Christmas Evans – “The One-Eyed Preacher Of Anglesea”

by J. G. Lawson

Christmas Evans, often called the“John Bunyan of Wales,”was born on Christmas Day, 1766, hence his name Christmas. His parents were very poor. His father died when he was nine years of age, and little Christmas did chores for six years for a cruel, ungodly uncle. His education was neglected, and at the age of seventeen he could not read a word.

 

Many accidents and misfortunes befell him. Once he was stabbed in a quarrel, once nearly drowned, once he fell from a high tree with an open knife in his hand, and once a horse ran away with him and dashed at full speed through a low and narrow passage. After his conversion to Christ some of his former ungodly companions waylaid him at night and unmercifully beat him so that he lost one eye in consequence. But God mercifully preserved him through all these trials.

 

He left his cruel uncle at the age of seventeen, and soon afterwards, during a revival, he identified himself with the church. From an early age he had many religious impressions, but he did not decide for Christ until his seventeenth year. New desires then awoke in his soul and he began to study to learn to read and improve his mind.

 

He soon felt a call to the ministry, and this feeling was deepened by a remarkable dream he had concerning the second coming of Christ. In 1790 he was ordained by the Baptists and commenced work as a missionary among some of the humbler churches. For three years before joining the Baptists he suffered much from doubts regarding his own conversion to Christ, but soon after uniting with them, all his burden of doubts rolled away and he received“the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”

 

He was surprised at first to see people brought to God through his ministry, but the Lord greatly blessed him, and his meetings began to attract widespread attention. He made a tour of South Wales on foot and sometimes preached as many as five times during one Sunday. Although he was shabbily dressed and awkward, large crowds came to hear him preach, and often there were tears, weeping and uncontrollable excitement. His sermons took great hold upon the people.

 

At twenty-six years of age Evans began to preach among the churches on the island of Anglesea, on the Welsh coast, preaching the Gospel with much success. Here many of the churches had been carried away by the Sandemanian teachings, which seem to have been a form of extreme Calvinism, amounting to fatalism, depriving man of moral responsibility. The leader of the sect was a brilliant and cultured orator, and for years Christmas Evans laboured and preached to counteract his teachings.

 

Evans’ controversies with the Sandemanians brought him into a place where he had lost much of the spirit of prayer and sweetness so necessary for the enjoyment of a Christian life. He felt an intense need and longing for a closer fellowship with God.“I was weary,”he said,“of a cold heart towards Christ and His atonement, and the work of His Spirit–of a cold heart in the pulpit, in secret prayer and in study, especially when I remembered that for fifteen years before, that heart had been burning within me as if I were on the way toward Emmaus with Jesus. A day came at last, a day ever to be remembered by me, when I was on my way from Dolgelly to Machynlleth, and climbing up towards Cadair Idris.

 

“I felt it my duty to pray, though my heart was hard enough and my spirit worldly. After I had commenced in the name of Jesus, I soon felt as if the shackles were falling off, and as if the mountains of snow and ice were melting within me. This gendered confidence in my mind for the promise of the Holy Ghost. I felt my whole spirit relieved of some great bondage, and as if it were rising up from the grave of a severe winter. My tears flowed copiously, and I was constrained to cry aloud and pray for the gracious visits of God, for the joy of His salvation, and that He would visit again the churches in Anglesea that were under my care.

 

“I embraced in my supplications all of the churches, and prayed by name for most of the preachers of Wales. This struggle lasted for three hours. It would come over me again and again, like one wave after another, like a tide driven by a strong wind, until my physical power was greatly weakened by weeping and crying. Thus I gave myself up wholly to Christ, body and soul, talents and labours–all my life–every day, and every hour that remained to me, and all my cares I entrusted into the hands of Christ.”

 

After his entire consecration to God, and after receiving the anointing of the Holy Spirit while he wrestled in prayer on his way from Dolgelly to Machynelleth, Christmas Evans began to preach with new unction and power. A great revival spread from preacher to people all over the island of Anglesea, and then over the whole of Wales. The people were often so wrought upon by Evans’ sermons that they literally danced for joy, and their actions obtained for them the nick name of“the Welsh jumpers.” Often the audiences were moved to weeping and tears.

 

The powerful sermons, the breath of heaven, the weeping, the praising, the return of sinners to God, now characterized Evans’ meetings wherever he went. This was especially true when he preached his famous“Graveyard Sermon,”in which he described the world as dead and buried in the graveyard of Law, with Justice guarding the gates but Mercy coming to unlock them. This sermon has been published almost everywhere.

 

The preaching of it brought conviction of sin like a deluge over the people. Evans was“a man the spell of whose name, when he came into a neighbourhood, could wake up all the sleepy villages, and bid their inhabitants pour along up by the hills, and down by the valleys, expectant crowds watching his appearance with tears, and sometimes hailing him with shouts.”The anointing of the Holy Spirit was the great secret of Evans’ power. This is the mystery of effective preaching: we must be endued with power from on high!