thing of the arts and sciences. Sealed to them are the languages containing the wealth of history. The pages of nature's book are opened before them, and she has issued some of her works in Wales in so large a type that "the reader may run and read them." Rocks and mountains are characters she has frequently employed. And it is nature with her varied appearances, together with the ordinary pursuits and avocations of life, that the preacher must lay under contribution, if he would expound "the things which are not seen by the things which are seen." While the outlines and features of the external world remain substantially the same, the uses to be made of them in illustration of truth, are as new and varied as the minds by which they are contemplated. It is the province of genius to apply old materials to new purposes. To what may seem, to the less reflective, "old and ready to perish," the creative mind can apply its plastic touch, so that out of it should arise, as if by magic, a well defined and beauteous structure. Of how many things is the rock an emblem! but it is not to be supposed that its symbolical power is yet exhausted. It is more reasonable to believe in the limitation of the suggestive power of the most observant mind, than to conclude that nature's expository resources have been all employed, And the Welsh preacher may possibly find more cause for lamentation in the absence of a fixed habit of observing things around him, and of tracing resemblances between natural and spiritual objects, than in the circumscribed territory to which he must confine his explanatory references.

It is unnecessary, after what has been said about the predispositions of the Welsh people, to state the reasons why their ministers have adapted the illustrative style of preaching. Let it not however be supposed that they cultivate the imagination to the neglect of their other faculties, or that they allow themselves to be carried away by its witchery into the regions of improbability and fiction. No such thing. With rare exceptions the imagination is employed as the handmaid of the reason and judgment, and

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restricted pretty closely to its own legitimate and proper province, which is to illustrate. What logic is exclusively to a cold unimpassioned mathematical mind, that is imagination subordinately to the Welsh preacher.

It certainly

It is a constant public exercises

The unpoetical reasoner arrives at conclusions by means of a series of therefores, as stepping-stones; the man of imagination establishes his points by an apt illustration. Concatenated argumentation will frequently weary the attention, or escape the memory, of thousands to whose minds a pertinent comparison will cling through life. To a public speaker imagination is of incalculable service. has a great deal to do with the complexion and costume of the pulpit exhibitions of the Principality. attendant upon the mental excursions and of the more popular Welsh preachers. No sooner is a principle evolved, a position chosen, or a startling statement made, than they draw on their imagination for the requisite imagery for exposition, confirmation, or embellishment. What is recondite is brought to the surface-what is ideal is arrested and not allowed to escape till invested with form; and what has been used by the commonality of minds till worn out to a threadbare commonplace, is clothed afresh with novelty and beauty.

Great aptness is also displayed in interpreting and turning to practical account the facts and historical parts of scripture. The narratives and facts of the Bible are treated as the exponents of principles and the expositors of human nature. The doctrinal part of the sacred volume is illustrated by means of its recorded incidents. Circumstances and events which had suggested no useful lessons to less reflective minds are so expounded that they become "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." The people are made to see how the 66 things which were written aforetime were written for their learning."

If there was any one thing, more than another, in which the late Williams, of Wern, excelled as a preacher, it was in

Never,

the novelty and pertinence of his illustrations. perhaps, since the days of the Great Teacher, did any preacher lay the objects of nature and the pursuits of men under greater contributions for the exposition and enforcement of religious truth. All things seemed to whisper something to him which had never been disclosed before, and to point out for his occupation new and highly advantageous points of observation. Some men appear to examine the same objects always from the same spots, and hence the sameness of their reflections; but Williams seemed to look at everything from unfrequented points that commanded fresher and bolder views. Every object in nature, every human avocation, every incident in life, seemed to have fastened on it some new and striking truth. To simplify, rather than embellish, a subject was his great aim, and hence the rejection of mere flowers, and the employment of only expository images. His mind was of too masculine a cast, and too solemnly pledged to usefulness in all pulpit engagements, to admit of his dallying with the mere ornaments of oratory. His use of comparisons was sufficient to convince any one that he attached no value whatever to them, except so far as they subserved the explanation or application of truth. Unlike certain showy but weak-minded preachers, who are so enamoured of tinsel and glare that they often employ even religious truths only as pegs on which to suspend a fine simile; he, on the contrary, with almost instinctive severity of taste, allotted to figures only a subordinate department in expounding the great verities of the Bible.

It would be worse than superfluous, formally to advocate a style of preaching adopted by him of whom it is said "Never spake man like this man. Truth never yet suffered any damage by being elucidated by means of simple and even homely comparisons; and the sooner the illustrative style of preaching supersedes that affected, would-be, philosophical mode which too much obtains in certain quarters, the better for the interests of religion and the great purposes of the Christian ministry. "The common

people" at any rate will always feel that William Dawson and men of his stamp come much nearer to the human breast with its tide of tumultuous passions, than the poor pitiable drivellers who more than insinuate that human nature has never yet been properly understood and treated; and who attempt to make up the deficiency by experimenting upon it with semi-political, semi-heathenish, unctionless, essays and dissertations.

This

Passion is another feature in Welsh preaching. capital quality, so necessary to effective speaking, is quite natural to a genuine Celt. An unimpassioned Welshman is a singular phenomenon; and when he is cold, as well might a spark be elicited from an icicle. He will not stop short of the freezing point. The usually ignitible temperament of the Cambrian preacher is of signal service to him in addressing an audience. It gives an air of unmistakable earnestness and of reality to all he says. Words of import so momentous, that an angel might well tremble as he uttered them, are not pronounced listlessly and allowed to drop like snow from his lips. It makes his " thoughts breathe and his words burn." It is this which produces, and renders appropriate, the bold burst-the abrupt apostrophe-the glowing description-the passionate declamation—the burning invective-the rousing appeal and the impetuous thundering charge. It was his tremendous passion, in conjunction with a peerless imagination, that gave Christmas Evans so much power over a congregation. To see his huge frame quivering with emotion, and to watch the lightning flash of his eye-that lustrous black eye of which Robert Hall said it would do to lead an army through a wilderness—and to listen to the wild tones of his shrill voice as he mastered the difficult prosopopeia, was to feel completely abandoned to the riotous enthusiasm of the moment. Abstractions, dry as the bones which Ezekiel saw of old in the valley, he could clothe with sinews, flesh, and skin, and, breathing life into them, make them stand on their feet. Of scenes enacted centuries ago in the glens and on the hills of Judea,

his fire and fancy enabled him to furnish so vivid a representation that all sense of the distance both of time and place was entirely lost; and though he was frequently guilty of the grossest anachronisms, yet so admirably sustained were the parts assigned to the different characters, and so life-like and natural were the sentiments put into their mouths, that the discrepancy, however glaring, did not damage the effect. So genuine was the fire that burned within him, and so completely did he throw the whole of his impassioned soul into his descriptions, that even the fastidious critic was "taken captive," and compelled to become his admirer.

The situation in which Welsh preachers often address their audience must be inspiring to men of their mercurial constitution.

air.

The yearly associations in Wales are held in the open I have a very distinct recollection of being present some years ago at one of them, which was held that summer at Gwernogle-a romantic wooded glen situated to the North of Caermarthen. An unusually large number of ministers was present, and the congregation consisted of several thousands. A covered platform had been erected in a field not far from the chapel for the accommodation of the ministers, and from which the different speakers addressed the assembled multitude. There was a gradual ascent in the field which made it an admirable rising gallery. Into it opened several winding glens; and the sides of the hills which crowded on us in every direction were clothed with luxuriant trees in full foliage. It was a beautiful day in June. The sun shone brightly-the winds were asleep, and nothing broke on the silence of the spot save the voice of the preacher as it echoed in the wood, and the subdued murmurs of the people as they expressed their approbation of what he advanced.

The singing also aided the general impression. It commenced on the platform, whence, as simultaneous starting was out of the question, it rolled wavelike over the congre