Welsh Journals

of Montgomery trace their origin, may still be seen nestling under the Abergavenny mountains. The front of the house has been changed, and a new front in the classic style of the Brothers Adam, hides the 14th century mansion of Sir Richard Hir, but within there are many remains of the earlier time to be found in Gothic doorways and early fireplaces. Coldbrook has been overshadowed by the more romantic history of Raglan Castle, but both these homes of the sons of Gwladys Gam are full of interest, and to examine the old walls of either The Welsh Bible. ITS INFLUENCE ON THE NATIONAL CHARACTER. By D. Delta Evans. IT has been well said that there is probably no important book in the world which suffers so little by translation from one language into another as does the Bible. The wondrous potency of its spirit makes itself felt even in the most faulty translation. This is fortunate, and a matter to be especially thankful for, seeing that the Bible is emphatically the people's Book. When intelligently used and rationally interpreted, it is pre-eminently the best moral instructor and truest friend of men and women, in all nations and in every rank and grade of society. Rich and poor, learned and simple, may all profit by reading it. The religious, moral, and educational progress of Wales during the past three centuries-that is, since the Bible became an open Book translated into the vernacular-is a striking testimony to the truth of the last remark. For the story of the Welsh Bible is indissolubly bound up with the story of national education and enlightenment. It may be safely said that in no country in the world has a People's Book exercised such im- mense influence over the life and character of a whole nation as the Bible has done over that romantic but homogeneous branch of the Keltic race whose native soil is the Principality of Wales. For generation after generation the Bible has not only been the most potent and beneficent factor in the making of the homes and institutions of the land, but has wielded a power- ful sway in the very hearts and minds and lives of the peasantry. The simplicity and homeliness, yet dignified grandeur of its literary style the chaste stateliness and purity of its diction; the beauty and poetry and music of its phraseology; the mellifluous rhythm of its sentences these alone would have been more than sufficient to make a mighty appeal to the Welsh imagination, and to command the admiration of every speaker takes one back at once to the days of the Wars of the Roses. As Lord Herbert so ably tells us in his book, his marriage with Mary Herbert was the union of the blood of William Herbert, Earl of Pem- broke, and his favourite brother, Sir Richard Herbert. What, then, if some unsympathetic reader calls him boaster. We, who understand the man a little more, may well reply that his boast was not a vain one. He set out to prove the glory of his family, and he has proved it right up to the hilt. of the ancient tongue. Yet that is only one aspect of the matter. For the native aesthetic tempera- ment is completely captivated by the intrinsic and enduring merit of the Bible as a unique and inexhaustible storehouse of sacred lore, by the soul-stirring and renewing power of its sublime spirituality, and by the incomparable value of its lofty ethical teaching. While the literary charm of the Welsh Bible is irresistible, the felicity and accuracy of the translation are recognised by competent scholars acquainted with the original tongues to be such as are probably unsurpassed in any other language into which the sacred volume has yet been rendered. Apart, therefore, from all consideration of the moral and spiritual blessings which the Welsh Bible has brought in its train, and the wondrous changes for the better which it has wrought in the habits and character of the people during the past three centuries, it is hardly to be wondered at that the natives of the Principality, from the highest to the humblest, scattered though they may be in the great towns and cities of Great Britain and America, still turn to the old Bible with a sense of profound reverence and gratitude as the treasure-chest out of which all that is noblest and best in the intellectual equipment of the nation has emanated, and from which the newer and still better is yet to come. In this connection, one is inevitably reminded of a re- mark by Dr. Channing, that among the poor are those who find in this one Book more enjoy- ment, more awakening truth, more lofty and beautiful imagery, more culture to the whole soul, than thousands of the 'educated' find in their general studies, and vastly more than millions among the rich find in that superficial, transitory literature which consumes all their reading hours." These words were certainly not penned with any particular reference to Wales; yet they are peculiarly true as applied to the influence of this one Book over the natives of that country. For it would surely be difficult to think of any other land whose born inhabitants are so little addicted to the vice of wasting their reading hours in the perusal of superficial and