(Christmas Evans) 1766 - 1838


Christmas Evans has been acknowledged by many as the greatest preacher that God has ever given to Wales. Thomas Raffles, the Independent minister of Great George Street Chapel, Liverpool, acknowledged him to be the mightiest preacher of the age; the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, said, One of the things that I should like to enjoy when I enter paradise is a preaching festival with John Elias, Christmas Evans, Williams of Wern and others occupying the pulpit.


Welsh Baptist minister, Christmas Evans was born in Ysgaerwen near the village of Llandyssul, Cardiganshire, on Christmas day, 1766. His father, a shoemaker, died soon after and Christmas grew up as an illiterate farm laborer in the care of a godless, cruel uncle.

"The fear of dying in an ungoldy state especially affected me ... and this apprehension clung to me till I was induced to rest upon Christ ... this concern was the dawn of the day of grace in my spirit." (1)

At the age of seventeen, he became a servant to a Presbyterian minister in whose church he was converted during a revival meeting.

He began to learn to read and to write and to take an interest in spiritual things which caused his former companions in sin to beat him severely and to put out one of his eyes. The Baptists of Llandyssul influenced him greatly, and he joined the Baptist church there.

In the early 1790s a great congregation gathered near Llanelli, in Wales, for a Baptist Association meeting. No meeting-house would hold the vast numbers. Gatherings took place in the fields and a platform was erected from which the ministers could preach. Outstanding ministers were to speak and there was an air of expectancy. But alas, when the time came for the beginning of the meetings the great men had not arrived. Some delay had taken place. The local pastor, who was responsible for the arrangements, was in despair. What should he do?

In his anxiety, he approached Rev. Timothy Thomas, a local minister and an acceptable preacher and begged him to stand in. Thomas refused, but pointed out a young man standing on the edge of the crowd. This individual was tall, haggard, poorly-dressed and had only one eye. A scar marked the place where the other eye had once been. The pastor went up to him and begged him to take the place on the platform and begin to address the people. Members of the congregation were amazed to see the minister beseeching a young, unknown man in this way. Some started to drift away. Others hoped that if the stranger did speak he would have the good sense to keep it short! Despite the doubts, this unlikely character mounted the platform and turned to his Bible, at Colossians, chapter one, verses twenty-one and twenty-two. This he read and began to preach, at first awkwardly and slowly. As he began to open up his text, however, he warmed to the theme of reconciliation. There was such power in his preaching, the Holy Spirit of God being so evidently with him, that the congregation was broken down in worship and in praise to God. When he came to the end of his sermon the people united in a great doxology in which weeping and praising blended in worship. The preachers who were present confessed that God had raised a great man among them. Questions began to be asked by the crowd. Who is he? Where has he come from? How is it we have never heard of him? As they returned home that which was uppermost in all minds was the preaching by the one-eyed minister, Christmas Evans.

About this time, one of his fellow Presbyterian members became a Baptist and joined the Baptist church at Aberdare. He began to talk to Christmas Evans of the reason for his change. Evans resisted the whole idea of believers' baptism and argued strongly against it. He said: 'I went home and I therefore fully examined the Scriptures to mark down every passage that mentioned infant baptism, for I believed there were hundreds of such there. But after careful perusal I was terribly disappointed to find none of that character there. I met with about forty passages, all giving their suffrages in favour of baptism on a profession of repentance and faith.' The consequence of this was that Christmas Evans himself applied to the Baptist Church in which his friend, Amos, was now a member and was baptised by Timothy Thomas (the minister referred to earlier), in 1787, at the age of twenty. It appears that this was a time of revival in this Baptist Church. He says that 'scores were added to the church and there was much excitement in the public services'. Christmas Evans found the meetings a great contrast to the staid Presbyterian worship which he had known earlier.

After his baptism, Evan's preaching changed. Everyone noticed the power with which he spoke. As he preached, the people who listened were moved to repentance and true revival. Reading his sermons definitely reminds one of the style of John Bunyan. There is deep Biblical truth accompanied by powerfully moving allegory. Perhaps, only in Wales could such a man have risen for that land is known for its fervent emotion.

In 1790 at the age of twenty-four, he was ordained and began to travel the entire country of Wales preaching in churches, in the coal mines, and in the fields. A remarkable manifestation of the Holy Spirit accompanied his ministry, and revival like prairie fire swept the country. Thousands were converted and many thousands of Christians began to openly witness for Christ and to sing hymns publicly as testimony of their salvation. This resulted in the "Welsh Revival."

In spite of his early disadvantages and personal disfigurement, Christmas Evans was a remarkably powerful preacher. To a natural aptitude for this calling he united a nimble mind and an inquiring spirit; his character was simple, his piety genuine, and his faith fervently evangelical. His chief characteristic was a vivid and affluent imagination, which under the control of the Holy Spirit, earned for him the name of "the Bunyan of Wales."


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References:
(1) Christmas Evans by B.A. Ramsbottom, Bunyan Press, 1984, p. 14.
(*) Fire and Ice: Puritan Sermons [http://www.puritansermons.com/banner/evans.htm]
(*) Reformation Today Magazine, no. 29, Jan-Feb 1976