CHAPTER III: WILLIAM WILLIAMS, PANTYCELYN.

WILLIAM WILLIAMS, PANTYCELYN.

What Paul Gerhardt has been to Germany, what Isaac Watts has been to England, that and more has William Williams, of Pantycelyn, been to the little principality of Wales. His hymns have both stirred and soothed a whole nation for more than a hundred years: they have helped to fashion a nation's character and to deepen a nation's piety. They have been sung by the shepherd on the moor and on the mountain, in the midst of romantic solitudes; or by the smith to the accompaniment of his ringing anvil; or by the miner in the weird halls of buried forests underneath the ground; or by the milkmaid, with a fresh, clear voice, as she brushed from the clover the dewdrops of an early morning in May; or by the reaper in the harvest-field as he gathered in the golden grain.

The mother hums one of his tender musings above the cradle of her child, surrounding its soft-winged slumbers with the praises of Him whose 'very name is music.' The funeral procession takes up one of his strains of sorrow touched with hope, and sings it when accompanying the dead to the long home-sings it musingly, measuredly, moaningly. The young man in the day of trial will take some smooth stones out of this brook of Christian poetry, and with them overcome the enemy. The veteran soldier of God thirsts for the water out of this 'well of Bethlehem,' and 'pours it out before the Lord.' Through some memorial verse of his the family of the Lord Christ has often expressed its sweet sorrowfulness of heart, as it looked on the breaking of the bread. Many a time has the sad Angel of Death heard one of his victorious strains fall from some trusting soul as it passed through the dark gateway--heard the echo of the song far down in the Valley of the Shadow: a strange thing of joy: like a warm sunbeam piercing through the chill eternal twilight of some ancient forest of pine. It was a verse of his that Christmas Evans--one of the immortal 'three' of the Welsh pulpit--sang when nearing home; taking it as a staff in his hand, 'and smiting Jordan with it, so that the waters were divided hither and thither, and he went over on dry ground':

O Thou Righteousness eternal!
Righteousness of boundless store!
Soon my naked, hungry spirit
Must enjoy Thee evermore:
Hide my nakedness, oh! hide it,
With Thy robe of shining white;
So that, fearless, I may ever
Stand before Thy throne of light.

Like all poets that have deeply stirred a people, he was brought up in troublous times. His father was the deacon of a famous Independent church in Caermarthenshire, which had to meet for a time in a cave during the hours of twilight, on account of the persecution to which a large number of the sincerest Christians of the age were subjected. But when the poet was very young he lost his father, and was left to the care of his mother. He spent some years at college, purposing to devote himself to the medical profession. It was on his way home from college that an incident happened which changed his whole career. He was passing through the little village of Talgarth, in Breconshire, on a Sunday morning, when he was attracted by the sound of a bell to enter the parish church. The service was cold and spiritless, and left scarcely any impression whatever on the young man's mind.

The people on leaving church, instead of scattering and wending their way home, grouped themselves together in the churchyard, and every face was alive with expectation, as though eagerly waiting for something more. And more did come. It affords a striking picture of the religious life of Wales near the middle of the eighteenth century. On one of the gravestones a man of short stature and exceedingly sombre face takes his stand. In a moment every eye is fastened upon him in a solemn, nervous suspense. Then the voice begins to ring deep and clear and earnest among the grey tombstones--like the voice of some ancient prophet of Israel summoning the people with words of fire to repent forthwith and escape for their life. The congregation is stirred, startled, confounded: it moves to and fro, 'as the trees of the wood are moved by the wind.' Strong men are there, weeping like little children, terrible to see; while others in their rage against the preacher curse like a demoniac at the approach of the Lord Christ. Here a woman falls fainting: another cries out through a storm of sobs and tears, 'What must we do?' And the young poet? 'There he is, his face deathly pale, and his whole body shaken with excitement and terror. He is a very image of fearfulness. He stands each moment expecting to see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven: a sharp, glowing arrow from the bow of the doctrine of the man on the gravestone has pierced through his heart.' He came out of that historic churchyard with the light of eternity in his eyes.

Two or three years afterwards he was ordained deacon of the Church of England. But in those days the Church of England was her own unrelenting enemy in Wales. Like many another of her servants of best worth, he was excommunicated on an indictment of committing twenty-four crimes--chief among them being his refusal to make the sign of the cross in baptism, and his zeal in preaching the gospel outside of places properly consecrated. He had come under the influence of Whitefield, who urged him to go forth to the highways to proclaim the glad tidings. And preach he did from Holyhead to Cardiff, having travelled on an average 3,000 miles every year for fifty years.

As a preacher, he was a son of consolation. His sermons, like his hymns, were expressions of profound experience--the sorrow and joy of a pilgrim who had travelled for a long time heavy-laden, and at last had 'his burden loosed from off his shoulders' at the place where 'stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre.' He was a poet in the pulpit, with all a poet's swift change of feeling. In a conversation with his coworker, the Rev. Peter Williams--well known in Wales still for his annotated Bible--he remarked, with his usual quaint humour: 'As for thee, Peter, thou couldest get through it well enough if the Holy Spirit were in America; but I can make nothing of it unless He is near.'

Williams first exercised his gift of sacred song at an association held in the earliest days of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. The hymns hitherto used were foreign to the spirit of the new movement; but as soon as be began to pour forth his varied strains of passionate sweetness, Howell Harris, the preacher of Talgarth Churchyard, pronounced him a master of song. His hymns seemed to fly abroad as on the wings of the wind, and soon became the sacred ballads of the whole nation. As Luther sang Germany into Protestantism, so did Williams sing the Wales of the eighteenth century into piety.

His hymns are full of pictures from Nature. It could be almost said that the natural aspects of his native land through all the changes of the twelve months are reflected and reproduced in his hymns. The heavy clouds of storm, and the white clouds of a summer day--clouds gathering with dark forebodings on the horizon, clouds beautifully passing away at eventide after a rainy day--clouds of thunder with fringes of chilly white, and the fleeting clouds of April: they are all here. He has watched the dawn deepening in the east, be has walked in the glow of noon, he has looked with sobering eye on the sunset glories of the west. He has wandered beside the mountain brook and the calm river, and he has seen the brown torrents raging on the hillsides. He knows the charm of a spring day after a long winter; and the sweet pensiveness of yellow corn-fields and tinted autumn leaves. He has found quiet havens of the sea, and felt the joy of the morning star rising above the waves. Some of these pictures will appear in the hymns reproduced here: but to reproduce all his etchings from Nature would be to give almost all his hymns. __________________________________________________________________

[4]William Williams

Once, during a long season of drought, he was walking through the fields, and found some little beasts of prey making busy mischief among the green corn; whereon he pertinently asked:

Why should beasts of prey be suffered
To destroy the tender blade?
Why should sweet and youthful blossoms
In the drought be left to fade?
Bring the pleasant showers refreshing,
That the grain may flourish soon;
Bring a shower the early morning,
Bring one more the afternoon.
Jesus, turn the living rivers
O'er the dry and rocky land;
So make beautiful the corn-fields
With the blessings of Thy hand;
From the cool and crystal fountain
Give to him who fainting lies;
Who has toiled without a shelter

All the day 'neath burning skies. __________________________________________________________________

[5]William Williams

On another occasion he was staying for the night not far from the Prescelly Hills. Being up early next morning, he saw the whole range lying dark and frowning under the inist; but in the east the dawn was breaking up the shadows of night, and the sky was brightening with the promise of a new day--a picture which he has introduced into his well-known missionary hymn--

[6]O'er the gloomy hills of darkness.

This, and '[7]Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,' are the only two translated hymns of his that have found favour with editors of English hymnals. I believe the missionary hymn was written originally in English, and translated by his son into Welsh. The other is found in a little volume of English hymns he published under the title of Gloria in Excelsis, for use in Mr. Whitefield's Orphans' House in America. It was prepared at the request of Lady Huntingdon, who had been much impressed by some other writings of his. Mr. Whitefield included it in his collection of hymns published in 1774; and since then it has had a place in most hymnals. __________________________________________________________________

[8]William Williams

He suffered sometimes from absent-mindedness, as the following tradition indicates. He was one day far away from home, holding a service beside the sea-shore. A friend bad taken the devotional portion of the service, when, as he drew near the close of his prayer, a cuckoo began to sing. Williams stood up to give out a hymn before preaching: it was an appeal to the cuckoo to fly away to Pantycelyn and tell 'Mally' his wife that he was alive; to proceed from thence to Builth and tell 'Jack' his son to 'keep his place'; concluding with the pious wish that should they fail to meet again on earth, they might meet in heaven. His friend touched him and hinted that the doctrine of salvation was rather scanty in his verse. 'Very true,' replied the poet at once; and, without any more ado, gave out another verse, which seems to carry in it everywhere the sound of the everlasting sea--the music of an infinite hope for man:

Salvation like a boundless sea
Keeps swelling on the shore;
Here shall the weak and helpless find
Enough for evermore.

Another instance of his ready wit was recently given by a South Wales correspondent. [1] It seems that he was at Aberdare one day preaching from the text--'The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth labourers into His harvest.' After the sermon he gave out a hymn in a metre which was not known to any of the masters of song present. Apprehending their difficulty, he immediately put them right again by giving out an extempore verse, of which the following is a translation

To-day are ye not saying--
'Four months will come and go,
And then with fruitful harvest
The fields will be aglow':
But saith the King of heaven--
'Lift up your eyes around!'
White are the fields already
Where His good wheat is found.

So much for tales of eccentric origins; which prove, besides, how lively a sympathy existed between the poet's mind and the varying phases of Nature. In further illustration of this, the following group of four hymns is given; showing successive reflections of a summer evening, a winter's night, a clear morning after a stormy night, and a calm sea after contrary winds. __________________________________________________________________

[1] 'Cosmos' in The South Wales Daily News. __________________________________________________________________

[9]William Williams

In the first hymn we seem to be gazing on the sunset sky of a peaceful summer evening; and the heavenly quiet of the scene awakens in the soul infinite longings that are sad in their very sweetness:

I look beyond the far-off hills,
O gentle Christ, for Thee:
Come, my Belovèd, it is late,
The sun goes down on me.
These captive weeks of Babylon
Make sorrow long delay:
Oh! that I heard the jubilee
Opening the gates of day.
If from these fetters hard and cold
My feet were only free,
Long as I lived I would but sing
The grace of Calvary.
A pilgrim in a desert land
I wander far and near,
Expecting every hour to find

My Father's house appear. __________________________________________________________________

[10]William Williams
Next comes this winter-night's hymn:
While the stormy winds are blowing
From the north so bleak and ebill,
Saviour, keep my soul defended
From the fear of coming ill:
Change the winter
Into balmy days and still.
Oh! that now the world would leave me,
Oh! that now the skies would clear,
And the land of pleasant ranges
O'er the distant hills appear!
Then my spirit
Would be calm with holy cheer.
But the strength of passion paineth,
And I feel my guilt unspent,
While I cannot cease from sinning--
Failing even to repent:
Light of sunrise,
Break this long imprisonment!
Waiting through the long night-watches,
Waiting for the break of day;
Waiting for the gates to open,
And my chains to fall away:
All in darkness,
For the light of God I pray.
And my soul shall keep on trusting,
Looking every day for Thee;
For Thy hand can save the weakest,
Yea, the weakest--even me!
I must tarry
Till the blessed Jubilee.
Dawn at last! the dawn is coming,
And the clouds shall pass away;
In the valleys, on the mountains,
Shall the mist no longer stay:
Hours of heaven,

Long I waited--now 'tis day. __________________________________________________________________

[11]William Williams

The last verse is the victory of faith over Nature: the world continues dark outside; but the dayspring from on high has visited the soul. In the next hymn, Faith and Nature stand side by side in the morning light.

The cloud has almost cleared,
That filled me with unrest;
The northwind too has veered
A little to the west:
After the storm there comes to-day
Fair weather on the heavenly way.
Dark night tempestuous
Will very soon be gone;
Long ages of the cross
Have been ordained for none:
The dawnlight in the eastern sky
Tells of a glorious morning nigh.
The sun is on the hills
Around my Father's house;
And through these earthly ills
The light eternal grows:
My hope is sure: who can efface
My name in God's own book of grace?
Upon His word I rest,
Come all things contrary;
When in the night distressed
My safe stronghold is He:
Nearer with each return of sun

The promise comes. It shall be done. __________________________________________________________________

[12]William Williams

But it is neither Winter night nor summer eve that has touched the poet's mind in this last hymn of the group. It may have come to him partly through reading the experiences of Columbus when in search of a new continent.

Here I know myself a stranger,
And my native country lies
Far beyond the ocean's danger,
In the lands of Paradise:
Storms of trial blowing keenly
Drove me on this foreign strand;
Come, O South-wind, blow serenely,
Speed me to my Fatherland.
Though the voyage should be stormy,
Though the raging billows foam;
Even were the worst before me,
I shall sometime be at home:
Waves and seas are strong; but stronger
Is the word of God than all;
Trusting Him I fear no longer,
Safely in His hands I fall.
Now the air is full of balm
With the fragrance of the land;
And the breezes clear and calm
Tell of Paradise at hand:
Come, ye much-desired regions,
With the best of joy in store:
Country of the singing legions,

Let me reach thy restful shore! __________________________________________________________________

[13]William Williams

Williams possessed to a considerable extent the Shakspearean faculty of seeing many aspects of human nature, especially on its religious side. His hymns give expression to every grade of experience, from the lowest deep of despair to the clearest height of full assurance. It is himself speaking; but in his voice we hear the sobs and cries, the joys and transports of a thousand hearts. He gives us a view of his early struggles and defeats: how seven times back and fore he broke the commandments of God, and attempted to confirm his deliverance with 'seven great vows': but all in vain, until he saw from the depths the Face that is 'altogether lovely,' and driven by a flame of guilt he came to the pleasant hill of Zion: he had found heaven on the brink of bell, in the thunders of Sinai he had his first meeting with God--hours never to be forgotten, the hours of his marriage with heaven. But though the violence of the early conflict is smoothed down, he has not yet, come to the possession of perfect peace:

Once again my sigh of sorrow
Riseth to His gracious ears;
For His pity, for His presence,
Weeps my soul these flowing tears.
Who can tell but He who founded
Earth and heaven shall hear my cry,
And that all these mournful longings
God Himself shall satisfy!
Oh! to hear the silver trumpet
Now proclaim my full release,
That my heavy-laden spirit
May at last have joy and peace.
Oh! that now like mighty torrents
Strength descended from above!
Not the strongest of my passions

Could withstand His conquering love. __________________________________________________________________

[14]William Williams

In another hymn we see him a solitary wanderer on the high and dangerous mountain footpath; the path is very narrow, and underneath him is a fearful depth. What if he miss his footing!

In Thy hand I cannot fall,
Though the weakest of them all;
In Thy hand at length I come

From my trials safely home. __________________________________________________________________

[15]William Williams

He had promised to himself in the morning to be at home early, having overcome all his enemies--but 'the noise of battle is yet in the country where I live.' He is sometimes afraid even that he has not yet received 'efficacious grace,' and that his sins may yet win the day. What can he do but pray God to lift him out of the pit? And even if it is growing late, he must wait until 'the Morning Star rise over yonder hills.' His trial, too, had bound him in sweet fellowship with all who strive upward to God:

Much I love the faithful pilgrims,
Who the rugged steeps ascend;
On their hands and knees they labour
To attain the heavenly end:
To the summit
On my knees shall I come too.
Bruisèd hands, oh! stretch ye upward,
Tired feet, walk ye with care;
The reward, the crown is yonder,
My Belovèd--He is there!
Earth forsaking;

Now the journey's end is all. __________________________________________________________________

[16]William Williams

In the company of the same singer, what a burst of triumphant faith we have in this martial strain:

The standard is ahead,
The gospel of His grace:
And hell is filled with dread,
And shakes before His face
Down! down! with shame it shall be brought,
Before my Jesus it is nought.
Great hosts from prisons free
Already have marched on,
And great their joy must be
To know the day is won:
From strife and toil on high they fled,
And in their footsteps we must tread.
Leave we the world behind,
The world that made us smart,
The world, of evil mind
Each day to break our heart:
Between the stars behold the light
Of that far better world in sight!
The blood of Jesu's cross
Was never shed in vain;
There is not any loss
Of His most precious pain:
This is the great, the finished plan
To open heaven's door for man.
Let all bow down and own
The sacrificèd Lamb!
Among all titles known
His is the greatest name:
Praise, laud, and blessing to our Lord,

Let Him be evermore adored! __________________________________________________________________

[17]William Williams

Side by side with this call of Christian soldiers to battle we may place a hymn to the Lord of Battles, the Captain of the Christian host.

Ride to battle, ride victorious,
Gird, O Christ, Thy glittering sword!
Earth can never stand before Thee,
Nor can hell itself, my Lord:
In Thy name such glory dwelleth,
Hostile armies faint with fear;
And the wide creation trembleth
When it feels Thee coming near.
Now release my soul from bondage,
Let the heavenly day be known:
Burst the iron bars in sunder,
Raze the gates of Babylon:
Thrust the captives hence in armies,
Like the torrents of a flood;
Thousand after thousand singing,
Countless--ransomed--multitude!
Even now methinks I hear them,
Voices singing from afar;
They extol the great redemption,
In the land where freemen are:
All of them have snow-white garments,
And aloft the palms they bear;
Crowned with glory all-abounding
Into life they enter there.
Be it mine to share the gladness
Of that joyful day of days;
Every word that Christ has spoken
Shall fulfil itself in grace:
North and south--ten times ten thousand,
From the night that covered them,
Come with sound of silver trumpets

To the New Jerusalem. __________________________________________________________________

[18]William Williams

The Christ of the glittering sword and the glorious terror--can He speak to the broken heart and bring glad tidings to the frightened conscience? Yes, verily:

Speak, O Christ! the gentle-hearted,
For Thy words are God's best wine;
All within me peace creating,
Peace of endless worth divine;
All the voices of creation,
Every passion and delight,
At Thy voice of quiet sweetness,
Pass away in hushed affright.
This world's empty noises vanish
When Thou speakest but a word;
And the tumult is dispersèd,
By opposing passions stirred;
Though the afternoon was stormy,
Cloudless is the evening sky,
And the south wind bloweth softly,

When Thou speakest peace on high. __________________________________________________________________

[19]William Williams

Quite other fields of experience are traversed in this hermit's hymn:

In lonely desert place,
Without one human friend,
If God would daily show His face,
I could my lifetime spend.
He is in every thing,
All-present every hour;
There is no creature that can bring
Its strength to help His power.
The fearful desert night,
Perils in every place,
And fear of death--all take their flight,
Where God reveals His face:
His beauty passing fair,
His peace, and perfect love,
Make holy festivals, where'er
He shineth from above.
Where Thou art, in all things
Immortal life abounds;
Like streams from out the rock it springs,
And reaches heaven's bounds:
From Thee alone have come
All dawns of shining white,
To guide, through wastes and lowlands home,
The children of the light.
Ye sun and moon, farewell;
Farewell, ye stars of night;
Where God's sweet presence comes to dwell,
There needs no other light:
A vast eternal day
Comes from His smiling face;
A better, greater light than they--

The radiance of His grace. __________________________________________________________________

[20]William Williams

In his day the work of foreign missions was scarcely more than a Christian dream. But it was a dream that often filled his mind and his song. Indeed, it is exceedingly interesting to see the profound missionary colouring of Welsh hymns of the last century. It was as the singing of birds in the dawn before the sun has risen. Now that the missionary enterprise has passed beyond a dream--has advanced so far as to be thought fit for arraignment--it may not be amiss to associate our thoughts with the childlike faith and happy dreamings of earlier days:

The glory is coming, God said it on high,

When light in the evening will break from the sky;

The north and the south and the east and the West
With joy of salvation and peace will be blest.
The winter shall pass that has lingered so long,

Throughout the wide earth shall the birds sing Thy song;

The hills will be covered with harvests for Thee,
And flowers shall blossom from mountain to sea.
Thy promise shall spread over valley and hill,
Thy promise most precious of peace and good-will;
The Spirit shall gather Thy people of old,
The children of Israel, again to the fold.
The sons and the daughters shall prophesy then,
And praise and exalt the Redeemer of men;
The old men shall dream of the joys that await,
And scarcely believe when the peace is so great.
O summer of holiness! hasten along,
The purpose of glory is constant and strong:
The winter will vanish--the clouds pass away--

O South-wind of heaven, breathe softly to-day! __________________________________________________________________

[21]William Williams

No one can read the Welsh hymns of the last century without noting how every sentiment turns lovingly to the cross. The cross absorbs the themes of sermon and song; for it was the sun and shield of the National Revival. There is scarcely a hymn of Williams' in which it does not stand forth clear and towering. The passion of these verses is not of earth:

Who'll give me balm of Gilead--
Forgiveness, with its peace?
Then fear of death would vanish,
My soul would be at ease:
And who can soothe the anguish
Of guilt and evil will?
I know of none but Jesus,
Once nailed upon the hill.
Hard were the nails and cruel,
To pierce that form of grace;
But now they hold the compass
Of heaven in its place:
The hope of Adam's children
Flows from that awful hour,
When earth beheld its Maker
Abused by human power.
If ever the authority
Of Calvary should fail,
No hope, nor any comfort,
Would then for me avail:
Most wretched, oh! most wretched
Would I of all men be:
The dreadful grave would swallow
My soul, full surely.
Oh! vast, and ever vaster,
The mercy He made known:
Behold, the wide creation
Doth last in Him alone:
The moan of that dark mountain--
Lama sabachthani!
Is now the pearl most precious
Of any land or sea.
Unbearable the burden
To man--yea, to the best;
And on my God's own shoulder
It terribly did rest:
Justice was there demanding
The price to be made good;
And sin's eternal ransom
Was paid in sweat and blood.
The vast unmeasured mountain
Upon Himself He took,
From off the feeble shoulders
Of guilty man forsook:
When Nature saw the burden
Of infinite disgrace,
The very earth was shaken,
And heaven hid its face.
If thousand worlds were ransomed
By that one sacrifice,
Too dear would they be counted,
Redeemed at such a price:
No angel can, or seraph,
Tell e'en a thousandth part
Of that great price of ransom--
The blood of God's own heart.
A fire in thousand bosoms
Through heaven ravisheth--
A new white flame of wonder,
Remembering His death:
It silences their music
With ever new surprise:
They look on God Incarnate,
And say--'Behold! He dies!'
To Thee, my God, my Saviour,
Praise be for ever new;
Let people come to praise Thee
In numbers like the dew;
Oh! that in every meadow
The grass were harps of gold,
To sing to Him for coming

To ransom hosts untold! __________________________________________________________________

[22]William Williams

Williams died January 11, 1791, at Pantycelyn, near Llandovery. An obituary notice, which appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine of that year, speaks of 'the true poetic fire, striking imagery, and glowing expressions, united with the plaintive muse of the country' in his hymns; and says further--'His imagination gave variety and interest to his orations; his piety was warm, yet candid and charitable; his manners simple, yet affectionate and obliging; and his moral conduct without blemish or imputation.' When, however, it is therein prophesied that 'he is, perhaps, the last lyric poet of South Wales, the language of the country giving way'--we learn once more that it is not wise for a prophet to prophesy aloud.

In a quiet village churchyard in the Vale of Towy, 'he awaits the coming of the Morning Star which shall usher in the glories of the first resurrection.' So reads the inscription over his grave, written by his son. And his hymns fill the long night-watches with blessed hope, 'until the day break.' __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________