Transcribed from the 1888 Hodder and Stoughton edition byDavid Price,

CHRISTMAS EVANS:
The Preacher of Wild Wales.

HIS COUNTRY, HISTIMES, AND HIS
CONTEMPORARIES.

BY THEREV.
PAXTON HOOD,

AUTHOROF
“THE THRONE OF ELOQUENCE,”“WORLD OF PROVERB AND PARABLE,”
“THE WORLD OF ANECDOTE,”“ROBERT HALL,” ETC.

THIRD EDITION.

London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXXXVIII.

[All rights reserved.]

Hazell Watson and Viney, Printers,London and Aylesbury

p. iiiTOTHE REV. JOHN DAVIES, OF BRIGHTON.

My Dear Friend,—I believethere is no man living to whom I could so appropriately inscribean attempt to give some appreciation of the life and labours ofChristmas Evans as yourself.  Your revered father and hewere taken on the same evening into Church fellowship in the oldcommunion of Castell Hywel, and within a week of each other theypreached their first sermons from the same desk; after this theirways diverged, Evans uniting himself with the Baptist Communion,your father joining the Independent; still, like two riversflowing, and broadening, from neighbouring, but obscure springsin the heart of their native Plynlymmon, cheerfully they rantheir beautiful course, beneath the providential law of Him whochooses our inheritance for us, and fixes the bounds of ourhabitations.  They both served their generation in their ownland well, p.ivbefore they fell on sleep.  Your father was called“the Silver Trumpet of Wales,” and the name of Evansrolled like a far-resounding bell among its wild mountains. In their early Christian life they were associates; in theirfame, while living, competent judges tell me they were equal; andI have brought them together again.  In the memories I havesought to retain in this volume, I have attempted to give someidea of what old Wild Wales was when these two brothers in armsarose, and I have attempted to show what the singular institutionof preaching effected for the old insulated land.  But I amalso glad to avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded me toexpress my sense of mingled admiration, and affection foryourself, and congratulation that the father, who left you anorphan so young, must rejoice, from that cloud of witnesses he solong since joined, to know that you followed him in a successfuland happy ministry; while I rejoice, that, unlike him, you havebeen permitted to enjoy the sunset in a serene and golden oldage.  May you long enjoy it.

My Dear Friend,
I am very affectionately
Edwin Paxton Hood.

p.vCONTENTS.