Christmas Evans - Sermons of Christmas Evans

Mr. Evans naturally felt a strong desire to see his friends in South Wales. During his second year at Lëyn, thinking it might benefit his enfeebled health, as well as refresh his spirit, he determined to make them a visit. He was unable to procure a horse for the journey, and the small societies to which he preached were too poor to provide him one. So he set forth on foot, preaching in every town and village through which he passed. His talents were now developed, and he had received “an unction from the Holy One.” All who heard him were astonished at his power. His old acquaintances regarded him as a new man. A great awakening followed him wherever he went. Hear his own language: —

“I now felt a power in the word, like a hammer breaking the rock, and not like a rush. I had a very powerful time at Kilvowyr, and also pleasant meetings in the neighborhood of Cardigan. The work of conversion was progressing so rapidly and with so much energy in those parts, that the ordinance of baptism was administered every month for a year or more, at Kilvowyr, Cardigan, Blaenywaun, Blaenffôs, and Ebenezer, to from ten to twenty persons each month. The chapels and adjoining burying-grounds were crowded with hearers of a week-day, even in the middle of harvest. I frequently preached in the open air in the evenings, and the rejoicing, singing, and praising would continue until broad light the next morning. The hearers appeared melted down in tenderness at the different meetings, so that they wept streams of tears, and cried out, in such a manner that one might suppose the whole congregation, male and female, was thoroughly dissolved by the gospel. ‘The word of God’ was now become as ‘a sharp two-edged sword, dividing asunder the joints and marrow,’ and revealing unto the people the secret corruptions of their hearts. Preaching was now unto me a pleasure, and the success of the ministry in all places was very great. The same people attended fifteen or twenty different meetings, many miles apart, in the counties of Cardigan, Pembroke, Caermarthen, Glamorgan, Monmouth, and Brecknock. This revival, especially in the vicinity of Cardigan, and in Pembrokeshire, subdued the whole country, and induced people everywhere to think well of religion. The same heavenly gale followed down to Fishguard, Llangloffan, Little New-Castle, and Rhydwylim, where Mr. Gabriel Rees was then a zealous and a powerful preacher. There was such a tender spirit resting on the hearers at this season, from Tabor to Middlemill, that one would imagine, by their weeping and trembling in their places of worship, and all this mingled with so much heavenly cheerfulness, that they would wish to abide for ever in this state of mind.”

The fame of this “wonderful work of God” spread through South Wales on the wings of the wind. An appointment for Christmas Evans to preach was sufficient to attract thousands to the place. In a very short time he had acquired greater popularity in Wales than any other minister of his day.

On Christmas day, when Mr. Evans was forty-six years of age, he removed from Lëyn to the isle of Anglesea. According to his own account, “it was a very rough day of frost and snow.” Unencumbered with this world’s goods, and possessing the true apostolic spirit, he “commenced the journey on horseback, with his wife behind him,” and arrived on the evening of the same day at Llangewin.

Whatever the motive of this removal, it was certainly not the love of money. His salary in Anglesea was only £17 per annum, and for twenty years he never asked for more. He had learned, with the apostle, “having food and raiment, therewith to be content.” He found his reward in his work. The privilege of preaching Christ and saving souls, with him, was preferable to mountains of gold and silver.

On his arrival in Anglesea, he found ten small Baptist societies, in a lukewarm and distracted condition; himself the only minister, and no brother to aid him within a hundred and fifty miles. He commenced his labors in earnest. One of his first movements was the appointment of a day of fasting and prayer in all the preaching places. He soon had the satisfaction to realize an extensive revival, which continued under his faithful ministry for many years.

In 1794, the South West Baptist Association was held at Velin Voel, in Caermarthenshire. Mr. Evans was invited, as one of the preachers on the occasion. It was a journey of about two hundred miles. He undertook it on foot, with his usual fortitude, preaching at different places as he went along. The meeting was to commence with three consecutive sermons, the last of which was to be preached by Mr. Evans. The service was out of doors, and the heat was very oppressive. The first and second sermons were rather tedious, and the hearers seemed almost stupefied. Mr. Evans arose and began his sermon. Before he had spoken fifteen minutes, scores of people were on their feet, some weeping, some praising, some leaping and clapping their hands for joy. Nor did the effect end with the discourse. Throughout the evening, and during the whole night, the voice of rejoicing and prayer was heard in every direction; and the dawning of the next day, awaking the few that had fallen asleep through fatigue, only renewed the heavenly rapture. “Job David, the Socinian,” said the preacher afterwards to a friend, “was highly displeased with this American gale.” But all the Socinians in Wales could not counteract its influence, or frustrate its happy effects.

Mr. Evans continued to visit the associations in South Wales for many years: and whenever he came, the people flocked by thousands to hear “the one-eyed man of Anglesea.” It was on one of those occasions, and under circumstances somewhat similar to the above, that he preached that singularly effective sermon on the demoniac of Gadara. The meeting had been in progress three days. Several discourses had been delivered with little or no effect. Christmas Evans took the stand, and announced as his text the evangelical account of the demoniac of Gadara. He described him as a naked man, with flaming eyes, and wild and fierce gesticulation; full of relentless anger, and subject to strange paroxysms of rage; the terror and pity of all the townsfolk. They had bound him with great chains, but he would break them as Samson broke the withes. They had tried to soothe him by kindness, but he would leap upon them like a furious wild beast, or burst away with the speed of a stag, his long hair streaming on the wind behind him. He inhabited the rocks of a Jewish cemetery; and when he slept, he laid down in a tomb. The place was a little out of town, and not far from the great turnpike road, so that people passing often saw him, and heard his dreadful lamentations and blasphemies. Nobody dared to cross his path unarmed, and all the women and children ran away as soon as they saw him coming. Sometimes he sallied forth from his dismal abode at midnight, like one risen from the dead, howling and cursing like a fiend, breaking into houses, frightening the inhabitants from their beds, and driving them to seek shelter in the streets and the fields. He had a broken-hearted wife, and five little children, living about a mile and a half distant. In his intervals of comparative calmness, he would set out to visit them. On his way, the evil spirit would come upon him, and transform the husband and father instantly into a fury. Then he would run toward the house, raving like a wounded tiger, and roaring like a lion upon his prey. He would spring against the door, and shatter it into fragments; while the poor wife and children fled through the back door to the neighbors, or concealed themselves in the cellar. Then he would spoil the furniture, and break all the dishes, and bound away howling again to his home in the cemetery. The report of this mysterious and terrible being had spread through all the surrounding region, and everybody dreaded and pitied the man among the tombs. Jesus came that way. The preacher described the interview, the miracle, the happy change in the sufferer, the transporting surprise of his long afflicted family. Then, shifting the scene, he showed his hearers the catastrophe of the swine, the flight of the affrighted herdsman, his amusing report to his master, and the effect of the whole upon the populace. All this was done with such dramatic effect, as to convulse his numerous hearers with alternate laughter and weeping for more than half an hour. Having thus elicited an intense interest in the subject, he proceeded to educe from the narrative several important doctrines, which he illustrated so forcibly, and urged so powerfully, that the people first became profoundly serious, then wept like mourners at a funeral, and finally threw themselves on the ground, and broke forth in loud prayers for mercy; and the preacher continued nearly three hours, the effect increasing till he closed. One who heard that wonderful sermon says, that, during the first half hour, the people seemed like an assembly in a theatre, delighted with an amusing play; after that, like a community in mourning, over some great and good man, cut off by a sudden calamity; and at last, like the inhabitants of a city shaken by an earthquake, rushing into the streets, falling upon the earth, and screaming and calling upon God! 2 2 A part of this sermon, as delivered on another occasion, is given in the latter part of this volume.