Welsh Journals

prepared for the Quaker view that a new age had begun in which professional religious teachers were no longer necessary. The interest of Dr. Nuttall's book is thus primarily theological. But it contains points of value for the historian of ideas, not least the suggestion that the execution of Charles I prepared the way for Fifth Monarchism, since even religious radicals were unable to conceive of doing without a king at all. King Jesus must succeed King Charles. Dr. Nuttall is also right to insist that early Quakerism continued many millenarian ideas, and was not merely a reaction of disillusionment. But he virtually ignores what historians regard as the most significant aspects of Vavasor Powell's career, his association with the Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales and his opposition political activities after 1653. Dr. Nuttall does not attempt to explain why radical Puritan movements so suddenly arose in Wales, apart from the influence of his three saints: to do so fully would involve taking account of social and political factors which fell outside his purview. Is there indeed anything specifically Welsh about the spiritual pedigree which Dr. Nuttall traces? Harley, after all, represented an outpost of English Puritanism. He was friendly with the English Puritan leaders, Preston and Gouge, and was associated with the Feoffees for Impropriations, that London group which aimed to bring light into the 'dark corners of the land'. Cradock admired Gouge and was associated with John Owen and William Bridge. The Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel in one sense continued the work of the Feoffees, and Powell was closely linked with the English group around Major- General Harrison. To take one of many examples of a similar spiritual pedigree, Mary Penington was converted by reading Preston on prayer, and with her husband Isaac passed through Independency to Quakerism. Quakerism is a logical development of one strand in Protestantism, under conditions of political and emotional crisis. The problem is rather to explain why so many Puritans failed to follow through this train of thought than to show how some did. But for explanations of this sort we should again have to invoke social and political factors. Within his chosen field Dr. Nuttall writes with insight and sympathy. His book contains a mass of detailed information about Welsh religious life, some of it printed for the first time; and it is informed with a deep affection for Wales. Balliol College, Oxford. CHRISTOPHER HILL. THE SOUTH WALES COAL INDUSTRY, 1841-1875. By J. H. Morris and L. J. Williams. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1958. Pp. xiv, 289. 25s. The thirty-five years covered by this book were, in many ways, a formative period for the Welsh coal industry. Before 1840 the scale of the industry was very limited and techniques generally backward; produc- tion was mainly for the iron industry, and the output of sale coal was