Welsh Journals

The story of St. David has been invested by his legendary biogra- phers with extravagant decoration. To repeat all the fabulous legends repecting him would be to heap together a mass of absurdity. The real St. David was without doubt a great and a good man who did not stand in any need of the accretions of superstition, or the spurious embellish- ments which have been added by monkish hands of a later date. He was learned, elegant, zealous and justly esteemed, one of the noblest and most able men who ever preached the gospel to the Britons. He is numbered in the Welsh Triads with Teilo and Catwg as one of the three canonized Saints of Britain. Giraldus terms him a mirror and pattern to all, instructing both by word and example, excellent in his preaching, but still more so in his works." It is not at all surprising that such a renowned personage should have many ancient Churches and subordinate Chapels dedicated in his honour. In the whole of Wales there are quite fifty Churches named after him, Cardiganshire accounting for seven of these on the other hand it is a very remarkable fact that there is not one ancient Church or Chapel dedicated to our national tutelar Saint in the whole of North Wales. ABERAERON is a small town and seaport at the mouth of the river Aeron on the shore of Cardigan Bay, which is a civil parish formed out of the parishes of Llanddewi-Aberarth and Henfynyw. Here there is a modern Church dedicated to the Holy Trinity. This dedication is a modern introduction in Wales, and can perhaps only be attributed to a prevailing desire, in some quarters, to attempt to carry out the Anglicising policy in the Welsh Church. More than six hundred ancient Churches in England bear this dedication, and it is of almost universal distribution. LLANDDEWI-ABERARTH. Here, as the name implies, there is a Church dedicated to St. David. This parish is contiguous to Henfynyw, and it is remarkable that dedications are frequently to be found in clusters or pairs, which cannot possibly be the effect of accident. The neighbourhood of Henfynyw appears to have been the property of this Saint's father and this will probably account for the group of Churches in the district being named after him and his mother. At Tyglyn in this parish there is a Chapel-of-ease dating from 1809 and dedicated to St. Alban. This Saint has the honour of being regarded as the first British Martyr. The particulars of his life are but little known. Being associated with the early dawn of Christianity in these islands his name is peculiarly interesting, but the number of ancient dedications to him whom one author has styled Our Stephen" is much smaller than we might expect, even in England, while some writers have asserted that neither in Wales nor Cornwall do we find a single dedication in his honour. But Wales can no longer be excepted, as the now crumbling walls of the old Chapel at Tyglyn were reared to commemorate his name and fame,