Sermons of Christmas Evans - Evans Christmas

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of the Scriptures proved a powerful auxiliary to their work. People read and investigated for themselves, and found that these were men of God, speaking “the words of truth and soberness.”

      Erbury and Wroth both organized Baptist churches; the former, on the plan of “strict communion;” the latter, on more liberal principles. These were the first Baptist churches instituted in Wales, after the Reformation from popery. It is said, however, that there existed, even centuries before, many Baptists in the valley of Carleon, the Piedmont of Wales, and among the neighboring mountains. Their origin is, very unfortunately, involved in obscurity. Some pretend to trace them back to the year 63, the time of the introduction of Christianity into Britain. This is a very convenient theory for those who wish to show that the first Christians were exclusive immersionists; and who deem it of primary importance to establish a regular succession of such Christians, from the apostles of our Lord, down to the present day. But it is unsustained by a single shadow of evidence, beyond the bare assertion of interested witnesses.

      During the ministry of Erbury and Wroth, arose that morning-star of the Baptist church in Wales, Vavasor Powell. He was born in Radnorshire, South Wales. He was educated for the ministry of the established church. For some time he officiated at Clun, on the borders of Shropshire. While there, his conscience was awakened by a reproof from a Puritan for violating the Sabbath. He was soon afterwards converted, under the preaching of Walter Caradock, a noted preacher among the Independents. In 1636, he joined the Baptists, and shortly became a very popular preacher among them. He was a man of great eloquence and power. Many were converted under his ministry. But the red dragon was roused to pursue him. In 1642, he fled his native land for the safety of his life. In four years, however, he returned, and preached boldly throughout the country. The people flocked to hear him, by thousands, to the market-houses, to the fields, the woods, and the tops of the mountains. His ministry was wonderfully blessed to the salvation of souls.

      After the death of Cromwell, in 1658, Charles II. returned to England. Now commenced a dreadful persecution of the Baptists in Wales. “Hundreds of them were taken from their beds at night, without any regard to age, sex, or the inclemency of the weather; and were driven to prison, on foot, fifteen or twenty miles; and if they did not keep up with their drivers on horseback, they were most cruelly and unmercifully whipped; and while their drivers stopped to drink at the taverns, they were beaten like cattle, during the pleasure of the king’s friends; and all their property was forfeited to the king, except what was deemed necessary to defray the expenses of their drivers. But all this was only the beginning of sorrows, and nothing to what they suffered for the space of six-and-twenty years afterward.”

      In these persecutions, Vavasor Powell bore his part. He was immured, at different times, in thirteen prisons. Indeed, he was a prisoner most of the time till his death, which happened in 1670. On his tomb is this inscription:—“He was, to the last generation, a successful preacher; to the present generation, a faithful witness; to the next generation, an excellent example.”

      Contemporary with Vavasor Powell, and immediately succeeding him, were many faithful laborers in the cause of Christ in Wales. One of them was the noted Roger Williams, who subsequently removed to New England, and founded the Baptist sect in America. But after the death of Powell and his coadjutors, the revival in Wales declined, and the churches gradually settled into a spiritual sleep, in which they remained a century, when they were roused by the trumpet-tongued eloquence of Harris and Rowlands.

      Harris and Rowlands were Methodists. While Whitefield and Wesley were rekindling the fires of the Reformation on the altars of England, these men of God were scattering some sparks of it among the mountains of Wales. Under their labors commenced such a revival as was never known in that country before. They adhered to the established church; and, on that account, were, for a season, but little opposed. But when the blessed fruits of their ministry began to be developed in the conversion of thousands of souls, the wrath of Satan and his emissaries arose against them. But, as Christmas Evans remarks, it was now too late. The sword of the Spirit was drawn; the gates of the city were opened; the fire was kindled in the stubble, and not all the floods of persecution could stay the progress of the flame. Harris and Rowlands went forward in their work of love, clothed with power from on high. A great and effectual door was opened to their ministry, and the leaven spread rapidly through the lump.

      The Baptists shared largely in this work of grace. It was the rising of a new sun upon them, which had been heralded a hundred years before in the powerful ministry of Vavasor Powell. The revival developed whatever of talent and energy lay dormant in the denomination. Many a David went forth to meet the Philistine, and returned in triumph. One of these, and the most successful of them all, was Christmas Evans. “He was a man of God,” says Dr. Cone, “and eminently useful in his generation.” His natural talents were of the highest order, and his Christian graces have not been surpassed in a century. The celebrated Robert Hall regarded him as the first pulpit genius of the age. “Had he enjoyed the advantages of education,” writes one who knew him well, and often sat under his ministry, “he might have blended the impassioned declamation of Whitefield with something of the imperial opulence and pomp of fancy that distinguished Jeremy Taylor.” His two celebrated “Specimens of Welsh Preaching” have been read throughout Protestant Christendom; and ranked, by universal suffrage, among the most splendid productions of sanctified genius. Who that has seen them does not wish to know more of so remarkable a man? To gratify this desire is a secondary object of the present publication; the primary, is the religious benefit of mankind. The matter of the following memoir and portraiture is compiled from several authentic sources of information. May their perusal afford the reader as rich a harvest of profit and delight as their preparation has afforded the writer!

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      Christmas Evans, second son of Samuel and Joanna Evans, was born at Ysgarwen, Cardiganshire, South Wales, on the 25th of December, 1776. His birth happening on Christmas day suggested his Christian name.

      Samuel and Joanna Evans were poor, and unable to educate their children; and at the age of seventeen, Christmas could not read a word. When he was only nine years old, he lost his father and went to live with his uncle, who was a farmer, and a very wicked man. Here he spent several years of his youthful life, daily witnessing the worst of examples, and experiencing the unkindest of treatment. He subsequently engaged as a servant to several farmers successively in his native parish.

      During these years he met with a number of serious accidents, in some of which he narrowly escaped with his life. Once he was stabbed in a quarrel. Once he was so nearly drowned as to be with difficulty resuscitated. Once he fell from a very high tree, with an open knife in his hand. Once a horse ran away with him, passing at full speed through a low and narrow passage.

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      His first religious impressions he dates from his father’s funeral. But they were fitful and evanescent. To use his own language, “They vanished and recurred once and again.” When he was eighteen years of age, an awakening occurred among the young people of his neighborhood. Christmas himself was “much terrified with the fear of death and judgment,” became very serious in his deportment, and joined the Arminian Presbyterians at Llwynrhydowen.

      His Christian experience was evidently very imperfect. He had a conviction of the evil of sin, and a desire to flee from the wrath to come; but no evidence of acceptance with God, and a very limited knowledge of the plan of salvation. Yet his religious impressions were not entirely fruitless. They produced, at least, a partial reformation of life, and led to many penitential resolutions. He thought much of eternity, and was frequent in secret

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