Then there was John Vaughan of Derllys, a patron of Welsh pietistic literature, who rendered conspicuous service to the cause of religion in the land. He distributed, in the county of Carmarthenshire alone, as many as five thousand copies of Tillotson's Exhortation to frequent Communion. His daughter and heiress was Madam Bevan, a great benefactress of Welsh education, and whose name is honourably associated with that of Griffith Jones in connection with the Welsh Circulating Schools. It is not necessary here to enlarge upon these and other efforts, both religious and educational, in the early eighteenth century, but they bear testimony to the intense sense of need for the reform of public morals in the Principality, and how it was sought to meet that need.

With the advent of the Calvinistic Methodist Revivalists that followed Griffith Jones's Circulating Schools, and the Act of Toleration (1689), Wales was born again into a new and a higher national consciousness-a national consciousness that has up to recent years, and especially since the Education Act of 1870, been gathering greater strength, and widening the nation's interest. Not that we have yet seen the full effects of the change that Nonconformity has brought about. It has created problems that require time, patience, courage, and sanity of judgment for their proper solution. The task that confronts Wales seems to be how to combine the racial genius of her people, the religious earnestness, and the national aspiration, with modern industrial and political developments, and the wider Imperial outlook that arises from a deepening and broadening of the Welsh mind on the side of intellectual culture. Wales resembles other countries in such characteristics as are common to all races. There is a striking parallel between different nations, both small and great—a parallel in social ideas, usages, and political instincts. But a scientific study of their history shows how each nation has pursued, almost unconsciously, an isolated and spontaneous existence. The Welsh are an octogenarian race, but its youth has been renewed, and it is fast throwing off that moroseness and selfishness which are the concomitants of old age. It is a race that has lived long, and yet is only just beginning to live, for it has only commenced the opera

tion of mental organisation. After so many centuries of an exclusive and an unenterprising existence, the people have gone in for an exchange of ideas-an exchange that can be followed without losing anything of their national genius; and the more it is done, the more the people will prosper intellectually. Wales has stepped out of the old era into the new-the old domestic economy, the old conception of its relative position in the kingdom of the Empire, its old slavish worship of mere rank and mere wealth, and its old theological odium against ideas that are purely scientific. It is the oldest of the races in the British Isles, yet in its modern garb one of the youngest, most active, and enlightened. True, it exhibits something of the vanity and ostentation that characterise the period of youth; yet, it is as sharp, eager and practical as any of its kindred Celtic races, or even of any race which is commonly deemed more practical.

What Wales needs to know is herself-her capabilities and possibilities, and, above all, her limitations. An acorn can only produce an oak. A fig tree cannot bear olive berries. Modern Wales needs to beware of the false prophets who come to her in sheep's clothing. There can be no true stability unless there is a correspondence between political conditions and the natural endowments of a people. Wales must work out her salvation on lines that are peculiar to the genius of her people-the lines of religious culture and intellectual improvement, combined with aptitude in business and in industry. A nation governed by such instincts is a spectacle worthy of admiration, and, so far as prophecy is possible in human affairs, a nation pursuing such a course cannot go far wrong. There is more hope of such a nation than of a nation that gives itself up to the selfish pursuit of material advantages. So long as religion obtains the dominant control, there will be patriotism in the land, and with patriotism all the elements of true progress. Wales has been thinking in the past parochially and provincially: she is now thinking nationally; and it is to be hoped, for her own sake, that she may have some thought-energy left to think imperially. But the apparatus of civil government that may be wise or necessary in the case of other

units in the kingdom may not be expedient in the case of Wales. Dissimilarity in genius and in destiny, in historical associations and in the mission a particular nation may have to deliver to the world, makes a difference in the special application of general political principles. That the Welsh race has a mission there can be no doubt; it has not been preserved for nothing, and preserved in the face of such neglect and such oppressive and differentiative legislation, and even opprobrium, that might have driven a less loyal and a less religious people into open rebellion. Its mission is pre-eminently a religious one. In that sphere it has a wealth of endowment comparable to any race in the world; and to religion must be added education, literature, and the gift of political art. Its mission is not scientific, not scholastic, not artistic. We are now witnessing the earlier acts of the modern Welsh drama in the new era. The basis of the modern is not the basis of the ancient; they differ in their ambition and in their groundwork; and they will likewise differ in their glory and achievement.

IT

CHAPTER III

REACTION AND REORGANISATION

T should be stated that in this philosophical analysis of the reorganisation and development of Wales, I refer mostly to the religious and intellectual phenomena. The economic, educational, and political aspects are dealt with elsewhere. No interpretation could do justice to the question, that did not take into consideration the great principle of relativity. I have in Chapter I. tried to show how the remoteness of the early Welsh from all practical contact with the outside world affected their temperament, mentality, moods, and methods of living. Also, how, through the influence of industrialism, Socialism, the new learning, modern English journalism, and the influence of Anglo-Saxon thought, the Welsh outlook has been changed, and even the characteristics of the people modified. No nation presents a permanent picture; this is eminently true of Wales, especially during the last quarter of a century. Old Wales has practically disappeared. Traces of ancient local usages, customs, and traditions are becoming fainter as the years pass; many, even the majority of them, have perished unrecorded. Since the country has become a cosmos in itself, the people have been brought into correspondence with new environmental conditions; the change has brought about a new type of civilisation. This was inevitable, and not altogether to be deplored. Not only has the current of the nation's life been diverted, but its prospects and possibilities have been enhanced a hundredfold. For centuries its course had been, apparently, entirely fortuitous; the nation seemed to be the victim of an inevitable succession of events, without any guiding principle,

or any consciousness that it had a mission to deliver and a higher task to perform.

After the overthrow in 1282, respect for law and virtue, and even for the decencies of life, was to a great degree absent. But great activity in evil involves great capacity for reaction from evil. Wales affords a notable example of the truth of this psychological fact; she has not only survived, but rejuvenated herself, with tremendous suddenness; she has become an active, valuable asset, not only among her kindred Celtic races, but in the life of the kingdom. Her latter-day movements have been characterised by a consciousness, a deliberation, and a sequence, which she never knew during her long nomadic career. Viewed from the present elevation, her old schoolmasters and school days, leaders, and institutions, may appear highly primitive-even crude. They must not, however, be judged by absolute standards, nor be viewed in comparison with the social, educational, and religious institutions that exist to-day. They belong to specific periods, and must be regarded in relation to their historic environment; instead of being spoken of as hindrances to the nation's development, they should be looked upon as the necessary and natural products of the times in which they existed. They prepared the way for the present intellectual development, and for whatever degree of scientific progress there may be in store for the nation.

Wales has been criticised as not having produced knowledge of the highest kind. Could better things be expected of a nation with no educational advantages? For centuries Wales was but another name for obscurity. Less than two hundred years before the Bible was translated into Welsh, it was a criminal offence to keep Welsh children at learning, or to apprentice them to any trade in any district or town. In the various branches of science, such as astronomy, geology, physics, and the more complex science of organic nature, as well as the sphere of social science, there is not much to the credit of Wales. In the world of art also, and of creative music, her record is a poor one. The answer is, all things in their order. The problem of an old society, and that of a new society, are not the same. The early reformers had to take