Brief
Biography
To place Christmas Evans among the biographies of such
noted Baptists as John Bunyan and Isaac Backus may seem strange. Known as the
"one eyed Bunyan of Wales", Evans remains an unusual and yet very useful
servant in God's army. Christmas was born at Llandysul, Wales on the day from
which his name is taken, to Samuel and Johanna Evans in 1766. His long life
would carry him until 1838 and leave a legacy of great Baptist leadership in
his homeland of Wales. Early in Evans life, his father died leaving his mother
nearly destitute. In desperation, Johanna Evans sent her nine year old
Christmas to live with her brother and work on his farm. Unfortunately, Evan's
uncle was a drunkard and a cruel man. Due to the circumstances of his life
Christmas found himself illiterate and irreligious at the age of eighteen.
Finally, sick of his condition, Evans headed to the town of Llwynrhydewain to
get away from his abusive uncle and the life which held him in its snare.
In God's sovereignty, a revival was waiting on Evans when he arrived at his
new home town. It was there that he was converted and came to know the living
and risen Lord. Late in his life Christmas wrote of this time: "The fear of
dying in an ungoldy state especially affected me ... and this apprehension
clung to me till I was induced to rest upon Christ ... this concern was the
dawn of the day of grace in my spirit." Almost immediately, Christmas knew that
he had to separate himself from his lost and wicked companions. Not long after
his conversion he was attacked by six of his former rogue friends. They beat
him unmercifully and blinded him in one eye with a stick. It was because of
this cruel attack that Evans would be called later in life, "the one-eyed
preacher of Wales." Christmas Evans could say along with the apostle Paul, "I
bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ."
Soon after his
conversion, Evans felt the call to preach. His low upbringing and lack of
education was a loss for the established church and a gain for Baptists.
Because he lacked credentials, Evans could only preach in cottage meetings and
it was there that he came into contact with Baptist Christians. Because of
these Calvinistic Baptists, the "one-eyed preacher" began to study God's Word
deeply for Himself. At the age of twenty, Christmas was baptized as a believer.
He wrote: "Having read the New Testament through, I found not a single verse in
favour of paedobaptism (infant baptism) ... These Scriptures spoke to my
conscience, and convinced me of the necessity of personal obedience to the
baptism which Christ had ordained." After his baptism, Evan's preaching
changed. Everyone noticed the power with which he spoke. As he preached, the
people who listened were moved to repentance and true revival.
Reading his
sermons definitely reminds one of the style of John Bunyan. There is deep
Biblical truth accompanied by powerfully moving allegory. Perhaps, only in
Wales could such a man have risen for that land is known for its fervent
emotion. Christmas attributed much of his preaching style to a Calvinistic
Methodist preacher by the name of Robert Roberts. Outside of church polity,
Welsh Baptist and Calvinistic Methodist held much in common. Two names from the
Welsh Calvinistic Methodist church should ring a bell, George Whitefield and
Martin Lloyd-Jones. Christmas said of Robert Roberts: "I went one Sunday to
hear him. He was one of the most insignificant looking persons I ever saw - a
little hunchbacked man; but he neither thought nor said anything like other
people; there was something wonderful and uncommon about him." Like most
Welshmen, Evans believed in a fervent religion of the heart. He had little use
for much of what he called the "new hymn singing" because he thought it lacked
meaning from the heart. Once he saw a church member pull a hymn book from his
pocket. "You won't have those in heaven," chided Evans, "put it back in your
pocket."
Baptists, in the south in particular, inherited much of their
fervent and yet doctrinally sound religion from their Welsh and Scottish
ancestors. Like Jonathan Edwards, they knew one did not have to divorce emotion
from doctrine. One can, in fact must be, sound in doctrine and fervent in
spirit. Christmas described himself as a fisher of men. He said: "(my) line
should not be of fine silk but of strong thread interwoven with the hemp of
truth and dipped in the spirit of prayer, for what was wanted was not something
nice to look at, but a line with a hook on one end to bite." The preceding
quote emphasizes a Baptist distinctive of preaching for decision. Our
forefathers were doctrinally sound as can be seen in Evans' reading of such
weighty stuff as the complete works of John Owen. They also believed in a
religion of the heart. They preached to see men and women soundly converted. To
the wayward saints, they preached for godly sorrow which leads to repentance.
Another momentous time in Evan's life was when he met and married Catherine
Jones.
His beloved Catherine would prove to be a great stabilizing force in
the preacher's life. Christmas and his wife moved to the Isle of Anglesey to
begin a new work among the Baptists of that island. During his ministry on the
island that Evans began to read John Owen and to translate John Gill's, Body of
Divinity into Welsh. The work was difficult and opposition was great but God
blessed his efforts among a number of Baptists churches on the island. Life has
many strange turns and Christmas walked down a most crooked road as he
approached his sixtieth birthday. First, his beloved Catherine was called home
to Christ in 1823. Not long after that, Evans was named in lawsuit by creditors
seeking to recover unpaid debts from some of the Angsley chapels. Then he spent
nine months battling an infection which threatened to rob the sight Evans had
left. If that wasn't enough, many of the Baptist church on the island began to
chafe under Evan's leadership and made it plain that felt it was time for him
to move one. One is reminded of the words of Paul in Corinthians when he names
all of his troubles and adds "as well as care for all of the churches."
In
spite of all of these trials, Christmas never hesitated in his march for the
kingdom of God. Evans left Anglesey in 1826 and moved alone to the little
village of Caerphilly. God once again blessed Evans in his love and gave him a
loving new wife in Mary Evans. Christmas spent the last few years of his life
preaching from one place to another, often returning to preach at the great
annual assemblies of all evangelical Christians in Wales. On July 19th, 1838,
God called Christmas home after a job well done. David Rhys Stephen preaching
at Evans' funeral said: "He had a heart swelling with love to God and man ...
He was a man that feared the Lord God ... He walked before Him with great
humility all the day long." On the day of his death, Evans preached a sermon on
the apostles on the day of Pentecost. He likened their mission as going out
into a great naval battle: "The captain of our salvation sent out twelve little
boats to engage the whole fleet of hell. For a time all was enveloped in fire
and smoke, and the issue of the day seemed doubtful; but when the conflict had
ceased ... it was ascertained that the twelve little boats had captured three
thousand of Satan's ships of war."
After preaching, Christmas Evans sat
down and said, "This is my last sermon." And it was. Yet Evans still preaches
from the past. His life of solid dedication to God and God's church is a
monument to what it means to serve God with one's whole heart. The one-eyed
preacher from Wales may not have had a face that was much to look at but he had
a heart that was a work of art. May his legacy live in our hearts.
Useful
Links
http://www.higherpraise.org/preachers/evans.htm
Another life, and links.
http://www.sovereign-grace.com/19.htm
Sermon - Messiah the prince.
http://grace-for-today.com/evans.htm
Some quotes and short sayings.
http://www.watchword.org/smithers/ww26a.html
life, and links. Prayer.
http://www.puritansermons.com/banner/evans.htm
Article by Robert Oliver.
http://www.bunyanpress.co.uk/cevans.htm
A book about him, and a picture.