Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

BY REV. EDWARD ROBERTS, GRANVILLE, N. Y.
Cyfaddef wnaf, O Dduw yn awr,
Fy mai o flaen dy orsedd fawr;
Cyfiawnder am fy mywyd sydd,
Ond trwy dy ras myn fi yn rhydd.
Gwen fy Ngwaredwr ddyga for
O obaith newydd i mi 'n stor;
Trwy'r cread oll cyhoeddi wnaed,
Fod i'm faddeuant trwy y gwaed.

Ha! gwledd y ddaear, nid y nef,
Yw heddwch trwy ei haeddiant Ef,
Deigryn llawenydd pur am hyn
Ni wlychodd d'rudd, O angel gwyn.
Ti welast draw y chas hen
Yn ffrwytho dan y dwyfol wen;
Cartrefie cudd y boreu llon,
A gwely'r hwyr sydd ger dá fron.
Cenadon y Tragwyddol Fod,
Gwneyd ei ewyllys yw ich nod;
Yu gwmwl disglaer ger ei fron,
Chwareuwch eich telynau'n llon.
Dirgrynir nef gan nerth y mawl
Rowch iddo Ef, angylion gwawl,
A bydoedd yr eangder maith,
Adseiniant eich nefolaidd iaith.

Ond yn eich plith, yn ddoeth a phu,
Y gwelir finau cyn bo hir,

A synaf chwi gantorion nef,
A'm Hanthem newydd iddo Ef.

THE lessons of the Spirit are commonly given in still ways. They come in still hours, in whispers, and even in hints only.-Prof. Phelps.

MR. GLADSTONE'S SPEECH AT THE WREXHAM NATIONAL EISTEDDFOD SEPT. 4, 1888.

Mr. Gladstone, who was received with great enthusiasm, the audience rising and waving hats and handkerchiefs and cheering for several moments, said Mr. President, ladies, and gentlemen-There is no single sentence in the excellent address of our chairman to-day in which I more heartily concur than that in which he said that upon the present occasion we had no politics within these precincts. I ask no man and no woman what his or her politics are, and I trust that no lady or gentleman will ask anything about mine. (Laughter.) Until I get out of Wrexham I shall forget them altogether, and those who have been with me to what following previous usage, I probably had best call another place,-(laughter.) will understand and know the meaning of my illustration when I say that on this particular occasion in coming among you again I feel I have passed from a more doubtful into a far purer atmosphere. (Cheers.)

EULOGIUM ON THE EISTEDDFOD.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I do assure you that, although many are more competent to speak to you about your Eisteddfod than I am, there is no man in or out of Wales, Welshman or no Welshman, that can do it with more entire heart than mine. (Cheers.) I don't come here to meet a public feeling. I come here to express a most sincere conviction. I rejoice, ladies and gentlemen, in this institution, and I rejoice in witnessing its progress. (Cheers.) The

last time when I had the honor of addressing an Eisteddfod was in the town of Mold, and, according to my recollection, the audience before whom I have now the honor to appear is not less than threefold that

MR. GLADSTONE'S SPEECH AT THE WREXHAM NATIONAL EISTEDFOD.

which I then addressed. (Cheers.) I see that the Eisteddfod is taking hold in an increasing degree-I will not say upon the masses of the people, because I think they have always given it their sympathy, but upon all classes of the community, and is more and more fulfilling the idea of that which I have seen it officially called, a Welsh national institution. (Loud (Loud cheers.) Let me tell you that I underwent an uncomfortable sensation for a moment-don't be alarmed-I underwent an uncomfortable sensation when, on arriving in this room, I found myself placed within a yard of what was evidently a most powerful and effective military band; and I said to myself, "I am very fond of music and I am very loyal to Welsh music, but really this is rather too close." (Laughter.) (Laughter.) But when the band began to play I do assure you that if it had been playing till this moment, and for ever so much longer, I should have listened with unmixed delight. (Cheers.) I had not read the official description of it, but the thought that came into my mind was, "This is so good a band that it surely must be a Welsh band"-(laughter)-and I was delighted to find, on asking for information-which, in the Welsh portion of the book kindly handed to me, I had a difficulty in gathering with as much certainty as I could have wished-I was glad to find I was not mistaken. (Hear, hear.)

WELSH MUSIC AND WELSH ART

Well, now, I hope I have not come here to flatter you, but the musical talent and the musical feeling of Wales has always had my unmixed and enthusiastic admiration. (Cheers.) I think, ladies and gentlemen, that your "Men of Harlech," in my judgment, for the purposes of a national air, aud without disparagement of old "God Save the Queen" or anything

337

else, is the finest national air in the world. (Cheers.) As to the band that played to-day, I wish to tender them my cordial thanks, and to say that, in my opinion, they are a band worthy even worthy even to play the "Men of Harlech." (Cheers.) Now I am not here to select the Welsh professors of this art and that art, but I am reminded by what I have just said of music to refer to the sister art of painting and to a representative of Wales who is among the most ardent of Welshmen-and that is saying a good deal, for Welshmen are not deficient in the faculty of ardour-at the same time that he is one of the most illustrious of our rising painters. There may be those who would place him at the top of the tree-I do not exaggerate in the words I use—I mean Mr. Burne Jones. (Cheers.) We are not here to speak simply of individuals. I will pass on to say that I have been struck within the last few hours, I will not say with the contrast on the contrary, with the remarkable conord between things that are young and things that are old.

A TRIUMPHAL PROGRESS.

I saw great enthusiasm all the way from Hawarden. The people gathered at every station, of all ages and of both sexes, with an unusual number, I think, of Welsh babies. The enthusiasm of the babies it would be pre

mature to describe. That I shall reserve for the future, but the appearance of those babies showed the enthusiasm of the mothers. (Cheers.) Now this conjunction of the old and the young, I mean the new and the ancient, is in my opinion the happiest augury for the well-being of a country. A country is in a good and sound and healthy state when it exhibits the spirit of progress in all its institutions and in all its operations, and when, with the spirit of progress,

it combines the spirit of affectionate retrospect upon the time and the generations that have gone before, and a determination to husband and to turn to the best account all that these previous generations have accumulated of what is good and worthy for the benefit of us, their children. (Cheers.)

USES OF THE EISTEDDFOD.

is

That I take to be the object and the purposes of this eisteddfod, which is a memorial of the past. There are some who say that its purpose a mistake, although I do not know whether there are any to be found in Wales who say so now. There used to be people who said that its purpose is a mistake, and I recollect the time when it was the custom for many men, while recognizing the noble impulses which actuated those who got up the Eisteddfod, to deplore it as an economical error. They deplored the retention of the Welsh language, and said, "Why cannot you have one language, one speech, and one communication?" Well, I don't intend to enter at full length into that question. But I must own that I have not heard or found that Welshmen, when they went into England,

ever lost their attachment to their native land-(cheers)—and I have not found that they are placed at any undue disadvantage in consequence of that attachment, although that attachment embraces and regards as the centre of Welsh life the tongue that is used by the people. (Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, I wish to say what, perhaps, will shock some men-what shall I call them?-some who would call themselves, at any rate, nineteenth century men.

THE SENTIMENT OF NATIONALITY.

I wish to say that in my opinion the sentiment of nationality, the sentiment of reverence for antiquity, the

At

sentiment of what I may call local patriotism, is not only an ennobling thing in itself, but has a great economical value. (Here, hear.) That may seem a bold statement, but everybody feels, I think, the first portion of it to be true, namely, that it is of an ennobling character. tachment to your country, the attachment among British subjects to Britain, and also the attachment amongst Welsh-born people to Wales, has, in some degree, the nature both of an appeal to energy and an incentive to its development, and likewise no few elements of a moral standard. The Welshman, go where he may, will be unwilling to disgrace his name. (Hear, hear, and cheers) It is a matter of familiar observation that, even in the extremest east of Europe, wherever free institutions have sup

planted a state of despotic government, the invariable effect has been to administer an enormous stimulus to the industrial activity of the country. That is the case wherever we

go.

And as I think with the sense of your Welsh birth, and what you yourselves call your Welsh nationality, if it tends to the general healthy makes him more of a man than he development of the man, and if it would be without it, in my opinion it would make him not only morally, but economically, a man of greater value than he otherwise could be. (Cheers.)

TRIBUTE TO MR. HENRY RICHARD.

Now this is a day of retrospect. Having spoken of Welsh nationality, I am reminded to look towards that inscription which I see upon a portion of your walls, and which bears the name of Henry Richard—(hear, hear)-a name than which there can be no better symbol of Wales-that I regarded him as a teacher and a guide. I have owed to him much of

MR. GLADSTONE'S SPEECH AT THE WREXHAM NATIONAL EISTEDDFOD. 339

what I have learned about Wales as my experience has enlarged, and I owe a debt to him on that account which I am ever glad to acknowledge.

MR. RICHARD'S CLAIMS ON WALES. But, gentlemen, he has broader claims upon you. He has upon you the claim of having exhibited to the world a model of character such as any country cannot but regard as an object of sympathy and delight. I have seen him in Parliament the advocate of decided opinions, the advocate of some opinions, perhaps, among the best he entertained, for instance, with regard to peace, with which he had no great number of sympathisers or followers. I have seen him always uniting a most determined courage and resolution in the assertion of his principles and views with the greatest tenderness, gentleness, and sympathy towards those who differed from him. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, though I don't wish unnecessarily and officiously to introduce here considerations so solemn-perhaps these are better reserved in the main for another place, the fact is that there was in him what I may call an inner peace, which was the secret of his outward self-command and of his gentleness, as well as of his courage. (Cheers.) It was impossible to see him without saying that he was not only a professor of Christianity, but that his mind was a sanctuary of Christian faith, of Christian hope, and of Christian love; and all those powers and principles radiated forth from the centre, and let his light shine before men, though he himself would have been the last either to assert or to recognize that there was in him any kind or degree of merit or desert. (Hear, hear.) I know, ladies and gentlemen, his name will long be re

membered and ever be revered among you, and I am glad to have had the opportunity of paying to him this brief and imperfect, but hearty and sincere, tribute of admiration and respect. (Cheers.)

A HISTORICAL RETROSPECT.

We are bound on this occasion to go a little farther back, and to consider what Wales is and what Wales has been. As Sir Edward Watkin so

well said, she represents the concentration within a limited territory of what was once a powerful portion of the entire British people. She has exhibited for many centuries the less numerous, therefore, less powerful, race side by side with a race far more numerous, and of men of unconquerable energy. There has been a process which has gone on for long years of what, to use a familiar expression, I may call "squeezing the Welsh into Wales, for the time was when Wales laid claim to portions of the territory that are not Wales now. Monmouthshire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire still bear the tokens of that state of things, and show that Wales, which was the ancient sanctuary of Christianity in Britain at the time when it was stamped out in every county, or in nearly every county now called English, in the middle and south of England-formerly used to extend considerably beyond her present borders.

HOW HAWARDEN BECAME WELSH.

Now, amongst others, tradition relates to the very parish in which I have the happiness to live, and which belongs to the borderland. But we

are told that there was at one time a

serious political difference upon the question whether the Hawarden district was to be made Wales or to continue the borderland. Traditions of that great man Simon de Montfort, who, although he has been dead 600

years, is notwithstanding one of the greatest names in our history, distinctly recommend that the river should be taken as the border, and that Hawarden district should be recognized as part of Wales, which it now is. (Cheers.) We have plenty of testimonies in Hawarden to that original Welshness, if I may so speak, of the country, for our Church takes its name from Saint Deiniol, a saint wholly unknown in England, and the parish is full of names which can only be explained by reference to Welsh roots. And I have placed in the hands of Sir Edward Watkin a little book by Mr. David Lewis, a Welsh barrister, I believe, where the city of Hereford is spoken of in connection with Wales as "her great city of Hereford." (Hear, hear.)

THE CASTLES OF WALES.

Well, all that has gone by, and the Welsh made a very good and a hard fight against the English in self-defence. And what was the conse. quence?

That the English were obliged to surround your territory with great castles. The effect of this has been that, as far as I can reckon, more by far than one half of the great remains of castles in the whole island south of the Tweed are castles that surround Wales. That shows that Wales was inhabited by men-(hear, hear) and by men who valued and were disposed to struggle for their liberties. (Cheers.)

To be concluded next month.

A VISIT TO RACINE, WIS. BY REV. GEO. C. WILDING, TACOMA, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

Editor of THE CAMBRIAN:

Being a Welshman I instinctively find my countrymen wherever I wander. Haying occasion to attend the Wisconsin Confereence of the Meth.

odist Episcopal Church recently held in Racine, I found I was in the centre of an extensive Cambrian population.

On Sunday evening I was assigned. to the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church. The assignment was a pure accident, none of the committee on public worship being informed regarding my nationality. I cheerfully consented to accept the appointment, for I felt it would be no ordinary privilege to preach the gospel to a house full of my own people. But I stated distinctly to the committee that I should like to be excused from preaching in my native tongue, as I had had no opportunity to practice recently.

I met the pastor, Rev. Mr. Roberts, a very talented man, who is immensely popular with his people and in the community, and also his good wife, who is a superb housekeeper and a helpmate to her husband in every good sense of that word.

I found awaiting me a good congregation of bright-faced, intelligent people, who listened hungrily as I broke to them the bread of life. How devout and reverent our Welsh congregations are! I greatly enjoyed preaching to them, and their close attention very much helped me. Above all did I enjoy the singing of a hymn in our home language at the close of the service. Oh, how the est congregation! waves of song swept over that earn

After the services ended, we repaired to the parsonage, and with a score of the chief spirits of the church we had a most delightful season of converse- -a genuine Welsh love-feast. I shall not soon forget that Racine congregation or its pastor. This church has about 250 members. And I learn that the Welsh Congregational church has a good pastor, Rev. Mr. Williams, who has a church of some 150 members, and is prosperous.

« ForrigeFortsæt »