Mr. Evans had feeling as well as fancy. This in a preacher is even more important than the other. Here, we conceive, lies the principal distinction between the orator and the poet. Poetry is the language of fancy; eloquence, the language of feeling. The preacher who operates only on the judgment and the fancy may instruct and please, and thus prepare the way for persuasion. Persuasion itself requires a warm and glowing heart. Eloquence has been defined, “the power of imparting one’s feelings to others.” “If you want me to weep,” said Horace, “you must weep yourself.” The preacher who is himself unmoved, will toil in vain to move his hearers. His sermon may be as beautiful as the moon-beams on the snow; but it will be as powerless and as cold. As saith Longinus: – “The orator must have a vehement and enthusiastic passion, a certain madness, or divine phrensy, breathing into his thoughts, and inspiring his speech.” To use the language of another: – “Truth must be planted in the hot-bed of feeling, if we would witness its flowery development, and enjoy its fruit. The orator must be roused and inflamed by the majesty of his theme; not wrought up into an unmeaning fury, like a tempest in a tea-pot; but influenced and agitated by solemn considerations of truth, duty, interest, and moral grandeur.”
If this description of eloquence was ever realized in the pulpit, it was in the preaching of Christmas Evans. He spoke what he felt, and because he felt. The fountain was in his own soul, and it flowed out upon his audience in streams of living water. He was always full of his subject, and his ordinary manner was exceedingly ardent and pathetic. Sometimes he seemed quite overwhelmed with the magnitude and grandeur of his theme, and then he spoke with such impassioned earnestness as to storm the hearts of his hearers. Thus inspired, it was scarcely possible that any man of ordinary sensibilities should be otherwise than eloquent. But Mr. Evans’ talents were of a superior order; and when kindling with the enthusiasm of his message, he became peculiarly energetic and impressive. “His words came out,” as Longinus says, “as if discharged from an engine,” and their influence rested like a spell upon the ear and the heart. He transported his hearers beyond the region of argument, and leaving all their cavils and prejudices immeasurably behind, rapt them away to the third heaven of ecstasy!
The secret of all this power is found in the preacher’s piety. He was a man of eminent faith and holiness. The “things new and old” for the edification of his hearers, he “brought forth out of the treasure of his own heart.” The love of God within him imparted to his preaching a wonderful unction. His splendid mental creations were instinct with the inspiration of sanctified feeling. This divine anointing often rendered him superior to himself, clothed him with a superhuman energy, till he seemed a messenger from the other world. The man was lost in his theme. Art was swallowed up in the whirlpool of excited feeling. The audience were swept irresistibly along by the current of the discourse; acknowledging, by tears and groans, the preacher’s hold upon their hearts; and sometimes losing all self-control, and bursting into the most extravagant expressions of wonder and delight. On this subject take the language of one, who, from personal acquaintance with Mr. Evans, was qualified to form a correct estimate of his character as a Christian minister: —
“He was also an experimental preacher. That a preacher feel his subject, constitutes one of his excellencies; but that his sermon be deeply imbued with the spiritual experience of the preacher, is the Crowning point of his excellency. It is true, a person may speak well of the distress of other people, but he will speak more powerfully of his own distress. Persons may expatiate very eloquently on the pleasant fragrance of the herbs and flowers of foreign lands, but those who have themselves participated in the fragrant odors, in the soft breezes of those countries, can describe them in an infinitely superior manner, and to much greater advantage. Many may speak fluently of the mercies of God, in providence and grace – protecting, preserving, pardoning sinners, &c., but those who have experienced a sense of the divine mercy in their own souls can speak much better of it. Mr. Evans had an experience of the things of God. Not only had he heard of Calvary, but in Calvary he lived; not only had he heard of the bread of angels and of the corn of heaven, but this bread and this corn were his daily food; not only had he heard of the river of life, the streams whereof make glad the city of our God, but the crystal waters of this river were his constant drink; not only had he heard of the renewing influences of the grace of God, but he himself had been made the subject of these influences. He had experienced the operations of the Spirit renovating his own heart, and therefore he could speak of them, not as a matter of hearsay, but with the apostle – ‘And what our hands have handled of the Word of life, declare we unto you.’” 9
Mr. Evans’ preaching was highly evangelical. “Jesus Christ and him crucified,” was the alpha and omega of his ministry. The character of the following sermons fully justifies that remarkable saying upon his death-bed: “I have never labored without blood in the basin.” Every one of them is illustrative of some important point in the economy of salvation. Every one of them tends to humble the sinner, and exalt the grace of God. Every one of them abounds with lofty views of the Divine Justice and Mercy.
“It is generally allowed,” observes his friend, “that the people who are trained by a minister, and moulded by his instructions, are a good evidence of the tendency of his doctrine and ministry. In this view then, it is observed, the church where he more statedly labored in Anglesea, and where the most of his care and efforts were bestowed, were a people mighty in the Scriptures; that they would converse well and readily on most of the doctrines of the Christian faith; that they labored much to improve in knowledge, and were active in the cause of religion. These nearly all were Mr. Evans’ own people; they were nurtured by him, and upon his ministerial food they grew to be men, and were wholly according to the mold of his doctrine. It has been remarked, ‘that if volumes upon volumes were written upon the subject of the tendency of his ministry, it could never be exhibited to greater advantage than has been done by himself, in those bright, clear, and golden letters, which he has inscribed upon the people of his charge at Llangevni.’”
The following extracts from Mr. Evans contain his views of the evangelical over the legal style of preaching: —
“While a preacher inculcates duties in any way but with a view to the promises of mercy, and of undeserved strength, he is more like to a moral philosopher, than to the apostles and preachers that have been a blessing unto men, such as Whitefield, and hundreds who have been in a degree blessed in the same doctrine, and by the same Spirit. It is not in the duties we are to rest, but in Christ. ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord – that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.’ It was not in reliance upon their works they passed through the river of death, as if presumptuously on a bundle of rushes, but their works will meet them in the judgment day; to be weighed there in the balance of the faith and love of Christ; and they will be there as witnesses on the part of the saints, bearing testimony that the love of Christ constrained them to live to him that died for them and was raised again.”
Again: —
“By endeavoring to avoid the bog, you sink in the quicksands – while you are hiding the system of grace, and casting it, as it were, into the shade – duties without faith are not acceptable, for ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God.’ I compare you to a dry-goods merchant, who should hang up a piece of white cloth over the shelves of his store, where the cloths, fine linen, silks, &c., are kept, and thus hiding every article in his store, without exposing any thing to the view of his customers, yet he would stand at the counter, and address them in the language of surprise, Why do you not buy here, for I know you have wherewith? So some preach, standing like the store-keeper at the counter, saying, while the doctrine of grace is kept put of sight, Why do you not buy here? for we know that you have the money of ability; but you spend your money in the shops of the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life. But they reply, What shall we buy, sir? you tell us that there is salvation in your store – and fine linen wrought out from Bethlehem to Calvary, and white raiment; gold and pearls, and food and drink indeed; but you hide them under the vail: