William Gabriel Davies

“ The world is moving on; the nation which stands still must be left behind. No people can now live upon its remembrances. Like the runners in the ancient games, the nation which surrenders its torch to another, not only loses the race, but loses the light. ”

“ The realm of knowledge enlarges in proportion as we intimately explore it. The more we discover distinctions, which have been overlooked by previous observers, or the more we differentiate, and at the same time assign the differences their right place in the class, the unity to which they belong, the more we advance that branch of investigation towards which our efforts are turned. In the infancy of knowledge, science, poetry, history, politics, theology, form one medley, like the hydra in the animal world. ”

“ For if we are not to forget in heaven that we were once on earth; if we are not to lose the feeling of identity which is to unite our heavenly with our earthly existence, why should it be thought incredible that the knowledge of good which we acquire below should not be one of the links in that chain of identity; more especially as it will be our supreme delight to be always extending such knowledge in the realms of light? ”

“ Let the mental horizon of genius, joined to deepest piety, stretch ever so far away, it encircles but an insignificant portion of that which is open to the glance of Omniscience. Under the most favourable circumstances, the human mind, while in this present tabernacle, must meet with many problems which it “cannot know now, but shall know hereafter.” ”

“ It is your duty, if you would be well informed, average scholars and thinkers, to acquire more kinds of knowledge than one, and thereby to cultivate all the intellectual faculties of your mind; remembering that the greater the variety which the unity contains, the higher is its position in the scale of created being. Up to a certain point, therefore, we must all try to be universal scholars. ”

“ The Christian life then is not a fixed quantity, the same in the child, the savage, the barbarian, and the Welsh peasant, as in the saintly scholars of the Christian Church; but answering to every advance in pure knowledge, there is, in the man after God’s own heart, a corresponding advance in moral and spiritual excellence. For emotions are manifested only in proportion as ideas form the branches round which emotions twine. No well-defined emotion can exist without its related ideas. ”

“ Now this is exactly true to the experience, not only of the Christian yearning for perfect freedom from sin, and a feeling of complete incorporation with Christ, but of every one who longs to surpass his past achievements, from Alexander pining for more worlds to conquer, down to the miser who the richer he becomes the poorer he feels. Thus the great poet, artist, or musician, is never quite satisfied with his accomplished works, but always feels how much better they might be, his ever growing fastidiousness urging him to cry out, Excelsior, excelsior! ”

“ Of course, you will meet with too many who will tell you that the only way to do this is to encourage the present fatal tendency of Cambria to live solely on her remembrances. Meanwhile, however, the invincible army of progress, with the tramp of doom to effete nationalities, marches steadily and irresistibly on; and the Welsh, as a distinct race, if not better led and advised, will, by the deadly error of seeking “the living among the dead,” simply become a people of the past. ”

“ However unmindful we may be of the fact, eternity surrounds and makes prisoners of us all; and what is the whole world with all its pomp, wealth, greatness, and pleasures, viewed in the dimming light of that eternity? What shall it profit a man if he gain everything but what is really needful, everything but the good part, since “when he dieth he shall carry nothing away, his glory shall not descend after him?” ”

“ Highly cultivated minds, more especially if of an imaginative turn, are never satisfied with the real. “The ideal, the ideal,” is their cry. They push on to lay hold of it, but it ever recedes before them. The ideal will always shine far in advance of the real.
This longing for the unattained, when sanctified by the Spirit of God, will never permit the on-pressing Christian to feel that he has finally, and without occasion for further effort, laid hold of the one thing needful. ”

“ When we contemplate such beautiful simplicity and purity of life, we must admit that these people “are not far from the kingdom of God;” and one is tempted to doubt whether civilization with its extremes of wealth and destitution, refinement and barbarism, culture and ignorance, integrity and crime, saintliness and profanity, is the blessing that it is commonly held to be. ”

“ The lower animals exhibit a well-regulated constitution. They fulfil the purpose of their being; there is no schism among their members. “If we saw the lion,” says George Combe, “one day tearing in pieces every animal that crossed his path, and then oppressed with remorse for the death of his victims, or compassionately healing those whom he had mangled, we should exclaim, what an inconsistent creature, and conclude that he could not by any possibility be happy, on account of this opposition between, the principles of his nature.” Now this is just the opposition which deforms human nature. ”

“ After this point has been reached, what makes division of labour necessary is the vast extent to which knowledge has now attained, making it impossible for universal scholars like Leibnitz and the admirable Crichton to exist in these days; to which we must add the limitations, and the variety of bent existing in the mind of men, not forgetting the shortness of time. But then what individuals fail to accomplish the race can; and we have to consider, in the perfection of unselfishness, that we are members of that one body, the universal man ”

“ These questions, I am strongly impressed, indicate the tone of too much of the preaching in Wales. But we need not hesitate to reply that, though the knowledge of evil and of science falsely so called is to be avoided as most pernicious to the soul, the knowledge of good, in all its bearings, cannot be too diligently sought. He who knows nothing but the Bible, as Matthew Arnold reminds us, knows but little of the Bible. ”

“ Do you not believe that besides the education of individuals, there is, as the result of this, the education of the race; that as the sins of the fathers descend unto the third and fourth generation of them who continue to hate God, the punishment for violation of law increasing in intensity till the guilty race dies out; so God’s mercies in the shape of increasing aptitude for knowledge, refinement, and Christian elevation, are transmitted from generation to generation among those who stedfastly love the Lord? ”

“ Are all the thoughts and feelings which hold a higher elevation than the lowest, to be deemed, not as the necessaries, but the luxuries of religion? You cannot fail to perceive that the reply to this inquiry must depend on the level you have been made to occupy. If you have been placed in a high position to start from, and if every advantage in the way of mental culture has been extended to you, the one thing needful for you is clearly to push on higher, to enlarge the intellect by searching still further for the true, which to the heart is the good and the beautiful ”

“ Let these, however, console themselves with the knowledge that as mankind progress, they are made, by division of labour, to become more dependent on each other, and that perforce the law of love, of mutual beneficence, is being propagated in the world, not only by the Christian ministry, but by the agency of commercial, scientific, and literary progress. Not only the inhabitants of the same land, but the various nations of the earth are more and more coming to this, that they can less and less do without each other’s co-operation. ”

“ Yea, in the life to come the same feeling will exist, for after ages of looking into the wonders of God’s love, wisdom, and power, the language of the heart still will be, “I count not myself to have laid hold of the divine ideal.” ”

“ The grave, without respect of persons, confronts us all with its awe-inspiring illimitable beyond; and we cannot, if we would, brought up as we have been to possess long-standing associations on the side of Christian truth, and in harmony with the voice of conscience and the higher aspirations and presentiments of the soul, bring ourselves to believe that we shall not reap hereafter as we have sown here. ”

“ For, by blindly adhering to such a stationary policy, they will eventually, as a distinct nation, be submerged by the tide of progress, instead of floating on its surface, and exist about as much in reality as their fabled Lowland Hundred. In everything but political sectarianism, and this only because they are moved to it by political agitators, the Welsh are in fact a most conservative nation. ”

“ When, however, we come to consider that one of the leading causes of the peculiarities exhibited by the Welsh, is the isolation resulting from their language, few distinctive points remain in their social economy which admit of being copied with advantage by other communities. Influences which are rapidly changing the character of the English, and the better educated classes in these parts, exercise but a faint effect upon the primitive Welsh; because they are, by their language, shut out from the rest of the world. ”

“ If we except the various pursuits by which they gain their livelihood, the Welsh-speaking portion of my countrymen have few proclivities apart from religion. Their reading is almost purely religious reading; their music, psalmody; their social gatherings, for the most part, clerical meetings, religious camp meetings, and the assembling of Sabbath schools. Their periodical literature consists almost wholly of religious magazines. Secular knowledge, secular music, and well nigh everything approaching to fiction, are by many of them deemed not only valueless but sinful. ”

“ Painful, however, as it must be to Welsh patriotism, and high-wrought sentiment, yet it is not to be doubted that the genius of Wales is receding before that of England, as is so clearly evident to those who dwell on the border land, where the two rival powers are brought face to face. And now what I wish my country-people particularly to understand is, that as long as they adopt a policy of stagnation, Cambria is sure to be worsted in the conflict for distinctive existence; because such is the law of evolution, a law which pervades all nature ”

“ But here we enter the sphere of will and of moral obligation, choice, and duty; and instead of witnessing that harmonious action of many parts exhibited by the involuntary regions of organic life, we witness all those evils which, if they do not have the effect of awakening a nation to the error of its ways, eventually lead to anarchy and decay. ”

“ Now this is just what ought to be the case with the great social body. If it advances from one stage to a higher, it must be by division of labour combined with the union of love. It is by division of labour that men acquire that skill and excellence in the arts, that greater accuracy and extent of knowledge in general which enables them to surpass their forefathers. ”

“ More especially, do not neglect, while cultivating the intellect, to improve the heart. This would, indeed, be division of labour which is very much to be deprecated. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” “Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.” If knowledge is the great moving power that ensures progress, Christian love, love which fulfilleth the law, is the great source of political stability, social harmony, restoration of soul. ”

“ When a gifted man stores his mind with truth, and at the same time strives his utmost to attain purity of heart, his Christian experience must needs be widened, and his whole soul elevated, in proportion to the number of distinct kinds of truth which combine p. 21with each other, and with the ruling passion of his life, to form one grand result, many systems of truth all threaded on that one cord, “the love of Christ constraining;” much differentiation, but perfect unity; many members, yet but one body; in short, a state of mind similar in kind to the Son of Man’s. ”

“ All passionate seekers after undiscovered truth know that much mental toil, and probably years of wearisome watching, are demanded before any one can hope to snatch a new secret from the close keeping of the unknown. ”

“ Here we have another instance of differentiation out of a prior medley state, such as existed in the civilization of Greece and of Rome.
So much chiefly for the doctrine of differentiation; now more particularly for that of unity. Let us never forget that God has fashioned the body in such a perfect manner that there should be no schism among the different members, but that there should be “the same care one for another.” Thus it is found to be throughout the region of animal life. There is, at first, no variety in the unity. As animals ascend in the scale of being, variety emerges ”