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THE WELSH OUTLOOK Where there is no vision the people perish" CONTENTS: PACE PAGE PACE NOTES OF THE MONTH 199 THE CENTENARY OF NOT- WALES AT WORK-A SOCIAL A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY ABLE WELSHMEN 216 DIARY 220 FOR WALES 202 DAVID WILLIAMS 217 CORRESPONDENCE 222 A HOLIDAY IN SNOWDONIA DAVID WILLIAMS 217 STERN AND WILD 206 WELSH PAGEANTS AND REVIEWS 223 THE WYNN PAPERS 212 PAGEANTS 219 POETRY 201 AUGUST, 1927. Annual Subscription, 7/6. Half Year, 3/9 (post free). NOTES OF THE MONTH r 1 HIS is the first issue of the Welsh Outlook to appear since the death of Professor David Williams. On another page we print an appreciation of him by one who knew him well; but we cannot deprive ourselves of the privilege of paying our brief, though most sincere, homage to him here. Comparisons are, as a rule, as futile as they are odious, nevertheless we believe that they are sometimes fully justified. Such an occasion is the present one; and we make bold to say that by the death of David Williams, Wales has lost its greatest preacher, and one of its very greatest men. Our preachers to-day tend, only too readily, to fall into two distinct categories. In the one we find men of eloquence who have mastered the orator's art but who, because they persist in preaching obsolete doctrine, influence practically nobody. In the other are men of learning and vision, whose minds are in harmony with the best thought of the day, but who fail to carry conviction into the hearts of their congre- gations because of their lack of powers of speech. David Williams was one of the very small band who unite these qualities in a high degree. He had the fervour, and the command of winged words, which could set a vast audience on fire; and at the same time what he said was so grounded in the latest scholarship, and the finest ethical thought of the day, that it could always stand the test of hard and quiet thinking afterwards. For this reason he was, perhaps, the only living Welsh preacher who made disciples. As a scholar he will be remembered chiefly by his part in the Geiriadur Beiblaidd-that magni- ficent monument to the Welsh theological learning of our age-and notably by his article in it on Jesus Christ. But though a scholar, David Williams was very much more interested in life than in books. In every sense of the term he was a man. He possessed personality. No one could listen to him, on the hearth, or in a chapel, without feeling at once the greatness of his heart, the freshness of his mind, the wide catholicity of his outlook, and his devouring passion for righteousness. AUGUST is, for most people in the British Isles, the great holiday month of the year; but in Wales it is also the month in which we renew our patriotic fervour. It is evident that, as a nation, we delight in meetings, otherwise we should not be prepared to spend so many fine summer days in stuffy pavilions and tents.