Welsh Journals

®to (Ptpto j^imttoiti Vol. ii. No. 23. JUNE 1893. Price One Penny. ■■■ THE REV. J. WYNDHAM LEWIS, Pastor of Water Street Chapel, Carmarthen. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. The present sketch appeared in the Carmarthen Weekly Reporter as a translation from the Herald Cymraeg. ,FOHE popular and well-known minister of Water MvIj Street was born in the old corporate town of rporate v>j££* LOUghor, near Swansea. He is one of twins, and the youngest but one of fourteen children. His father was a man of strong natural abilities ; he was also a good speaker, and remarkable for his gift in prayer. The mother was a staunch and zealous Church- woman ; she was the eldest communicant in the parish, having been a member of St. Michael's for upwards of 70 years. She kept the keys, and cleaned the Parish Church for scores of years. On Saturday, the cleaning day, the twins invariably went with the mother to Church, and spent the whole day in the sacred edifice, and when she was busily sweeping and dusting, the boys would ascend the pulpit, one of them would put on the surplice, and read the lessons for the following day, and the other would put on the black Geneva gown, and preach a short sermon. The pious mother often remarked to her young little twins, " It is in this (point¬ ing to the pulpit) I wish to see you both, but never dream of entering it unless you will be as knowing, as intelligent, as Mr. Powell Jones." Mr. Powell Jones (afterwards Canon Jones) was the rector—a saintly man and a profound scholar. Our subject, and his twin-brother, the Rev. Daniel Lewis, vicar of Ebbw Vale, Mon , were brought up in the National School of their native town, which was conducted under the superintendence of the .late Calvert Jones, M.A., (double first Oxon.) and the late Canon Jones, B.D., who visited the school daily for nineteen years. No wonder that the school was so renowned, and that it turned out so many clever young men. The mother had her wish. She was spared to see her twins in the pulpit, and to hear them both preach many times before she died. The two were ordained ;n the same year (1866)—the Vicar by the late Dr. Jacobson, Bishop of Chester, in that city, and our sub¬ ject at Maesteg, Glamorgan. Mr. Wyndham Lewis repeated scores of chapters in the Methodist Chapel before preachers, and on some occasions he repeated from the gallery of St. Michael's the lessons on Sunday from the Old and New Testa¬ ment. He used to introduce the services in the Chapel, and the united prayer meetings held in the different cot¬ tages of the parish since he was twelve years of age. The similarity between him and his twin brother is so striking that even their most intimate friends have often mistaken the one for the other. During one midsummer holidays both paid a visit to their native town, and as our subject had promised to preach at Trinity Chapel, Llanelly, his brother accompanied him, and sat in the sedd fawr—the big pew—where the deacons only sit. At the close of the service, all went to the Chapel House, and before they left, Mr. John Randall (father of Mr. D. Randall. M.P.) offered the fee by mistake to the Church student instead of the preacher—the Trevecca student. The remuneration, or what is given to the preacher for his services, is called by the Welsh "Degwm " (tithe). The Church student, in refusing it, naively remarked to the deacon that that tithe "was not his, but his brother's. In May, 1855, Mr. Lewis left Loughor for Aberdare. He joined Bethania Church—the Church of that elo¬ quent preacher, Dr, Saunders—and commenced to preach in the summer of 1857, before he was 18 years of age. His fellow-scholars in Bethania Sunday School, and the Bible Class of the late Dr., were His Honour Judge Gwilym Williams, Mr. VV. Morgan, ex-High- Constable of Merthyr-Tydvil, Mr. W. T. Rees, (Aiaw Ddu), Llanelly; and the Rev. W. James, the present able pastor of Bethania. He spent four years at the Tydvil Grammar School, conducted by the late Rev. Evan Williams, M.A., and several years afterwards at the college of the denomination, Trevecca. Whilst in Merthyr he came in contact with Robyn Ddu, Ieuan Gwyllt, and Mr. Thomas Stephens, the renowned anti¬ quary. His admiration for " Gwyllt" and Stephens knows no bounds. On leaving Trevecca College he opened a Grammar School at Aberdare, but soon gave it up at the request of the Glamorgan Monthly Meet¬ ing, and undertook the pastorate of the newly formed Church at Penarth, Cardiff. At this juncture he was joined in holy matrimony to Miss Davies, daughter of the late Rev. D. Davies, St. Mary's, Aberdare, after¬ wards the vicar of Ystrad-fellte. In 1865 he received and accepted a call to two of the English Churches of Gower, near Swansea. Soon after he settled down in the peninsula of Gower, he rebuilt; Trinity Chapel, and renovated the interior of Old Walls Chapel. In 1866 he was ordained at Maesteg. He