VOL. XX.

No. 4.

To the Christian, the belief that death does not end all, is the sweetest, the noblest, the most consoling thought; although some have been quick to confute the doctrine of resurrection and designate it as a mythical dream.

What more consoling thought than that after this life and the grave, we shall rise and put on the radiant robes of immortality. All nature is an illustrated proof, a grand, sweeping, sublime argument that confounds the forces of the opposition. "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handiwork."

But yesterday all nature slept! The earth was covered with snow, inviolably white, and the air held a silence inexorable as death, save where in the forest-cathedrals the penitent night-wind moaned and sighed for peace. The gaunt trees, like faithful monks emaciated by increasing vigils, in mute supplication kept their attitude of prayer. The happy-hearted birds that were wont

to lure away the hours with matchless melodies are gone. Winter has silenced the songs of the lyric brook and fettered him with gyves of ice. All nature sleeps, and the earth is cold and dark and dreary.

But earth's white dream is o'er. The mellow horn of the south wind sounds the trumpet notes of the resurrection, and out of the tomb of winter emerges radiant spring, pale primroses tangled in her hair, and annunciation lilies at her breast.

High up in the branches, swelling with budding promise, the blue bird with clarion note calls forth the flowers. In the woodlands the trailing arbutus hides in shy surmise; the golden beauties of the cowslip and daffodil scripture the lea, and underneath a clump of sod a bluestoled violet discloses her frail beauty. The fettered brook, glad to be free, gushes forth its silvery har

monies.

"How packed with meaning this new birth Of all the growing things of earthLife springing after death and dearth!"

"Thou, soul, that still dost darkly grope, Hath not this, in its vernal scope, Some radiant resurrection hope?"

Thus as nature and her attributes survive the drear and blight, so shall humanity, resurrected in Christ, live again. From the death of hopeless perdition, by this faith, we are ushered into the celestial beauties of immortal life. Life has won in the strife; bloom cometh from out of the tomb.

Although nature is a grand parable, furthering and directing the hope of man toward a glorious resurrection, and breathing life into human aspirations, yet the resurrection of Christ is the undeniable and incontrovertible proof of it. It is no

wonder then that the ancient church took advantage of the Feast of the Goddess Estera, among the eastern nations, celebrated about Passover time, and turned it into a Christian feast to commemorate the resurrection of Christ. It was He, through his resurrection, that brought "life and immortality to light." "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept."

Let all earth rejoice in praise of him, who is the resurrection and life. Let every soul be touched to song; let every heart, sanctified by a loving faith, sing Halleluiah! Halleluiah! Christ is risen from the dead.

Deacon Davies was a typical old Welsh Liberal. A religious man himself, and a strong and a high Calvinist, of Puritan tendencies, a Christian of undoubted virtues, but yet good natured, and genial, with a leaning towards the humorous side. of human nature. Many an evening I spent at his comfortable home, listening to his varied collection of Welsh stories chiefly illustrative of the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of old preachers, often reminiscent of preaching conventions, and of revivals in Wales. The ordinary re

ligious Welshman loves to relate how he was converted in Wales; and a Kymro that cannot refer intelligently and positively, giving date and circumstance of his spiritual birth, has doubts of his title to the life above. These births have generally been violent; they took place under exciting circumstances; they were public facts, well known incidents, remarkable enough to deserve especial registration. Many a Welsh religionist looks back to the date of his spiritual birth with pride.

Deacon Davies knew all about such

things; he would occupy hours to recite peculiar incidents and amusing happenings in the religious life of Wales. He had a wonderful talent to choose the droll and ludicrous traits of men and things; and his tales and narratives were always entertaining and suggestive. Personally he was the realization of liberality and purity, of religious strength and toleration, of Christian loyalty and non-sectarianism. Although he loved Christ and Christianity with fervent affection, he smiled, and sometimes laughed loud at the bigotry and littleness of sectarians.

The most ludicrous and laughterproducing case of sectarianism I ever knew, he said, one evening, happened in Cambroville, in the State of

years ago. I don't

know, he added with a funny light in his eyes, whether "happened" describes the state of affairs rightly. It lasted for years; it sprung up with the settlement; it grew and flourished. for years; finally it ripened, and its folly became evident during its harvesting. It reached then its crisis. Its meanness and damage to the cause of Christ among the settlers became known in an extremely disagreeable way, and a good many appreciated the lesson as a revelation. Some benefited by it, while others with characteristic perversity stuck to the pernicious idea that "our sect" is right, and that sectarianism is the correct form of Christianity.

Cambroville, originally, was exclusively Welsh, and in the course of ten years, two religious causes had

been started, the one A—, the other B. Although both lived Btogether and in peace, the respective members of the two communities looked askance at each other, and regarded each other with considerable pious suspicion. It is characteristic of Welsh sectarians to act with a certain coolness towards each other. Their ill-feeling or religious jealousy is never well-defined enough to be designated "enmity;" it is a kind of harmless peevishness, a state of mind and heart that breeds unfriendliness, a strangeness, a dontwant-to-talkativeness, that is effectual in putting up a kind of unsociableness as a fence between them. Everything is "all right" between them; but there is no thoroughness, no heartiness in their association. There was a conspicuous want of cordiality between the A and B members, compared with the understanding with which the A members on the one hand, and the B members on the other met and acknowledged each other. A stranger could notice that they belonged to different and distinct

castes.

There are many causes in America that inevitably conspire to ruin Welsh causes, viz., death and the anglicization or rather the americanization of the rising generation. The older members continually die, and the young people become American in language and sympathies. These two causes worked havoc in Cambroville, until finally the two Welsh churches started to decay per

ceptibly; the membership decreased gradually; the two pastor's salaries dwindled down to one half; one was compelled to leave, and the other had entertained serious thoughts of departure.

The two chapels where the respective bodies of members met, even Sabbath and week nights, were but two acres apart; on either side of the road that divided the settlement. Old Jack Roland, who was a member of the A church, used to say that many a Sunday he used to perform a feat by attempting to take in the both sermons at once; for during the summer season when the air was warm, and the windows were open, a man sitting in one chapel could hear every word the preacher in the other chapel said! Sometimes it was bewildering when both congregations would sing at the same time different tunes. It was also really difficult to concentrate the mind on the sermon, as soon as the preacher in the other chapel would begin to "sail" into his subject, expone and exhort with a high and a loud voice. Jack Roland often had a treat of sermons; and after two effective sermons would boast to Mary, his wife, who in turn would respond by saying that the double sermons and duplicate singing did not seem to do him much good.”

After a lapse of some years, people began to notice that something in the form of combination would have to be done in order to save the 'Welsh cause in the settlement. After considerable informal talk among

the settlers, Billy Jones, one of the leading deacons of the A chapel, suggested in a nervous way that the two churches join and form one congregation, which thereby would be able to pay a minister a reasonable salary and carry the religious burden of expense. After discussing the question at his house with several neighbors, a meeting was appointed and three of each church was nominated to arrange ways and means to effect a consolidation. A public meeting was subsequently held in the A chapel, the remaining minister of the settlement in the chair; and after considerable elocution on either side, the question was put to a vote. With the exception of Billy Jones and half a dozen more, the voting was strictly sectarian. The plan fell through. In subsequent years, both communities clung to their respective chapels, the A gaining members gradually from the other; but a number adhered to their decaying cause faithfully to the last. Old Tom Watkins was the last to give up the abandoned chapel. He would, weather permitting, sit on the threshold of the chapel reading the Bible and the "Drych" (the Welsh paper) rather than desert the good old cause his father and mother loved. The spirit of sectarianism had sunk so deeply into his soul, that he conscientiously believed that fidelity to a form of religion was the true ideal of Christ.

It is pathetic and rueful to review the discomfort and inconvenience that several of the families put them

selves to rather than surrender the sectarian associations and ideals of their youth. Some of Some of the more amenable settlers felt the reasonableness of a more unified spirit and action, and identified themselves with the remaining church; while others preferred hitching up on Sundays and travel miles for the nominal enjoyment of being present in an edifice bearing the name of their denomination; while others were known even to come together at a certain house to hold a prayer meeting, or to listen to a neighbor read a sermon out of a book. These few facts illustrate a peculiar trait of the Welsh character. He is affectionate, capable of great, even stubborn attachment to the forms of life and religion, which deeply injures him in his career. Once he takes to a path, he perseveres in it, thinking that the persevering will bring things right. To him, the end is a reward not a result. He i very slow to go wrong as well as to get right. He has more affection than foresight or insight; he has more per

severance than discretion; he is more contemplative than speculative; more conservative than progressive. He is the reverse of expansive. Born and bred within a deep and narrow valley in Wales, he is susceptible to contracted views and ideals. This may account for his love of sectarianism. There is every reason to believe that education in Wales will work great changes in the spirit and ideals of our countrymen. The Welsh character is being studied and analyzed these years, and especial efforts should be directed towards developing his good qualities and uprooting some of his damaging failings. A good number of Welsh take supreme pride in their weaknesses. The spirit of nationalism, which, like Lot's wife, loves to honor the past as a grand ideal should be discouraged, and the bright future with a wise. forgetfulness of the darkness and bitterness of times gone by be substituted as the best means to stimulate us to progress.