Part 1

Transcribed from the 1871 W. Spurrell edition by David Price, email [email protected]

[Picture: Pamphlet Cover]

WELSH NATIONALITY, AND HOW ALONE IT IS TO BE SAVED

* * * * *

A SERMON

PREACHED IN THE

Chapel of St. David’s College, Lampeter

ON THE MORNING AND EVENING OF

_SUNDAY_, _OCTOBER_ 30_th_, 1870

* * * * *

BY THE REV. W. G. DAVIES, B.D. _Chaplain of the Joint Counties Asylum_, _Abergavenny_

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST

* * * * *

LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL. & CO. CARMARTHEN: W. SPURRELL

1871

* * * * *

“The Clergy everywhere should be emphatically ‘the teachers of people,’ and leaders of modern thought.”

_The Rector of Merthyr_.

A SERMON. I.

LUKE x. 42.

“_But one thing is needful_, _and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her_.”

THE discourses which I have the privilege of delivering in this chapel, are specially addressed to my younger brethren, the undergraduates. I cannot but dwell with pleasure upon the time when I was myself a student in this college. This, together with the fact that I am a native of the lower part of this county, and was brought up among some of the most primitive of the Welsh people, and consequently am familiar with their leading sentiments, manners, and customs, places me, I cannot help feeling, in a state of close sympathy with the greater number of you. Assuming the existence of this fellow feeling, I have chosen, on this occasion, to investigate the social and religious condition of my countrymen in a light which has not yet penetrated into the fastnesses of the popular mind of Wales. I have done this, because the subject is one that elicits ideas of high import, which it is desirable you should know, inasmuch as they ought to prove of signal service to you in your future ministrations.

We are living, you should be aware, in critical times. Old institutions and dogmas are rudely assailed, and challenged to vindicate their right to respect before the tribunal of reason. It is well then that you should have some leading ideas implanted in your mind, so that you may the better be able to comprehend the nature of the change that is coming over us. As this change proceeds, you will probably hear cries of despair from this party and from that, and harsh and uncharitable accusations will be flung by one at the other. Be not therefore in perplexity, but of this be very certain, “The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom ruleth over all;” and though we may see the pet schemes of men ending in signal failure, not for one moment can we suppose that God’s eternal purposes will come to nought, that His word will return to Him void.

“This,” remarks the learned bishop of this diocese, “is an age of restless curiosity, and searching inquiry. If we fail to come at the truth, it is not because we ever shrink from approaching it; not because we let ourselves be stopped by any conventional barriers of usage or authority. We admit no right in any one to judge for us on subjects which we are able to judge for ourselves. We take no opinion upon trust, because it has come down to us with the stamp of an honoured name. We adopt it only after we have made it our own by a rigid scrutiny of its intrinsic claims to our assent. It is an age in which all pretensions to respect and deference are jealously examined, and in which it is more difficult than ever for any false pretences long to elude detection.” {4}

The tendency here described by the bishop, ought to suggest to you the necessity of making yourselves acquainted with the leading characteristics of the time, and urge you so to train your understanding, that you shall be always ready, as the apostle enjoins, to give a reason for the hope that is in you. In Wales, however, owing to her isolated condition, divided like a Milford Haven from the vast Atlantic, it is quite possible that it may be a considerable time before this restless and inquiring spirit will make itself so generally felt as elsewhere. This may be an advantage to you; for, from your tranquil haven, you may be able dispassionately to form a judicial opinion of the commotion which is being felt by others at a distance from you.

Few things indicate more clearly the religious condition of the Welsh people than the closeness with which, in so many respects, they apply, but in a certain limited sense, the principle contained in the text, “But one thing is needful;” namely, to learn and to have the mind of Christ, a requirement far more comprehensive than many seem to think; for does not that good part which shall not be taken away, embrace all the knowledge we can obtain of God’s power, wisdom, and love?

How deeply the cares of life, the “what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?” the anxieties of business, the wild fever of speculation and gambling, the frivolities of a life devoted to the exclusive pursuit of pleasure and excitement, the arduous strain endured in climbing giddy heights of fame, glory, and power; how deeply are all such merely temporal pursuits, even were they innocent, condemned as vanity of vanities, by that loving reproof of our Saviour, “But one thing is needful.” However unmindful we may be of the fact, eternity surrounds and makes prisoners of us all; and what is the whole world with all its pomp, wealth, greatness, and pleasures, viewed in the dimming light of that eternity? What shall it profit a man if he gain everything but what is really needful, everything but the good part, since “when he dieth he shall carry nothing away, his glory shall not descend after him?” This indeed, is a most serious and awful consideration, and no one possessed of proper feeling, can treat it with levity. The grave, without respect of persons, confronts us all with its awe-inspiring illimitable beyond; and we cannot, if we would, brought up as we have been to possess long-standing associations on the side of Christian truth, and in harmony with the voice of conscience and the higher aspirations and presentiments of the soul, bring ourselves to believe that we shall not reap hereafter as we have sown here.

How often have the hills and valley of Wales resounded to stains like these, and long may they do so. But a most important question to ask is, what is comprised in the one thing needful? Are science, literature, and art of only temporary value? In the day of trial will they prove, even when true and pure, but “wood, hay, and stubble,” or will they turn out to be a portion of the “gold, silver, and precious stones” which we can carry with us to the better land?

I shall not, I presume, be far from the truth, when I declare that the Welsh are, on the whole, a God-fearing people; and that they are somewhat remarkable for the manner in which they put into practice the principle contained in the text, “But one thing is needful.” If we except the various pursuits by which they gain their livelihood, the Welsh-speaking portion of my countrymen have few proclivities apart from religion. Their reading is almost purely religious reading; their music, psalmody; their social gatherings, for the most part, clerical meetings, religious camp meetings, and the assembling of Sabbath schools. Their periodical literature consists almost wholly of religious magazines. Secular knowledge, secular music, and well nigh everything approaching to fiction, are by many of them deemed not only valueless but sinful. _Y gwir yn erbyn y byd_, a motto of which the Welsh nation may justly be proud, expresses the intolerance with which many natives of the Principality regard everything but what they believe to be downright sober truth. Is it the one thing needful? If not, avoid it as mischievous; at all events, “do not spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which profiteth not.” That the great mass of my country-people are remarkable for what many would consider the logical reduction of Christianity into practice, is unquestionable; but are they therefore, any more than St. Anthony and the early pilgrims, who believed they did the same thing, to be pointed out as worthy the imitation of others in all respects?

The Welsh-speaking inhabitants of this country, it must be admitted, live in a manner which has its attractions for primitiveness and homeliness; their wants are few, their passions are much under control, they are self-denying, industrious, and provident; and throughout the Principality, much to its credit, criminal cases but seldom darken the calendar. Such being the social condition of the Welsh, but more especially in the agricultural districts of what has been termed Welsh Wales, though not indeed without exceptions as regards keeping the “body in temperance, soberness, and chastity,” would it not be desirable to take note of the influences which conduce to such a state of things, with the view of bringing the same to bear upon communities, in which so many are deplorably corrupt, criminal, and profane? When, however, we come to consider that one of the leading causes of the peculiarities exhibited by the Welsh, is the isolation resulting from their language, few distinctive points remain in their social economy which admit of being copied with advantage by other communities. Influences which are rapidly changing the character of the English, and the better educated classes in these parts, exercise but a faint effect upon the primitive Welsh; because they are, by their language, shut out from the rest of the world. They are like the river water, which is out of the main current. Their manners, customs, and ideas, all tend to permanency. The sons follow with little change in the steps of their fathers, and the daughters in those of their mothers. As a consequence of this, even in business pursuits, they are, like the French Canadians, deficient in enterprise, and acquire property mostly by saving and self-denial. Like the Chinese, they give one the idea of a people whose development has been arrested at a certain stage, whose inspiration is drawn from the past, and not, as by the Israelites of old, from the future. They love to dwell on the antiquity of their language, and its purity from foreign elements. What they were is to them a source of fond exultation. What they are destined to become, they fear to contemplate.

I claim to be a lover of my country. I admire much the social and civic virtues, and the religious enthusiasm of her people; but I am forced to admit that among the Welsh, as such, there is no onward tendency. That is a great and noble ambition of theirs which urges them to retain their language; and they firmly believe in the prophecy, “_Eu hiaith a gadwant_.” But to be equally bent on perpetuating certain peculiarities which unite them with the past as a race opposed to their English neighbours, this desire to surround themselves with a sort of Chinese wall, instead of letting “the dead past bury its dead,” is not the part of true patriotism. For, by blindly adhering to such a stationary policy, they will eventually, as a distinct nation, be submerged by the tide of progress, instead of floating on its surface, and exist about as much in reality as their fabled Lowland Hundred. In everything but political sectarianism, and this only because they are moved to it by political agitators, the Welsh are in fact a most conservative nation.

This primitive condition of the Welsh, however, is not singular. It has existed, and exists even now, in various parts of the world. As an instance with which we have lately been made acquainted, it may be mentioned, that Wallace has found, in some of the islands of the Malay Archipelago, several communities which have no intercourse with the world at large, leading an industrious, peaceful, moral life; committing little or no crime; “showing the work of the law written in their hearts;” and a pattern to many of the inhabitants of so called Christian and civilized countries. When we contemplate such beautiful simplicity and purity of life, we must admit that these people “are not far from the kingdom of God;” and one is tempted to doubt whether civilization with its extremes of wealth and destitution, refinement and barbarism, culture and ignorance, integrity and crime, saintliness and profanity, is the blessing that it is commonly held to be. But yet if we compare the endowments of mankind with those of the more intelligent brutes, we find that man has a capacity for being educated into a higher being in proportion as the race stores up knowledge, a power which opens the vast treasury of nature; whereas the most intelligent of the brutes are but slightly educable, and therefore stationary. While man, however, is gifted with this immense superiority, he does not always turn it to the greatest advantage. Some nations are rapidly advancing; some, having advanced in time past up to a certain point, have either long ago halted, or have gone back to barbarism or worse. Of these three tendencies, the one strongly manifested by the Welsh is halting. What forces there are urging them forward are almost entirely from a foreign source; and the fact that such influences are operating upon them is, by many of their number, regarded as a misfortune, by few as a blessing. Painful, however, as it must be to Welsh patriotism, and high-wrought sentiment, yet it is not to be doubted that the genius of Wales is receding before that of England, as is so clearly evident to those who dwell on the border land, where the two rival powers are brought face to face. And now what I wish my country-people particularly to understand is, that as long as they adopt a policy of stagnation, Cambria is sure to be worsted in the conflict for distinctive existence; because such is the law of evolution, a law which pervades all nature; and to this law I would now draw your attention.

What is called evolution or development in nature is a procedure from simplicity to complexity of structure. The more elaborate and special an organ is, the higher is the function which it has to perform. To select an illustration from the animal kingdom: among the lowest kind of animals called the _hydra_ there is no distinction of parts such as seen in the human body; no nutritive, muscular, and nervous system; no senses, no brain. Each portion of them being complete in itself, these animals can be propagated by simply cutting them into bits. Each part is independent of every other part; as if in this country we had local government, but no central government. The whole is a medley in which there is no division of labour and of responsibility, no interdependence.

How different the case in man’s elevated and complex nature! And how can I express this more forcibly, or in a way better adapted for conveying to you the principle here held in view, than in these words of St. Paul:—“There are many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” The principle here enunciated is that of unity in variety. “The body is one, and hath many members; and all the members of the body, though they be many, are one body.”

The chapter from which these passages are taken demands your special notice, in order that you may see how fully the Apostle’s mind was possessed with the law of unity in variety—many members, yet but one body; and together with the sequel to it, the New Testament song of love, should deeply impress upon our hearts the all important truth conveyed in the words, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.” There will be diversities in the Church, there cannot be uniformity, but there must be unity. “For as it is noted by one of the fathers,” says Bacon, “Christ’s coat, indeed, had no seam, but the Church’s vesture was of divers colours; whereupon he saith, ‘_In veste varietas sit_, _scissura non sit_.’”

There was a time, even in the memory of living men, when Welsh households had little need of aid from commerce, when almost every kind of food was home grown, and almost every article of clothing home spun and home made. Some lament that this is not still the case. Let these, however, console themselves with the knowledge that as mankind progress, they are made, by division of labour, to become more dependent on each other, and that perforce the law of love, of mutual beneficence, is being propagated in the world, not only by the Christian ministry, but by the agency of commercial, scientific, and literary progress. Not only the inhabitants of the same land, but the various nations of the earth are more and more coming to this, that they can less and less do without each other’s co-operation.

An early stage of society, like that of animal development, is a medley. It is made up of families or tribes, each of which has its own separate organization; and the tendency is, where selfishness and a contentious spirit predominate, to split up into fragments; whereas, on the other hand, where the domestic virtues are highly advanced, and there is a general disposition to sink private interest in public good, men will cling together, thus forming larger communities, exercising more advanced functions, and eventually absorb those weaker tribes which have not acquired these virtues; that is, have not realized, to the same extent, the principle of many members in one body.

It is characteristic of the human mind, in its first attempts to pierce the mists of ignorance and mystery, to embrace, in one view, the whole realm of knowledge, and necessarily to suppose that it is much more limited than it is. The astrologers of old little dreamed that the stars, which were the objects of their superstitions contemplation, were but a small portion of the illimitable universe of worlds. We see at first of any subject which we study but about as much as we see of the stars without the aid of the telescope, or of minute objects near at hand without the aid of the microscope. The realm of knowledge enlarges in proportion as we intimately explore it. The more we discover distinctions, which have been overlooked by previous observers, or the more we differentiate, and at the same time assign the differences their right place in the class, the unity to which they belong, the more we advance that branch of investigation towards which our efforts are turned. In the infancy of knowledge, science, poetry, history, politics, theology, form one medley, like the hydra in the animal world. Pythagoras, because he possessed insufficient powers of abstraction, could not keep mathematics apart from metaphysics, theology, and æsthetics. And Xenophanes must needs, in the philosophical and theological travail of his soul, give expression to his ideas in flowing hexameters. The early ballads were not simply the minstrelsy, but the only chronicles of the period. Out of the medley state, which has now been described, the sciences file in the order of their simplicity, generality, and remoteness from religious, poetic, and political emotion.

The development of knowledge and of civilization, therefore, like that of the animal kingdom, is commensurate with the degree in which labour is divided, while perfect unity is retained. “Now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him. And if they were all one member, where were the body?” (where were the multiplicity in the unity?) “But now are they many members, yet but one body.” As a striking instance of the manner in which civilization is effected by this law Guizot tells us that it is more advanced in modern than in ancient times, because it is more complex. In ancient civilization, there was no country population existing as a class distinct from that of the towns, and exercising a power peculiar to itself. By means of the feudal system, however, the country population has assumed a distinct character in modern times, and it wields an influence which greatly modifies the power of the great populous centres. Here we have another instance of differentiation out of a prior medley state, such as existed in the civilization of Greece and of Rome.

So much chiefly for the doctrine of differentiation; now more particularly for that of unity. Let us never forget that God has fashioned the body in such a perfect manner that there should be no schism among the different members, but that there should be “the same care one for another.” Thus it is found to be throughout the region of animal life. There is, at first, no variety in the unity. As animals ascend in the scale of being, variety emerges; organs having special functions to perform are divided off from the structureless germinal matter; but the oneness of the living being is perfectly preserved; there is no schism among the various parts of the body to which a special sphere of labour is allotted. Now this is just what _ought_ to be the case with the great social body. If it advances from one stage to a higher, it must be by division of labour combined with the union of love. It is by division of labour that men acquire that skill and excellence in the arts, that greater accuracy and extent of knowledge in general which enables them to surpass their forefathers. But here we enter the sphere of will and of moral obligation, choice, and duty; and instead of witnessing that harmonious action of many parts exhibited by the involuntary regions of organic life, we witness all those evils which, if they do not have the effect of awakening a nation to the error of its ways, eventually lead to anarchy and decay. What, however, we mostly behold in civilized communities is, that while some are in a highly advanced state, the majority form an appalling mediocrity, while too many are but paupers and criminals. Yea, the social body is seen to have many weak, many diseased parts; and is often, through strife and dissension, threatened with dismemberment. These are the great trials which civilization has to encounter; and amidst great physical progress, notably amidst and wealthy magnificence, there may be much rottenness at the base.

Since communities as they advance become more divided into members having special offices to perform, there is, where the higher emotions, the source of union, are not in the ascendant, a tendency to an isolation of the parts, to one-sidedness, to a want of “the same care one for another,” to those gross inequalities, those frightful extremes which too often reflect such discredit upon our large towns and cities; social disorders which it is the province of the Church to counteract, laying a heavy weight of responsibility upon her, as well as upon the State; and which are found to exist to a far less extent among a Christian and primitive people like the Welsh.