Christmas Evans One-Eyed Preacher Of Wales

The newly converted lad of seventeen, with several friends, was trudging along a dark and lonely road in Wales, to meet his pastor and study the Word of God. Suddenly, six youths, armed with sticks, sprang out from a place of concealment and ruthlessly attacked them. Christmas Evans was struck on his head in such a brutal fashion that he lost the vision in one eye. It seems that former companions, enraged at his complete abandonment of his former life of gross sin and drunkenness, had decided to trounce him in a way he would never forget. He was to be known in later years as the one-eyed preacher.

The early life of Christmas Evans gave no promise of his future as a minister of the glorious Gospel. The boy came into the home of a poor shoemaker and his wife, Samuel and Johanna Evans, Christmas Day, 1766, in Cardiganshire, Wales. The father passed away when the child was eight, leaving the family in abject poverty. A maternal uncle offered to assume the care of his small nephew. In later years Christmas said it “would be difficult to find a more unconscionable man than James Lewis in the whole course of the wicked world.” The lad was given no schooling in the six desperately unhappy years he spent with his drunken and cruel uncle and, until the age of seventeen, he could not read a word.

His life was miraculously preserved numerous times during adolescence. As an elderly man, he recounted the religious impressions of his youth.
“From my ninth year upwards the fear of dying in an ungodly state especially affected me, and this apprehension clung to me till I was induced to rest upon Christ. All this was accompanied by some little knowledge of my Redeemer; and now, in my seventieth year, I cannot deny that this concern was the dawn of the day of grace on my spirit, although mingled with much darkness and ignorance. During a revival which took place in the church under the care of Mr. David Davies, many young people united themselves with that people, and I amongst them.

“One of the first fruits of this awakening was the desire for religious knowledge that fell upon us. Scarcely, one person out of ten could, at this time, and in those neighbourhoods, read at all, even in the language of the country. We bought Bibles and candles and were accustomed to meet together in the evening, in the barn of Penyralltfawr; and thus, in about one month, I was able to read the Bible in my mother tongue, I was vastly delighted with so much learning.

“This, however, did not satisfy me, but I borrowed books and learnt a little English. Mr. Davies, my pastor, understood that I thirsted for knowledge and took me to his school, where I stayed for six months. Here I went through the Latin Grammar; but so low were my circumstances that I could stay there no longer.”

The night after the impairment of his sight, he had a singular dream. He seemed to see the world aflame, with its inhabitants summoned to final judgment. The cry, “Jesus, save me!” leaped to his lips, and the Son of God turned to him saying, “It was thy intention to preach the Gospel, but now it is too late, for the Judgment Day has come.” The impression made was so vivid that the young man purposed to enter the ministry.

Cottage meetings were much in vogue in Wales, and Christmas, in his ardent desire to proclaim the message of salvation that had reached his sinful heart, borrowed a book from his pastor and memorized one of the sermons it contained. He also learned a prayer. But his address and petition in a private home bid fair to establish his reputation as a preacher, until it was discovered that his words were those of others.

The church with which Christmas was affiliated was Presbyterian, though united with one of the Unitarian faith. But the young man, now twenty-three years of age and possessed of a growing desire to please God, was attracted to the more evangelical Baptist persuasion.

The call to Gospel ministry was “as burning fire” shut up in his “bones” but since his memorized message had proved a failure, upon his next attempt he selected a text at random and discoursed with no previous preparation. “If it was bad before, it was worse now,” was his analysis of the result. “So I thought God would have nothing to do with me as a preacher.”

However, through such humiliating experiences, God prepared His servant for future usefulness. Of this most difficult period, Christmas wrote:

“I was filled with most depreciatory thoughts of myself. I was brought soon to preach in company with other preachers, and I found them altogether better and godlier preachers than I was; I could feel no influence, no virtue in my own sermons…I traveled much in this condition, thinking every preacher a true preacher but myself; nor had I any confidence in the light I had upon Scripture. I have since seen God’s goodness in all this, for thus was I kept from falling in love with my own gifts, which has happened to many young men, and has been their ruin.”

His superiors had taken notice of his ability and, after ordaining him, offered him the pastorate of a church in Lleyn, a small village on Caernarvon Bay – the most discouraging place the Baptists had in Wales. Here he waited upon God for a deeper Christian life and the Holy Spirit came upon him with power. Confidence in prayer, a care for the cause of Christ and a new revelation of the plan of salvation were the results. In his humility he seemed utterly unaware of the effect of his ministry upon the parish.

“I could scarcely believe the testimony of the people who came before the Church as candidates for membership, that they were converted through my ministry; yet I was obliged to believe, though it was marvelous in my eyes. This made me thankful to God and increased my confidence in prayer. A delightful gale descended upon me as from the hill of the New Jerusalem, and I felt the three great things of the kingdom of Heaven, ‘righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.’”

The whole area hitherto so dead and impervious to anything spiritual, was marvelously revived.

At the beginning of his two-year ministry at Lleyn, he married a devoutly spiritual young woman, Catherine Jones. She had a very real sense of her acceptance with Christ, a keen perception of character and reality. Hardship and poverty never daunted her, and out of her penury much was freely given to many needy ones about her. Catherine accompanied her husband on five of his arduous journeys across Wales.

Christmas Evans often preached five times on the Sabbath, walking a distance of twenty miles to reach the scattered appointments. Before leaving Lleyn he visited South Wales where he established a reputation for being the most outstanding preacher in the Principality, and was henceforth a much sought-after minister. It was there at an annual conference of the Association when all nonconformists met for business purposes, that services were also conducted for the local inhabitants. Sometimes the assembled congregations numbered as many as 15,000.

At Felinfoel, two well-known ministers were to preach, but they were late in coming. “Why not ask that one-eyed lad from the North? I heard that he speaks quite wonderfully,” someone suggested, and Evans, “a tall, bony, haggard man, uncouth and ill-dressed,” consented. As he took his stand in the pulpit, judging from his appearance, many thought a sad mistake had been made and decided to relax in the shade of the hedges around or to partake of the refreshments they had brought, until the appointees arrived.

In the words of his biographer, “He took a grand text: ‘And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreproveable in his sight.’ Old men used to describe afterwards how he justified their first fears by his stiff, awkward movements; but the organ was, in those first moments, building, and soon it began to play. He showed himself a master of the instrument of speech.

“Closer and closer the audience began to gather near him. They got up and came in from the hedges. The crowd grew more and more dense with eager listeners; the sermon became alive with dramatic representation. The throng of preachers present confessed that they were dazzled with the brilliance of the language and the imagery falling from the lips of this altogether unknown and unexpected young prophet.

“Presently, beneath some appalling stroke of words, numbers started to their feet; and in the pauses – if pauses were permitted in the paragraphs – the question went, ‘Who is this? Whom have we here?’ The people began to cry ‘Gogoniant!’ (Glory!) ‘Bendigedig!” (Blessed!). The excitement was at its highest when, amidst the weeping and rejoicing of the mighty multitude, the preacher came to an end.”

Christmas Evans returned to Lleyn full of joy, but feeling that Providence was indicating labour elsewhere. He observed:

“I must now refer to my departure from Caernarvonshire. I thought I saw symptoms of the Divine displeasure on the Baptists there. Three things have borne down our interest: The want of practical godliness in some of the preachers that have been there; the absence of an humble and evangelical taste in the ministry, and the prominence of a sour condemnatory temper, burning up everything, like the scorching heat of summer, until not a green blade is to be seen; and, lastly, serious defects of character, both as to mind and heart, in many of the leading members.”

When invited to superintend the Baptist churches on the island of Anglesey, he complied, with the promise of a salary of seventeen pounds a year. He and his young wife rode to the new appointment on horseback. They settled at Llangefni, where a small cottage, fallen into disuse, was their only accommodation. The stable joined the house. The ceiling was so low that Christmas was forced to use caution when standing. The furniture was scanty. But in this humble place, some of his most powerful and eloquent sermons were born.

The pinch of poverty was felt to such an extent that Mr. Evans was obliged to print small pamphlets occasionally, selling them from door to door.

“It pleased God to bring two benefits out of my poverty; one was the extension of my ministry, so that I became almost as well known in one part of the Principality as the other; and secondly, he gave me the favour and the honour to be the instrument of bringing many to Christ, through all the counties of Wales, from Presteign to St. David’s, and from Cardiff to Holyhead. Who will speak against a preacher’s poverty, when it thus spurs him to labour in the vineyard?”

During the first part of his ministry in Anglesey, the Baptist societies became involved and almost engulfed in the Sandemanian controversy. Its leader, a brilliant man by the name of John Richard Jones, adopted certain practices of the primitive Christian Church in his services, such as the kiss of charity, the feast of love and foot washing. He severely criticized all religious bodies, enjoining such a complete separation from them that both he and his adherents became extremely uncharitable and indifferent to the needs of humanity at large. His following, though numbering only about 200 persons, caused great distress and dissension. Evans agreed with some aspects of the controversy but, in his zeal to refute the wrong, gave way to ill-feeling and bitterness. In regard to this, he confessed,

“The Sandemanian heresy affected me so far as to quench the spirit of prayer for the conversion of sinners, and it induced in my mind a greater regard for the smaller things of the kingdom of Heaven, than for the greater. I lost the strength which clothed my mind with zeal, confidence and earnestness in the pulpit for the conversion of souls to Christ. My heart retrograded in a manner, and I could not realize the testimony of a good conscience.

“Sabbath nights, after having been in the day exposing and vilifying, with all bitterness, the errors that prevailed, my conscience felt as if displeased and reproached me that I had lost nearness to, and walking with God. It would intimate that something exceedingly precious was now wanting in me. I would reply that I was acting in obedience to the Word, but it continued to accuse me of the want of some previous article. I had been robbed to a great degree of the spirit of prayer and of the spirit of preaching.”

The backbone of heresy was broken when, in strong faith and the power of the Holy Spirit, a certain minister, Thomas Jones, in a sermon at the Association of Baptists in 1802, dared to assail the arguments of the Sandemanians. “The religious ice-plant, religion in an ice house,” was dealt with in the light of Scripture, and revival came to Wales and to Christmas Evans.

His confrontation with God, which turned the captivity of his soul “as the streams in the south,” was described in a vivid way.

“I was weary of a cold heart towards Christ and His sacrifice and the work of His Spirit – of a cold heart in the pulpit, in secret prayer and in the study. For fifteen years previously, I had felt my heart burning within, as if going to Emmaus with Jesus.

“On a day ever to be remembered by me, as I was going from Dolgelly to Machynlleth and climbing up towards Cader Idris, I considered it to be incumbent upon me to pray, however hard I felt in my heart, and however worldly the frame of my spirit was. Having begun in the name of Jesus, I soon felt, as it were, the fetters loosening, and the old hardness of heart softening, and, as I thought, mountains of frost and snow dissolving and melting within me.

“This engendered confidence in my soul in the promise of the Holy Ghost. I felt my whole mind relieved from some great bondage; tears flowed copiously, and I was constrained to cry out for the gracious visits of God, by restoring to my soul the joys of His salvation; and that He would visit the churches in Angelsey that were under my care. I embraced in my supplications all the churches of the saints and nearly all the ministers in the Principality by their names.

“This struggle lasted for three hours; it rose again and again, like one wave after another, or a high flowing tide, driven by a strong wind, until my nature became faint by weeping and crying. Thus I resigned myself to Christ, body and soul, gifts and labours – all my life – every day, and every hour that remained for me; and all my cares I committed to Christ. The road was mountainous and lonely, and I was wholly alone and suffered no interruption in my wrestlings with God.

“From this time, I was made to expect the goodness of God to churches and to myself. Thus the Lord delivered me and the people of Anglesey from being carried away by the flood of Sandemanianism. In the first religious meetings after this, I felt as if I had been removed from the cold and sterile regions of spiritual frost, into the verdant fields of divine promises. The former striving with God in prayer and the longing anxiety for the conversion of sinners which I had experienced at Lleyn were now restored. I had a hold of the promises of God. The result was when I returned home the first thing that arrested my attention was that the Spirit was working also in the brethren in Anglesey, inducing in them a spirit of prayer.

At this period “under a deep sense of the evil of his own heart and in dependence upon the infinite grace and merit of the Redeemer,” he made a solemn covenant with God. In slightly abbreviated form it reads:
 

“1. I give my soul and body unto Thee, Jesus, the true God, and everlasting life.

“2. I call the day, the sun, the earth, the trees, the stones, the bed, the table and the books, to witness that I come unto Thee, Redeemer of sinners, that I may obtain rest for my soul from the thunders of guilt and the dread of eternity.

“3. I do, through confidence in Thy power, earnestly entreat Thee to take the work into Thine own hand, and give me a circumcised heart, that I may love Thee; and create in me a right spirit, that I may seek Thy glory.

“4. I entreat Thee, Jesus, the Son of God, in power grant me, for the sake of Thy agonizing death, a covenant interest in Thy blood which cleanseth; in thy righteousness, which justifieth; and in Thy redemption, which delivereth.

“5. O Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, take, for the sake of Thy cruel death, my time and strength and the gifts and talents I possess; which, with a full purpose of heart, I consecrate to Thy glory in the building up of Thy Church in the world.

“6. I desire Thee, my great High Priest, to confirm, by Thy power from Thy High Court, my usefulness as a preacher, and my piety as a Christian, as two gardens might to each other; that sin may not have place in my heart to becloud my confidence in Thy righteousness, and that I may not be left to any foolish act that may occasion my gifts to wither, and I be rendered useless before my life ends.

“7. I give myself in a particular manner to Thee, O Jesus Christ the Saviour, to be preserved from the falls into which many stumble, that Thy name (in Thy cause) may not be blasphemed or wounded.

“8. I come unto Thee, beseeching Thee to be in covenant with me in my ministry. Whatsoever things are opposed to my prosperity, remove them out of the way. Work in me everything approved of God for the attainment of this. Give me a heart ‘sick of love’ to Thyself, and to the souls of men. Grant that I may experience the power of Thy Word before I deliver it, as Moses felt the power of his own rod, before he saw it on the land and waters of Egypt.

“9. Grant me strength to depend upon Thee for food and raiment, and to make known my requests. O let Thy care be over me as a covenant-privilege betwixt Thee and myself, and not like a general care to feed the ravens that perish, and clothe the lily that is cast into the oven; but let Thy care be over me as one of Thy family.

“10.Grant, O Jesus, and take upon Thyself the preparing of me for death for Thou art God. There is no need for Thee to speak the word. If possible, Thy will be done; leave me not long in affliction, nor to die suddenly, without bidding adieu to my brethren, and let me die in their sight, after a short illness. Let all things be ordered against the day of removing from one world to another, that there be no confusion nor disorder, but a quiet discharge in peace.

“11. Grant, O blessed Lord, that nothing may grow and be matured in me to occasion Thee to cast me off from the service of the sanctuary, like the sons of Eli. Let not my days be longer than my usefulness. O let me not be like lumber in a house in the end of my days, in the way of others to work.

“12. I beseech Thee, O Redeemer, to present these my supplications before the Father; and oh, inscribe them in Thy Book with Thine own immortal pen, while I am writing them with my mortal hand in my book on earth. O attach Thy name in Thine Upper Court to these unworthy petitions; and set Thine Amen to them, as I do on my part of the covenant. Amen – Christmas Evans, Llangefni, Anglesey, April 10.”

Then he added, from a heart overflowing with love to God,

”I felt a sweet peace and tranquility of soul, like unto a poor man that had been brought under the protection of the Royal Family and had an annual settlement for life made upon him; and from whose dwelling painful dread of poverty and want had been forever banished away.”

What has been called the “Graveyard Sermon” established Evans’ reputation for all time to come. The “one-eyed man of Anglesey”, in a small dell amid the mountains of Caernarvonshire, stood “six feet high, his face very expressive, but very calm and quiet,” according to his biographer. “But a great fire was burning within the man. He gave out some verses of a well-known Welsh hymn and, while it was being sung, took out a small phial from his waistcoat pocket, wetting the tips of his fingers and drawing them over his blind eye. It was laudanum, used to deaden the excruciating pain which upon some occasions possessed him.”

His text was Romans 5:15, “If through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, hath abounded unto many.” He pictured the world as an immense graveyard, surrounded by massive walls, which enclosed the dying race of Adam. This sermon, translated into English, has become a veritable classic. Only a man who had spent much time in God’s presence could have obtained such a conception of the fall and redemption of mankind and delivered such a message.

Other sermons of the man were as imaginative and as powerful. But, aside from the natural eloquence that captured the hearts of the hearers, those who listened never were the same again. So certain was the preacher himself of the fact that eternal realities supersede those of time that he was able to transfer his convictions to others. He remarked once to a brother minister, “The doctrine, the confidence and strength I feel will make people dance for joy in some parts of Wales.”

In his ministry in Anglesey, Evans encountered unforeseen difficulties. Under his Spirit-inspired messages, congregations increased, with the resultant need of more chapels. And it was his responsibility to secure funds with which to build them. This meant travel by horseback for many miles throughout South Wales to seek the aid of more affluent churches. At one time, threatened with legal prosecution, because of some chapel debts, he described his reaction to the injustice:

“They talk of casting me into a court of law, where I have never been, and I hope I shall never go; but I will cast them, first, into the court of Jesus Christ. I knew there was no ground of action, but still, I was much disturbed, being at the time sixty years of age and, having very recently buried my wife. I received the letter at a monthly meeting, at one of the contests with spiritual wickedness in high places. On my return home, I had fellowship with God, during the whole journey of ten miles, and, arriving at my own house, I went upstairs to my own chamber and poured forth my heart before the Redeemer, Who has in His hands all authority and power.

“I was about ten minutes in prayer. I felt some confidence that Jesus heard. I went up again with a tender heart; I could not refrain from weeping with the joy of hope that the Lord was drawing near to me. After the seventh struggle, I came down, fully believing that the Redeemer had taken my cause into His hands and that He would arrange and manage for me. My countenance was cheerful, as I came down the last time, like Naaman, having washed himself seven times in the Jordan; or Bunyan’s Pilgrim, having cast his burden at the foot of the cross into the grave of Jesus.

“I well remember the place – the little house adjoining the meetinghouse at Cildwrn. I can call it Penuel. No weapon intended against me prospered, and I had peace, at once, to my mind and in my temporal condition. I have frequently prayed for those who would injure me that they might be blessed, even as I have been blessed. I know not what would have become of me, had it not been for these furnaces in which I have been tried, and in which the spirit of prayer has been excited and exercised in me.”

A series of trials assailed this devoted servant of God at this time. His wife and partner in tribulation was removed by death, and he was threatened by total blindness because of an illness which developed on a journey to the south and which kept him in Aberystwyth for some months under medical care. At one time there seemed little hope of retaining the sight of his one remaining eye. But through faith and patience, he was brought through to the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom.

Misunderstandings among ministers, jealous of his influence and success, brought about the removal from Anglesey of this remarkable man. Younger pastors desired independence and advancement. “Heresy”, that convenient weapon, became the cry when many thought the old orator was departing from their Calvinistic heritage. Doubtless he had adopted a less extreme view as he had obtained further revelations of the grandeur of the atonement and of the scope of redemption. However, the basest of all instruments used to disparage this dear saint, was an accusation founded on a false report of an action performed thirty-four years previously. It is now apparent that Satan, whose kingdom Christmas Evans shook by the power of his ministry, was angry. But God doubtless used it to release him to preach the Gospel in other parts of Wales.

“Nothing could preserve me in cheerfulness and confidence under these afflictions, but the assurance of the faithfulness of Christ. I felt assured that I had much work yet to do and that my ministry would be instrumental in bringing many sinners to God. This arose from my trust in God and in the spirit of prayer that possessed me.

As soon as I went into the pulpit during this period, I forgot my troubles and found my mountain strong. I was blessed with such heavenly unction and longed so intensely for the salvation of men, and I felt the truth like a hammer in power, and the doctrine distilling like the honeycomb, and like unto the rarest wine, that I became most anxious that the ministers of the country should unite with me to plead the promise, ‘If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.’”

At sixty-two years of age, in 1828, he left Anglesey to accept the charge of a poor little church in Caerphilly. The enthusiasm of his welcome did much to alleviate any distress of mind at the change. The words, “Christmas Evans has come,” flew from cottage to cottage in the district. Incredulously, many asked, “Are you sure?” “Yes, quite sure. He preached at Caerphilly last Sunday.” Here, it is said, the eloquence and power of his sermons surpassed those of all previous efforts, and the wild hills of Wales, every Sabbath, witnessed eager men and women making their way to the chapel.

He spent brief periods at Caerphilly and Cardiff, and then moved to Caernarvon, which proved to be his last pastorate. The church consisted of only thirty members of the lowest class, with those few quarrelling among themselves. In addition, a debt of 800.00 pounds, half of which Evans was expected to lift, hung over the place. Although Christmas was seventy years of age and so frail he feared he should die on the way, he set out, with his second wife Mary and a young preacher, to do his duty.

The purpose of his mission was accomplished, but the effort required more physical energy than he possessed. His final message was at Swansea where, as he descended the pulpit stairs, those around heard him say, “This is my last sermon.” And it was. Through the following week, he suffered intermittently from physical exhaustion. Friday, July 19, 1838, he called his friends to his bedside. “I am leaving you. I have laboured in the sanctuary for fifty-three years, and my comfort is that I have never laboured without blood in the basin,” probably meaning he had not failed to preach a crucified Saviour. “Preach Christ to the people, brethren,” he continued. “Look at me. In myself I am nothing but ruin, but in Christ I am Heaven and salvation.” Then, repeating a stanza from a favourite Welsh hymn and waving his hand, with the words, “Good-bye! Drive on!” he sank back on the pillows. His friends tried to rouse him, but the angelic postman had obeyed the order – the chariot had passed over the everlasting hills.

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