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Neither earth nor Hell's own vastness
Can Thy mighty power defy.
In Thy Name such glory dwelleth
Every foe withdraws in fear,
All the wide creation trembleth

Whensoever Thou art near.'

The unusual militant strain in this pæan of conquest soon disappears, and the gentler aspects of Christ's atoning sacrifice occupy the writer's mind and pen.

"IN EDEN-O THE MEMORY!”

Yn Eden cofiaf hyny byth!

The text, "He was wounded for our transgressions," is amplified in this hymn, and the Saviour is shown bruising Himself while bruising the serpent.

The first stanza gives the key-note,—

In Eden-O the memory!

What countless gifts were lost to me!

My crown, my glory fell;

But Calvary's great victory
Restored that vanished crown to me;

On this my songs shall dwell;

-and the multitude of Williams' succeeding "songs" that chant the same theme shows how well he kept

*The following shows the style of Rev. Elvet Lewis' translation:

Blessed Jesus, march victorious

With Thy sword fixed at Thy side;
Neither death nor hell can hinder

The God-Warrior in His ride.

his promise. The following hymn in Welsh (Cymmer, Jesu fi fel'r ydwyf) antedates the advice of Dr. Malan to Charlotte Elliott, "Come just as you are"

Take me as I am, O Saviour,

Better I can never be;

Thou alone canst bring me nearer,

Self but draws me far from Thee.

I can never

But within Thy wounds be saved;

-and another (Mi dafla maich oddi ar fy ngwar) reminds us of Bunyan's Pilgrim in sight of the Cross:

I'll cast my heavy burden down,
Remembering Jesus' pains;

Guilt high as towering mountain tops
Here turns to joyful strains.

He stretched His pure white hands abroad

A crown of thorns He wore,
That so the vilest sinner might
Be cleansed forevermore;

Williams was called "The Sweet Singer of Wales" and "The Watts of Wales" because he was the chief poet and hymn-writer of his time, but the lady he married, Miss Mary Francis, was literally a singer, with a voice so full and melodious that the people to whom he preached during his itineraries, which she sometimes shared with him, were often more moved by her sweet hymnody than by his exhortations. On one occasion

the good man, accompanied by his wife, put up at Bridgend Tavern in Llangefin, Anglesea, and a mischievous crowd, wishing to plague the "Methodists," planned to make night hideous in the house with a boisterous merry-making. The fiddler, followed by a gang of roughs, pushed his way to the parlor, and mockingly asked the two guests if they would "have a tune.'

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"Yes," replied Williams, falling in with his banter, “anything you like, my lad; 'Nancy Jig' or anything else."

And at a sign from her husband, as soon as the fellow began the jig, Mrs. Williams struck in with one of the poet-minister's well-known Welsh hymns in the same metre,

Gwaed Dy groes sy'n c'odi fyny.

Calvary's blood the weak exalteth
More than conquerors to be,*

---and followed the player note for note, singing the sacred words in her sweet, clear voice, till he stopped ashamed, and took himself off with all his gang.

*A less literal but more hymn-like translation is:

Jesu's blood can raise the feeble

As a conqueror to stand;

Jesu's blood is all-prevailing

O'er the mighty of the land:

Let the breezes

Blow from Calvary on me.

Says the author of Sweet Singers of Wales, "This refrain has been the pass

word of many powerful revivals."

Another hymn

O' Llefara! addfwyn Jesu,

Speak, O speak, thou gentle Jesus,

-recalls the well-known verse of Newton, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds." Like many of Williams' hymns, it was prompted by occasion. Some converts suffered for lack of a "clear experience," and complained to him. They were like the disciples in the ship, "It was dark, and Jesus had not yet come unto them." The poetpreacher immediately made this hymn-prayer for all souls similarly tried. Edward Griffiths translates it thus:

Speak, I pray Thee, gentle Jesus,

O how passing sweet Thy words,
Breathing o'er my troubled spirit,
Peace which never earth affords,
All the world's distracting voices,
All th' enticing tones of ill,
At Thy accents, mild, melodious
Are subdued, and all is still.

Tell me Thou art mine, O Saviour
Grant me an assurance clear,
Banish all my dark misgivings,

Still my doubting, calm my fear.

Besides his Welsh hymns, published in the first and in the second and larger editions of his Hallelujah, and in two or three other collections, William Williams wrote and published two books

of English hymns,* the Hosanna (1759) and the Gloria (1772). He fills so large a space in the hymnology and religious history of Wales that he will necessarily reappear in other pages of this chapter.

From the days of the early religious awakenings under the 16th century preachers, and after the ecclesiastical dynasty of Rome had been replaced by that of the Church of England, there were periods when the independent conscience of a few pious Welshmen rose against religious formalism, and the credal constraints of "established" teaching-and suffered for it. Burning heretics at the stake had ceased to be a church practice before the 1740's, but Howell Harris, Daniel Rowlands, and the rest of the "Methodist Fathers," with their followers, were not only ostracised by society and haled before magistrates to be fined for preaching, and sometimes imprisoned, but they were chased and beaten by mobs, ducked in ponds and rivers, and pelted with mud and garbage when they tried to speak or sing. But they kept on talking and singing. Harris (who had joined the army in 1760) owned a commission, and once he saved himself from the fury of a mob while preachingwith cloak over his ordinary dress-by lifting his cape and showing the star on his breast. No one dared molest an officer of His Britannic Majesty.

*Possibly they were written in Welsh, and translated into English by his friend and neighbor, Peter Williams.

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