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He was now called upon to exercise his gifts in public prayer and exhortation. “To this,” he says, “I felt a strong inclination, though I knew myself a mass of spiritual ignorance.” His first performance was so generally approved, that he felt greatly encouraged to proceed. Shortly afterward, he preached a sermon at a prayer-meeting, in the parish of Llangeler, county of Caermarthen. The discourse, however, was not original, but a translation from Bishop Beveridge. He also committed one of the Rev. Mr. Rowlands’ sermons, and preached it in the neighborhood of the church to which he belonged. A gentleman who heard him expressed great astonishment at such a sermon from an unlettered boy. The mystery was solved the next day; he found the sermon in a book. “But I have not done thinking,” said he, “that there is something great in the son of Samuel the shoemaker, for his prayer was as good as the sermon.” His opinion of the young preacher would probably have suffered some farther abatement, if he had known, what was the fact, that the prayer itself was memorized!

Young Evans now received frequent invitations to preach, in sundry places, for different denominations; especially in the Baptist church, at Penybont, Llandysil. He spoke occasionally in the pulpits of several eminent ministers. All who heard him were delighted with his discourses, and gave him much encouragement. These labors drew him into the society of many excellent Christians. He seems to have profited by their godly conversation, and soon acquired an experimental knowledge of justification by faith, though the witness of the Spirit was not so clear as in many cases, and he could never fix upon any particular time when he obtained the blessing.