Christmas Evans - Sermons of Christmas Evans

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!

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.

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 prayer. He soon felt a strong desire to understand the Scriptures, and with this view began to learn to read. According to his own account, “There was not one in seven in those parts at that time that knew a letter.” Almost entirely unaided, he prosecuted his purpose; and in an incredibly short time was able to read his Bible.

He was now called upon to exercise his gifts in public prayer and exhortation. “To this,” he says, “I felt a strong inclination, though I knew myself a mass of spiritual ignorance.” His first performance was so generally approved, that he felt greatly encouraged to proceed. Shortly afterward, he preached a sermon at a prayer-meeting, in the parish of Llangeler, county of Caermarthen. The discourse, however, was not original, but a translation from Bishop Beveridge. He also committed one of the Rev. Mr. Rowlands’ sermons, and preached it in the neighborhood of the church to which he belonged. A gentleman who heard him expressed great astonishment at such a sermon from an unlettered boy. The mystery was solved the next day; he found the sermon in a book. “But I have not done thinking,” said he, “that there is something great in the son of Samuel the shoemaker, for his prayer was as good as the sermon.” His opinion of the young preacher would probably have suffered some farther abatement, if he had known, what was the fact, that the prayer itself was memorized!

Young Evans now received frequent invitations to preach, in sundry places, for different denominations; especially in the Baptist church, at Penybont, Llandysil. He spoke occasionally in the pulpits of several eminent ministers. All who heard him were delighted with his discourses, and gave him much encouragement. These labors drew him into the society of many excellent Christians. He seems to have profited by their godly conversation, and soon acquired an experimental knowledge of justification by faith, though the witness of the Spirit was not so clear as in many cases, and he could never fix upon any particular time when he obtained the blessing.

The young preacher shortly felt the need of a little more learning, to qualify him for his calling. He commenced going to school to the Rev. Mr. Davis, his pastor, and devoted himself for about six months to the study of Latin. This involved him in pecuniary distress. He took a journey into England, to labour during the harvest season, for the purpose of replenishing his purse, and enabling him to continue his studies. While thus engaged, he fell into temptation, and his religious feelings suffered a sad declension. He thought of relinquishing the school and the ministry, and devoting his life to secular pursuits. While revolving this matter in his mind, the children of the wicked one came upon him, and buffeted him back to his duty. He was waylaid by a mob, who had determined to kill him. They beat him so severely, that he lay for a long time insensible; and one of them gave him a blow upon his left eye, which occasioned its total blindness through the rest of his life.