! When, therefore, the people contrast the freedom of utterance of their native preachers, with the stammering, hesitating, and blundering of their new preceptors, and the manner in which the latter endeavour to squeeze the bold and masculine intonations of the ancient British language, into the slender, wire-drawn accents of modern tea-table English, is it to be wondered at that they turn away with contempt and disgust, and seek some other instructors ? " 6 Sir Thomas Phillips : — "We have found the ecclesiastical rulers of this clergy 5 Literary Remains, vol. ii. 328. 1844. 6 lb. p. 329. 74 and chief pastors of the people, as well as many other holders of valuable Church preferments, consist often of strangers to the country, ignorant alike of the language and character of the inhabitants, by many of whom they are regarded with distrust and dislike ; unable to instruct the flock committed to their charge, or to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine ; or to preach the word ; or to withstand and con- vince gain sayers, in the language familiar to the common people of the land." " The Church in Wales has been presented in her least engaging aspect, etc." 7 Archdeacon J. Williams :— " The multitude of dissenters, and the paucity of Church members among the Welsh speaking population, might naturally induce the present prelates to suppose that there was some necessary connection between dissent and the Cymraeg, and to forget the terrible truth that, previous to the regular succession of non-Welsh-speaking bishops to the sees of Wales, dissent was either defunct or moribund in every part of the Principality, and that the difference between its present and former state was caused by the offences both given and taken, and by an aggression on the rights and privileges of a Christian people, which was as wicked as it was unprovoked." 8 Dean Edwards : — " Now the Church has lost the command of the forces 1 Wales, pp. 239, 240. 1849. Of Sir T. Phillips, the Quarterly Review, p. 341, Sept. 1849, says: — " This gentleman, who is not less known by his gallant and successful resistance to a dangerous outbreak in 1839, than by his active exertions in the cause of Education, has taken the opportunity of publishing a volume, which is a perfect encyclopaedia of trustworthy information on all subjects connected with the religious and educational state of his country ... He evidently conceals nothing, and often rises from the zeal of an advocate to the impartiality of a judge." 8 On the English Episcopate in Wales, p. 39. 1858. 75 which it represents. Why has it done so ? Because, during the last 150 years, the rulers of the Welsh Church have systematically discouraged the use of the Welsh language. For my own part, I earnestly wish to see the people of Wales able to speak the English language. I yield to no man in the desire that my countrymen should be admitted into the full enjoyment of all the glorious treasures of the great imperial world-language of England. But it is one thing to allow a language to yield to natural causes ; it is another thing to make use of unnatural means to destroy it before its time. I will add that the Church is the very last instrument which ought to have been employed for the accomplishment of such a work." 9 Mr. Gladstone : — " It was thought good policy and good statesmanship to place every office of weight and influence in Wales in the hands of those who would Anglicise that country. That was the root of the misery .... It is a proposition completely sustained by history, that the people of Wales were the staunchest Churchmen in the country as long as their Church was administered in the spirit of sympathy with their national feelings ; whereas there is little room left to doubt that Wales is that portion of the country where Dissent has the deepest root, and firmest organisation, and claims the direct allegiance of the largest portion of the people." 1 Archdeacon Howell : — "There has been for generations the mistaken policy of suppressing Welsh nationality by means of the Church, with the same results in Wales as in Ireland. There has been the neglect of the language and literature of Wales on the part of the gentry and higher clergy, with the result that the 9 Speech at the Leeds Church Congress, 1872. ' Speech in the House of Commons, May 24, 1870. 7 6 people have now a prolific literature of their own, which is anything but friendly to the existing order of things .... There has been the mistaken policy of working the Church in Wales on the same lines as the Church in England, ignoring the genius and temperament of the Welsh people, and treating that as fanaticism which, if rightly directed, would have been a mighty power for good." * One of the most lamentable features of the Anglicising policy is, the studied and systematic discouragement by those in power of Welsh clergy- men who fostered patriotism, promoted Welsh literature, and aspired not unsuccessfully to the confidence of their countrymen. It is difficult to exaggerate the baleful effects of this on the clergy and the Church. The consciousness of the unfit- ness of his superiors for their positions, the cold and often unjust treatment which he received at their hands, the fact that his own partiality to the language and theliterature of his country was looked upon with suspicion, and even hostility, and his own utter powerlessness to remedy a state of things so ruinous to the Church, drove many an earnest Welsh clergyman, first to despair, and then to reckless in- difference.* This accounts for, though it does not 2 Sermon on The Welsh Church, p. 7, 1890. * The following extract is from the pen of an able, but eccentric Welshman, and is, perhaps, entitled to all the more weight from the tact that the choleric temperament of the writer, which is said to have 77 justify, the fact that some of the most gifted among the Welsh clergy of the past sunk into immorality and vice. It is the sad but true explanation of many a ministerial wreck. In the strong words of Pro- fessor Stokes, " Such a course of action demoralises and degrades the local clergy." They had either to abdicate their nationality, and become the mere flattering imitators of their alien or alienised super- iors, or to cling patriotically to the traditions of their Church and country, under the frowns of ecclesias- tical patrons, who, not seldom, visited their dis- pleasure upon them in misrepresentations and petty persecutions. As illustrative of the operation and the inevitable effects of this policy, elsewhere than in Wales, the following striking passage, just quoted from, penned by an eminent ecclesiastical historian, is worthy of the closest attention. caused his professional ruin, seldom allowed him to refer to his countrymen in terms of just, much less of kindly, appreciation. " The Welsh Church is always presided (over) by English bishops ; and from these injudicious appointments arise the serious evils of mis- management in the bishops, and want of discipline in the clergy. These evils are not brought forward as charges, but noticed as certain and inevitable consequences. Suppose the See of London had been filled for centuries by Welsh bishops, who could not speak a word of the English language? The consequences are apparent, and Wales is exposed to all of them ; and if the Welsh clergy had not been of good hearts, and lovers of their king and country, they would long ago have become a lawless mob." History of Wales, by John Jones, LL.D., and Barrister at Law ; pp. 141, 142. 1824. 78 " One point, however, Henry II. had already deter- mined, and that was, that no Irishman should again be Archbishop of Dublin ; and his determination and example were followed, with a very few exceptions, down to the present century. There were twenty-three Archbishops from the time of St. Lawrence to the Reformation. Not one of these was an Irishman. One or two of them, like Arch- bishop Fitzsimon, from 1484 to 1511, may possibly have been born in Ireland, though even this is dubious, or at any rate were beneficed there prior to their elevation. But not one of them was otherwise than of pure English blood and extraction ; a policy which was pursued down to the present century. This was certainly most injurious to the spiritual interests of an important portion of the Church. I have been surprised at the same time to see how exactly this pre- cedent, with all its unfortunate results, is now followed by our colonists, who almost always sendhomefor bishopsfor all their leading Sees. In Ireland in ancient times, in our colonies nowadays, this policy produced and produces the same result. Men are imported who are ignorant of the country, and whose interests all lie in another sphere. Such a course of action demoralises and degrades the local clergy. They feel themselves cut off from all prospects of attaining those higher rewards which lend a stimulus to hope and action, and as the natural result really first-class men avoid a field which implies and carries with it a stigma and a professional degradation. If I were a colonial Churchman, I would prefer an inferior local man to a superior stranger, satisfied that though I might suffer a little at present, in the long run I was conferring a permanent benefit on my own Church by helping to raise its clerical tone and standard. A regiment which always imports its commanding officers from a strange corps will never develope courage, enterprise, or daring among its subordinates." 79 Those who are acquainted with the history of the Church in Wales during the same period, will readily see how strikingly applicable to that history the above passage is, even in most of its details, while they cannot fail to recognise in the closing sentence of the following footnote from the same high authority, another danger which actually menaces the administration of our Church, under the guise of reversing the Anglicising policy of the past : — " From the Reformation to the Disestablishment, there were twenty-three Archbishops of Dublin. Of these, seven alone were men of nominal Irish birth. Their names and dates were, &c. . . . The connection of several of these with Ireland and the Irish Church was merely nominal, just sufficient to give colour to the appointment." 5 It is to be hoped that the foregoing extracts, which could easily be multiplied, will furnish Canon Bevan with that evidence of the existence of the Anglicising policy which he had not seen fourteen years ago. Not the least significant characteristic of those extracts is that, whenever a Welsh Church- man publishes a work, or inaugurates a movement, for the better instruction of his Welsh-speaking countrymen, he has to offer an apology or a self- 3 Prof. G. T. Stokes, Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church, pp. 205, 206. 1892. 8o defence. The writers seem constrained to enter into elaborate explanations of the "why" and the "wherefore" of their undertakings, as though the providing their countrymen with facilities for acquiring a better knowledge of their language, and a larger acquaintance with the native literature of the past, and the furnishing them with better instruments for understanding the doctrines of their Church and their duty towards God and man, stood in need of defence or justification. What is the explanation of this singular Phenomenon ? I am not discuss- ing the state of things in the Middle Ages, or under the system of the Roman Church. The Bible and the Prayer Book had been translated into the vernacular ; the services of the Church and the instruction of her children had been ordered, by canon and by civil law, to be given in the "language understanded of the people." And yet the best and greatest men of the Welsh Church, as we have seen, have had, for three hundred years, to apologise, whenever they manifested their patriotism by promoting the language and litera- ture of their country. Why was this? Is it not because that, in influential quarters, the cultivation of the Welsh language, and Welsh literature, and the encouragement of Welsh patriotism, were 8i looked upon very much in the light of trafficking in contraband goods? The results of this policy are as conspicuous as they are disastrous to the best interests of the Church and nation. It denationalised and demoralised the native clergy ; it brought the Episcopal office and Episcopal functions into contempt ; it invested the Church, in the eyes of the people, with the character of a secular institution ; it alienated from her the Welsh-speaking masses of Wales, who threaten to return in hostile battalions to dislodge her from her position, and to denude her of her emoluments ; it was the principal cause of the great schism of the beginning of this century, which not only deprived the Church of her best ministers and members, but also, at her expense, reinforced the few moribund dissenting congregations that were scattered up and down the country. Some of those who to-day are loudest in their denunciation of political dissenters, and their attack upon the Church, are the lineal descendants, in temper and policy, of those who forced Nonconformity on a reluctant people. On the results of that policy, the following extracts will further speak. The Rev. Eliezer Williams, Vicar of Lampeter, writing in 1810, says in reference to the Welsh Methodist Secession ; — 82 " It is much to be regretted that our bishops are strangers to the country, and know so little of its temper and disposition ; otherwise schisms of this nature might be prevented, or easily repressed when they occur." + The writer of the Memoir, referring to the Rev. Peter Williams, the Commentator, one of the founders of Welsh Methodism, says : — " At the period in which he lived, attempts were made to extirpate the Welsh language by introducing English Schools, and English Bibles, to the systematic exclusion of the Welsh ; the consequence was that the Christian profes- sion of the peasantry abated, and their morals became corrupted." s Judge Johnes: — " It is deeply to be regretted that the aristocracy of Wales should have allowed their Church thus to grow up into a prescriptive abuse ; it has been the means of weakening that attachment which the people once felt to them and their fathers. To see the peasantry of a country and their rulers ranged under conflicting religious teachers, is surely a sad, if not a fearful sight. ... Of one thing I feel assured, that Wales is fast verging to a condition which none who love her, as the[land of their nativity, can regard without feelings of anxiety, if not of alarm. Who is there that does not behold in her present divisions the germ of those evils which afflict a neighbouring country ? Religious differences generally end sooner or later in civil commotions. The Welsh are still a loyal people, but it cannot be disguised that their loyalty is on the wane, and all who are exper- ienced in the character and history of Celtic nations will agree that, when once the tide of their affections is turned, 4 Memoir of Rev. Eliezer Williams, p. lxv. s lb. p. clxxxii. S3 the ebb is as rapid as the flow. When ruled with kindness, the gentlest, the most affectionate of all people ; under misrule, they become impatient of the very elementary bonds of society." « Sir Thomas Phillips : — " The inferiority of native Welshmen, and their unfit- ness for stations of influence and authority, are topics of an inviting description for English writers, and seem to have passed into axioms amongst English rulers. For several generations, no native of Wales has been appointed to a Welsh bishopric, and only rarely to any office of power or authority in the Church. ... In so far then as dis- couragement of natives can produce unfitness for rule or power in their own country, and amongst their own people, Welshmen have been subjected to that depressing influence; and, to some extent, administrative incapacity may have been the result of that policy." 7 Archdeacon J. Williams : — " The abuse has lasted for five generations, and, like every other abuse, has worked out its own mission. It has degraded the great body of the working clergy, quenched their laudable ambition, and neglected their proper and sufficient education. It has done worse ; it has alienated from the Church the most intelligent and industrious portion of the population in Wales. It has forced them to raise teachers for themselves, and to adopt schismatic courses, which must render them necessary enemies to the Church, and foes to the establishment. They abide their time. They know their strength, and are at present resting upon their oars, awaiting the operation of the new Reform Bill promised by Lord Palmerston ! Should it increase, as it is expected, 6 Causes of Dissent, p. 153. 1832. ' Wales, p. 58. 84 the number of democratic voters, the political strength of Welsh dissenters will be brought to bear, not against the abuses in the Church, but against its very existence as an establishment. And if it be proved that the bulk of the Welsh-speaking inhabitants in the Principality have aban- doned the Church of their forefathers, and have rejected the services of the clergy whom their bishops have ordained and set over them, the public will certainly demand an inquiry as to the chief cause of such a general desertion, and then Englishmen will first learn the rottenness of the whole system, under the operation of which the Episcopal Church in Wales has been forsaken by multitudes of as true men and faithful Christians as ever believed that " Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and hoped to have life through His Name." 8 Dean Edwards: — " That the persistent efforts of injustice are about to work out their own punishment ; that Canterbury is about to suffer the penalties of its ancient injustice to St. David's — those men who foresee the course of ecclesiastical events in the coming years will perhaps be able to predict. That the forces which have been long dormant in the religious attitude of the Cymric people, are destined to exercise a commanding influence in shaping those events, and are, at present, threat- ening to be no slight source of weakness to the English Establishment, is certain. The influence of the religious genius of the Cymric race, crushed by long oppression, retired into its own wild fastnesses ; but to-day it is rising from the tomb that recalls the epitaph — "Hie jacet Arturus rex quondam rexipie futurus" — words significant of the imperish- able spirit of Cymric nationality." 9 " The policy has been to drive the Welsh into the adop- 8 English Episcopate in Wales, pp. io, 1 1. 9 Wales and the Welsh Church, pp. 1 20, 121. 85 tion of English, by despising and ignoring it in the high places of the Church. That policy has failed. It has driven the Welsh people out of the Church into the chapels, under the influence of intensely national Welsh-speaking teachers, and has prolonged the life of the language for many generations." 1 "The neglect of the Welsh language, and national jealousy of Welsh preaching and literature, which were in- evitably produced by the example and influence of the English Episcopate, has left consequences that will not dis- appear in one generation. The tone and spirit of the old regime still survives in a large number of the clergy. Welsh preaching, speaking, and writing, are still considered vulgar, and left by the superior clergy to the Nonconformists. The inferior clergy naturally imitate the mental habits of their superiors Consequently, the agencies that mould the life of the Welsh speaking million of Wales are too often neglected by the Church, and the higher clergy are content to be apostles to the genteel." 2 Archdeacon Pryce : — " Never, indeed, was the Church brought nearer to the edge of that precipice over which there is no divine assur- ance against the falling of national Churches, if they prove unfaithful to their trust. No wonder that, taught by bitter experience, the Welsh mind should entertain almost a morbid dread of State interference in ecclesiastical matters." J The following comprehensive summary is an accurate account of the principal origin of all the misfortunes that either have befallen, or are threat- ening the Welsh Church : — " Alien Bishops, alien in thought, language, and feeling, i lb. p. 207. - lb. 256. 3 The Ancient British Church, p. 256. 86 were thrust on a reluctant people. The clergy were very often non-resident, and curates ' passing rich on forty pounds a year,' did their duties. Religion declined, darkness lay over the land, and the clergy were blind leaders of the blind. The teaching from the pulpit was dry. ' The people,' said Griffith Jones, of Llanddowror, 'dissented from want of plain, practical, zealous teaching.' There was no life, no spirit, no effort. Again, a wave of revivalism set in. Here and there an individual clergyman arose who endeavoured to meet the wants of the people. These earnest workers were, however, persecuted by the alien bishops, and were driven into other channels. This evan- gelical upheaval, which was then regarded as an outburst of temporary fanaticism, had far-reaching results. It was due to the absence of Welsh-speaking bishops, to the inelasticity of the Church system, to the separation of class from class. It finally culminated in 1811 — only eighty one years ago — in the formal separation of the Calvinistic Methodists from the Church to which they had always been attached, and under whose shadow they still, in most cases, pay their last duty to their dead.'S "To ignore the Welsh is not to annihilate it. Any attempt to regain to the Church the Welsh people, must be made through the language which they best understand, and which speaks directly to their hearts. And the removal of the most serious part of the bilingual difficulty cannot be accomplished until all the clergy — bishops, priests, and deacons — who are to deal with it, are sufficient masters of the two languages." s It has been the fashion of late in some quarters to question, or deny, the existence of a Welsh 4 Bishop of Bangor, ttt supra. 5 Dean Lewis, Report of Swansea Church Congress, 1879, p. 253. 87 nation. This theory has been supported, if not originated, by so high an authority as Professor Boyd Dawkins, who says that " The fusion of the English and the Welsh has been going on ever since the Norman Conquest, to the mutual advantage of both . . . The only difference in blood between the inhabitants of England and Wales is that there are more English in the former than in the latter. The people are composed of the same race elements in both, and only differ from each other in the proportion in which the elements are mingled." 6 I agree with Professor Boyd Dawkins that it is mischievous, and, for the Welsh, suicidal "to revive an antagonism between the English and Welsh;" and believing the Church, by the nature of her mission and her message, to be the most con- ciliatory element in the life of the two races, I maintain that the policy advocated in these pages is calculated, above all things, to remove the most serious causes of antagonism. Such was the opinion of the weighty authorities I have quoted, and such was the experience of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But Professor Boyd Dawkins' argument in reality rather strengthens than does away with Welsh nationality ; or else it disproves English nationality as well. If the fact that the inhabitants 6 The place of the Welsh in the History of Britain, p. 46. 1889. 88 of Wales are a mixed race disproves Welsh nation- ality, the same fact in the case of the inhabitants of England invalidates their claim likewise to be con- sidered a separate nationality. Though it may be doubtless correct in some sense to designate the inhabitants of the United Kingdom as the British nation, which seems to me to be the logical con- clusion of Professor Boyd Dawkins' argument, it will be still acknowledged that there are distinctive peculiarities, which sharply differentiate the people of Wales from those of England, and, though per- haps in a smaller degree, the people of Scotland from both. The Bishop of St. David's* is, apparently, un- able to satisfy himself that the Welsh people are a nation, failing, as they do in his opinion, to answer to the canons of nationality which he lays down. He comes to the conclusion, therefore, "that Wales is, at present, nothing more than ... a geo- graphical expression." His lordship does not tell us whether all, or how many, of his seven or more tests are essential to substantiate the claims of nationality. Certain it is that neither the English, nor any other people, can satisfy all, or even the majority, of those tests. The Bishop of * Charge, 1886, pp. 32, 33. 89 St. Asaph, * though he does not " wish to deride Welsh nationality," finds it, nevertheless, ex- tremely difficult to define its essentials, and comes to the conclusion that the nationality argument is fallacious and "very dangerous," and that its danger consists in its vagueness. The arguments against both Disestablishment and a separate legislative treatment for the Principality, rest, I hope, on some- thing far sounder and more substantial than the vagueness of Welsh nationality. However, as both the Right Reverend Prelates I have quoted have themselves assured us that they are Welshmen, which term, if it means anything, connotes nation- ality, their assurance may be safely assumed to disprove the vagueness, if not the danger, of Welsh nationalily. I find, moreover, that whenever it is necessary to read us a lecture on the perjury of Welshmen in the law courts, or the extent to which incontinence, prevarication, and other national vices or vagaries prevail in Wales, it is found neither dangerous nor difficult to assume or assert our nationality. Welsh nationality has, indeed, not only an existence, but a history, which reaches far back to remote antiquity, notwithstanding the almost * Speech at Shrewsbury, February 17, 1893. go unprecedented vicissitudes of fortune it has ex- perienced. "These feeble remains of a great people had the glory of keeping possession of their last corner of territory, against the efforts of an enemy immensely superior in number and resources — often vanquished, but never subjugated, and of bearing through the course of ages the unshaken conviction of a mysterious eternity, reserved for their name and their language." 7 "The tough vitality of the Celtic character maintained itself in Asia comparatively unimpaired among the Phrygians and Greeks, as it has done in our own islands among Saxons, and Danes, and Normans, retaining its individuality of type, after the lapse of ages, and under conditions the most adverse." 8 " Modern research has conclusively proved that the Celtic race is endowed with a marvellous tenacity. Its race customs, its tribal organisations, its tales and traditions, all embody oriental ideas carried with them from the most dis- tant East. The investigations of Dr. Whitley Stokes, for instance, have clearly shown that many of the popular tales and traditions — the folk-lore of Ireland — are identical with those of India." 9 Commenting on the theory of Professor Boyd Dawkins, Professor Hartwell Jones says : — " It would be presumptuous to attempt to impugn the credit of the authority cited in his special province ; but his view will not commend itself to any one who is familiar with Welsh literature, or has obtained an insight into Welsh i Thierry, Norman Conquest. 8 Bishop Lightfoot, Comm. on Calatians, p. 12. 7th ed. 9 Prof. G. T. Stokes, Ireland and the Cedic Church, p. 182. 9i school or student life. No subtle analysis, therefore, is required to seize the salient features of Welsh genius, which have been perpetuated from the dawn of British history, and to distinguish in the Welsh student, under changed and more favourable conditions, traits that marked his forefathers, in the days of the Roman historians, whose statements have been confirmed by the estimate formed of these Celtic char- acteristics by Shakespere, Milton, and Thierry, and the accumulated testimony of later generations. Was the Celt of Caesar or Agricola's time remarkable for his warm and generous impulses ? So is he to-day. Did he dissipate his energies in intestine struggles ? So he does, more or less, to-day. The vigorous vitality of the Celtic character, then, being still unimpaired, amid the most discouraging forces, or at any rate, not perceptibly diminished, and the transmission of these racial qualities being undoubted, it may not be un- reasonable to attempt to differentiate the Welsh mind, and trace any characteristics that may have survived." 1 " And is there any man who would wish to eradicate this attachment to our country and traditions from our hearts? Surely that man would be the greatest enemy to his country. And if the day should ever come in which the energies of our country should be so required as that the peasantry of Britain must exert themselves in an unusual manner, depend upon it, this feeling of national attachment which we are now cherishing, will be found among the most valuable and powerful supports of public honour and safety." 3 "The distinct national gifts that form the peculiar genius of a national character, ought to be retained and cul- tivated, for they increase the sum of the moral and intellectual capital of mankind." 3 1 The opportunities of Welsh Educationists, p. io. 1892. A very able and interesting analysis of Welsh characteristics may be seen in the following pages of this scholarly lecture. 2 Rev. T. I'rice, Remains, Vol. ii., p. 126. 3 Dean Edwards, Wales and the Welsh Churchy. 189. 9 2 " I submit that we shall do more for the British Empire as patriotic Welshmen than as mongrel Englishmen; and that whatever tends to denationalise tends also to demoralise an ancient nation like ours." 4 This spirit of Welsh nationality and patriotism, which has always distinguished our countrymen, has received warm encouragement and commenda- tion from the lips of generous Englishmen ; it is the Anglicised Welshman that tramples upon and traduces it, and affects to despise the language of his country. " There are some, even among the Sons of Cambria (but they are degenerate sons) that have conceived such an unaccountable dislike and aversion to their mother tongue, that they have not scrupled to wish it exterminated, and every memorial of it erased from the earth .... It may be observed that they who, being Welshmen by birth, have lately commenced (being) Englishmen, and either have, or pretend to have, forgot their mother tongue, are generally the most rancorous against it, in order, I suppose, to manifest their affection for that which they have espoused." 3 " Many great and good men have been advocates for that under-current of national feeling that at present prevails in Wales, as in Scotland and Ireland, and many of the greatest English writers of the present day have sanctioned it. It is certainly unwise to wage war with those distinctions which only serve to promote a friendly and genial emulation. The strength of the British Empire will be found to depend, 4 Archdeacon Howell, Welsh Nationality, p. 10. s J. Walters, M.A., Dissertation on the Welsh Language, pp. 19, 20. 1S15. 93 not on intellectual monotony, but on the varied endowments of the great Celtic and Teutonic families." 6 Speaking of the Welsh people, Mr. Ruskin says : — " My respect for their ancient and heroic nationality is, indeed, limitless, and well could I wish for my England's own sake that, beyond the Severn, the modes of life, the language, the music, and the hearts of the people she once oppressed so cruelly might remain for ever in forgiveness, as the stones of Aberystwyth are wrought by the cruel sea to their fairest colours." " I speak, of course, only according to my lights, when I respectfully urge you to cast yourselves rather into the stream of modern thought, illuminated by modern scientific knowledge and study, than to cling to the turbid back- waters of the last centuries, and to seek for a healthy devel- opment, not in mimicry and unions based on mediaeval phantasmagoria, but in obedience to the genius with which nature has endowed you." 7 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, in his speech at Carnarvon, on the 26th of April, 1893, said : — " I say this without in the least degree desiring to de- preciate the strong feeling of local patriotism — you may call it a spirit of nationality if you like — which undoubtedly is as strong in Wales as it is in Scotland or Ireland. If I were a Welshman, I should feel it myself, though I hope I should be able to subordinate it, as by all sensible men it ought to be subordinated, to a belief that, in everything that may be necessary for the common interest of all, whether in politics or religion, those Welshmen are really best protecting the 6 Johnes' Causes of Disunt, p. 53. 7 The Marquess of Bute, Y Cymi/iroJor, 1883, p. 107. 94 interests of Wales who adhere most closely to her union with England." The following passage is no less remarkable for its insight into the present state of Welsh Christianity, than for the candour, and even bold- ness of its utterance. " The Welsh would feel more interest in the ancient organisation if it was wholly Welsh and indigenous, than they do when it is everywhere asserted that the Welsh Church is the same as the English, one and indissoluble. It is mere pedantry to insist on exactly the same ecclesiastical forms as best suited to all nationalities. We are beginning to drop that pedantry in the Colonies, and this is an opportunity not to be despised for dropping it in Wales. Welsh nationality is sufficiently marked to have its own province, its own ecclesiastical ideas, its own customs and adaptations. The proof of it is seen in the abnormal and unparalleled develop- ment of fervid Celtic Nonconformity." 8 The pet aversion of the Anglicised Welshman is the Welsh language, to which he traces all the misfortunes of the Principality. He seems to have convinced himself that its extinction would be speedily followed by the restoration of peace and progress for the Church, and of the permanent fusion of Englishmen and Welshmen into one homogeneous people. " The limited number of the native inhabitants of the Principality, the peculiarity of their language, the practical 8 Archdeacon Sinclair, Churchman, April, 1893. 95 inconvenience arising from the want of a common medium of communication, and the difficulties thus presented to religious communion in districts inhabited by Englishmen as well as Welshmen, have produced a frequent and earnest desire to extinguish the Welsh language, and to make English the tongue and speech of the Welsh people. That wish is loudly proclaimed in our own times ; and the sanc- tion of influential members of the Government and legisla- ture of the country has been given, not only to the opinion that the Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales, and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people, and that it is not easy to over- estimate its evil effects— that it distorts truth, favours fraud, and abets perjury ; but also to the expectation that this disastrous barrier to all moral improvement and popular progress, may be speedily removed by the establishment of English schools in Wales." 9 Referring to the diversion of the revenues of the Welsh Church from their proper objects, by the appointment of non-Welsh-speaking Bishops, Archdeacon Williams says : — " Many false brethren among ourselves approve of this diversion, as furnishing sufficient supplies to the persons best qualified by office and high position, to exterminate the native language. . . . These calumniators will have it that this same language is the cause of all the evils, spiritual and material, under which Wales, like all other countries, labours, and that the prelates of Wales cannot devote their wealth, influence, and patronage, to a better object than the substitution of the English for the Welsh." 1 » Sir Thomas Phillips, Wales, p. 14. 1 " English Bishops in Welsh Sees." p. 39. 96 The poor Welsh language is still made to carry a heavy load of guilt, and the " false brethren " are by no means extinct. It is made responsible for all the vices of the Welsh people, real or imaginary. It fosters a spurious nation- ality ; it feeds a scurrilous press; it handicaps our Welsh youth in the race of life ; it has no literature ; it hinders the progress of the Welsh Church ; it prepetuates Nonconformity ; and, lastly, it can scarcely be called a language — it is only a relic of barbarous ages — out of harmony with the culture and the civilization of this nineteenth century.* All this is said, or insinuated, in utter disre- gard of facts, which are easily accessible to any one who cares to look for them. It is, indeed, sadly true that much of our vernacular press is full of scurrilous, and even seditious matter. " Even in our professedly religious publications, there is not seldom a bandying of bitter personalities, a reckless imputation of motives, and an intolerance of differences, * So inveterate is the prejudice still existing in some quarters against the Welsh language, that men, otherwise well-informed, and even learned, not seldom remind one of the words of Humphrey Llwyd, written more then three centuries ago : " Cujus lingu;e ignorantia viros etiam ornatissimos in tales perduxit augustias, ut cum de uno errore sese explicare conabantur, in plures ac multo crassiores incidebant." Commtntarioli, &c, p. 2, 1568. " Eruditissimi ob linguae ignorantiam in nominibus Provinciarum et Regionum, aliarumque rerum, mirum in modum hallucinantur." — lb. 97 such as make me sometimes tremble for the future of my country." 1 I fear it is only too true that the spirit of much of the Welsh press is doing not a little to rob the Welsh people of their geniality, and their generosity — poisoning the charities of life, and dealing deadly blows at the spirit of true religion among us.* But I see no hope of improvement by substituting the English for the Welsh language. Sedition and disaffection — scurrilous language and revolutionary theories — are at least as familiar to the English as to the Welsh newspapers. And, extravagant and 1 Archdeacon Howell, Welsh Nationality, p. 13. * It would be well if controversialists and party newspapers re- membered that truth is strong enough, nay even strongest, in her native garb — that her lustre is tarnished, her edge is blunted, and her force weakened, by the blindness of prejudice and the bitterness of passion. The following words, spoken by the late Rev. David Charles, B.A., at the Association of the Calvinistic Methodists in 1864, in reference to the Welsh Press, are even more apposite to-day than they were thirty years ago, and deserve the closest attention from the leaders of religious life and thought in the Principality. " I remember the time when there was no Welsh newspaper published in Wales ; but a great change has taken place since then. Newspapers at present exercise a greater in- fluence than any other kind of literature, and I grieve to say that I look upon this with sorrow ; for instead of elevating and cultivating the public taste, they allow themselves to become instruments of defamation and personal abuse, by affording opportunities to the lowest of the people to blacken the characters, and to revile the good name of public persons and institutions. They occasion strifes, and create ill-feelings, and open their columns to disappointed, envious people, who, under fictitious names, spit their venom at men against whom they dare not utter a word in their face." 9 s mischievous as the political teaching of our Welsh press may sometimes be, it is, as yet, free from the atheistic poison, and the gross sensationalism, not unknown to the English press. The words of Griffith Jones, written 154 years ago, are still applicable. " There are some advantages peculiar to the Welsh' tongue, favourable to religion, as being perhaps the chastest in all Europe. Its books and writings are free from the infection and deadly venom of atheism, deism, infidelity, Arianism, Popery, lewd plays, immodest romances, and love intrigues ; which poison the minds, captivate all the senses, and prejudice so many (conversant with them) against their duty to God, and due care of their own souls, and which, by too many books in English, and some other languages, are this day grievously propagated . . . . It is, therefore, no inconsiderable advantage that our language is so great a protection and defence to our common people, against the growing corruption of the times in the English tongue ; by which means they are less prejudiced, and better disposed to receive divine instructions, when offered to them in their native tongue." 2 " A taste for books in their own language is now reviving, and gains considerably among the Welsh ; than which nothing can more effectually secure their morals, and consequently their happiness ; especially as there are not, and we hope never will be, in our language, any such im- moral and otherwise pernicious publications, as in most other countries are the bane of morality, and of social happiness. From this circumstance we can claim some honour — due, 3 Letters on the Welsh Charity Schools, 1739, pp. 38, 39. 99 and justly so, to our humbler classes, in whose hands and at whose mercy our literature has forages been ; and yet never considerably abused, or perverted from its proper ends of genuinely civilising our successive generations." 3 The Welsh language has, not seldom, been held responsible for perpetuating the isolation and idiosyncrasies of the Welsh people. Those who are expecting its death imply not obscurely that with it will perish all distinct traces of Welsh nationality, all disaffection against Church and State, and much besides. To this it seems enough to reply that, according to Mr. Ravenstein's calculations in 1879, of a population of 5,412,377 in Ireland, only 817,875 were able to speak the Irish language; whereas of a population of 1,412,573 in Wales, no less than 934)53° were able to speak Welsh. Still more significant is the fact, brought out by the same authority, that, of monoglot Welshmen, the number was 304,110, whereas the monoglot Irishmen num- bered only 103,562. In other words, of the popula- tion of Wales, 66. 1 percent, were able tospeak Welsh, while of the Irish population, only 15.3 percent, could speak Irish ; and of monoglot Welshmen there were 20.8 per cent., while monoglot Irish- speaking Irishmen numbered less than 2 per cent. 5 Myfyrian Arcliaiolo^y of Wales. 1801. p. xv, IOO And yet it will hardly be asserted, even by the most redoubtable enemy of the Welsh language, and the vernacular press, that political disaffection is less rife and rampant in Ireland than in Wales, or that nationalism is a less thriving plant when cultivated by newspapers published in the English language. " The scientific study of ethnology, especially assisted by the scientific study of history and philology, is spreading the knowledge that nature has made race differences which are only eradicable with the races themselves ; and I look forward to a time when the corollary will be more fully recognised, that conditions which may be admirably suited to the peasant of Surrey are, as applied to the British peasant, or, for the matter of that, systems well adapted for the Briton, are, when applied to the Saxon, although not fruitless in some sort of culture, fruitful only in the same way as would be the culture of an oak tree with an exclusive view to make it bring forth grapes. It may be mutilated of certain sur- roundings and externals, but its nature remains. The Cymric provinces of Scotland, and part of the Gaelic, have lost their Celtic languages for centuries, but how much more have they lost of their individuality ? However, I could not take a better example than Ireland. For how many centuries that country has had the advantages of English theories and practices of government, you know ; and how far it has entered into a solidarity with England you may see, though its language has been all but stamped out, and much else stamped out altogether." 4 " It will not be thought idle to look for traces of the Celtic character in the Galatians of St. Paul's Epistle, for, in "The Marquess of Bute, Cymmrodor, 1883 ; pp. 106, 107. lOI general, the character of a nation even out-lives its lan- guage." 5 " If the language of Wales were obliterated to-morrow, our ethnic differences would still remain." 6 In accounting for the spread of Dissent in Wales, in my humble opinion, too much stress has generally been laid on the neglect of the Welsh language, and too little on the peculiarities of the Welsh character. I cannot help thinking that, if the Cambro-British dialect could be annihilated in a day, the want of sympathy between the clergy and their flocks would still continue to alienate the hearts of the people from the establishment." 7 The Welsh language is again said to be a hin- drance to the progress of the Welsh youth. But even granting the truth of this, it is surely not in our power to destroy a language by a whine or a sneer. Artificial means employed for that purpose have hitherto defeated their own ends, and have attained some very undesirable ones besides. In the second place, the knowledge of an additional language is a distinct advantage to the student for the acquisition and mastery of others, while " It is stated on high authority that the bilingual nations of Europe are among the most intelligent, enterprising, and progressive ; and that, when a people retain their own language, their morals are superior to the morals of those who have become amalgamated with other nations." 8 5 Bishop Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 13. 6 Archdeacon Howell, Westminster Sermon, p. 14. 1 Johnes, Causes of Dissent, p. 52. 8 Archdeacon Howell, Welsh Nationality, p. II. 102 Moreover, the Welsh language was cultivated, and Welsh literature was promoted, in a high degree, as we have seen, by the gentry and the higher clergy of Wales, in the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, and it can be easily proved that that period was conspicuous, above all others in our history, for the large number of Welshmen who rose to high positions in Church and State, as well as to literary eminence. " As I am set here for the moment to speak and to ex- hort, I take the occasion to exhort you not to let go the tongue of your fathers .... Knowledge of languages singularly expands the field of intellectual vision . . To know other languages than one's own is an excellent thing. But I should think myself very ill-advised if I tried to sub- stitute [the French language] for my own tongue — silly in myself, vulgar in social intercourse, irreverent in prayer. I would urge you, then, to cling to the language of your fathers, and to seek through it the development of literary power and intellectual culture. For a man to speak Welsh, and willingly not to be able to read and write it, is to confess himself a boor . . . Try to understand the language grammatically, and to speak with the light of reason. As an excellent friend of mine, who taught me what little Welsh letters I ever learnt, used to say, ' If you are a gentleman, speak like a gentleman, whatever the language you employ.' " 9 " But what, if, by our neglect of Welsh, we are throw- ing away a gift of Providence ? Is there any reason why a .people should not learn, and thoroughly understand, a f The Marquess of Bute, 1 Cymmrodor, 1883, pp. 108, 109. >o3 neighbouring language, without immediately smothering their own ? It is just as easy to speak two languages as to speak one. There are many parts of Europe where the peasantry do speak two, and are, on that account, generally remarkable for their intelligence. Nay, by knowing a second language, a man is at once in some degree educated, and is twice as much an intellectual being. Now all this might not prove the expediency of teaching our peasantry any far-fetched tongue, such as Latin or French ; but it is a strong reason against throwing away their own language which you have already at hand, it being universally allowed that, if possible, they are to be taught English. Why, then, is it obstinate or unreasonable, if we hesitate before we sacrifice a tongue endeared by a thousand reminiscences, most noble and eloquent in sound, ancient in structure, and with some qualities which peculiarly fit it for evoking the powers of the intellect." 1 "I believe that to preserve and honour the Welsh language and literature, is quite compatible with not thwart- ing or delaying, for a single hour, the introduction, so undeniably useful, of a knowledge of English among all classes in Wales." 1 Another taunt levelled against the usefulness of the Welsh language is the poverty of its litera- ture. From the Norman Conquest to the present time, the inhabitants of Wales have numbered, roughly speaking, from 150,000 to 1,500,000, about one third of which, more or less, has consisted of Englishmen and English-speaking Welshmen. 1 Dr. Rowland Williams, Lays from the Cimbric Lyre, p. 259. 2 Matthew Arnold, Celtic Literature p. ix. Popular Edition. 104 The English language is wide-world ; the Welsh language is chiefly confined to the Principality. A comparison between the literatures of the two nations would be absurdly unfair. Nevertheless, there is a vast amount of literature, both in manuscript and in print, in the Welsh language. Canon Silvan Evans, the most competent living authority on the subject, tells me that "There are works in Welsh (e.g. The Mabinogion, Dafydd ab Gwilym, Goronwy Owen) of which any nation may be proud. I hold that there are quite as many books pub- lished in Welsh at the present time, as in English, that is, in proportion to the number of persons that speak the two languages." * The backward state of the Church in Wales is sometimes attributed to the existence of the Welsh language, and a rich legacy of triumphs is predicted after its decease. Having given a summary of the distribution of the two languages in the Welsh counties, based on Mr. Ravenstein's calculations, Canon Bevan goes on to say : — " It will hardly escape the observation of the reader that the area of the predominance of the Welsh, is also the area of the marked predominance of Nonconformity." 3 * Writing of the Welsh Bards, Dr. J. D. Rhys says : " Quorum in regione Cambrobrytannica pollent etiam nunc hac in arte nonnulli qui nec Latinis neque Grsecis (suo in genere) concedant." Epistola Dedicatoria, prefixed to his Grammar. 1 592. 3 The case for the Church in Wales, p. 13. m This is a significant admission, and involves the most crushing condemnation of the Anglicising policy. It means that, where the population is English, and does not require the services of Welsh- speaking bishops and clergy, there the Church stands its ground ; and that, where the population is predominantly Welsh, and demands Church ministrations in the vernacular, but did not receive them in an adequate measure, there the people deserted their spiritual mother, and frequented the Nonconformist chapels, where they were ministered unto in their own tongue. That, in brief, is the history of the defection of the Welsh people from the Welsh Church. To quote Canon Silvan Evans once more : — " The Anglicising tendency has been the curse of the Church for upwards of two centuries. It has done more harm to the Church than all other agencies put together." It is now rather late in the day to afRrm that Welsh is too vulgar for the refined organs of educated people, though not too late to act on the assumption. The Welsh language stands in no need of patronage or panegyric. Its existence and its history are its credentials. It is the only surviv- ing sister of the venerable tongues of ancient Hin- dustan, Greece, and Rome. In copiousness, it io6 yields perhaps only to the richest of its sisters ; its root words are numerous ; its means of forming compound words are almost endless.* " Dr. Owen Pughe's Welsh-English Dictionary is said to contain 80,000 words, and the Dictionary of Canon Silvan Evans, now in course of publication, will contain 10,000 more." 4 " While the modes of speech of the powerful states of Ancient Gaul and Spain have become so intermixed with the Latin, and that of England, and of a great part of Ireland and Scotland, with the Teutonic, as to form new languages, the Celtic dialects remain in these sequestered spots in a great measure free from foreign mixtures in a wonderful manner ; and, with respect to the Welsh, it has withstood the en- croachments of the Saxons, the fury of the Danes, and the address of the Normans, and is written even at the present day by our literary characters in its genuine purity." 5 The Welsh language shows no signs of im- * " Propediem expectabis a me proditurum metaphysices compen- dium ; quod quandoquidem ita es hujus linguae cupidus Cymroece, Deo favente, reponam. In quo clarissime liquebit quam prae- gnans, quam foecunda sit lingua Cambrobrytannica, quam appositi- tiis vocabulis simplicibus, compositis, deductitiis, quamlibet artem et scientiam explicet, quam non cedat Arabicx, Graecae, et Romanse copiae." Dr. J. D. Rhys, Epistola Dedicatoria, to Sir E. Stradling, prefixed tu his Grammar of the Welsh language. 1592. " Altera quae occurrit hujus conceptionis causa est summa linguae pnestantia ; qua? congruentia, copia, verborum elegantia, nulli sororum postponenda ; lingua (sine dubio) derivationibus, compositionibus, vocum aptitudine, et sermonis vetustate adeo dives, ut ad cujuslibet artis cognitionem exprimendam, facilius aut felicius nihil exoptari poterit." Preface to the same, by Humphrey Prichard. * Archdeacon Howell, Welsh Nationality, p. 11. 5 The Rev. W. J. Rees, M.A., Cambro Briton. Vol. iii., p. 224. 1821. 107 mediate dissolution. The hope of its disappearance will prove to be "hope long deferred;" it will assuredly disappoint those who cherish it to-day, as it has disappointed their predecessors of many centuries. This undying love of their language seems to be peculiar to the Welsh people. It is a sentiment handed down from their remote ancestors, and preserved amidst many a wreck of other bless- ings, and other privileges, dearly valued. Who shall blame them for their tenacity? There is something invincible about it; something unquench- able. The stranger may scoff at their language and their nationality ; but they are facts traceable through the changes and revolutions of two thousand years. They have survived through all the stormy vicissitudes of fortune, and are with us to-day, assertive as ever. We do not envy the great English nation their splendid language, their magnificent literature, and their mighty empire ; it is our proudest boast to share in their destiny, to participate in their treasures, and to shelter beneath their beneficent rule. We feel no jealousy that we form but a comparatively insignificant portion of their noble Church, from which we shall never consent to be severed. But they will not grudge us the boast that our nationality, our lan- ro8 guage, and our Church, are older than theirs. It was asked not long ago whether the Welsh can be said to have any history at all. That history may not have been written on parchment, or printed on paper; but it is imbedded in traditions, in proverbs, in triads, in poetry, and in music; it is reflected in romances and chronicles, in temples and tombstones. Our ancestors may have been too busily engaged in the defence of their liberties to fill up the annals, or too proud to hand down to posterity the records of their defeats ; or their conquerors may have buried or burnt their memorials, in order to obliterate from the vanquished the memory of the past. Be that as it may, the Welshman has a history, fragments of which are still decipherable. The mournful sounds of defeat, the jubilant notes of triumph, the majestic strains of martial prowess, still re-echo in his national airs. The credentials of his remote ancestry are still visible in the words which he utters, the nation- ality which he cherishes, and the boundless hopes that swell in his bosom. " Three things a Welshman should love before all things, the Welsh nation, Welsh customs, and the Welsh language." 6 Taliesyn ben Beirdd sang in early times : — 6 Welsh Triad. 109 " Eu ner a folant, Eu hiaith a gadvvant, Eu tir a gollant, Ond gwyllt Walia." The answer of an old man at Pencader to Henry II. is thus recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis : — " Nor do I think that any other nation than this of Wales, or any other language, whatever may hereafter come to pass, shall, in the day of severe scrutiny before the supreme Judge, answer for this corner of the earth." " The bards of the sixth century predicted " for the Welsh language " eternity of duration ; their prediction will not, however, be falsified in our days. The Cambrian idiom is still spoken by a sufficiently extensive population to render its future extinction very difficult to foresee. It has survived all the other dialects of the ancient British language." 7 " A language to which the people who speak it cling with affection, dies a slow death, and Welsh may survive for centuries to come." 8 " In truth, I suspect that we do not always take into account how very remarkable a phenomenon in European history the separate existence of the Welsh language really is . . . the existence of that stubborn British tongue, which has survived two conquests ; the fact that, in spite of the coming of Claudius, and the coming of Hengest, an appre- ciable part of Britain still speaks the tongue of Caradoc and Boadicea, is a fact which has no real parallel in Western Europe." 9 The Welsh language is still living and vigor- 7 Thierry's, Norman Conquest. Vol. ii. , p. 296. Bohn's Ed. 8 Ravenstcin, Journal of the Statistical Society, p. 622, Sept., 1879. 9 Professor Freeman, Arclncolo^ia Cambrensis, Oct. 1S76, p. 328. no ous ; the tide of Welsh nationality is once more rising. What is the Church to do ? There are some who console themselves with the hope that the Church will be the principal legatee of the Welsh language. There is no other reply to those than the manly words of Dean Edwards : — " The Welsh language may die, but you will die ages before it. You cannot justify your present position by saying that you are waiting for the shoes of a dead language." 1 The Church in time past has been so closely identified with the fortunes of the Welsh language, that a Welsh Churchman can find no better words to embody his opinion than those used by the Dean on another occasion : — " If the Welsh language is ever to die, its last echoes should be heard within the walls of the old parish Churches of Wales." It found an asylum in those Churches when it had, apparently, been expelled from many a Welsh cottage in the sixteenth century, and again when it had been driven out of the halls and mansions of the Welsh aristocracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The peril of the Welsh Church is lest her interests should be divorced from those of the nation. We need among our leaders men who realise the identity of those interests. Our loss f Wales and the Welsh Church, p. 345. 1 1 1 has been that, for the last two hundred years, we have had no sympathising intermediaries between the two ; no Salisbury, or Myddleton, or Kyffin, or Vaughan, among the promoters of our language and literature ; no Sir John Wynn, or Sir Edward Stradling, or an Earl of Pembroke,* among the patrons of our men of letters ; no William Hughes, or William Morgan, or Richard Davies, or Richard Parry, among our bishops, to encourage the cul- tivation of Welsh preaching and Welsh literature among the clergy. The results are obvious. Dis- sent was a later, and, in its earlier stages, a far feebler thing in Wales than in England. But the Anglicising policy not only fanned into flames its dying embers in the last century, but has since continued to impart to it vigour and volume, not to say violence. Quousque tandem ? asks the patriotic Churchman. The Anglicised Welshman replies with blind credulity, "The Welsh language is * William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, was, as we have already seen, himself proficient in the Welsh language, and a generous patron of Welsh literature and lilerati. He is said to have composed the following Triads of the four nations ; The three things notable in a Cymro are : genius, generosity, and mirth ; in a Saxon : coolness, boldness, and industry ; in a Frenchman : gallantry, courtesy, and inconstancy ; in an Irishman : flattery, cunning, and ostentation. The three things that will make a man wise are : the genius of a Cymro, the courtesy of a French- man, and the industry of a Saxon. The Earl of Pembroke died in T630. Angharad Llwyd's History of Anglesey, p. 7, note. 112 rapidly dying, and with it will die Welsh Noncon- formity, when the Church will once more resume her ascendancy." Familiar as he is with this pro- phecy and promise of reform, a hundred times uttered and as often falsified, the Welsh Churchman can only rejoin — " Qui recte vivendi horam prorogat, Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis ; at ille Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis agvum." 2 * 1 Horace, Epist. i. 2. 41-43. *One sees occasionally some random and even reckless experiments made in guessing the comparative numbers of those, who, in the Principality, are monoglot Welshmen, monoglot Englishmen, and bilinguists respectively. I have somewhere seen it estimated that, out of a population of 1,600,000, 50 per cent, are monoglot Englishmen, 22 per cent, monoglot Welshmen, while the remaining 28 per cent, are bilinguists, an estimate which can only reveal either the humour or the incompetency of the calculator. Fortunately, however, this question has been rescued from the hands of dabblers in figures, a large crop of whom has sprung up among us of late, and has received a painstaking and an exhaustive treatment by an eminent and an acknowledged statistician, some four and twenty years ago. Those who will read pages 579 and 580 of the " Journal of the Statistical Society " for September, 1879, will see that Mr. Ravenstein has spared no pains in carrying out his investigations into the "Celtic languages in the British Isles," and will have no difficulty in acknowledging that his calculations embody by far the most, if not the only reliable information on this subject. His conclusions are as follows : — Out of a population of some 1,412,583, about 21 percent, spoke Welsh only ; 34 per cent. English only, while 45 spoke both languages. This makes 66 per cent, of the population able to speak Welsh. With this agrees Mr. William Williams, chief School Inspector for Wales, who stated before the Welsh Royal Commission on Education in 1886 that, " leaving out Monmouthshire, which is in my division, but not in Wales, I should say thai two-thuds [i.e., 66 per cent.] speak Welsh habitually, and, "3 The Church in the Principality has progressed in late years, but it has been pari passu with the reversal of the Anglicising policy. The body of the clergy are becoming more and more sympathetic with the genius, the national temperament, and characteristics of the people. Authority and power are from above ; popular influence and reform have hitherto come from below. The inferior clergy, as they are called, are winning their way among the Welsh-speaking masses, in the face of formidable perhaps, rather in larger proportion than that, of the children who attend elementary Schools." Dean Edwards' estimate is a little higher. " It is the language in which three-fourths [i.e., 75 per cent.] of them still worship God ; " though it must be remembered that many of those who may be said to speak English habitually, prefer to worship in their native language. The Committee appointed in 1881 to inquire into the state of higher and intermediate Education in Wales, on which sat men eminently acquainted with the linguistic condition of the Principality, virtually adopted Mr. Ravenstein's conclusions. These weighty authorities are practically unanimous in showing that, about two- thirds of the population understand Welsh, while the remaining one- third are English-speaking monoglots. This has been the case, more or less, for centuries, and there seems to be no reason for anticipating any great change in the future. In estimating the linguistic changes that have taken place during the last fifty years, the immigration of foreigners in considerable numbers into our Welsh mining districts must be taken into consideration. The children of English parents, who settle in our towns and large centres of population where Welsh is spoken, learn to read and speak that language in no inconsiderable numbers. I have met many such, and some who have even forgotten their English. Canon Bevan very correctly says : " Welsh has a firm grip on the affections of the people as the language of sentiment and religion, and it may continue to hold this position even after English has permeated the land as the language of business." Past ami Present Position of the Church in Wales, p. xiv., 1881, ii4 difficulties ; but the dignitaries, as such, are still content, for the most part, to confine their attention to the English-speaking section. Our English brethren who dwell among us have every right to all the privileges of Churchmen in their fulness; but the present order of things should be reversed in a country where the Welsh-speaking population pre- dominates. The hypothesis that the depression of the Church in Wales is principally due to her scanty revenues, is in contradiction of facts, and should never have been advanced by the apologists of a Church possessing the high credentials of an apos- tolic polity, and an apostolic creed, and once claiming the allegiance of the whole population. Not to say that those denominations that surround her have flourished without the aid of any endowments, it can be proved that, when and where she was richest in revenues, she was also weakest in numbers ; that she was saved from actual extinction in Welsh centres, not by well-paid incumbents, but by Welsh-speaking curates, who kept alive the fire on her altars for a miserable pittance, while the alien and alienised pluralists who hired them, were accumulating or dissipating fortunes in luxury and lethargy. These are times for plain speaking, and those who believe in the inherent n5 possibilities of the Church, and know the value of her services to the nation, will not shrink from the truth. What she needs above all to-day is, that her leaders, full of thedivinepower, and of sanctified sym- pathy with their countrymen, should go forth to the heart of our densest populations, to instruct the mind, stimulate the enthusiasm, evoke the love, brace the courage, and win the confidence of our Welsh- speaking and Welsh-thinking masses. The Welsh Celt is sensitive and emotional ; his nature can be influenced by nothing sooner than by candid appeals to his generosity, his confidence, his patriotism, his religious instincts, and his national traditions. There are still chords in the harp of the old Welsh Church, to whose thrilling vibrations, when touched by a skilful, sympathetic hand, the Welsh heart will irresistibly respond. It is the Church that links our common Christianity with sub-apostolic, if not apostolic times ; the Church that has maintained in this favoured land, for upwards of sixteen centuries, the light of the eternal Gospel, burning sometimes brightly, sometimes dimly, but never utterly quenched ; the Church that is pre-eminent through- out the ages "for her jealousy of the essential Deity of the Incarnate Lord, and the exclusive supremacy of the inspired Word." During her long n6 and chequered history, she has nobly served the Welsh nation through evil and through good report. She has struggled for the purity of her faith and the liberties of her children, against civil and eccles- iastical intruders ; she has saturated their proverbs, their triads, and their traditions, with the life-giving truths of her divine message ; she formed and fostered their diversified literature in early times, much of which has come down to us, redolent of Christian piety and patriotism ; she has been the chosen instrument of God, in manifesting the triumphs of His grace, and in employing in His service the consecrated gifts of well-nigh fifty gen- erations of our ancestors, who, in their lifetime, drank of the wells of salvation within her sanctuaries, and are now awaiting a joyful resurrection around her venerable walls. She gave her people their Welsh Liturgy, and the beautiful version of the Welsh Bible they love so well ; she rescued their language from decay, and resuscitated their national Eisteddfod in the sixteenth century ; she pioneered the work of popular education in the seventeenth and eighteenth ; and again, in the nineteenth, laid the foundation of our present system of national education. A Church with so rich and varied a record, disfigured, as we know, by many a sad blunder, and discounted by ii7 many a period of slumber, depression, and retro- gression, must appeal, nevertheless, not only to the imagination, but to the deepest convictions, and the tenderest affections of our fellow-countrymen, when presented to them in her native character. The Church of Dewi and Deiniol, of Cyndeyrn and Catwg, of Tyssilio and Teilo, of William Morgan and Richard Davies, of Edmund Prys and Rhys Pritchard, of Griffith Jones and Howell Davies, is still with us, with marks of her noble ancestry on her brow, and deep traces of her warfare in her body. Her native heart still beats in harmony with the noblest aspirations of the Cymry, and her right hand is full of gifts to bless and to elevate them. What she has done in the past, she may, under God's blessing, still do in the future, if her sons are only faithful to their trust and their traditions. " Nations and Churches, when the fierce blood of revolution is coursing in their veins, may keep or cut the fibres which connect them with the root of the past. But the Church, like the nation, which renounces its past, renounces also its future." * * Bishop Alexander, Verbum Cruris, p. 172, 1892. THE END. DATE DUE HIGHSMITH #45230