Welsh Calvinistic Methodism : a Historical Sketch

I lip' mmi i BX 9100 .W54 1872 Williams, William, Welsh Calvinistic Methodism WELSH CALVlNISTIC METHODISM. "V / WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODISM Si l^i^torical fefeetct) BY THE REV. WILLIAM WILLIAMS. LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 1872. PRINTED BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY, AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS. CONTENTS. PAGE ix Introduction. • . CHAPTER I. Howell Harris—Daniel Rowlands—Howell Da vies, . 1 CHAPTER II. William Williams—Peter Williams— Harris's ministry- Rowlands at home — Llangeitho gatherings — Pilgrims from Bala—A ship-load from Carnarvon—Exhorters— Successes, ....... 15 CHAPTER III. Attachment to the Church—Societies—Exhorters—Organiza- tion — Overseers— Moderators — Districts — Reports of Overseers — Rules for admission of Exhorters — Strict discipline—Great poverty— Richard Tibbot, . 25 CHAPTER IV. / Harris mobbed at Newport and other places—Peter Williams at Kidwelly—At Wrexham—In the dog-kennel—At Trevriw — At Penrhos — The grey mare — Rowlands mobbed at Llanilar—Mike and Dick—A persistent church choir— Patent rattle— A small Gunpowder Plot— Lewis Evan and the magistrate—Imprisoned—Morgan Griffith h — VI CONTENTS. PAGE arrested—Sent on board a man-of-war—A Sermon en route—Furlough—Again sent away—Dies, . 40 CHAPTER V. More persecution and oppression—William Pritchard—Hugh Thomas hiding in caves — Edward Parry — Margaret Hughes—Owen Thomas Kowland—Thomas Lloyd sold up—Sale at Wrexham—Richard Hughes and the agent, 60 CHAPTER VI. The instigators of the persecution— False representations Sensible gentry—Mr. Lewis, Mr. Bulkeley, and the strange preacher—A sermon at Llysdulas Hall and its results—Mr. Bulkeley and Chancellor Wynne— Hugh ' Williams the blacksmith, and Hugh Williams, Esquire —Mrs. Holland Griffiths—Young Holland Griffitlis's opinion—Griffith John and his master, . 73- CHAPTER VII. Checks to perseciition—Miracles or what ?—End of some of Howell Harris's persecutors — The unfulfilled vow Chancellor Owen and his clerk— Sir^ W. W. Wynn—The great prayer-meeting—Deliverance—Penryn—A plot to pull down the chapel— How it failed—A feast, and how it finished, . .83 CHAPTER VIII. Self-sacrificing zeal—Thomas Hughes and his wife—Another Thomas Hughes—Examination by the Vicar of Conway —A ruse—Conversion of a bully— Lowri Williams, "the Apostle "—Griffith Ellis—Church of eight females- Three sisters—Robert the shoemaker—Thomas Edwards the turner—Catherine Owen's journeys to Llangeitho, . 90 A— CONTENTS. Vii CHAPTER IX. PAGK Contentions — Strong terms—The Disruption — " Harris's people" and. " Rowlands's people"— H. Harris retires to Trevecca—Building of the great house— The " Family " Daily sermons and services—Preaching on a sickbed- Harris joins the militia with twenty -four of the '' Family" —Made a captain—Preaches in regimentals at Yarmouth and in the West—Return to Trevecca—Monthly sacra- ment—Attachment to the Church, . , .109 CHAPTER X. Rev. H. Venn on Trevecca—Lady Huntingdon and the Welsh Methodists—A projected college—Rev. J. Berridge's letter—Opening of the college at Trevecca—Qualifications nd salary of head-master — First anniversary — The ilvinistic controversy—Another anniversary— Fall of the scaffold— Fireside talk—Death and funeral of Howell Harris— Ultimate results of his withdrawal to Trevecca— Another controversy—Expulsion of Peter Williams— long I drought— A great revival—Rowlands expelled from the Established Church, . .128 7 CHAPTER XI. Concerning Welsh revivals, . .151 CHAPTER XII. The Rev. T. Charles of Bala— At Llanddowror school—At Car- marthen College—At Oxford— Ordination and first curacy —Marriage and settlement at Bala—Circulating schools- Sabbath schools—Letter from Mr. Charles - Owen Jones and Robert Davies at Aberystwyth—A farewell meeting and its eifects— Owen Jones at Llanidloes— At Shrews- bury—Ebenezer Richard - Establishment of the British and Foreign Bible Society, . .102 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. PAGE Anomalous position of the Connexion—Scarcity of places for the administration of the Lord's Supper—Dearth of ordained ministers—Eev. N. Kowlands —Entertainment of the idea of ordaining ministers—Opposition of the clergy—Mr. Jones, Llangan—Mr. Griffiths, Nevern— Their objections intelligible—Rev. J. Williams of Lledrod's resolve— Mr. Charles and Mr. Ebenezer Morris—Decision at the Bala Association—The same at Swansea—The first two ordinations, . .180 CHAPTER XIV. Results of the Ordination—Constitution, Rules, and Confes- sion of faith—Home Missionary Societies for the English districts— Colleges at Bala and Trevecca— Foreign Mis- sionary Society — General Assembly — Progress from 1850 to 1870, 197 CHAPTER XV. Sketches of ministers—Robert Roberts—John Elias—Eben- ezer Morris— Ebenezer Richard— Conclusion, . 216 ^snroMTQ^'^i'. INTRODUCTION. A History of Welsh Methodism was collected with vast labour, and written in the language of the Principality, by the late Eev. John Hughes of Liver- pool, and published in three large octavo volumes, containing about six hundred pages each, the last of which came out in the year 1856. This valuable work is greatly prized by a large number of the Welsh people, but is well worthy of a much wider circulation than it has hitherto obtained. Though I have gathered considerable information from other sources, the principal part of my labour in the preparation of the following pages has consisted in searching for materials in Mr. Hughes's great treasury, arranging them in my own way, and writ- ing them down in my own words. I have not thought it necessary to enter into a minute description of the state of the Principality prior to the Methodist period, as the story which I tell cannot fail to enable the reader to draw a cor- X INTRODUCTION. rect inference upon that subject for himself; but there are certain statements mth reference to that period made in the History of Protestant Noncon- formHy in Wales, by the Rev. Dr. Rees of Swansea, which I feel I ought not to leave unnoticed. Dr. Rees gives statistics to show that there were 50,000 Nonconformists in Wales before Howell Harris entered upon the work of an Evangelist.^ J These statistics are partly based upon, and partly j deduced from, returns collected about the year ^ 1715 by Dr. John Evans, and still preserved at Dr. Williams's library in London. There is a table given in four columns; the first containing the names of churches, or pastoral charges, the second those of their respective ministers, the third gives the average number of attendants at each place, and the fourth the social and political standing of those attendants. The number in the column in which the attendants are classified does in no case come near the number given in the preceding column as belonging to the congregation named in the first column. Thus, for example, at Abergavenny, the first place on the list, we have 280 attendants, classified in the next column as follows,— 1 esquire, 16 gentlemen, 7 yeomen, 63 tradesmen, 1 farmer, 7 labourers, mak- 1 Pages 286 to 291. — INTRODUCTION. Xl ing in all 95; the remaining 185 I presume are made up of the females, young people, and children of the families belonging to that place of worship. The list contains 7 1 pastoral charges, but there were several from which no returns were obtained, and ^ Dr. Eees says : " It will be observed that returns of the avera2:e number of hearers have been received from only 58 of the places or pastoral charges named, and that the aggregate amount of these is 20,007, or about 345 for each charge. By estimating the other 13, which made no returns, at 345 each, which would be rather below than above the mark (the author has in the preceding paragraph given a reason for this statement), the aggregate number would amount to 24,485. To this number again, at least 3000 should be added, as the average of the attendants at the Meetings of the Friends, who were then compara- tively numerous and influential in several parts of the Principality; thus the total would amount to 27,485. But as it is an admitted rule, in estimating the number of persons belonging to any place o. worship, to regard the number of actual attendants at any ordinary service, as only a little more than one-half of the people who consider such a place as their usual place of worship, we may safely calculate 1 Page 292. XU INTRODUCTION. that fifty thousand, or about one-eighth of the population of Wales in 1715, were Nonconformists." " Historians," says the author,^ " one after another, have been misled by the account given by Mr. Charles, of Bala, in the 'Drysorfa' for 1799, of the weakness of Nonconformity in North Wales, and the prevalence of irreligion and superstition there as late as the year 1740. They have taken for granted that that graphic and telling description of the state of things in most parts of the North, was applicable to the whole of the Principality, which was a most unfounded assumption, quite as absurd as if a per- son assumed that the majority of the population of Ireland were Protestants, because it happens to be so in some districts of the Province of Ulster. It is well known that North Wales, in respect both of area and population, constitutes only a little more than one-third of the Principality, including Mon- mouthshire; and at that time its Nonconforming inhabitants scarcely amounted to one-twentieth of the whole body of Welsh Nonconformists." Wales, including Monmouthshire, according to Dr. Eees, contained a population of 400,000, of which he gives, say, 140,000 to North Wales, and 260,000 to the South, and since the Nonconforming inhabitants of the former province " scarcely amounted to 1 Paore 305. INTRODUCTION. Xlll one-twentieth of the whole body of Welsh Noncon- formists," it follows that their number in the North would be scarcely 2500, leaving 47,500 Noncon- formists in the South, or considerably more than one in every six of the whole population.

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