Читать книгу Sermons of Christmas Evans - Evans Christmas - Страница 24

Mr. Evans’ next settlement was in Caernarvon. The Baptist interest in that town was in a feeble and languishing condition. The church numbered about thirty members, but they were chiefly of the lowest class, and sadly disunited. They had a decent house of worship, but it was involved in a debt of £800. “All things,” said Mr. Evans, “seemed like a waste howling wilderness; yea, a habitation of dragons, where they made their rest night and day.” Some advised the dissolution of the church, but he thought better to attempt its reformation. His coming produced quite a sensation through the town. His first congregation was very large, and for some time multitudes flocked to his ministry, but they were only accidental hearers, generally members of other churches, who, when they had satisfied their curiosity, returned to their own places of worship. His Welsh biographer mentions with commendation the sympathy and help which he received from the Wesleyan and the Calvinistic Methodists, and Mr. Evans himself calls them the Aarons and the Hurs that sustained his hands in Caernarvon.

His labors and zeal in this place were not less than in Caerphilly and Cardiff; but owing to many unfavorable circumstances, his success was far inferior. During the first year, however, he reduced the chaos around him to some incipient order; and was enabled, by the payment of a mortgage upon the church, to save it from sheriff’s sale. He employed a Mr. Edwards to travel into England, Ireland, and Scotland, and make collections for this purpose. Mr. Evans was already known extensively, as the author of the celebrated Specimen of Welsh Preaching, which had been translated into English, and published in many of the periodicals, eliciting universal admiration. Mr. Edwards had this piece reprinted, and distributed the copies wherever he went, thus making known the pastor of the church for which he solicited pecuniary aid.

Though the aged servant of God saw few conversions from his labors in Caernarvon, the seed which he sowed in tears upon that sterile soil has sprung up since his decease, and others have gathered the harvest. The Baptist church there has experienced a gracious revival, and many of the new converts attribute their salvation, under God, to Christmas Evans.

While in Caernarvon he penned in his journal the following pious reflections: “I have been thinking of the great goodness of the Lord unto me throughout my unworthy ministry, and now, in my old age, I see the work prospering wonderfully in my hand, so that there is reason to think that I am in some degree a blessing to the church, when I might have been a burden to it, or rather a curse, by which she might have been induced to wish me laid in the earth, that I might no longer prevent the progress of the work. Thanks be to God, that it is not so! though I deserve no better; yet I am in the land of mercy. This is unto me according to the manner of God unto his people. My path in the valley, the dangers, and the precipices of destruction upon which I have stood, rushes into my thoughts, and also the sinking of many in death, and the downfall of others by immorality, and their burial in Kibroth-Hattaavah, the graves of inordinate desire; together with the withering, the feebleness, and the unfruitfulness of some through the influence of a secret departure from God, and of walking in the hidden paths that lead to apostasy.”