from common life. He was preaching about men being led captive by the devil at his will, and thus began: 'I was once standing at my cottage door, when a butcher passed by, on his road to the slaughter-house, followed by half a dozen hogs. What can this be? said I. Here are hogs going contrary to their nature. You generally have to drive them; but these hogs are led, and without any trouble. I went up to the man, and at once found out the secret. He had his pockets filled with beans, which dribbled out through a hole, and the pigs finding beans fall along his track, followed him. This, said I, is the devil's method. He never drives men; but draws them with some tempting bait.' Again, speaking from Hosea vi. 3, His going forth is prepared as the morning, he says; When I am staying at farm houses, I sometimes hear the master call up the servants before the day dawns. "Turn out, Tom," he says; "turn out immediately; you have to go for lime to-day." Tom answers not a word, but turns himself lazily in bed, and seems as if he would not stir. "Get up, Mary," he cries out to the girl; "get up instantly; it's milking time, and the cows have to be brought up from the field;" but with the same effect. It is impossible almost to arouse them before the dawn; but the morning comes, and how the scene changes! The servants get up, set to work, and all is life and activity. So it is with us. Though we call out ever so loudly, exclaiming: The night is far spent the day is at hand; though we cry out, Awake, thou that sleepest! our voice is not heeded, and we cannot break the sleep of sin. Be not discouraged, brethren. When the Lord cometh, He will come as the morning, awakening everywhere life and activity. Here is an opposite simile, reminding one of Ward Beecher: 'I was once told by a man who kept a lighthouse between Anglesea and Ireland, that on dark and tempestuous nights multitudes of birds, having lost their way and seeking for

were found dead in the morning. So many souls, who have not lodged in the branches of the great tree, before the night came, driven by the storm of death, strike against the great lighthouse of Sinai's law, seeking shelter, but in vain.'

Evans's wit-broad and grotesque rather than refined;-his keen susceptibilities, (of which we have already spoken;) his fondness for all living creatures; and his blunt outspokenness as free from affectation as from bitterness-these were elements of character that not only distinguished the man, but largely contributed to his popularity. This last trait sometimes showed itself to the great confusion of his fellowministers-and yet not one of them ever charged him with cynicism, while none, perhaps, who ever came under his lash would forget his criticisms.

Evans was essentially a speaker -not a writer. His claims to be considered an author are of the slenderest description. A few sermons, a few letters and sketches in Welsh magazines, and a handful of pamphlets on matters of temporary interest-this is all that the famous Welsh preacher has left for posterity. They will be chiefly valued because they are his. They can never earn for him any enduring fame, either within or beyond the borders of the Principality.

In

The contemporaries of Christmas Evans were everyway remarkable men, and will be found to increase in attraction on a fuller acquaintance. As Evans mirrored in himself the men of his own times, no estimate of his character would be complete without at least a passing glance at some of his contemporaries. his youth, in his prime, and even in his latter days he was unconsciously influenced by by the originality and force of character of the men with whom he was on terms of intimacy, or within whose magic circle he was occasionally drawn.

Daniel Rowlands, the clergy

man once known as 'the mad parson,' but who afterwards made Llangeitho the Jerusalem of Wales -was one of the mightiest preachers of Evans's early life. Gifted in mind, heart, and speech; pithy, pointed, homely, and fervent; he knew exceedingly well when to conclude. Next we have Evan, of Tyclai, the man of the three wonders,' and who made more among those who heard his abrupt, frantic addresses, the while brandishing a huge stick in the faces of his audience, or pacing about among them; a rough Welsh farmer-preacher, dressed in home-spun cloth, wearing wooden shoes, and a worn hat that wellnigh covered his face. Then came Shenkyn, of Penhydd, a disciple of Evan, of Tyclai, who toiled terribly on his small farm, filling up the pauses with reading, prayer, wrestlings with the devil, and itinerant preaching; walking fast and riding furiously, with his head uncovered and his long white hair streaming in the wind; preaching and talking with such homely force and personal appeal, as if the end of all things was at hand—a weird, unintelligible mortal, proclaiming unusual affinity with the unseen; who, in order to cheat the devil of his prey, would make his appearance at a wake or any similar gathering, and scare the whole company with a rebuke or a prayer; a man admirably suited to the work then needing to be done, and in his usefulness throwing considerable light on the period in which he lived. These were the celebrities of Christmas's youth.

Davies, of Castell-Hywel, Christmas's only tutor, was a man of gigantic size, avery Turk in his fondness for loose garments, and an American Indian in the length of his hair; preacher, schoolmaster, bard; always suspected of heresy and yet having every one's good word; kindly and genial; of an aesthetical temperament; more capable, as Keats says, of sentiments than opinions. Next in order, came Timothy Thomas, the second, of Aberduar, like his father

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a thunderer and comforter,' an itinerant farmer - preacher, with a love for a good horse,-it being essential to his happiness indeed that he should ride the best in the district; a powerful, unwearied, revivalist, who was in his glory at open air baptisms when hundreds were gathered about the waters; who once blocked up with his crowd the way to a neighbouring church, and compelled the parson and his few parishioners to remain on the outskirts as listeners, and then, with a ready stroke of good humour, proposed that he and his audience should all go to church, which accordingly they did.

It was owing to John Richard Jones, of Ramoth, that Evans's defection took place. He was the Sandemanian leader; a devoted laborious man; impulsive, dogmatic; with a keen love of debate; a literalist, who made the Bible a statute-book, not a Book of Life; always going to extremes; a self-taught man, with an excellent knowledge of Welsh, and English, and some knowledge of Hebrew and the classics; the captain of the Reformers,' as the seceders called themselves; and always a bitter antagonist of the Babylonians,' as the Sandemanians dubbed the Baptist body they had left. There was next, Thomas Jones, of Glynceiriog, the great opponent of J. R. Jones, a man endued with a severely logical mind, and most surprising memory, and known as 'the living Concordance,' who did more than any other person in North Wales to check the spread and correct the pernicious influence of Sandemanianism. Then came Samuel Breeze, of Aberystwith, whose preaching, to use Christmas Evans's simile, was like a warm day with dewy mists, preparing the harvest for the sickle; and then Simon Jones, of Lleyn, who came to a premature grave through excessive toil-a man of the tenderest affection and love, shown in all his actions both public and private.

But second to Christmas himself in popularity among the Baptists stood

a man as any of the older race of Welsh preachers; of ceaseless labours, often preaching fifteen times in a single week; scarcely ever sleeping twice in the same bed; who had baptized in every river, brook, or tarn, from Conway to Llansanan, from Llanrwst to Newbridge, and from the sea at Llandudno to the Berwyn mountains; and largely popular with a small stock of sermons, thinking, as he said, 'that it was foolish to lay aside a good plough because people had seen it at work.' Few speakers so thoroughly possessed the power of unweariedly saying the same things; and still fewer Welshmen were equally eminent for their pulpit aphorisms. We give a few: Many have a brother's face, but Christ has a brother's heart.' 'Ignorance is the devil's college.' Pharoah commanded that Moses should be drowned; in after days Pharoah was paid back in his own coin.' 'If you choose God, you may be quite certain that God has chosen you.' 'If you have no pleasure in your religion, make haste to change it.' 'If we would be angry without sinning, let us be angry at nothing but sin.' Thomas Rees Davies, like men born to sway the multitude, had the art and leisure of availing himself of the smallest passing circumstances. He could even supply a peculiar and effective antidote to a coughing congregation! 'Cough away, my friends,' he once said, it will not disturb me in the least. It will indeed rather help me, for while you are coughing I shall make sure you are awake!"

Evan Jones was everyway a different man. He loved metaphysics, never cultivated the art of adaptation, and delighted in nothing so much as bewildering a congregation that prided itself in being critical. His brusque manner often gave offence, and fond as he was of soaring, he would sometimes plump down with a most ludicrous suddenness from the very height of his great argument. He was once

heavenly world, and particularly expatiated on the scriptural allusion to it as a state where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, when some fervent but indiscreet brother uttered a hearty 'Amen!' Evan Jones heard it-looked the man full in the face, and said, with dry humourSo you have had enough of it, have you!'

Contemporary with Christmas Evans were Joseph Harris, a born polemic, the founder of Welsh periodical literature; and John Philip Davis, a loving, gentle - spirited man, of most happily balanced temper, who did for the Welsh what Andrew Fuller did for the English Baptists.

All these, with the exception of Daniel Rowlands were Baptists. But there were two other illustrious men living at the same time in the Principality who deserve a chief place in this portrait gallery of saints and preachers,-Williams of Wern and John Elias. Williams was an Independent, and a much younger man than Evans or Elias. The last-named preacher was claimed by the Methodists. Both were like each other and different from Evans in this-their preference for the ethical aspects and applications of Christianity. Williams resembled Evans in his artlessness, in his humourous imagination, and in his occasional oddity of illustration. But Evans loved pictures. Williams loved analogies. It was natural to Evans to picture the unclean spirit seeking rest and finding none, as a dragon circling the air, first trying his wiles with a young man rejoicing in his strength, then with a maiden, picking up flowers on a grassy meadow, next with a withered crone, well-stricken in years, then with a company of ministers gathered in the parlour of a Welsh inn, and lastly, with bed-ridden old Williams

who lies in yonder cottage.' It was equally natural for Williams to say-God is love. The ocean is but one sheet of water, but it assumes various names as it washes

different shores. The various attributes and perfections of God are only modifications of one principle, and that is love. The same principle which builds an infirmary, erects a prison.' Elias was a man of larger reading than either Evans or Williams, but 'all his doctrines,' says Jenkyn, were cautiously gathered, and all his metaphors of illustration were selected, and then hung up on pegs in the warehouse to be taken down and used when wanted; but few or none of them, were manufactured on the premises.' The distinguishing attribute of Elias was force-the result of an admirable balance of gifts; of Williams, practicalness; of Evans, imagination. None could digest so well the opinions of others as the first; few equalled the second in the statement of the why and the wherefore of opinions; and still fewer equalled the last in embodying them in dramatic pictures. But Evans and Elias collated-Williams reasoned out for himself.

Elias

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was too well read ever to confound Arminianism with Antinomianism, as Evans did; and Williams was far too inquisitive to accept any dogma on the mere testimony of another. Elias and Evans never shook off their Calvinism; indeed the biographer of Evans assures us that Calvinism, as popularly understood, was Christmas's native element.' But Williams became the champion of a broader, and as we think, a more scriptural faith, and the change in the preaching of the young Welsh ministers of his time was mainly due to his efforts.

Our pleasant task is done. We have not given any sketches of the itinerants in Wales. Perhaps we may yet look upon them for the sake of comparison with others a little nearer home.*

CHRISTMAS EVANS: A memoir: in

cluding brief sketches of some of his Contemporaries, and Glimpses of Welsh Religious Life with selections from his sermons.

:

By REV. D. M. EVANS. London: J. Heaton & Son. (Bunyan Library.)

It has been truly said that this is an age of wonders, but no feature of it do we think more calculated to awaken astonishment than its spirit of free and unsparing criticism. No subject is allowed to pass unquestioned. The most recondite points of law, politics, and faith are unhesitatingly explored, and often somewhat ruthlessly overturned and flung on one side. Fears may sometimes arise respecting the goal to which this giddy whirl of controversy will lead us, yet we must remember that every subject has its bright as well as its shady side. It is well that at times we should be thoroughly roused and shaken, lest we should stagnate completely; it is well that each of our principles be most scrutinizingly examined, that we may be sure that we stand upon a firm foundation. Truth can never perish. Though the shock of op

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posing factions may amaze and terrify the dusty antiquarian, yet truth shall rise nobler and more beautiful, unscathed by the thrusts of her enemies, and freed from the mist and gloom in which the ignorance and superstition of ages had veiled her.

It is not surprising that in such an age as this, church government should be discussed with that boldness which is manifested with regard to other subjects; nor do we wish that it should escape the general criticism. We hail the most searching investigation that can be brought to bear upon all our principles and institutions. We fear not the discussion: if we are wrong, nothing is so likely to show us our error as a careful examination of the foun

The writer alone is responsible for the views advocated in this paper.-ED.

dations on which we stand; and if we are right, no scrutiny will injure us; it will but render us more firm and fearless, and prove to our opponents how impregnable is our position.

We, as Christians, profess to be guided by the New Testament; that is our standard, and if any of our doctrines or practices be challenged, our first duty is to refer to the Word of God, and see whether it throws light upon the disputed points. If it does, the matter must be considered settled. We have no appeal from what Christ has revealed | us in His will. The decision of Scripture is final.

Our first duty, then, in endeavouring to discover the functions of the Diaconate, is to enquire whether the New Testament gives us any precept respecting the duties of this office. There is no such precept in any book of the New Testament. In 1 Tim. iii. 8-9, we have sundry directions concerning the characters of the men who should fill the office of the diaconate; they must be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not given to filthy lucre; holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience; - but not a word is said either there, or in any other passage in the Bible which can be construed into a precept regarding the duties which our deacons should perform. This absence of any direct command respecting the duties of our deacons does not, however, prove that the Apostles thought this to be an unimportant matter. If these duties were clearly and definitely understood by the various churches to which the Apostles wrote, there would be no need for commands on

the subject. Yet, if it be intended that our churches should in all points resemble those founded by the Apostles, we may certainly expect some definite account of one of these model churches; or at least we must have such details of one or more of them as will enable us to gather a statement of the various duties and functions performed by them;-of their government, discipline, &c.

We would look first, then, for some account of the office generally filled by the deacons of some church in the days of the Apostles. But for this we look in vain: no such account can be found in the New Testament. Writers on this subject are in the habit of referring to Acts vi. for a recital of the institution of the office, but this passage is not to the point; the seven men here mentioned were appointed for a special duty, necessi tated by a particular emergency. They were to preside over the distribution of goods amongst the members of a church, who had brought all their property together into one common fund, and had all things in common. Such was the duty of these men, as recorded in this chapter, to which we are constantly referred for the institution of the Diaconate! If such is to be the duty of deacons in the present day, we may safely dispense with their services; they will not be needed just yet. Moreover, it is perfectly gratuitous, and indeed contrary to the statement of the passage, to as sume that these men were looked upon as the deacons of this church. The term diakovia (diaconate, ministry, service), in our version of the Bible translated ministration in verse 1, when speaking of the work for which these men were required, occurs again in verse 4, and is translated ministry, in reference to the work of the Apostles, as distinguished from that of the Seven. The same word is used in both cases, and the difference of its signification can be perceived only by a reference to the context; each was a service, one of tables,' the other of the word."

We see then that Acts vi. does not furnish us with any model of the duties of our deacons, and it is not asserted that we have in any other passage, a detailed account of the functions of the Diaconate. Let us see whether we can, from the various passages in the Epistles, in which a reference to deacons is made, discover their duties. If we can do so, we shall at once be able to say to what extent