Transcribed from the 1871 W. Spurrell edition ,
WELSH NATIONALITY, AND HOW ALONE
IT IS TO BE SAVED
A
SERMON
PREACHED INTHE
Chapel of St. David’sCollege, Lampeter
ON THEMORNING AND EVENING OF
SUNDAY, OCTOBER30th, 1870
BYTHE
REV. W. G. DAVIES, B.D.
Chaplain of the Joint Counties Asylum,Abergavenny
PUBLISHED BYREQUEST
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL. &CO.
CARMARTHEN: W. SPURRELL
1871
p. 3ASERMON.
I.
Luke x. 42.
“But one thing is needful, and Mary hathchosen that good part which shall not be taken away fromher.”
The discourses which I have theprivilege of delivering in this chapel, are specially addressedto my younger brethren, the undergraduates. I cannot butdwell with pleasure upon the time when I was myself a student inthis college. This, together with the fact that I am anative of the lower part of this county, and was brought up amongsome of the most primitive of the Welsh people, and consequentlyam familiar with their leading sentiments, manners, and customs,places me, I cannot help feeling, in a state of close sympathywith the greater number of you. Assuming the existence ofthis fellow feeling, I have chosen, on this occasion, toinvestigate the social and religious condition of my countrymenin a light which has not yet penetrated into the fastnesses ofthe popular mind of Wales. I have done this, because thesubject is one that elicits ideas of high import, which it isdesirable you should know, inasmuch as they ought to prove ofsignal service to you in your future ministrations.
We are living, you should be aware, in critical times. Old institutions and dogmas are rudely assailed, and challengedto vindicate their right to respect before the tribunal ofreason. It is p.4well then that you should have some leading ideasimplanted in your mind, so that you may the better be able tocomprehend the nature of the change that is coming over us. As this change proceeds, you will probably hear cries of despairfrom this party and from that, and harsh and uncharitableaccusations will be flung by one at the other. Be nottherefore in perplexity, but of this be very certain, “TheLord hath prepared His throne in the heavens, and His kingdomruleth over all;” and though we may see the pet schemes ofmen ending in signal failure, not for one moment can we supposethat God