Читать книгу Sermons of Christmas Evans - Evans Christmas - Страница 25

MEMOIR
PULPIT POPULARITY

Оглавление

Mr. Evans’ popularity in the pulpit was never greater than during the last few years of his life. His descriptive powers, which were transcendent from the first, improved to the day of his death. His services were always solicited at the anniversaries of the Missionary and Bible societies in Caernarvon, and the mayor of that town once made him a handsome present for a temperance speech which he delivered there.

In 1834, he preached at the Holyhead association. His text was Heb. vi. 18. There were many seamen present; and beautifully did the preacher describe the believer’s hope, “the anchor of the soul;” and eloquently did he set forth the necessity of its having, not a bare rock, but a rock covered with clay – not abstract divinity, but “God manifest in the flesh,” – in order that its hold may be “sure and steadfast,” securing the Christian against spiritual shipwreck amid the many storms of the World!

The last association he ever attended in Anglesea was held in the same place, in 1837. On that occasion he preached from Col. ii. 14, 15. This sermon was one of the most effective he ever delivered. “The powerful manner,” says one of his friends “in which he described the enemies, who were like unicorns and strong bulls of Bashan, and all the little elves – the great roaring lion, together with all the hosts and principalities and powers of hell, death, and the grave, giving way when Christ cried, ‘It is finished,’ was indescribably grand and majestic: one might have thought that the scene was actually before the eye, and that Jesus could be then seen laying hold of the powers of darkness, casting them forth, and making a show of them openly.”

Sermons of Christmas Evans

Подняться наверх