in the country. Those many miles were chiefly travelled on horse-back along the narrow lanes and the rugged and steep roads of our country.

"Have you ever heard," asked Caleb Rhys, "of Mr. Williams's visit to Llangefni, in Anglesea? It was before any Methodist cause had been established in the place. On that occasion Mrs. Williams was with him. After the service they both went into a well-known inn* for the night. His persecutors fixed upon a plan for annoying him. They engaged a fiddler who went before them into the inn, and opening the parlour door stood before Mr. and Mrs. Williams. When Mr. Williams saw him, and his companions behind him jeering, he said, 'Come in, my man.' The fiddler with mock politeness asked them if they would like to have a tune. Mr. Williams replied, By all means, we should like to hear you play.' 'What tune?' asked the fiddler. 'Any tune you like, my man,' said Mr. Williams, and we'll sing.' Nancy Jig?' asked the fiddler with a smile, while those behind him were greatly enjoying the joke. Very well,' said Mr. Williams. While the man was tuning his fiddle, Mr. Williams said authoritatively to his wife, Now, Mary, sing

'Gwaed y groes sy'n codi fynu,

'R eiddil yn gongewerwr mawr.'
[Blood of Christ! it lifts the feeble,

Makes him more than conqueror.]

They both had excellent voices, and they sang that glorious hymn with such thrilling effect that the fiddler soon gave up fiddling, and he and his companions were glad to beat a hasty and ignominious retreat."

"I should like to have heard Mr. Williams, of Pant-y-celyn, sing that, and have seen the fiddler and his companions sneak away,' said Shadrach. 'I can well

believe that the old fiddler couldn't get Nancy Jig' to fit in with that hymn and tune, especially when sung by that holy man and his good wife. The devil's songs are poor and tame things by our grand old hymns. A Christian need only sing about the blood of Christ in right earnest to send the old Tempter flying. We owe more than we think to the dear old hymns our mothers taught us when we were children."

"Yes," said Llewellyn Pugh, "You are quite right, Shadrach. And as a nation we owe as much to the psalms of Edmund Pryse, the spiritual songs of Rees Prichard, the 'old Vicar of Llandovery,' and the sweet, charming hymns of William Williams, of Pant-y-celyn, as we do to all the sermons ever preached in Wales, greatly as they were blessed. During the Great Revival, which began with Daniel Rowlands and Howell Harries, hymns occupied a more important part than ever in the religious life of the people, and in the grand services that were held they were no longer given out of books to be sung, but were learnt by heart, and given out from memory. In the intense heat of religious feeling in those days the last few lines of the hymn were repeated over and over again, just as in the case of the enraptured multitude whom John heard sing in heaven-And again they said, Amen.' Some of the most glorious awakenings were the result, under God, of this hearty singing. Whole congregations were moved to tears by the hymns sung to our well-known plaintive or joyous tunes. People could easily remember the truths of the Gospel as given in these simple songs; even when they could not take away very much of the sermon they were sure to carry the hymn and tune with them to the fields and to their workshops all over the land.

"Those were glorious days! In them Calvinistic Methodism in Wales was born. It was the offspring of

the simple and earnest Christianity of those times. Other denominations who had already done a great work in the country were greatly blessed by that revival; they were aroused out of the formality into which many of the churches and ministers had fallen. They caught the spirit of those great men, and became a mightier power for good in the land. The Established Church was the only religious community which gained nothing from that memorable movement. She seems to have been doomed to blindness in deliberately and repeatedly casting from her bosom loyal children who sought her loving shelter, but who, whether nursed by her or not, were destined to be giants and the rulers of their race. They were rejected by the Church, and thus the Church was rejected by the people."

"That's it, that's it," shouted Samson, who not only rejoiced in anything that might be said disparagingly of the Established Church, but who also, since he had re-united himself with the Independent Church of 'Peniel' after his varied wanderings-felt a brotherly. interest in Llewellyn as a member of the same church. Hence the vehemence with which he endorsed Llewellyn's remarks on this occasion.

Jenkin was amused at Samson, but said nothing.

All the others felt that no exclamation or words of theirs could add force to the indictment which Llewellyn Pugh had brought against the Established Church in Wales; and it being already late, they felt instinctively that the subject had better be left where he had left it. Thus they separated, each for his home, impressed with the solemnity of a great fact, to which the English people and the authorities of the Church in Wales are only just beginning to awake.

CHAPTER XII.

Mary Jones and her Bible.

EIBL i bawb o bobl y byd '* ('A Bible to all the people of earth') is a grand saying," said old Hugh Roberts to the company who had met at the smithy on New Year's Eve. "I was very much struck by it on Christmas Day when so

many schools

met at Peniel,

and when, by

the-by, John's

Class came out right well. There were many hundreds of children there, and what was the most pleasing part of all was that every child who could read had a Bible of his own. I couldn't help thinking of the story of little Mary

This is one of the many striking alliterative sayings of the Welsh language.

Jones, who walked more than twenty-five miles to Bala in the year in which I was born in order to buy a Bible, and then only got it through the kindness of the good Thomas Charles, who, although every copy was sold, could not refuse her, but gave her one he had promised to keep for a friend. I remember well hearing my mother tell me about it when I was quite a little boy, and how I wished I could see the noble-hearted girl who walked that journey on such an errand—a wish that was never gratified, though I was almost sixty-eight years old when she died. I've never been fifty miles from home in all my life, and I don't suppose Mary Jones ever was, so that there was but little chance of my ever seeing her on this earth. You, Caleb, saw her many times."

"Yes," said Caleb. "During my travels I've exchanged many a piece of flannel and had many a chat with Mary Jones. She was a weaver like myself, and I felt all the more interest in her for that."

"I've heard you tell a few things about her," said Shadrach, "and I make bold to say that nothing would interest us here to-night more than to hear you tell the story of Mary Jones's journey to Bala as she told it to you herself."

"Hear, hear," exclaimed Hugh Roberts, John Vaughan, Llewellyn Pugh, David Lewis, and Jenkin, simultaneously. Samson Lloyd and Swash were absent.

"Now then, Caleb," added Shadrach.

"Nothing will please me more than to tell the story, which may be partly new to you," replied Caleb, "although a very interesting little account of her life has lately appeared. She was the daughter of a poor weaver living

"Mary Jones, Y Gymraes fechan heb yr un Beibl," gan Robert Oliver Rees, Dolgellau.