Welsh Journals

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Let us now praise famous men and our fathers who begat us." 1 REMEMBER^ vividly the pride of my boyhood when I read in Cymrur Plant Sir Owen Edwards' fre- quent reproaches of the tardy recognition by Welshmen of their national heroes, and realised that two of the few existing monuments to them were placed within a few miles of my own home,-one at Llangeitho to Daniel Rowlands, the other not more than three miles away, at Tregaron, to Henry Richard. It was some satisfaction to a Cardiganshire boy to think that, though Llywelyn, ein Llyw Olaf, rested in an unknown and uncommemorated grave, and many other national heroes shared the same fate, his struggling county had been a little more generous towards its famous men. But I recollect also that, although I knew a great deal about Daniel Rowland,-what Llangeitho lad would not ?—my knowledge of Henry Richard was remarkably meagre. I was aware, it is true, that he had been a member of Parliament, and probably, in those innocent days, that seemed to be a sufficient reason for his commemoration in imperishable bronze in the market-square at Tregaron, but beyond that I hardly knew anything, and as far as I can remember, no one ever attempted to inform me of his story. I fear that the great majority of young Welshmen of my generation are very much in the same position. In some ways, Henry Richard, whatever his limitations may have been, was one of the great European figures of his generation, yet, owing to the fact that the generation which succeeded him turned away scornfully from the light which he and the great men associated with him followed, his glory as an international figure has been greatly dimmed. Similarly, he was probably the most intense and devoted Welsh political nationalist of his time, the first real exponent in the House of Commons of the Puritan and progressive life of Wales," as Tom Ellis described him- but since his days Welshmen have been absorbed in the development of one of the most overwhelming dramas in history in the way of a political career, with the result that the staid and homely political story of Henry Richard and his kind is hardly exciting enough to occupy our thoughts. There are, however, some signs that after the agony and bloody sweat of the last four years our civilization is again beginning to set its eyes upon the gleam which he chose as his guiding star in international affairs, and, also, that at home in his own country there is growing in the hearts of men a new longing for the spirit of Henry Richard and his days. It is not at the moment an altogether futile question to ask, what manner of man was he ? Some sneering critic once said of John Bright that he was John Wesley in politics. Something nearly the same can be said of Henry Richard,-that, for instance, he was Daniel Rowland turned politician but for the sake of accurate truth we have to sacrifice the epigram for a plainer statement. It would be strictly correct to say that in all he did from the beginning of his public career until the end of hit days he was in thought and action a peculiar A GOOD EUROPEAN By T, Huws Davies. type of Calvinistic Methodist (he only belonged to the Congregationalists), of a certain period in the romantic story of that denomination-endowed with its strength and handicapped by its weakness, in a word, he might be described as his own father in politics. It is not of great importance, for the true apreciation of the character of most men, to know where and when they were born, but these facts are the real key to almost every- thing about Henry Richard. The statement in Mr. Miall's biography seems insignificant enough, Henry Richard was born on the third of April, 1812, at Tregaron, a small town in Cardiganshire, one of the most purely Welsh parts of the Principality. His father was the Rev. Ebenezer Richard, an eminent minister of the Calvinistic Metho- dists." That is all. But that ordinary statement indicates, firstly, that he was born just eight months after the most momentous of all events in the whole course of Methodism, when, after one of the bitterest controversies in its history, eight men in North Wales, and thirteen (including Henry Richard's father-not yet thirty years of age) in South Wales, were set apart for full ministerial service, in- cluding the administration of the Sacraments, which had hitherto been exclusively administered by sympathetic clergymen in full Holy orders. We are not concerned here with the tremendous consequences of that event in the development of Calvinistic Methodism and of Wales, we have only to try to appreciate what it meant at the moment and in after years in the humble home of the minister in Tregaron, and in the lives of the members of his family. It is clear from the life of Ebenezer Richard, written by Henry Richard and his brother Edward (in Welsh), that the event, which cut the Methodists adrift from the Church to which they had hitherto formally belonged, and lost them the guidance, authority, and sanction of the majority of their most respected leaders who were in Holy Orders, and honestly believed in the orthodox doctrine in regard to them, was always regarded with awe in the household. Ebenezer Richard was not likely to forget its implications, for the results of such an act of daring and decision were bound to be felt in their full force by one of the chief figures inits accomplishment, and he soon found that the decision of a triumphant majority did not imply the complete acquiescence of a vanquished minority. He discovered that a section of his fellow Methodists were inclined, perhaps almost un- consciously, to pay higher tribute to the Catholic form of ordination than to the simple and unauthoritative form adopted by the Association at Llandilo, however apparent and immediate the divine recognition of the latter may have been. Even at Llangeitho, the holy of holies of Methodism, he feared a revolution if he administered the Sacrament of Baptism among his fellow Methodists. He must often have wondered why men should be so concerned with the mark of the silversmith when they knew the silver was pure. But such are the ways of men. Two principles, we can be certain, were always emphasized