S> ^ ^h l■^
 
 YJM. 
 
 WHY ARE THE WELSH PEOPLI ALIENATED FROM 
 THE CHURCH? ,/i 
 
 A SEEM ON 
 
 THE VERY REV. HENRY T. EDWARDS, M.A., 
 
 DEAN OF BANGOR, 
 
 PREACHED IN ST. DAVID'S (WELSH) CHURCH, LIVERPOOL, 
 
 AT A SPECIAL ENGLISH SERVICE, 
 
 ATTENDED BY THE WORSHIPFUL THE MAYOR AND THE 
 CORPORATION, 
 
 ON SUNDAY, MAY 25th, 1879. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RIVINGTON & CO., WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 BANGOR : 
 NIXON & JAR VIS, PUBLISHERS, BANK PLACE.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Having been requested more than nine months ago by the Welsh 
 Churchmen of Liverpool to preach at their Annual Festival in St. 
 David's Church in Welsh, and also to deliver a sermon at a special 
 English service, in the hope of exciting, on their behalf, the generous 
 sympathy of their English fellow -churchmen, the author deemed it a 
 not unfitting occasion for briefly reviewing the past and present 
 relations of the Church to the Welsh speaking population of Wales. 
 The ^'iews which he has formed concerning the cause that has 
 mainly provoked the alienation from the Church of three fourths of 
 the religious people of Wales, were fully set forth nine years ago in 
 a letter, entitled " The Church of the Cymi'y," addressed to the Right 
 Hon. W. Ewart Gladstone, a statesman who knows and loves the 
 Welsh people. Those views may be thought by some to be erroneous, 
 but the Author can claim the credit of having held them with 
 consistency. Longer and wider experience has only served to confirm 
 in him the conviction that the serious decay of the Welsh Church, 
 since A.D. 1700, has been mainly due to the fact that the clergy in its 
 chief places have ignored the maxims of that Apostolical Spirit, 
 which constrains the true ministers of Christ to adapt their ministra- 
 tions to the spiritual needs of every nationality. 
 
 He is firmly convinced that the correctness of his conclusions will 
 be questioned by no one who is qualified by a hnoipledge of the WeUh 
 language and of the inner life of Wales to form a judgment. The 
 Author is aware that this sermon contains admissions that may be 
 painful to churchmen, but believes that the truth should be known. 
 He ventures to express a strong hope that an accurate return may 
 soon be published in each of the four Dioceses of Wales, shewing the 
 number of congregations, and of the worshippers in them, both 
 conforming and non-conforming that loorship in the Welsh language, in 
 order that the ignorance of the lingual and religious condition of 
 Wales, which so extensively prevails, may be dispelled by reliable 
 information. He is sanguine that, when light shall have been thrown 
 upon the realstate of the Welsh Church, efficacious remedies may yet 
 be found for a sickness which is not beyond the hope of gradual 
 recovery.
 
 iuwc
 
 WHY AEE THE WELSH PEOPLE ALIENATED 
 FEOM THE CHURCH? 
 
 1 CoK. IX. 22, 23. 
 
 "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means 
 
 save some." 
 
 ' ' And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker 
 
 thereof with you." 
 
 In this chapter, St. Paul reveals the spirit of 
 his own ministry. The leading characteristic 
 which he claims for it is unselfishness. He 
 tells the Corinthians that the ministerial office, 
 by the very nature of things, has rights. One of 
 those rights he declares to be that of mainten- 
 ance, — ''Even so hath the Lord ordained that 
 they which preach the gospel, should hve of the 
 gospel." 
 
 By a Providential law, in the economy of God, 
 all who do true work have a right to eat, or, in 
 other words, all who enrich society have a right 
 to share its riches. 
 
 Now it is obvious that, although the minister 
 of religion is not dhectly occupied either in the 
 production or distribution of wealth, his work
 
 goes down to the very root of material prosperity 
 and fosters the growth of social riches, though 
 more indirectly, not less really than does the 
 energy of agricultmist, manufacturer, or mer- 
 chant. It is easy to illustrate this truth. 
 
 The wealth of this great town, in which we 
 are assembled, is known in all the world. What 
 is the root of that prosperity ? Is it due entirely 
 to your noble river, and your position on the 
 shores of the high way of nations ? No : the 
 Mersey flowed, and the paths of ocean were as 
 wide in the days when naked savages fed then- 
 flocks in the wild forests, and looked abroad 
 over the waste of waters on which the great 
 leviathans of your commerce are floating today. 
 Natural advantages, — climate, position, soil, 
 mineral resources are all God's gifts for the 
 wealth of society. But there is one force with- 
 out which these are vain,. That force is the 
 spirit of man. If truth, integrity, industry, and 
 purity were wanting, no outward gifts could save 
 a people from material decay. The virtues of a 
 community are the first of the forces that create 
 its wealth. 
 
 It is the function of the minister of religion to 
 call into play the spiritual motives that produce 
 the virtues of a community, and thereby give to 
 it wealth, honour, peace, and happiness. Happy 
 is the people who have moral power ; their gar-
 
 ners will be full, affording all manner of store : 
 there will be no complaining in their streets ; 
 " Yea, happy is that people whose God is the 
 Lord." 
 
 It foUows, as St. Paul teaches in this chapter, 
 that the minister of religion, being a promoter of 
 wealth, has as good a right to share it as the 
 cultivator who produces or the soldier who 
 guards it. 
 
 But while asserting this right as a general 
 principle, St. Paul tells us that for special rea- 
 sons he thought well not to avail himself of it. 
 It was his lot, not to labour among Christians 
 enlightened in an organized Church, but rather 
 to organize Churches by bringing men out of 
 darkness into the light of those Divine truths 
 upon which the wealth of society is based. As 
 a stranger he went forth to various nations 
 to teach truths that were new to them. He 
 had to gain a hearing from them, and, if 
 possible, to win their confidence and sympathy. 
 For that end it was all-important that they 
 should know him to be disinterested. It is 
 obvious that in our own day a Missionary, who 
 sought to maintain himself at the expense of his 
 hearers in a heathen country, would labour under 
 disadvantages as one who came seeking his own 
 gain. A Missionary of Christ the king of 
 sacrifice, if he does not shew the credentials of
 
 disinterestedness, is powerless. He mnst be able 
 to say to those whom he would save, " We would 
 not be chargeable to any of you." Among the 
 ignorant and uninstructed, no ministry that seeks 
 payment from them can succeed in winning 
 influence. 
 
 But if in the moral weakness of an infant 
 Church an unpaid ministry was essential, at all 
 timeS; in all places, and among all men every 
 ministry that will be spiritually powerful must 
 be unselfish. If it could be shewn that the 
 Christian ministry afforded worldly advantages 
 beyond other callings, so that an able man could 
 make more money as a clergyman, than he could 
 by devoting the same talents and industry to the 
 work of a physician, a lawyer, or a merchant, it 
 would be disastrous to his spiritual power. In 
 this country however in our days, it will, I 
 think, be acknowledged that the power of the 
 Christian ministry is not generally exposed to 
 these dangers. 
 
 But to minister without payment is not the 
 only form of ministerial unselfishness. Indeed, 
 a man may minister without pecuniary reward, 
 and yet be moved by very selfish aims. There- 
 fore in the text the Apostle holds before the 
 Christian ministry of all ages, the example of 
 unselfishness in a much higher and nobler form. 
 
 Pecuniary disinterestedness is a great power, 
 but living sympathy is infinitely greater.
 
 The truth, declared in these words, to which 
 I wish to direct your attention, is that in order 
 to save souls in the Church of God a ministry 
 infinitely sympathetic is essential. 
 
 Let us consider, 
 
 I. The ruling motive of the Apostolic 
 Ministry as declared in the words " For the 
 
 Gospel's sake," "that I might be joint 
 
 partaker of it." 
 
 II. The consequent course of action and 
 its aim: ''I AM made all things to all men 
 
 THAT I MIGHT BY ALL MEANS SAVE SOME." 
 
 I. The informing motive that gave to the 
 Apostohc Ministry its impulse and shaped its 
 course is declared in the words — " This I do for 
 the gospel's sake." Now let us try to realize 
 how the central truth of the gospel bears upon 
 those duties of the Apostohc Ministry of which 
 St. Paul speaks. How does the gospel make 
 every true Christian ministry self-denying and 
 sympathetic ? In order to understand this, we 
 must have a clear \iev7 of the hving power of 
 the gospel. "We know that the gospel means 
 glad tidings. But what are the tidings ? And 
 why do they gladden the being of man when he 
 receives them ? 
 
 These are questions which a thoughtful and 
 enquiring human soul must solve before it can
 
 10 
 
 find peace. We cannot answer the question, 
 *' What is the gospel ? unless we can answer 
 that other enquiry, "What is man?" For the 
 gospel is that revelation of truth that tells us the 
 nature and destiny of man, and enables us to 
 find our full human life and to attain the inheri- 
 tance of wealth and dignity that belongs to it. 
 It is revealed that man was created to be par- 
 taker of the divine life, to bear God's image, to 
 be changed into the same image from glory to 
 glory through all the stages of growth in spirit- 
 ual enlightment and power. Therefore the great 
 question for the soul is this, " Wliat is the image, 
 or, as we should say, the character of God?'' 
 The answer to that question of humanity is the 
 gospel. Such is the teaching of the Apostle as 
 summarised by him in this Epistle, — " I came 
 unto you declaring unto you thts testimony of 
 God ; for I deteimined not to know anything 
 among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 
 The career of Jesus Christ is the revelation or 
 testimony of God. In his Epistle St. John tells 
 us that " God is love," and that " he thut dweU- 
 eth in love dwelleth in God." But when St. 
 John sums up the power of the gospel in the 
 brief formula, "God is love," his teaching is 
 identical with that of St. Paul, when he compre- 
 hends all in the words "Jesus Christ and Him 
 crucified;" for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, 
 the divine man omnipotent, is the one infinite
 
 11 
 
 expression of the divine love. To act therefore, 
 as the Apostle professes to act, under the power 
 of the gospel is to live under the guidance of the 
 divine spirit of Christ, in obedience to the 
 promptings of eternal love. 
 
 That power which in the New Testament 
 is called, sometimes "love" and sometimes 
 " charity," is the spring that quickens all moral 
 life. "Wherever there is goodness, even in a 
 heathen, it has its origin in the omnipresent 
 infinite love. But as there are many who 
 breathe the air of physical life and are strong, 
 and yet are unable to explain the chemical 
 elements that form it, so are there many in 
 the east and in the west, in the north and 
 in the south, who personally act upon the 
 principle of love while unable to name its con- 
 stituent elements or to define its relation to other 
 spu'itual forces. There is a light tliat lighteth 
 every man that cometh into the world, and the 
 world knoweth it not. To know Jesus Christ is 
 to know that mystery, and to receive that power 
 which makes us sons of God. 
 
 The life, death, resurrection, and ascension 
 of Jesus Christ unfold to the human spirit the 
 mystery of divine love. Can we define the nature 
 of that love ? We can only try to understand it 
 by gazing for ever at the career of Jesus. 
 
 The feature that first strikes us in that career 
 is power, — the miracles, the storm calmed, the 
 sea subdued, the bread multiplied, the sick heal-
 
 12 
 
 ed, the dead raised. In life, power is the attribute 
 that first attracts and awes the natural man, — 
 material, intellectual, social power. The career 
 of Jesus reveals to us one endued with infinite 
 power over nature, over men, over the wealth of 
 the universe. The fact that Jesus had all power 
 implies that power is good ; that man is justified 
 in striving to subdue nature, to grow in intellec- 
 tual energy, and to add to his material wealth in 
 that social struggle and competition that are 
 going on around us in the world's life. The 
 energy and business of the world are simply the 
 travail that God hath given to the sons of man 
 to be exercised therewith, the effort that man 
 is impelled to make in search of that power 
 which, is an attribute of Jesus. 
 
 But the revelation of power in Christ is not 
 the gospel, so the attainment of power by man 
 is not his salvation. The moral value of power 
 depends upon the motives by which it is directed. 
 Power is good or evil as it is used for base or 
 noble ends. The muscular force of a giant may 
 be used to save life or to murder ; so the power 
 of intellect, of rank, of riches, or any other power 
 may be used for evil as well as for good. Power 
 may fly to and fro as a faDen angel, spreading 
 gloom and misery as it expands its wings, or 
 may reign as an angel of light and blessedness. 
 
 In Jesus Christ we see perfect power directed 
 by the perfect motive. What is that motive ?
 
 13 
 
 It is the principle called love and charity, and 
 the highest attribute in the nature of God. It is 
 the eternal motive that, as it were, impels God 
 to give hfe and blessedness out of His own ful- 
 ness to the greatest possible number of creatures. 
 In His eternal existence God is giving Himself, 
 pouring forth the wealth of His own being in 
 order to give life to those whom He has called 
 out of nothingness. 
 
 So in Jesus Christ human nature, while wield- 
 ing the power of Godhead, sacrificed its vital 
 energies in the flow of redeeming blood, in order 
 to give to the world moral and spiritual life. 
 The great lesson of the Cross is, that to use 
 power unselfishly, for the good of others, is to 
 live in the life of God. 
 
 But the natural man will say, * These are no 
 glad tidings. There is no gladness in checking 
 personal inclinations, in enduring pain, in cruci- 
 fying the flesh and its impulses.' 
 
 It is quite true that they who follow Christ 
 afar off, and see Him on the cross and go no 
 farther, miss the gladness of Christianity. Had 
 the career of Jesus ended in the self-renunciation 
 of the cross, His mission would not have brought 
 glad tidings. But the cross was only a short 
 though bitter passage leading on to the resur- 
 rection, the ascension, and the endless life of 
 triumphant glory. Hence the manifestation of
 
 14 
 
 Jesus Christ in all its fulness gives to man 
 infinite gladness, through the assurance it brings 
 that pain, suffering, and self-sacrifice lead to the 
 eternal elevation of the human beinc?. 
 
 It is obvious that tliis principle of divine love 
 working in the nature of man has an infinite 
 power both negative and active. He who loves 
 God with all the energies of his being, and his 
 fellow man as himself, and has learnt to devote 
 himself to the good of others and the glory or 
 manifestation of God, has in him the spirit 
 which destroys all vice and creates all virtue. 
 Love both negatively and positively is, in St. 
 Paul's words, " the fulfiUmg of the law." 
 
 Every human vice and sin has its origin in 
 the power of personal selfishness that isolates 
 the man from the corporate life of humanity. 
 The man who has crucified his self-will is free 
 from the bondage of sin. Why does the 
 sensualist yield to the temptations that debase 
 his being ? Because he has not learnt to 
 sacrifice selfish passion. Why does the dis- 
 honest man defraud society ? Because he has 
 not been inspired by that spirit of the cross 
 which teaches man to sacrifice himself for the 
 good of others, and to lose his lower life that he 
 may find the higher life risen out of its grave. 
 
 But this principle is not merely negative ; it 
 not only restrains from vice but impels to virtue.
 
 15 
 
 It not only creates the pale holiness of the 
 hermit who has tamed the passions and re- 
 nounced the world, but it also fosters the 
 noblest activities of robust virtue in all its social 
 modern forms. The untiring philanthropist, the 
 ardent prophet of rehgious truth, the brave 
 soldier and sailor, the generous honourable 
 merchant, the large minded and large hearted 
 statesman, the good energetic honest citizen 
 whatever be his calliuo-, — all whether knowina: 
 it or not, draw their virtues from that in- 
 exhaustible fountain opened upon the cross ; for 
 instead of living the life of selfish iudulgence 
 and shutting up the energies of his life blood in 
 himself, each of them, as the ordinary phrase so 
 simply and yet so deeply expresses it, " devotes 
 himself." Hence the more completely a man is 
 able to go out of himself, to forget his lower 
 self, to pour out himself, and to throw himself 
 in a stream of thought and will into his true 
 life work, which God shews to all who enquire 
 aright for their calling, so much does he become 
 a nobler, happier, and more exalted man. This 
 life of self devotion was the life of St. Paul, as 
 he tells us in another epistle : " I am crucified 
 with Christ : never the less I live." 
 
 So in this passage, after saying that the 
 gospel was the ruhng principle of his life, he 
 declares that he strives to be not merely a
 
 16 
 
 teacher of its doctrines, but also a sharer of its 
 power. It is possible for a man to be a teacher 
 of the truths and a minister of the rites of religion 
 without being a partaker of its life. That is the 
 fate which St. Paul strove to escape by practis- 
 ing self-devotion as well as preaching it, *'I keep 
 under my body and bring it into subjection, lest 
 that by any means, when I have preached to 
 others, I myself should be a castaway." 
 
 The significance of the Apostle's expression, 
 "partaker thereof," is very full and deep. It 
 is not difficult to illustrate the meaning of that 
 Greek compound which he used. It is a word 
 that would represent partnership. Now if I 
 were to ask some ardent youth beginning his 
 career in this great emporium of commerce — 
 "What is your animating motive? To what 
 do you look forward ? You work hard; you 
 practise self-denial, from early morn till dewy 
 eve : *' through dusky lane and wrangling 
 mart " you devote yourself to business, and if 
 you lie awake in the watches of the night your 
 mind is fuU of your vocation. Why do you find 
 pleasure in giving up yourself so absorbedly to 
 it?" 
 
 He would probably answer, "The glory of 
 commerce has fired the imagination of the 
 thoughts of my heart. This great mercantile 
 city in which I serve is as Tyre, one of the
 
 17 
 
 queens of the ocean, has a high name and 
 boundless resources ; from every chme her 
 ships bring earth's products to enrich human 
 society; and they spread their wings before 
 every breeze to bear to distant nations goods that 
 add to the beauty and comfort of hfe. The vision 
 of some future commercial glories has fired my 
 soul. I am to-day but a humble worker in the 
 life of this great community ; but some day I 
 hope to become myself a partaker of the honour 
 and wealth of successful commerce." 
 
 Such is the Apostle's thought. ' ' The Church 
 of Christ, of which on earth I am a minister, 
 is an eternal city of splendour and wealth, 
 into which the kings of the earth do bring their 
 honour and glory, in which the merchantmen 
 seeking goodly pearls are ever at work in the 
 fields and marts of eternity ; in which the 
 unsearchable riches of Christ are found. I 
 intend not to be a mere mechanical agent of its 
 blessings to other, but to be myself a full par- 
 taker of its glory and its weal." 
 
 Such ought to be the spirit and language of 
 the Church's Apostolic Ministry in every age 
 and land. We are called not only to preach 
 the truths of the cross but to live them, not only 
 to be ministers of the gospel but also partakers. 
 
 II. Let us pass on to consider the practical 
 effects of this principle upon St. Paul's ministry.
 
 18 
 
 It impelled him to adapt himself to all kinds 
 of men. What enabled him to practise that 
 self- adaptation ? His large knowledge of human 
 nature, joined to his intense unselfishness that 
 impelled him to influence other for their good, 
 as he expresses it, — ''that I might by all means 
 save some." 
 
 His one aim among men was to win influence 
 for good. Now we see how a man acts when 
 he desires to influence another. When we seek 
 to obtain anything from a man, we try to know 
 him thoroughly, we consult his wishes, and study 
 his tastes. We take care not to run counter 
 to his ideas, and respect even his prejudices. 
 We try to look at things from his point of view, 
 and to win his confidence by sympathy. Thus 
 men act when they would gain from another 
 some earthly advantage. Thus St. Paul acted 
 when he wished to gain his fellow men. He 
 did not want their money but he wanted their 
 hearts. He wanted them to entrust their lives 
 to him, to be moulded by the divine truths which 
 he had to teach ; his own words were, " I seek 
 not yours but you." 
 
 Acting upon this spirit, he tells us, that, in 
 dealing with the Jews, he did not run against 
 their national ideas, but looked upon life from 
 their point of view, dwelt upon the truths that he 
 held in common with them, and spoke as one who 
 knew and loved their law and their prophets ;
 
 19 
 
 when addressing Greeks, who had received no 
 divine written law, he appealed to natural 
 reason, and enforced his teaching hy reference 
 to their national poets and philosophers ; and, 
 when face to face with peasants like the island- 
 ers of Malta, who were intellectually weak, he 
 used words and figures suited to their capacities. 
 "To the Jews, "he says, "I became asa Jew, that 
 I might gain the Jews ; to them that are under 
 the law as under the law, that I might gain 
 them that are under the law ; to them that are 
 without law, as without law (being not without 
 law to God, but under the law to Christ) that I 
 might gain them that are without law. To the 
 weak became I as weak, that I might gain the 
 weak." 
 
 The man who has this power of insight into 
 men of various natures, and can understand 
 them, and sympathize with them, is the man 
 who will have the widest influence. He is like 
 the trained diplomatist, at home in all lands, 
 speaking the tongues of many races, knowing 
 the customs of many peoples, the etiquette of 
 many courts, and able to win the ear and the 
 confidence of men everywhere. 
 
 What gives that power of sympathetic self- 
 adaptation ? It is light tempered by love, 
 knowledge of human nature imparted by the 
 spirit of unselfishness. The selfish man thinks
 
 20 
 
 SO much of himself that he considers it only 
 due, that all men should enter into his feelings, 
 and study his tastes, and not he theirs. The 
 hard, proud, vain, conceited, narrow-minded 
 man, wants that subtle power of sympathy, that 
 dehcate tact, by which soul touches soul, and 
 feels as it feels, in the moment of contact. 
 When he deals with men of different associations 
 to his own, he is like a man handling an instru- 
 ment that he cannot play. Under his rough 
 hand "it gives forth no harmonious sounds ; and 
 he, in his narrow self-complacency, thinks that 
 there is no music in it, because he knows not 
 how to draw it forth. 
 
 St. Paul tells us that he had acquired the 
 power of all-embracing sympathy ; and he says 
 that it was the teaching of the gospel, the Divine 
 spirit of love, destroying selfishness, that had 
 given it to him. 
 
 Now, I need not remind you that few barriers 
 separate men from each other more than a 
 distinction of nationality. We know, by familiar 
 experience of the composite population of these 
 islands, the subtle but imperishable differences 
 by which nationality distinguishes men. The 
 physical frame, countenance, temper, language, 
 and even, when language has ceased to be 
 different, pronunciation, tone of voice, rhythm, 
 and accent, — all these proclaim the difference
 
 21 
 
 of race. Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, 
 Welshmen, even when they speak the same 
 language, are yet different in comitenance, in 
 voice, and accent. 
 
 As in the outward man, so undoubtedly in the 
 inward man, there are distinctions arising from 
 nationality that are indehble. St. Paul, in his 
 sermon at Athens, speaks of these distinctions 
 of nationahty, as ordained by God. He declares, 
 that all men are of one blood, that the principle 
 of life is identical in them all, but that they are 
 separated into nations, for whom God " hath 
 determined the times before appointed, and the 
 bounds of their habitation."* 
 
 In Jesus Christ's human nature every national 
 temperament is represented. He knows the 
 language of all human souls, and can feel with 
 every human heart : *^ He knew what was in 
 man," — not merely in the Jewish or the Greek 
 man, but in " Man." Therefore, as the Head of 
 human nature and the countryman of all men, 
 He is called " The Son of Man." In Him, 
 Greek, Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, find their 
 country and their home. 
 
 This Divine cosmopolitanism of the Godman, 
 inspiring a sympathy of humanity as wide as 
 the world, is also given by the Holy Spirit to 
 the Church. In the city of God, no preference 
 is to be given to any man on account of his 
 
 * Deut. xxxii, 8.
 
 22 
 
 nationality. On the day of Pentecost, the 
 Church spoke all languages, so as to reach all 
 hearts : " Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, 
 and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, 
 and Cappadocia, in Pontius and Asia, Phrygia 
 and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of 
 Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Eome, 
 Jews and Proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we 
 do hear them speak in our tongue the wonderful 
 works of God." It is also revealed that the 
 Church of the redeemed will embrace in itself 
 the features of all nationalities in the '^multitude, 
 which no man could number, of all nations, and 
 kindreds, and people and tongues." 
 
 This Divine Spirit of Pentecost, that con- 
 strains the Church to adapt her ministrations to 
 the peculiar needs of every people, must be 
 present in her government, before the saving 
 power of eternal love will operate in her apostolic 
 ministry. This truth is so obvious that in those 
 fields of her action, where the eyes are not blinded 
 by the film of prejudice and the cataract of self- 
 interest, it is recognised by all. 
 
 In the fields of her foreign Missions, the 
 Church of England adapts herself, as rapidly as 
 she can, to the peculiar needs of the various 
 nationalities, to whom she offers the saving in- 
 fluence of Christianity. In Africa, m India, and 
 in all the mission field, it is acknowledged that
 
 23 
 
 a native ministry must be created, before the 
 masses of the people can be won. The Hindoo, 
 and the Negro aUke, must hear the words of 
 eternal truth in their own tongue, from the lips 
 of men to whom God has given the stamp of the 
 same national features, and the emotions of 
 the same national temperament, before they can 
 be moved to acknowledge the wonderful works 
 of God, and to partake of the salvation in Christ. 
 In order to save them, the Apostolic Ministry 
 must become '' all things to all men." 
 
 To-day, we are all thinking of an ancient race, 
 that peopled this island thousands of years ago, 
 before its wonderful march of human progress 
 had well begun, who have seen and survived as 
 a distinct people all the changes that have passed 
 over it ; who were here, speaking the same lan- 
 guage as to-day, when Julius Caesar landed his 
 conquering legions on its shores : when your 
 bold, strong, freedom-loving ancestors left their 
 homes in the depths of the wild forests of Ger- 
 many and Scandinavia ; when the chivalrous 
 Norman, strong in energy and organization, came 
 and made a realm and reigned. That ancient 
 British race has the strongly marked features of 
 an indestructible nationality, some of which are 
 likely to survive till the last day has dawned in 
 earth's history. They have a distinct national 
 language, the power and beauty of which are
 
 denied by none except those who are ignorant 
 of it. The language is still spoken, as we have 
 lately been reminded on the authority of a great 
 statistician,* by 1,006,100 souls, that is, by 
 nearly five-sixths of the people of Wales. It is the 
 lanouae;e in which three-fourths of them still 
 worship God.f In this great town, one denomi- 
 nation alone has more than 20 chapels and 
 preaching stations, and numbers no less than 
 13,000 "Welsh speaking communicants.! In Lon- 
 don, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, 
 Chester, Manchester, Barrow-in-Furness, Mid- 
 dlesborough and all the great centres of British 
 industry, where Welshmen congregate, as good 
 quiet citizens, to do honest work, the old lan- 
 guage of the ancient Britons is heard, and, 
 from fervent congregations, the j)ious strains of 
 Williams of Pantycelyn are wafted towards the 
 eternal throne, upon the -wings of the plaintive 
 minor tones of religious Wales. The tempera- 
 ment of the people is even a more distinctive 
 and, possibly, a more lasting characteristic of 
 their nationality than their language. National 
 temperament is difficult to define. But who 
 does not feel its power, when in its presence, al- 
 though it eludes description ? 
 
 * Mr. E. G. Kaveustein, F.R.G.S, " On the Geographical Distribu- 
 tion of the Celtic speaking Population of the British Isles." 
 
 t "The Cahanistic Methodists, the Congregationalists, the 
 Baptists, and the ■\Vesleyans in Wales numbered in their ranks 
 68(3,220 persons, exclusive of children under the age of 10, and of 
 that number only 36,000 worshipped in the English language. There 
 was also a large circulation of W elsh newspapers and magazines and 
 of Welsh translations of English books in Wales." — Speech hij Mr. 
 Husscy Vivian, in the House of Commons, July 1st, 1879. 
 
 J The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, in Liverpool, since A.D. 1826, 
 have expended £130,000, in providing religious ministrations for the 
 Welsh settlers in the to'mi.
 
 25 
 
 The Welsh people have national traditions, 
 reaching back into the dim past peopled by the 
 shades of the Arthurian Heroes. Their warm, 
 eager, emotional, quick temperament is known 
 to all. Their shrinking sensitiveness, which is 
 so easily wounded by a slight, that it ai^pears to 
 the stranger to savour of morbid, proud, touch- 
 iness, will not escape the close observer. 
 
 But most strongly marked, of all their national 
 features, is theh powerful religious sentiment. 
 It appears in all their literature, and is stamped 
 upon their social life. In America, where Welsh- 
 speaking settlers are said to be almost as num- 
 erous as those whom they have left behind, they 
 cling to their language and their rehgion. The 
 first public building that rises, in a new Welsh 
 village in America, as in the mining districts of 
 Wales, is the simple House of Prayer. 
 
 In every age of their history, the Welsh peo- 
 ple have been moved, amid the struggles and 
 disappointments of this fading transitoiy life, 
 by deep, eager, melancholy yearnings after the 
 infinite and Eternal Good, — '' Y mor clidrai o 
 Hedd/' — the ebbless ocean of peace, — as one of 
 their favourite Hymn-writers has caUed it. 
 
 This characteristic of their nationality is as 
 fresh to-day as it was two thousand years ago. 
 If any of my hearers has ever hstened to the 
 outpourings of these rehgious aspirations, as
 
 26 
 
 they surge forth, at one of their open-au- meet- 
 ings;* from ten thousand voices, swelhng into 
 vast heavmg tides of solemn song, in the deep 
 roll of their favourite tunes, Eifionydd, Dinuveid- 
 rwijdd, Hyder, Dymuniadj at the moment when 
 the strong wind of some native prophet's fervent 
 eloquence has swept over their souls, in rhythmic 
 gusts, stirring, to their inmost recesses, all the 
 deeps of mystic emotion in their being, he can 
 hardly fail to have been borne back in thought 
 to the woodland shrines of their forefathers; 
 and, in the gleams of severe joy, breaking through 
 clouds and darkness, at once lighting up and 
 melting the melancholy features, which, by long 
 mental gazing at the hard gloomy loveless image 
 into which Ultra-Calvinism changes the glory of 
 the Loving God, have themselves been changed, 
 from sadness to sadness, into the same image 
 of leaden gloom, he must have recognized the 
 spiritual successors of those natural sunbeams f 
 that pierced the shadows of the Druidical groves 
 streaming, as smiles from +"The Face of the 
 Sun," — in the words of their ancient motto, — 
 and as glances from " The Eye of Light," to 
 relieve the sombre enthusiasm of an ever-devout 
 God- seeking race. 
 
 * The " Sassiwn," which is the popular name given to the annual 
 open air Meetings, which the Calvinistic Methodists hold in their 
 various districts, is always attended by a vast concourse. At the 
 Carnarvonshire " Safishcn," 20,000 worshippers have not unfrequently 
 assembled, when sermons are delivered by the most eloquent orators 
 of the denomination. 
 
 t Yn ngwyneb Haul a Llygad goleuni. 
 
 J Solis nosse deos et cseli numina vobis, 
 
 Aut solis nescire datum. iSemora alta remotis 
 
 In colitis lucis. 
 
 Lucan, Pharaal, I, 452 — 4.
 
 27 
 
 The temperament of this ancient nationahty 
 is distinct and unquenchable. 
 
 Let us briefly review the history of the 
 Church's deahngs towards it. In ancient days, 
 ere your Saxon forefathers had yet become 
 Christians, the Church gained the Britons by 
 becoming British. The records of those old days 
 are scanty and unreliable. But the most ancient 
 Parish Churches of Wales bring down to us the 
 names of the early British Saints, who in their 
 day led its religious hfe. From the dawn of 
 Christianity down to the 12th Century, the 
 British people seem to have been rehgiously 
 united under an Apostolic Ministry, that was of 
 their own race, and spoke their own tongue. 
 
 But the days of Welsh independence passed 
 away : and at once we trace, in her religious and 
 ecclesiastical affairs, the influence of the tem- 
 poral power of the dominant race. The tempta- 
 tion to avail itself of its superior force to dictate, 
 in religious matters, to a weaker race that may 
 be united with it, will always beset a dominant 
 people. At the same time, a nation is, perhaps, 
 peculiarly slow to receive sph-itual influence h'om 
 a people that exercises over it temporal supre- 
 macy. It may have been on this account, that, 
 in the order of Divine Providence, the chosen 
 race, which has exercised supreme spiritual 
 dominion over the chief races of men, was, poh- 
 tically, among the feeblest of the nations.
 
 28 
 
 The English race is a strong, dominant, race. 
 But the English Church has failed to exercise 
 spiritual sway over other races. In the British 
 Isles, the Irish, Scotch, Welsh, and Cornish 
 races, have to a great extent thrown off her 
 authority. Why is this ? Can it be that the Eng- 
 lish Church has sometimes been inelastic, hard, 
 wanting in sympathy, and has failed to become 
 all things to all men ? History will hardly give 
 a negative answer. The Norman kings used 
 their power to shape not only the pohtical but 
 also the ecclesiastical destinies of the Welsh 
 people. I cannot dwell upon the details of 
 the history to-day, but its substance may be 
 given in a few words. Ecclesiastics were sent 
 into Wales who had not the Apostolical Spirit 
 and could not do Apostolical work. They came, 
 not to make themselves all things to their flocks, 
 but to make their flocks all things to them. The 
 high handed intrusion of Chancellor Bernard in 
 A.D. 1116 into the See of St. David, the exj)ulsion 
 of Bishop Peter De Lcia, from St. Davids, and of 
 Harvey, from Bangor, by popular violence, and, 
 notably, the long struggle of Giraldus Cam- 
 brensis, were incidents that marked the course 
 of a policy which ruined the Church in Wales 
 for more than two centuries. The ministry 
 that had not the Apostohcal Spirit, that could 
 not speak the language, adapt itself to the 
 spiritual needs, or estimate the sympathies of
 
 29 
 
 the people, was powerless to save them. So 
 far had Christianity, as taught by these un- 
 sympathetic guides, lost its hold over the Welsh 
 people, in that age, that an attempt was made to 
 revive the druidical *theosophy as the national 
 rehgion. But the unjust policy long prevailed. 
 Ambitious Ecclesiastics, who had the ear of the 
 court, were able to persuade the temporal rulers, 
 that it was desLrable to permit them to rise upon 
 the ruins of the Church in Wales. 
 
 This injustice has left its mark upon the 
 current of Welsh History. In a.d. 1196, Lle- 
 welyn, Prince of Gwynedd, Gwenwynw}^n, and 
 Madoc, Princes of Powys; Gruffydd, Maelgwyn, 
 Ehys, and Meredydd, sons of Bhys, Prince of 
 South Wales, addressed a petition to Pope Inno- 
 cent the III for dehverance from the wrong : 
 '' The Ai'chbishop of Canterbury," they said, 
 "as a matter of course sends us English 
 Bishops, ignorant of the manners and language 
 of our land, who cannot preach the Word of 
 God to the people they seek not the wel- 
 fare of souls ; their ambition is to rule over us 
 and not to benefit us." 
 
 At the beginning of the 15th century the 
 national impatience of the people found a more 
 violent expression. The national chieftain, 
 Owain Gljmdwr, in a.d. 1402 burnt the Cathedral 
 at Bangor ; the Cathedral, Episcopal Palace and 
 Canons' houses at St. Asaph : and destroyed the 
 
 * In primis hoc volunt persuadere, non interire animas, sed ab 
 aliis post mortem transire ad alios ; atque hoc maxime ad virtutem 
 excitari putant, metu mortis neglecto. — CcBsar De Bello Gall., Lib. 
 VI. 14.
 
 30 
 
 Castle of the Bishop of Llandaff, and the house 
 of his Archdeacon, as a protest against the 
 presence in Wales of pastors, who, came in the 
 garb of Apostles, but were devoid of the spirit 
 that seeks to adapt religion to the needs of the 
 people. Four years later *Dafydd Dai on, 
 Dean of Bangor, was outlawed by the English 
 King for the part which he took in the national 
 rising. 
 
 At length, in the providence of God, a Welsh 
 dynasty, springing from the loins of Owain Tudor, 
 the Anglesey squire of Plas Penmynydd, rose to 
 the throne of Britain. In their days ecclesias- 
 tical justice was done to Wales. From a.d. 
 1547 to 1700, the followers of the Apostles in 
 Wales were Apostles indeed. They became to 
 the Welsh people as Welsh. The most illustrious 
 of them, tWilliam Morgan, gave to his country- 
 
 * Dafydd Daron was the original of Shakespeare's ' Archdeacon,' 
 in whose house Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer and Glendower met 
 to discuss their division of the kingdom — Vide, Henry IV. Part I, 
 Act III, Scene I. 
 
 f Wales is, to ordinary Englishmen, a terra incognita. The ignor- 
 ance of Welsh Church History, that prevails, is only equalled by the 
 ignorance of the social and religious features of the inner life of Wales, 
 as it exists to-day. Let one example of the former suffice. Bishop 
 Morgan translated the whole of the Bible into the Welsh language, 
 finishing the task in 1588 A-D. The version is a noble one. That 
 Translation was a great work, and surely ought to have won for him 
 a place in the roll of Ecclesiastical worthies. But so learned an 
 English Churchman as Dean Hook seems never to have heard of him. 
 In his Ecclesiastical Biography, which occasionally records the doings 
 of obscure English Divines, not a line is devoted to recording the 
 name or work of so great a Welshman. The leading Bard of Wales, 
 a very learned clergyman, died a few years ago. flis career at Oxfora
 
 31 
 
 men their noble version of Holy Scripture — 
 subsequently revised by Bishop Parry and Dr. 
 John Davies — the words of which, have formed 
 the life of millions of Welsh souls^ and vnll, in 
 eternity, form a note in the concert of tongues, 
 when the white robed multitude are gathered 
 before the throne of God. In those days, led 
 by the example of their chief pastors, the laymen 
 of Wales did their part in the work of the 
 Church. William Salisbury, Rowland Heylin, 
 and Sir Thomas Middleton, strove to promote 
 the religious enlightenment of their countrymen; 
 and the immortal parish priest and sacred 
 poet, Rhys Pritchard, gave to them, in their 
 own tongue, that religious volume of didactic 
 song, entitled " The Candle of the Cymry," 
 which for centuries, has been read in the homes 
 of Wales, and has exercised an influence, inferior 
 only to that of Holy Scripture and the Book of 
 Common Prayer, in guiding Welsh souls through 
 the darkness of earth. In that period the 
 Church sought to save the Welsh people by 
 agencies fitted to influence the Welsh nationality. 
 
 was distinguished, and lie rendered so many literary services to his 
 Church and country that his widow has received a literary pension 
 from the Premier. An English Prelate, occupying at the time a 
 Welsh See, on being asked to contribute to a fund raised for the 
 erection of a monument in honour of this distinguished native clergy- 
 man, replied that he was not aware that he had ever rendered any 
 literary services. It seems that some fate still keeps '' Penitus toto 
 di\'isos orbe Britannos."
 
 32 
 
 The result was that her power in Wales was 
 undisputed. In the troubled times of the Civil 
 War and the Commonwealth, when political 
 discord and religious . divisions were rife in 
 England, Wales remained undisturbed, un- 
 divided, and unmoved, under the guidance of her 
 native Apostolic Ministry. How fiercely Royalist 
 and Anti-Puritan, notwithstanding the efforts of 
 Wroth, Penry, and a few others, was the popular 
 feeling of Wales in those days, may be realized 
 by any reader of the poems of the farmer poet, 
 Hugh Morris, of Pontymeibion, in the Vale of 
 Ceiriog, who was a popular bard of liis age. In 
 A.D. 1715, with the exception of 35 separatists 
 congregations, the entire people of Wales 
 adhered to the Church. 
 
 But, after that date, for more than 150 years, 
 the rulers of the state, in pursuit of a wordly 
 policy, sent into Wales Chief Pastors ignorant 
 of its language and traditions, and aliens in 
 sympathy to the people. Durmg that long 
 period, the followers of the Apostles came into 
 Wales, not to accomplish the spiritual work of 
 saving souls, but as Government Agents, to 
 destroy the language and quench the national 
 spirit. The fruits of this policy are known 
 to you. The 35 Meeting Houses of a.d. 
 1715 have become in a.d. 1879, nearly 
 3000. As long as the Apostolic Spirit was set 
 at nought, the Church in Wales withered, and
 
 33 
 
 from year to year her desolation increased, until 
 well nigh three-fourths of the people left her 
 sanctuaries, to seek a saving power in forms of 
 worship, which, however imperfect some of us 
 may judge them, appeared to them to be un- 
 defiled by worldly motives and unmarred by the 
 accent of the self-seeker.* 
 
 It is, perhaps, well for Wales that this policy 
 prevailed in the 18th and not in the 16th century. 
 There can be little doubt that the reception of the 
 truths of the Eeformed Church, by the Welsh- 
 speaking Celts, was due to the sympathetic rule 
 of the great Tudor Queen, that gave them native 
 pastors and the Scriptures and Liturgy in their 
 own language. In Ireland, at that critical period, 
 
 * English Churchmen, not knowing how extensively the "Welsh 
 language still prevails in Wales, and how strong is the national 
 feehug, are sometimes, unable to sympathize with the objection 
 made to the systematic introduction of strangers into all the chief 
 places of the Welsh Church. They denounce that demand, which 
 seeks ministerial efficiency, ecclesiastical justice, and an Apostolical 
 Ministry, as if it were a narrow cry of " Wales for the Welsh." 
 
 A. more careful study of their own Church History would enable 
 them to take a truer and a more sympathetic view. W^hen the 
 feeblest of the Plantagenets chose to surround himself with Poictevins, 
 Gascons, Provencals, Italians, and Savoyards, the English people did 
 not bear it very j)atiently. When the Pope tried to pension his 
 favourites upon English endowments, the Roman Court was detested 
 in England. "He sought," writes Dean Hook, "through these 
 iniquitous and unconstitutional means, to pension non-resident 
 foreigners, who, when they retired, did not, as a general rule, return 
 to their English benefices ; or who, if they resided for a time in 
 England, only did so, to further some anti-English scheme of policy 
 
 The indignation of every true-hearted Englishman was aroused. 
 
 The English and the Roman Courts were thus both obnoxious, 
 
 for the same reason — both tried to compel England to submit to be 
 governed by foreigners. The foreigners invaded both Church and 
 State. "
 
 34 
 
 a different policy was followed. English 
 Prelates, English Bible and Liturgy were forced 
 upon the Irish-speaking people. The ministry 
 of the Church did not adapt itself to the Irish 
 nationality. At times, fitful efforts were made ; 
 laymen hke Audley Mervin, and clergymen like 
 Nicholas Brown, rector of Donacary, Dromore 
 and Rosorry, and Walter Atkins, Vicar of 
 Middleton,f early in the 18th century, tried to 
 gain the Irish people by approaching them 
 through the Irish language. But these were 
 
 The remonstrances which have been uttered by patriotic Welsh 
 Churchmen who have grieved to see three-fourth of their countrymen 
 aUenated from the Church have their parallels in English Church 
 History. With a change of two or three words, the protest addressed 
 by the Eughsh A.rchbishop and his council to the king in a.d. 1234, 
 against the promotion of Peter Des Roches and Peter De Kivaulx, 
 might have been addressed by Welsh Churchmen to their ecclesiastical 
 rulers on many occasions : ' ' Lord King, we tell joii, in the name of 
 God, that the counsel you receive; and act upon — that, namely, of 
 Peter Bishop of Winchester, and of Peter de Eivaulx — is not only 
 not %vise or safe, but is ungenerous as regards the realm of England, 
 and dangerous to yourself. These men hate and despise the English 
 nation, and when the English assert their rights they call them 
 traitors. They estrange you from your people, and alienate the 
 affections of the people from their king." 
 
 If Englishmen will bear in mind that in that age the population of 
 England was not very much larger than that of Wales is to-day, they 
 will perceive that the analogy between the two situations is not 
 imworthy of their attention. — Vide, Lives of the Arclibishops of 
 Canterhimj. Vol. Ill, Page 167-70. 
 
 t Of the Rev. Walter Atkins' Work, it is recorded : — " He pro- 
 ceeded to perform the offices of religion for the natives, in their own 
 
 tongue He buried the dead, according to the Liturgy of the 
 
 Church ; and gave thereby so much satisfaction to the living, that 
 they participated in the service, with great devotion, and joined audi- 
 bly with their voices in the Lord's Prayer, and the pre\-ious responses ; 
 and on occasion of a burial in the Churchyard, one of them, was 
 heard to say, — "That if they could have that service always, they 
 would no more go to Mass." In process of time his ministerial labours
 
 35 
 
 rare exceptions. The treatment dealt to the 
 Irish people was as that given to the Welsh. 
 In A.D. 1725 Jonathan Swift, the ablest Irish- 
 man of his day, wrote to the Lord Lieutenant 
 these words, — that might have been written by 
 any Welshman who loved his country — ; " The 
 misfortune of having bishops perpetually from 
 England, as it must needs quench the spirit of 
 emulation amongst us to excel in learning and 
 the study of divinity, so it produces another 
 great discouragement, that those prelates usually 
 draw after them colonies of sons, nephews, 
 cousins, or old college companions to whom they 
 
 bestow the best preferments in their gifts 
 
 I believe your excellency will agree, that there 
 is not another kingdom in Europe, where the 
 natives, even those descended from the con- 
 querors, have been treated, as if they were 
 almost unqualified for any employment either in 
 Church or State." 
 
 The result was that the Irish people were 
 repelled from the reformed religion, which came 
 to them vested in an * anti-national garb, and 
 
 became so acceptable to the natives, that they of their own accord, 
 sent for him, from all parts of his parish, to baptize their chUdren, 
 to solemnize matrimony, to church their women, to visit their sick, 
 and to bury their dead." — Vide Mant's History of the Church of Ire- 
 land, Volume II, pages 165 — 6, 7, 8. 
 
 * ( 1 ) " There are upwards of 800,000 persons in Ireland who speak 
 Irish, one-fourth of the number being under 20 years of age. (2) There 
 are upwards of 100,000 who cannot speak any language but Irish ; 
 and the minds of those persons can at present be reached only 
 through the medium of the one language which they understand,
 
 36 
 
 speaking the language of conquest ; and under 
 tlie guidance of native teachers became the most 
 unswerving subjects that the Papacy can boast in 
 Europe.* Had the same pohcy been pursued 
 in Wales at the same period, it is almost certain 
 that the same results would have followed, that 
 the Welsh, like their Kinsmen in Brittany, would 
 have been fervent votaries of Romanism, and all 
 Wales as that little valley in Breconshire, the 
 
 whilst the larger number, above-named, are more easily approached 
 hy reason of their attachment to it as the national language. (3) There 
 are various efforts being now made to teach the people to read the 
 Irish language. * * * (5) The literature generally circulated among the 
 people by other agencies is partly Roman Catholic, and partly disloyal 
 and seditious." Vide Report (for this year) of Iiish Society for 
 Promoting the Scriptural Education and religious instruction of the 
 Irish-speaking population, chiefly through the medium of their own 
 language. That the present rulers of the Irish Church are at last aUve 
 to the long forgotten necessity of becoming to the Iiish as Irish, may 
 be gathered from the following extracts ; " If Patriotism can supply 
 such a motive-power for the stimulating of zeal and the preservation 
 of unity amongst Churchmen, how unspeakably important will be the 
 assertion of our nationality in our efforts to enlist the sympathies of 
 those who do not belong to our communion, and who now, alas ! 
 stand aloof. Oh ! what a position may not our Church take up, no 
 
 longer as the so-called " Church of the English foreigner," but as 
 
 the representative of the ancient Church of St. Patrick, Irish to her 
 very core, and thus possessing claims upon Irish nationality." 
 "The method in which it is sought to communicate the knowledge 
 of these truths is, as you doubtless are aware, through that medium 
 which is most likely to win for them a ready welcome, even that 
 familiar mother tongue which is associated in the hearts of so many 
 of our Irish poor with their dearest sympathies." — Sermon hy the 
 most Reverend Lord Plmiket, Bishop of Meath, on St. Patricks Day, 
 March, 1878. 
 
 * The language of Swift concerning these abuses in the Church of 
 Ireland is almost identical with that used by an able Layman 
 concerning the treatment meted out to the Welsh Church. 
 "On putting to a gentleman," he writes, "upon whose accuracy I 
 can rely, the following question, " What proportion of the collective,
 
 37 
 
 people of which are said to have adhered to the 
 Eoman Church through all the changes that have 
 passed around them. But the policy which 
 arrayed all the forces of nationality* against the 
 Church was not adopted in Wale^ until the 
 18th century. At that period its effect was to 
 make the Welsh people not Romanist, but Non- 
 conformist. 
 
 income of the Welsh Church is held by Englishmen ? " I received the 
 following answer ; — "Four Bishoprics, a great portion of the Deaneries, 
 Prebends, and sinecure Eectoi'ies, and many if not most of the Canon- 
 ries." During the reign of the house of Tudor and Stewart, several 
 W^elshmen were mitred" (43 between a.d. 1558 and 1715 ;) " but not 
 one since the accession of the house of Brunswick. The consequence 
 was that the prelates brought into their respective dioceses, their sons, 
 nephews and cousins to the ninth degree of consanguinity ; the next 
 consequence was a change of ser\'ice (on the borders) from Welsh to 
 English ; and a third and important consequence was the desertion 
 of the Church. Dissenting places of worship were erected in every 
 direction." Writing of the attempts made by English incumbents to 
 qualify themselves for holding Welsh preferments, he adds ; " His 
 uncouth attempts to officiate in his Church in a tongue unintelligible 
 to himself, can be felt by his congregation as nothing better than a 
 
 profanation of the worshii) of God" " The strangers, as a make 
 
 shift, underwent a lecture or two in the Welsh language, in order to 
 be able to read in. Biit the voice of the strangers, instead of collecting 
 a flock, scattered the sheep." — Vide, Essay hij Judge Johnnes on the 
 Causes of Dissent in Wales. Page 65. Published in 1832, and 
 reprinted in 1870, by Houlston and Sons, 65, Paternoster Boio; and 
 John Pryse, Llanidloes. 
 
 * In a speech delivered in the House of Commons in opposition to 
 Mr. Watkin Williams' motion for the Disestablishment of the Welsh 
 Church, the Right Hon. W. Ewart Gladstone, then Prime Minister, 
 used these words; " It has been no question of National Establish- 
 ments that has led to the growth of Welsh Dissent. In my opinion 
 it is due to the cruelly antinational policy that was pursued. So 
 long as the national sympathies were cultivated, the Church of Wales 
 
 was acceptable to the people of Wales It is a fact of some 
 
 interest that the people of Wales were the stoutest Churchmen in 
 the Country as long as the Church was administered in a spirit of 
 sympathy, and in accordance with the national feeling."
 
 38 
 
 Why was it then adopted? Was there no 
 Welsh Clergyman in that age fitted to be the 
 Chief Pastor of his countrymen ? It was adopted 
 as in Ireland for pm-ely political pm-poses. The 
 greatest Welshman of the century was a clergy- 
 man. Griffith Jones, the founder of the circulat- 
 ing schools, the educator of his countrymen, 
 who taught by his system 158,237 souls to read 
 God's Word, — the author of the most admirable 
 Catechetical Manuals of Scriptural instruction 
 existing in the language, and still used through- 
 out Wales, — the man, who, above all others, 
 influenced his country for good, hved and died the 
 Eector of the little rural parishes of Llanddowror 
 and Llandilo Abercowin, on an income of J0226 
 per annum. He lived in no palace, and enjoyed no 
 dignity, but he was the Chief Pastor of the souls 
 of his countrymen. In his day he raised his 
 voice against the grievous wrong by which the 
 Church in Wales was being ruined. Speaking 
 of it, he said, — '' It is not my present business 
 to enquire who this is owing to ; but be they 
 who they will, and how little soever they lay it 
 to heart for the present, they will hereafter find 
 themselves answerable to a grievous charge.'* 
 For these brave, manly words he was probably 
 accused of seeking his own advancement. But 
 a man who knows that he speaks words of truth 
 and justice, and denounces nothing but wrong, 
 can afford to disregard the sneers and false
 
 39 
 
 imputations aimed at him, especially when they 
 come from men who are content to sit in blind 
 self-complacency, amid the ruins of a Chm-ch 
 which they have desolated, as long as they can 
 find any* pohshed fi-agment to afford them an 
 elevated seat. He has a shelter in the Divine 
 pavilion of conscience from the strife of tongues, 
 and replies to the gainsayer^ " I believed, there- 
 fore have I spoken/' 
 
 In Ireland and in Wales ahke, the lesson has 
 been taught by God that the ministry, which 
 refuses to adapt itself to national peculiarities, 
 and provokes the forces of nationality into anta- 
 gonism, will lose all power of gaining and saving 
 the souls whom it professes to seek. 
 
 * The only section of society in Wales that gave its approval to the 
 system of appointing to the chief places in the Church men ignorant of 
 the language of the people, were the non- Welsh-speaking gentry, and the 
 not-Welsh-speating clergy, many of whom were too like the mercenaries 
 in the garrison of a foreign conqueror. The former, uon-resident during a 
 great part of the year, and devoted to field sports and secular husiness, were 
 not the hest judges of the religious needs of the people. The small 
 section of anti-national, unpatriotic, non-AVelsh-speaking clergy, introduced 
 hy the English Bishops, were naturally in favour of a system which kept 
 them in countenance and concealed from themselves the anomaly of their 
 own position. What Dean Hook says of Henry the Illrd's anti-national 
 patronage in England might have been said for generations of the Bishop 
 in a Welsh Diocese : " He became moie and more alienated from the 
 national party, though occasionally his better nature prevailed. His 
 chosen compaaions were the Poictevins, Gascons, Provencals, Italians 
 and Savoyards. Their refined tastes harmonized with his own. By them 
 he was flattered and caressed." These gentlemen, without flocks, and 
 without influence among the ^Velsh people, but placed in leading positions 
 by their patron, assumed the authority of leading clergy and ventured to 
 give their views freely to Englishmen about the religious state of 
 Wales, of which they had but the most superficial knowledge.
 
 40 
 
 In Ireland, the warning was too long disre- 
 garded, and easy self-complacent Ecclesiastics 
 enjoyed their comfortable preferments, until the 
 forces of that nationality, which they had 
 despised, arose and demanded, with power, that 
 the Crosier, which had been transformed into the 
 rod of the oppressor, should no longer be gilded 
 by the religious endowments of the nation. 
 
 Those who believe that the national hfe should 
 be sanctified by a national recognition of religion, 
 will do well to bear in mind the significance of 
 the warning.* It is impossible to ignore the 
 serious alienation of the Welsh people from the 
 
 Ignorant of the language, the literature, and the religious ideas of the 
 people, they were not leading, hut misleading Clergy. Their opinions of 
 Tithes and Church Buildings would have been entitled to weight. But 
 of Welsh thought, feeling, and character, they were but sorry exponents. 
 That any Clergyman should venture to discourse upon the Welsh Church, 
 while ignorant of the language, and literature of the Welsh people, is 
 certainly a great proof of his own courage, and of his confidence in the 
 patience of his hearers. English Churchmen, who desire to know 
 the real religions state of Wales, ought to be on their guard 
 against the misleading testimony of Clergymen, enjoying Welsh 
 Preferments, but ignorant of W^elsh language and life. W'hat 
 value would be attributed to the judgment of an Englishman resident in 
 France, but ignorant of French, if he ventured to pose as an authority 
 upon the problems and difficulties of the French Church in its dealings, 
 with the French masses ? 
 
 * It will b? a serious source of weakness to the Establishment, if the 
 ablest and most high-spirited of the native Welsh-speaking Clergy, who 
 alone among Churchmen have any influence over the Welsh masses, and 
 who have hitherto borne the brunt of Church Defence in Wales, are forced 
 to the painful conclusion that Disestablishment oflers the only way of 
 liberation from a system of high-handed anti-national appointments 
 which have alienated their countr)'men by wounding their patriotism, as 
 well as by offering them, in high places, ministrations which they cannot 
 understand. There are unselfisli W^elsli Clergymen, — whatever motives 
 may be sometimes attributed to them by the mercenaries of mercenaries, — 
 whose " hearts desire and prayer to God for " Wales is that she may be
 
 41 
 
 Churcli. It is sad for a Clinrcliman to reflect 
 that for 150 years the digmfiecl Clergy of the 
 Church have given to them hardly any 
 literature in their own tongue. The Hterature 
 of Wales, though much of it is fugitive 
 and perishahle, cannot be despised, for it in- 
 fluences a million of souls. *More than a dozen 
 semi-religious weekly journals, a still larger 
 number of monthly periodicals, go forth to shape 
 the minds of the native population. No small 
 number of books of a more lasting character are 
 pubhshed in the language, year by year. Of this 
 literature, five-sixths are produced by those who 
 do not conform to the Church, t For generations 
 the dignified Clergy of Wales were above 
 
 restored to the Church and who, in order to seaire that end, would gladly 
 sacrifice, if necessary, glebe house, and benefice. It is significant that 
 Glamorganshire, the most important county in Wales, returns to Parlia- 
 ment 6 members, who, without exception, vote for Nonconformist 
 measures, and gives to the Liberation Society its Parliamentary leader. 
 It is also ominous that the Rector of the most important parish in South 
 Wales has publicly declared himself in favour of Disestablishment, on 
 the ground that it affords the only hope of winning back the alienated 
 Welsh people. 
 
 • Of all the Celtic-speaking races in the United Kingdom, the Welsh 
 were the most important, and in the maintenance of their own language, 
 they shewed by far the greatest amount of vitality. — Pall 21 all Gazette on 
 Raven-stein's Paper, 1879. 
 
 t Within the last 50 years an English Dignitary in a Diocese, 
 which was at the time almost exclusively Welsh-speaking, expressed 
 an opinion that it was not necessary to provide religious ministra- 
 tions for the Welsh people in their own language. The Church, he 
 said, was for the upper classes, while the conventicle was the proper 
 place for the Welsh speaking masses. He was not alone in his 
 opinion. The idea that the Church is not to be the Ciiurch of the 
 Welsh, but practically the Church of England in Wales, is stiU 
 prevalent and influential among some of the anti-national clergy.
 
 42 
 
 the work of enlightening the people whose reH- 
 gious endowments they enjoyed. Can it excite 
 surprise that the Welsh people have, to some 
 extent, been alienated from a Church that 
 offered them such a ministry ? No ; the cause for 
 wonder is, that, deep in their hearts, there still 
 survives a love for the Church of their fathers. 
 
 If it is permitted to the departed spirits to 
 behold the scenes of their former career on 
 earth, the long hne of anti-national pastors 
 under whose influence the Welsh people were 
 driven from the sanctuaries of their ancestors, 
 have had to look down upon churches emptied, 
 a land saddened, and an affectionate people 
 soured and embittered by the divisions that 
 arose out of their ambition, for the chief places 
 of a temple in which they could not effectually 
 minister, and for the short lived advantages, that 
 must now seem to them as dross, while they 
 hear the reproachful voice of the Eternal Spirit 
 of love and sympathy, saying, '^ Where is the 
 flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?" 
 "My sheep wandered through all the mountains, 
 and upon every high hill, yea, my flock was 
 scattered." " Neither did my shepherds search 
 for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, 
 
 and fed not the flock I will require my flock 
 
 at their hands and cause them to cease from 
 feeding my flock ; neither sliaU they feed them- 
 selves any more."
 
 43 
 
 Although the ignorance that prevails in 
 England, concerning the inner national life of 
 Wales, is a darkness that seems to be* inpene- 
 trable it is not unknown that Dissent is dominant 
 in all its counties. 
 
 The Welsh people are divided in their wor- 
 ship. I would not exaggerate the evils of divi- 
 sion, or forget who really caused them. But all 
 will acknowledge that the Saviour desires that 
 his people should be united. Spiritual concord 
 is the mother of numerous blessings. To-day, 
 the hfe of Wales, though, in many respects, pros- 
 perous and peaceful, is dwarfed by sectarian 
 httleness, soured by petty distractions, and 
 paralysed in its social and intellectual pro- 
 gress, because the classes are separated in 
 sympathy by divided worship. It is not difficult 
 to understand how this result has arisen. The 
 Chief Pastors of the Church mould its hfe. The 
 Cathedi-al City is the capital of the Diocese, and 
 sets its fashion of thought and feehng. As the 
 Prelate is, so will the Clergy be, and as the 
 Clergy are, so will be the people who accept their 
 influence. For 150 years the Prelates of Wales 
 
 * Welsh Churclimeii have had reason to complain, that the Eng- 
 lish Press, including, with one or two honourable exceptions, the 
 Church Papers, have steadfastly denied them the opportunity of 
 stating Welsh facts, and making known to the English pubUc, the 
 real stote of the Welsh Church. EngUsh Editors have more than 
 once, of late, tempted W^elshmen to exclaim— Where is the boasted 
 English love of fair play ?
 
 44 
 
 were hostile to the nationahty of the people. 
 The Clergy and leadmg Church Laity imitated 
 the tone of their Ecclesiastical leaders, despised 
 the Welsh language, derided Welsh traditions, 
 and while learning the languages of Greece and 
 Rome, of France and Italy, in order to accom- 
 plish their social efficiency, lived in ignorance of 
 the living language of the people, amongst whom 
 they dwelt, and whose social leaders God had 
 appointed them to be. 
 
 They were indignant because the humble 
 peasantry had not learnt their language, forget- 
 ting that to learn a language is not easy, and 
 that they themselves had not shewn an example 
 of triumphing over the difficulty, although duty, 
 interest, and honour alike called them to do it, 
 for their ignorance of the language of the people 
 deprived them of Apolitical, social, and moral 
 influence. They abdicated the leadership that 
 God had given them, and it fell into the hands 
 of humbler men, who speaking the language of 
 the masses held the key that opened their hearts. 
 
 * No intelligent man, ■R'ho knows the countrjr, can doubt that a 
 real command of the Welsh tongue adds greatly to the social and 
 political influence of its possessors in Wales. In 1868, when the 
 extension of the suffrage gave freer expression to the Welsh masses, 
 one result of the change was to increase very considerably the 
 number of Welsh-speaking members in the House of Commons. It 
 is certain that in seeking the suffrages of a \Velsh constituency, 
 a Welsh-speaking candidate would, cceteris iKirlhus, have an easy 
 victory over any opponent not so qualified.
 
 45 
 
 and won an influence that gold cannot buy, and 
 pride cannot command.* 
 
 It was grievous that by losing the power of 
 popular sympathy, the social leaders forfeited 
 th3 power of influencing the people for their 
 good. It is true that the people have done much 
 lor themselves ; but it is equally true that they 
 have been greatly injured, and retarded by the 
 want of patriotic and enlightened social guides. 
 The opportunities offered to the youth of Wales, 
 for obtaining higher education have been, and 
 are still, grievously deficient. It is said that the 
 average Welsh boy has only one third of the 
 educational endowments, tha are offered to the 
 average English boy, to enable him to make the 
 early steps in the path of enlightenment. Why has 
 the key of knowledge been thus withheld from the 
 
 * It has been observed that the Welsh are sensitive ahnost to 
 touchiness. To ignore such a characteristic is not wise on the part 
 of those who would win them to the Church. Yet it is well kno^vn 
 that, an English Prelate, within the last 50 years, applied to a large 
 body of his poorer native clergy the opprobi-ious epithet ' ' Cart 
 Horses." The insult has never been forgotten. He should have 
 remembered that the Bishop is the Father in God of his Clergy, and 
 that, if they are deficient, their deficiencies may well be partly 
 attributed to the spiritual fatherhood of him who called them into 
 ministerial being. It will excite no surprise that he wr.s unable to 
 appreciate Welsh ability. The ablest Welsh scholar in his diocese, 
 author of a Biblical Commentary, the chief Welsh poet of his day, 
 some of whose hjnnns are among the best in tlie language, was 
 permitted to die in a small perpetual curacy that hardly afforded 
 him maintenance, while English Clergymen, relatives of the Bishop, 
 were transplanted from distant districts into the richest benefices of 
 the diocese. The poor Welsh may well say, " Our soul is filled with 
 the scornful reproof of the wealthy and with the despitefuluess of the 
 proud."
 
 46 
 
 Welsh people ? It is the mission of the Chief 
 Clergy of a country, especially a poor country 
 like mountainous Wales, to animate others, and 
 to labour themselves in the noble work of 
 developing its intellectual and spiritual energies. 
 The Pastors of the people who do not find and 
 develope the natural gifts of heart and mind 
 lying hid, as rich treasures, in the obscurity of 
 poor, friendless, but talented youth, are but 
 sorry promoters of a country's moral weal.* In 
 Wales these natural riches of intelligence and 
 spirit are abundant. In their primitive national 
 competitions t they glitter through the rubbish 
 that encircles them, as gold and silver, embed- 
 ded in the rocks of difficulty, unsought, untrained, 
 undeveloped. Sympathetic Chief Pastors would 
 have seen these treasures, and have developed 
 them by a system of higher education. As it is, 
 they have been too often lost to the Church, and 
 employed in antagonism to her, while her Pre- 
 
 ■* "The estate of the Church is the estate of the people, so long as 
 the Church is governed on its real principles. The Church is the 
 medium by which the despised and degraded classes assert the native 
 equality of man, and vindicate the rights and power of intellect. Ifc 
 made in the darkest hour of Norman rule, the sou of a Saxon Pedlar, 
 Primate of England, and placed Nicholas Brakespear, a Hertfordshire 
 peasant on the throne of the Caesars." — Goningsby. 
 
 t The "Eisteddfod" is a popular Welsh Festival, at which prizes 
 are oflfered for Essays, Poems, Musical Compositions and performances. 
 At the Ca.rnarvon Eisteddfod, in 1877, the competitors numbered 
 hundreds, and more than 5,000 people, mainly of the working classes, 
 were present daily. During the four days nearly £4,000 was received 
 for admission, a sum nearly three times as large as that reahzed at 
 the Festival of the Three Choirs, held in much more populous towns 
 of England.
 
 47 
 
 lates have not seldom been laying their hands 
 on men, who, in a hap-hazard system of Clerical 
 supply, offered themselves, without fitness for the 
 Priest's office, for the sake of the piece of bread* 
 It is true that the College of St. David's was 
 founded a httle more than fifty years ago. But 
 for that foundation Uttle credit is due to those 
 who were the rulers of the Welsh Church. 
 Writing of its creation, an able Welsh Church 
 Laymen, has used these severe words, — " If ever 
 there was a time when disinterestedness was 
 called for, on the part of the rulers of the Welsh 
 Church, it was then. But how did they 
 emulate the good example that had been 
 set them ? Did they sacrifice a sinecure Rectory, 
 a Prebend, or any of those superfluous revenues, 
 which are professedly intended to provide learn- 
 ing, though, in general, they are far otherwise 
 
 * This reproach no longer exists. Nearly ten years ago the Bishop 
 of Bangor invited the other Bishops of Wales, and leading Laymen 
 of their Dioceses, to attend a Conference, at Llanidloes, for the- 
 purpose of forming a scheme to promote the education of gifted 
 Welsh youths for the Ministry of the Church. This work has since 
 been vigorously cai-ried on in the Diocese of Baugoi', and at this time 
 nearly 20 young men are being educated at a cost of nearly £1000 
 per annum, contributed by the liberal laity of the Diocese in 
 voluntary subscriptions. These students are sent to the English 
 Universities, and are at the same time, by the cultivation of their 
 native language, and by experience of ministerial work, prepared to 
 minister efficiently both to the small English and large Welsh speaking 
 classes of the Diocese. Bishop Campbell laboured long in "Wales as a 
 Parish Priest, and speaks the language, and has shewn at all times, 
 that he can sympathize with W^elsh feeling and respect Welsh 
 rights. Is this due to the fact that, as a Gael, he is a near Vi'-o^iiian 
 of the Cymry ?
 
 48 
 
 employed ? Alas ! No : the College was endowed 
 with a cluster of poor livings in the County of 
 Cardigan, which were, in some instances, so 
 completely stripped of their scanty revenues, 
 that the parishioners were left without funds to 
 support a resident minister ! " * 
 
 * Vide Judge Jolmues' Essay, p. 115. — Since the first edition of this 
 bermon was issued, the writer has been informed that the above state- 
 ment, made by Judge Johunes, in 1832, and unchallenged for forby- 
 seven years, is not accurate. The livings with which the college was 
 permanently endowed were sinecure Rectories in South Wales (one of 
 them, only, being in Cardigansliire) j^reviously held by the Crown, but 
 transferred, through the influence of Bishop Burgess, to the support of 
 the new institution in which he was much interested. Judge Johnnes' 
 mistake seems to liave ai'isen from the fact that, at the time when 
 he wi'ote in 1832, the Principal or some of the Professors were 
 permitted to hold some of the livings in Cardiganshire for the 
 augmentation of their own income rather than the benefit of the 
 parishioners. Dr. Burgess is entitled to credit for his well-meaning 
 and unselfish labours in establishing St. David's College. He was a 
 kind and generous man, and being himself the son of a Hampshire 
 grocer, and having risen to a high position through tliose educational 
 advantages which are so far more liberally ofiered to poor and 
 talented youths in England than in Wales, he sympathized Avith the 
 humbler classes in their struggles for education. But in common 
 witli the other non-W elsh-speaking Bishops of Wales he was unable 
 to restrain his zeal for the extinction of a language which he did not 
 understand. His want of sympathy with their national feelings 
 excited the susceptibilities of some of tlie most estimable of his clergy, 
 as may be seen from the following passage in the Biography of tlie 
 Rev. Eliezer Williams, vicar of Lampeter, (page 75); "As to one 
 point in the management of these schools, (circulating Welsh Chai'ity 
 Schools) the Bishop and my father were again unfortunately at 
 issue. His Lordship felt anxious, as was certainly very natural, that 
 the schools should be organized on a jjlan, tliat would tend to the 
 ultimate extinction of a language of which he himself was ignorant : 
 while ray father, being, as we have already seen thoroughly 
 acquainted with the circumstances and habits of the flock under his 
 care, knew by experience that the people were not able to receive 
 religious instruction in any other tongue, and that to persist in such 
 a scheme would drive away the Church members that yet remained. 
 Bishop Burgess' memory lias found a zealous, if not a temjjcrate 
 eulogist, in the Rev. F. Jaj'ne, the recently tippointed Principal of 
 St. David's College. Mi*. Jayne is a man of scliolarly acquirements, 
 experienced, in collegiate tuition, can sj^eakwith authority on subjects 
 in his own sphere, and will doubtless do good service in Wales. But 
 he would have been more able to estimate correctly the oflBcial 
 difficulties of a non-Welsh-speaking Bishop in Wales, if he had himself 
 possessed a knowledge of the Welsh language, and of the inner life 
 of the W^elsh people.
 
 49 
 
 It is well known that Dr. Chalmers attributed 
 the intellectual and moral advancement of Scot- 
 land to three blessings, viz. — 
 
 1. Ecclesiastical endowments devoted exclu- 
 sively to the maintenance of a native Clergy :* 
 
 2. Parochial Schools to educate the natural 
 intelligence of the people : 
 
 3. National Colleges, in which the ablest of 
 the Scotch youth could obtain higher education. 
 
 These blessings have not fallen to the lot of 
 Wales, t Eighty years have hardly passed away 
 
 * It lias often been observed that the condition into which the 
 attitude of the antinational and non-Welsh-speaking clergy tends to 
 reduce the Church in Wales is that of the Episcopal Church of 
 Scotland, a " little Church of the Lairds." As long as a few squires 
 with their servants and a few genteel English residents accept their 
 ministrations, they are content to see the main stream of Welsh life 
 flowing far from them, and entirely ignoring their presence in the 
 country. They should remember that this state of things cannot be 
 permanent, and that Welsh religious endowments must ultimately be 
 devoted to the service of the Welsh people. 
 
 t The educational benefactors of Wales have almost without exception 
 been patriotic natives, e.g., Hugh Prys, Leoline Jenkins, and Weyrick, 
 the founders and benefactors of the Welsh College, at Oxford, and Arch- 
 bishop Williams who created exhibitions at Westminster School and at 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, in aid of poor Welsh Scholars. David 
 Hughes, the founder of Beaumaris Grammar School ; Geoffrey Glynnt, 
 of Friars School, Bangor ; Godfrey Goodman, of Ruthin Grammar 
 School ; Edward Richards, of Ystradmeurig ; Thomas Phillips, of Llan- 
 dovery ; Leoline Jenkins, of Cowbridge, were all native Welshmen. 
 The long line of English Prelates and Dignitaries, who during 150 years 
 must have drawn from Wales several millions of money, have not, I 
 believe, left behind them a single educational institution created by their 
 bounty. Dean Hook in contrasting the benefactions of native English 
 Bishops with the unsympathetic greed of the foreign ecclesiastics intruded 
 by Henry the Illrd., and the Pope, observes: " When the persons so 
 employed were Englishmen, they admitted the claim made upon them, 
 for local purposes, and felt a peculiar attacliment to the town or village 
 from which they derived their surname. When they retired from public 
 life, they returned to their respective Dioceses, and, by their munificence, 
 
 very frequently became public benefactors" 1 he chroniclers and 
 
 poets, of the period, had a constant theme of invective in the swarms 
 of Gascons, Poictevins, Savoyards, and Provencals, who, like locusts, 
 arrived only to devour ; and took flight, only when they saw no farther 
 prospect of satisfying their greed." For poets and chroniclers, read bards, 
 preachers, and ballad writers like Twm o'r Nant, and tiie analogy between 
 Wales in the 18th and England in the 13th century will be complete.
 
 50 
 
 since one Prelate, in a Welsh Diocese, absorbed 
 for himself and family more than half its 
 revenue, and ran a career, which, in many points, 
 may not inaptly be compared to that of Verres 
 in Sicily. 
 
 At the present time Wales, scantily endowed 
 already, is threatened with the fm-ther loss of no 
 small portion of the educational revenues provided 
 for her sons, in other days, by the patriotic Welsh- 
 men, Hugh Prys, Leoline Jenkins, and Meyrick. 
 For the purpose, as it is alleged, of conferring some 
 indirect and impalpable advantages upon the 
 Welsh people, it is proposed to deprive them of 
 their special interest in several thousands of the 
 annual revenue of the Welsh College at Oxford.* 
 
 * The decay of the Welsh College, at Oxford, has been a consequence 
 of the decay of the Church in Wales. The Grammar Schools have been 
 badly endowed, and, being under the influence of an unpopular clergy, 
 have failed during the last 170 years to attract the youth of the middle 
 and lower middle classes so generally alienated from the Church. The 
 College has, therefore, drawn its recruits, not from the entire people of 
 Wales, but from that minority which has adhered to the Church, The 
 most vigorous intellects and independent spirits, as might have been 
 expected under an anti-national Church-regime, inWales have not seldom 
 been Non-conformist. The College might be revived and made a source 
 of inestimable blessings to Wales, if the Meyrick Trust Fund could be 
 devoted mainly to the encouragement of intermediate education, and the 
 maintenance in the Grammar Schools of poor scholars of natural ability. 
 The minimum expenditure of a student has been estimated by the new En- 
 glish Principal at £120. This sum excludes a large number of Welsh 
 youths. It would seem desirable to adapt the College, as the national 
 College of Wales, to the social condition of its people, by reducing the 
 rate of expenditure to a much lower figure, and enlarging its accom- 
 modation. It seems strange that the governing body of a College, 
 having a net corporate income of £10,000 per annum, cannot provide 
 education at an even cheaper rate than the unendowed Keble College,
 
 61 
 
 It is simply a repetition of the old plausible 
 antinational, unsympathetic policy which has 
 sought to transform "Wales, by ignoring its 
 national rights, and has resulted in the shame 
 of its authors, and the injury of the country. 
 Let us hope that the social leaders of Wales will 
 defend their countrymen, against this threatened 
 wrong, which is grievous, though it comes 
 veiled in the phrases of a pretentious reform. 
 Had the people of Scotland been threatened by 
 such an injustice, its leaders would ere this have 
 raised a cry that could not have been disregarded.* 
 
 where young men of a much wealthier class than the average Welsh 
 student, are educated for less than £100 per annum. But for the first 
 time in its history the Welsh College is under the influence of an English 
 Principal, who, notwithstanding his many high qualities, lack, 
 sympathetic insight into the peculiar needs of Wales, and ignores its 
 national rights. It is no secret that in approaching the Oxford 
 University Commission, now sitting, the Principal and Fellows have 
 used language implying that the Welsh endowments of the College 
 should no longer be necessarily confined to the educaticn of Welshmen, 
 They generously ask the Commissioners to give them power in dealing 
 with the scholarships " so long as they shall deem it expedient for the 
 interests of education in the principality of Wales to declare a certain 
 number not exceeding two-thirds to be Welsh Scholarships ! " They 
 make the same generous proposal with regard to the fellowships ! The 
 plain English of this proposal is that all the Welsh endowments are to be 
 alienated from Wales whenever the Principal and Fellows, desiring more 
 genteel pupils, shall think it expedient. Assuming that the Commission- 
 ers will, as a matter of course, deprive Wales of her rights, they magnani- 
 mously ask that they, as the executioners of the decree, may have power 
 to spare some portion of them no long as they shall deem it expedient. 
 It is difficult to believe that the Commissioners will sanction such a 
 scheme, or permit endowments intended to be the aids of poor Welsh 
 Students, to become the prizes of wealthy English youths, expensively 
 trained at the English Public Schools. It will be another attempt to 
 cure a patient, fainting from loss of blood, by further bloodletting. 
 
 *Since the first edition of this Sermon was issued, the writer's views 
 has been confirmed by the authoritative testimony of a great States- 
 man, whose residence in Wales has enabled him to form a correct 
 estimate of its eccleeiastical misgovernmeixt, and of the evils which
 
 52 
 
 Why do I dwell upon these wrongs and weak- 
 nesses of Wales ? Because I believe them to be 
 mainly due to the violation of that Apostolical 
 principle, declared in the text, and the want of 
 a ministry in living sympathy with the people, 
 to whom they were sent. 
 
 Had the Church in Wales retained the nation- 
 al sympathy, a patriotic Clergy, would have led 
 the people onward in the march of progress, 
 
 have flowecl from it. Speaking in the House of Commons on Tues- 
 day, July 1st, 1879, in support of Mr. Hussey Vivian's motion 
 concerning the deficiency of Higher Education in Wales, the Hight 
 Hon. W. Ewart Gladstone expressed himself in the following eloquent 
 and generous language : — " It was rarely that Wales urged any local 
 claim on the notice of Parliament. The noble lord had most fairly 
 compared the case of Wales with that of Scotland and Ireland, 
 But, although Wales had in many respects less of a historical and 
 political existence than Scotland, she had in many respects also a 
 more strongly marked nationality. Wales had a population of about 
 a million and a half ; Scotland, a popuLation of three and a half 
 millions, and Ireland a population of about 5J millions. But in the 
 population of a million and a half in Wales there was a great num- 
 ber who spoke and clung to the national language than in the nine 
 millions who inhabited Scotland and Ireland. As to the Church, 
 the national Church of Scotland did immense ser-\ace in fostering 
 the national intelligence. The case was the same in Wales until the 
 unhappy system of proscribing the Welsh tongue was established. 
 Now the Welsh as a nation were a nation of Nonconformists. Two 
 hundred years ago they were, strictly speaching, a nation of Church- 
 men. The old Puritanism, which was so powerful in many parts of 
 England, took no root whatever in Wales, After the Revolution, 
 English Bishops were appointed. Eveiy living was given to English- 
 men, the dregs were left to the people of Wales. The people of 
 Wales were driven out of connexion with that great national institu- 
 tion which in time would have afforded means for the cultivation 
 of the national intelligence, so that Parliament and the British 
 Government had not only done nothing for Wales ; they had not 
 only withheld from Wales the aid that had be given, especially 
 during the present century, to Scotland and Ireland, with more or 
 less liberality, according to the views they maintained, but they
 
 53 
 
 ■would have impelled them to *acqnire the English 
 language without forgetting their own, and 
 would have preserved for them the priceless 
 blessings of religious unity and social concord. 
 
 To-day, I plead before you, on behalf of the 
 Welsh Church in this town. It has struggles, 
 and difficulties, and debt. Is its weakness 
 attributable to any lack of zeal or ability in 
 those, who have immediate charge of its work ? 
 No. The weakness of the Church among the 
 Welsh settlers in England — and that it is weak 
 no one who knows that there are more than 1 00 
 Nonconformist congregations great and small 
 
 positively drove the people of Wales out of the enjoyment of the 
 only institution which offered any means of fostering and educating 
 the national mind. Now, he contended that the condition and history 
 of Wales invested it with a claim that could not Le much longer 
 ovei'looked. It was not the favilt of the people of Wales that they 
 did not find their way to the enjoyment of higher education in the 
 same proportion as the people in the other divisions of the United 
 Kingdom. They had shown quite as great a disposition to profit by 
 the advantages of education, whenever they had access to it, as had 
 been shown by the people of Scotland. The Welsh cherished among 
 themselves a literature of their own ; institutions of their own. 
 They kept alive their national traditions ; and the warmth of feeling 
 which they entertained on this subject, the affectionate manner in 
 which they clung to those recollections, must command respect. 
 There are many who thought the "Welsh language was a calamity, 
 and that the sooner it was got rid of the better. It was not the 
 abstract question they had to consider ; whether one tongue in the 
 whole of the United Kingdom was desirable or not. W^here you had 
 a large jiopulation warmly and closely attached to this tongue, and 
 where that tongue had become the emblem of the traditions they had 
 received from their fathers, that attachment should be respected ; and 
 no measure should be taken by Parliament under the supposition that 
 they were to be weaned from their own language." 
 
 * No educated Welshman desires that his countrymen should continue 
 in ignorance of the English language. He knows that the knowledge of 
 it is essential to their social and material advancement. He regrets the 
 anti-national policy that has been pursued, because it has retarded the
 
 54 
 
 worshipping in Welsh in the towns of England, 
 and only four belonging to the Church can deny — 
 is a consequence of the general debility that has 
 overtaken its entire system in Wales, as the 
 result of those abuses upon which I have dwelt. 
 For 150 years Welshmen were taught to regard 
 the Church as hostile to their nationality and 
 alien to their hearts. They bring those feelings 
 with them when they settle in your great towns. 
 Therefore, the Church has a hard struggle to 
 win their confidence. 
 
 It is true that the evil anti-national policy has 
 been reversed (although there are some who 
 still cling to the superstition that the ministra- 
 tions of clergy whom the people will not hear 
 and cannot understand have in some mysterious 
 way an elevating effect upon their nature) ; and 
 better days have dawned upon the Church in 
 Wales. But the wrongs of 150 years cannot be 
 undone in a generation. Although the Church 
 is to-day gradually adapting herself to the people 
 and becoming to the Welsh as Welsh, some 
 generations must pass before she can exert the 
 saving influence that will induce the whole 
 people to accept her as their spiritual mother. 
 
 progress of the English language in Wales. Since A.D. 1700, the masses 
 of the population have been under the influence ef native preachers, of 
 whom a majority, though often very able and intelligent men, have had 
 no command of the English tongue. As the teacher is, so will the 
 taught be. The anti-national policy, which was designed to kill the 
 Welsh language, has created non-conformity, and non-conformity has 
 had the"practical effect of excluding the English language ! In this case 
 ^he wisdom of this world has proved to be also worldly foolishness.
 
 55 
 
 In tlie day of her weakness I appeal to you, 
 the generous citizens of this great town, to aid 
 this Httle Welsh Church of St. Da^id, struggling 
 under a debt of nearly ^100. The citizens of 
 Liverpool are known to be wealthy and liberal. 
 You are not narrow in your sympathies. You 
 see among you men of all races, and can sym- 
 pathize with all. The presence of the Chief 
 Magistrate and the powerful municipality of this 
 great community — equal in wealth to some 
 ancient states that have left theh mark on history 
 — is a testimony that Welsh Churchmen have 
 your good will. I have tried to excite your 
 interest and sympathy by unfolding to you that 
 tale of wrong by which the higher spirit of 
 Wales has suffered loss. 
 
 Will you shew your sympathy with the weak 
 by giving to my countrymen here that aid which 
 they sorely need ? The crumbs that fall from 
 the table of the merchant prmces of this great 
 town would enable this httle Welsh congrega- 
 tion to do its work and to go on its way with 
 joy. Let me entreat you to help them with 
 that princely liberality for which many of you 
 are famous, knowing that '* The hberal soul 
 shall be made fat." 
 
 THE END.
 
 BANGOR: 
 
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