Welsh Journals

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THE ARCHDEACONRY OF BRECON IN THE YEAR 1885' The religious census conducted by Horace Mann in 1851 revealed to the Church of England in Wales that it was no longer the Church of the majority in the Principality. Although the Church was individually the largest denomination, yet nonconformity accounted for nearly 80% of the worshipping population on the day of the census. A deeper analysis would have indicated that there were probably as many non-worshippers as worshippers. It is perhaps difficult to estimate the shock these figures gave to the leaders of the Church, especially as they seemed to justify the claim of the Liberationists, (who wished to see the Established Church in Wales lose its state connection), that the Church was an alien and anglicising institution, and could no longer claim to represent the nation or its culture. While radical nonconformity used these statistics as an argument for the disestablishment of the Church, the Church itself realised it needed to put its own house in order and to re- assert itself as the spiritual leader of the nation. Church planting (often using mission halls or schoolrooms), ensuring a resident and active clergyman in each parish, opening Church schools as a subtle means of proselytising, an involvement with society and community, and the appointment of Welsh-speaking bishops and clergy to Welsh parishes, were the main methods by which the Church sought to achieve this aim and to restore nonconformity to its fold. This it failed to do. Nonconformity was too deeply rooted in the soil of Wales and in the hearts of its adherents for this to happen. Nevertheless, the so-called "Church Revival" strengthened the Church's hold upon its existing members, and made it more of a national power. Paradoxically, a reviving Church caused a nonconformist backlash, and the disestablishment campaign, which had been a side-issue, now emerged as a major factor in its life. Tragically, the whole situation became polarised. Each side allied itself with a political party, and every issue within the national life of Wales, from religion to education, and land reform to social matters, was linked with this campaign. Even the question of churchmanship was involved, as nonconformity felt that the Tractarian movement was removing the major bulwark against the Roman Catholic Church within the kingdom. As a result, for almost forty years from the 1880s, religious life in Wales was dominated by controversy and bitterness. It is this picture of a reviving Church that we can note from the writings of William Latham Bevan, vicar of Hay 1845-1901 and archdeacon of Brecon, who was one of the major polemical writers in this long debate. Bevan wrote in 1907 that when he entered the deanery of Hay in 1845 there were fourteen benefices, seventeen churches and twelve incumbents. But of these incumbents only two were resident in the deanery, and one of them served one of his three benefices but did not reside on any of them. The remaining incumbents were residing on benefices as far apart from their Welsh parishes as Clapham in the extreme east and Pembroke A REVIVING CHURCH?