II.

The Commission was asked to inquire in the next instance 'into the provision made and the work done by the churches of all denominations in Wales and Monmouthshire for the spiritual welfare of the people.'

This part of the inquiry was in my judgement seriously hampered from the first by the Chairman's interpretation of 'spiritual welfare.' It was defined as meaning 'worship' or devotional excercise, pure and simple, to the exclusion of the wider conception of religion for which the Church of England, as well as almost all the other denominations in Wales, has contended for the last fifty years. Indeed I know of no church the story of whose work for the spiritual welfare of the people would not be seriously curtailed and mutilated by the application of such a definition of spirituality, except, possibly, that of the Plymouth Brethren. The most important witnesses experienced great difficulty in telling the story of the churches they represented, as the following extracts from the evidence show.

A Church witness was asked:-

'Do you co-operate with Nonconformists in religious work? - (Witness) No, I have not the time.'

'I do not mean you yourself, but is such co-operation in existence in the parish of Porth and Cymmer? - (Witness) On these lines, that our churchwardens will take the chair at a good many of their meetings.'

'What meetings? - (Witness) They hold concerts occasionally and sometimes an Eisteddfod, and they will preside at those functions.'

'But are they religious meetings? - (Witness) I do not know whether you could term an Eisteddfod a religious meeting but it would be with that object-got up for the purpose of disseminating religion'

(Chairman) 'You do not suggest it is devotional? - (Witness) No,'

A Baptist witness was examined thus:-

(Chairman) 'You consider this part of the education of the people? What end do you think it supplies? We have to examine into the provision made and the work done by the churches of all denominations in Wales and Monmouthshire for the spiritual welfare of the people. Do you think that teaching these Welsh people to talk Welsh in good grammar is something which was done for the spiritual welfare of the people? - (Witness) All kinds of education is directed to the moral elevation of the people, and certainly the moral elevation would culminate in the spiritual; at least so we have found it.'

(Chairman) 'I am only talking of some heads. You mention literature and the Press. I do not really think we can treat the Press as a provision for the spiritual welfare of the people. I know the London Press and my memory runs back to the names of a number of newspapers that I see daily, but it never occured to me, although they sometimes discuss religious questions. 'Do we believe?' and things of that sort, that I can regard them as a provision for the spiritual welfare of the people? - (Witness) Not providing literature?'

(Chairman) 'I do not propose to ask you anything on this.'

To a Congregational witness the matter was put as follows:

(Sir D. Brynmor Jones) 'What is a religious campaign? May I suggest to you that the aim of every Christian church is the salvation of men's souls? - (Witness) Salvation of men.'

(Sir D. Brynmor Jones) 'You are not a member of the Society of Friends, I observe, when you make that correction. They would say ' men's souls '; you say 'men'? - (Witness) I do'

(Chairman) 'You rather criticise my refering to this in the index, which says: 'The President's campaign.' I find here: 'Our President has throughout the year shown the utmost readiness to help in any action affecting the Free Churches bordering on the domain of the political.' Was I so very wrong? There it is, and considerable number of Nonconformists who think the less Nonconformity has to do with politics the better? - (Witness) The churches that I represent here today, I venture to think, would every one of them consider me unfaithful to them if I admitted that the Free Church Council is not an entirely religious body and that all its work is done for religious ends and by the power of religious motives.'

One witness speaking of the attitude of the quarrymen to the University College of Bangor said: 'You must do everything really in that way in connection with the chapel,' whereupon he was asked:

(Sir John Williams) 'Is a chapel the centre around which the whole existence, religious and secular, of the Welsh quarrymen revolves? - (Witness) Yes'

'That forms all his interest? - (Witness) Practically all his interest.'

'There is no theatre or concert room? - (Witness) Absolutely nothing.'

'The chapel supplies all his wants? - (Witness) Yes, and if a concert is got up it is, as a rule, got up by one of the chapel choirs.'

'And carried on in the chapel? - (Witness) Yes, concerts are got up very frequently.'

Gradually the Chairman's ruling yielded to pressure, and, although to the very end, no one knew from one day to another what questions would be allowed or what evidence would be rejected, the story of the churches was told and may be found at length in the volumes of Evidence and the Appendices. But in the Report the original narrow idea so far predominates as to make it impossible for any reader who knows the facts to accept it as a picture of Wales or for any reader unacquanted with the matter to form a just and true conception of the manifold activities of the Welsh Churches.

For example, the evidence showed that among the chief forces operating in the religious life of Wales are:-

(1) The pulpit

(2) The prayer meeting

(3) The Sunday School

(4) The Diaconate

(5) Literature and the vernacular press

(1) All or most of the churches have produced from time to time preachers of national reputation, both Church of England and Nonconformist. But for various reasons preaching has been cultivated in the Free Churches to a much greater extent than the Established Church. In proof of this we have the significant fact that the 'Gymanfa,' the annual open-air preaching sessions from which the religious life of the country derives a powerful impetus is an institution confined to the Free Churches and has no parallel in the Established Church. In this function all the Baptist, or Congregational or Methodist Ministers, as the case may be, of one of the three counties will officiate; a stage is set up in a suitable spot, and vast congregations assemnle, numbering thousands of people. The whole country-side is stirred to its depths, and the religious life of all the churches receives a new and powerful impetus.

The system of intinerating also, followed chiefly, but not exclusively, by the Methodists, tends greatly to develop preaching power and to extend a preacher's influence over the whole country. I submit that the Report, in practically ignoring the remarkable character and power of Welsh preaching conspicuously fails to give a just and proper account of the work done by the Free Churches.

(2) The Bishop of St. David's, in his evidence, expressed a great thankfulness for the devotional habits of the Welsh people generally. Speaking of the Established Church in Wales, he said also: 'Prayer meetings are not unknown things at all. In The Welsh rural districts of my diocese, prayer meetings without forms from the Prayer Book are not unknown and not infrequent.'

On the other hand, in the diocese of St. Asaph, 106 churches returned no week-day service at all. It was suggested, however, that the question had not been understood.

But, while according to the Lord Bishop, prayer meetings are not unknown and are not infrequent in the Church of England, they are habitual and universal among the free Churches. The prayer meeting is an institution as definite and stable as the Ministry. Often it is held in private houses. It has served to develop the spiritual gifts and nourish the devotional habits of the Welsh people to a remarkable degree. It does more. It affords an opportunity, often the only one, for very real co-operation in worship on the part of all denominations.

It was given in evidence that on the occasion of a death it was not unusual for Churchmen and Nonconformists to take part in a service of prayer. In especial, Welsh Nonconformity cannot be understood, appreciated or accounted for, apart from the prayer meeting. Again, therefore, I submit that so remarkable an instance of the religious ministry of the members of the churches, as distinct from clergymen and ministers, should not have been ignored in the Report, which contains no refernce to its great value in promoting the spiritual welfare of the people.

(3)The Sunday School.- In the Apendix to the Report two short catechisms in the English language are printed in full, one for use in the Calvinistic Methodist schools and the other 'for use in Congregational Sunday Schools.'

I am at a loss to understand why these should be given this prominence. There is no evidence that the second of the two has been adopted by the Welsh Congregationalists. If the suggestion be that they are typical of the methods of instruction in the Sunday Schools of the Free Churches or that those methods are catechetical in the same sense and to the same extent as in the Sunday schools of the Church of England, or, again, that the scriptural instruction is of an elementary character suitable for children and young people, I respectfully disagree.

In Wales the catechism is mainly characteristic of the Anglican Church. Its school is chiefly for the young. 'A large number of Churchmen,' said one witness, 'never think of going near the Sunday school. 'It does not appeal to them in the same way as what you have just suggested, I think, with regard to the Nonconformist Churches.' On the other hand, the Sunday school is one of the vital organs of Welsh Nonconformity. Its text-book is the Bible. Its chief method of instruction has been directly and immediately and exclusively biblical. It is not intended only as an elementary school for the young. It is attended by men and women of all ages. it deals every week with the profound questions in theology and ethics. It is not only a school but a university, whose colleges are in every chapel throughout the land. it has given the people of Wales a liberal religious education.

(4) The Diaconate.- This institution of elders or leaders (Blaenoriaid) is indigenous to Nonconformity. The late Dean Edwards writes of it as follows:- 'The Church layman in Wales is doomed to inaction and isolation. The autocracy of the bishop in the diocese and the autocracy of the clergy man in the parish leave very little room for the activity of laymen......Every chapel has its 'blaenoriaid'....A most influential body of men. It would be difficult to over-estimate their religious, social and political powers. There in Wales probably not less than 20,000 'blaenoriaid' - the elite of the middle and working classes, who find in the Nonconformist system opportunities of doing religious work and excercising religious influence not so easily found in the Church.' ('Wales and the Church,' p.230)

But although abundant evidence was tendered illustrating the special character of the Free Church Sunday School and testifying also to the great importance to the Free Churches, its formative influence on Wales are neither grasped nor presented, while the Diaconate, especially in its pastoral capacity, is overlooked entirely. Indeed, the Report in respect of these two most important subjects is so defective as to be positively misleading.

(5) But, perhaps, the greatest defect of the Chairman's Report is the failure to render any account of Welsh literature and the vernacular press in their bearing on national religious lfe.

The evidence showed that the Church of England and the Nonconformists make a huge use of the press. The evidence also went to show that the literature produced by Nonconformist writers was remarkable in mass and variety. These writings, it was shown, so far from being mere educational primers, manuals of devotion, or denminational hand-books ranged over the whole field of thought; hymnology, music, philosophy, theology, exegesis and homilitics were mentioned. I submit that this evidence deserved a special place in the Report.

I further submit with all deference that a report which fails to render account of the Welsh Press in relation especially to the Free Churches, is not only defective in detail, but radically wrong in conception.

If it be said that this is no part of the work done for the spiritual welfare of the people, the answer is that, rightly or wrongly, the Welsh Churches think otherwise. This is a great part of the work they have done and to exclude it is to mutilate the history of Nonconformity as presented to the Commission.

The Free Churches as described by their own witnesses have considered the spread of education, the encouragement of reading, the persuit of social, moral and political reform, the establishment of journals and magazines, and the production and support of literature to be integral parts of the work given them to do for the spiritual welfare of the people. This for many years has been one of their leading characteristics. No question of right or wrong can arise here, for the Commission was not appointed to sit in judgement on the churches, but to hear evidence and report.