one of the few appears to be, that the term "the Welsh Church" is inaccurate and misleading. Inaccurate, for it is said such an institution never existed, misleading, because it is impossible to give any precise meaning to the term. If the church, before the arrival of Augustine be meant then that church is not Welsh but British. If the Church from the arrival of Augustine to the Norman period, that may be the church in Wales, but it is not the Welsh Church. If it is the post-Reformation Church, that is only four dioceses in the Province of Canterbury established by Statute in Wales. These objections are to a great extent valid, the term is both vague and inaccurate, but he, (the lecturer) felt it difficult to find any phrase that so well described the subject of his paper, viz, that branch of the Celtic Church that has existed from the time of the introduction of Christianity in that part of this island called Wales.

Modern scholars divide the inhabitants of Rritain at the time of the Roman invasion into two great grups, the Goidels and the Brythons. The Goidelic Celts were the earlier arrivals in the country, and had been gradually pushed across the Severn by the later arrival of the Brythonic Celts in the same way as a still earlier race had been by the Goidels. From this earlier race the Goidels had received or rather adopted a form of religious belief that may for want of a better name be called Druidism. The religious belief of the Brythonic Celt was a form of Polytheism, to a great extent similar so far as we know to the religion of the Continental Celts, It is obvious that Christianity would have a very different part to play in dealing with these two races. With the Goidels a compromise was possible, with the Brythons impossible. With heathen

polytheism no terms could be made, one or other must triumph or perish. Under the auspices of the Latin Church Christianity triumphed, and so effectually stamped out Brythonic paganism as to leave us with the vaguest knowledge of that form of religious belief. In the teritory of the Goidels it was very different. There was so much of their religious system not directly repugnant to Christianity that it was possible to smooth over differences, and assimilate the two beliefs. This was done : Either the church assimilated Druidism or Druidism the church. Our knowledge of the period is too imperfect for us to say which actually took place, but in the result the two became united and formed the basis of the Celtic Church of Wales. There is no record of the conversion of Wales, but Mr. Willis-Bund_quoted from the Books of Irish Law an account of the conversion of Ireland as showing in all probability an identical state of things in Wales." Christianity appears to have become part and parcel of the existing Goidelic religious system. While to the Brythonic Celts Christianity said, Believe or die, Baptism or the sword, to the Goidelic Celts it said, "adapt your customs to our religion." That such a state of things was possible was only owing to the fact that in the Celtic Church there was no supreme power, like the Papacy in the Latin Church, to force any specific system on the country. The Christian Colonies were oases in the desert of Heathendom. The influence the dwellers in these colonies had was more the result of example than of precept. It was probably by the baser mode of fear rather than by the nobler mode of the intelligence that Christianity spread. It was regarded (as shown by a passage in the Irish Laws) as the formality to be

followed to propitate the more powerful God. The passage referred to shows that abstract Christian doc trines might be preached but as long as the converts took the prescribed means of propitiation it was enough. They were not obliged to renounce their old ideas or to discard their old beliefs. It was an addition not a substitution that was required. It was only natural that the union of Christianity and Paganism should give rise to some peculiar views in the minds of its believers. Towards the latter half of the 4th century these views took definite shape. Commenting on the passage from the Irish Laws already referred to, one authority says that the Irish, before the coming of Patrick "believed in the Father and the Spirit, but not in the Son," and if this correctly represents the ancient faith of the Celts it fully explains the celebrated heresy that at this time sprang up in the Celtic Church. The authors of that heresy were both Irish and Welsh monks. Their propositions were that the Latin doctrine of original sin was a delusion, that man could work out his own salvation, and by his natural powers attain to a state of perfection so as to be incapable of sin. Such a result was to be expect ed if the statement above quoted truly represents the views of the Celts, for, as Sir Henry Maine points out, no nation and no people who have not passed under the rule of Roman Law have ever taken to heart the Latin dogma of original sin. So we know, the influence of Roman Law over the Celts in the west of this island had been very slight, even if it existed, not enough to have even paved the way for the acceptance of the doctrine of an inherited curse, and the coincidence of the outbreak of heresy in point of time with the relaxation of Roman

far as

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Rule is not to be lightly passed over. The Pelagian heresy was the direct and necessary result of the mode in which the Goidelic Celts became Christians. This heresy was the first thing that brought Celtic Christianity into conflict with the Latin Church, and for a long time it formed the line of demarcation between the two churches. The history of this movement is highly interesting as showing the result the peculiar mode of the conversion of the Goidelic Celts produced on the Christianity and religious thought of Western Europe. The accuracy of the Latin accounts of the so-called suppression of the heresy are extremely questionable. The accounts of the Mission of Germanus are most probably the inventions of a later age to demonstrate the triumph of the orthodox Latin over the heretic Celtic Church. They are not without importance as they record the attempt of the Gallican Church to establiah its authority over the Christianity of this island, an attempt afterwards utilized by the Latin Church when pressing forward her claim over all the churches of this country. Another result of the way in which the Goidelic Church was converted is to be found in the way that heathen customs and heathen ideas lingered long after the country had become nominally Christian. The conversion of Wales is said to date certainly from the 4th century if not from a much earlier period. long after then the people remained in an intermediate state, nominally Christian, but practising heathen customs. Speaking of feasts for instance, the Irish Laws describe them as "a godly banquet, a human banquet, and a demon banquet" "a banquet given to sons of death and bad men (i. e. to lewed persons, satirists and jesters, and buffoons, and mountebanks, and outlaws, and heretics, and

But

harlots, and bad people in general, which is not given for earthly obligation, and is not given for heavenly reasons, such a feast is forfeited to the demon)." The Edition of the Irish Laws explains the passage by saying that the portion of the text commencing "i. e. lewd persons," to the end of the passage is probably a later interpretation after Christianity was generally established, and the celebration of heathen rites had ceased to be usual. It may be remarked that the introduction of the term heathen into this portion of the text at a date long subsequent to the introduction of Christianity shows that persons existed in the island who still adhered to the old worship, aud were classed by the church among bad people in general. To understand the operation of Christianity among the Celts and the mode of its develop ment it will be necessary to consider the condition of the people who were converted, and the effect of that condition on the organization and progress of the church. In the 3rd and 4th centuries the state of Wales was tribal, the tribe being a family or rather a collection of families related by being in theory or in fact decended from a common heroic or legendary ancestor. Each family was ruled by its head, each family possessed rights in the tribal property. The head of the chief family, the direct deccendant of the legendary ancestor, had authority over the other heads of families and the tribal territory. The Christian missionaries encountered tribes consisting of these groups of families. At the time they arrived the tribe had probably ceased to be nomadic and had become settled in a defined territory held as common property by the different families making up the tribe, and only capable of alienation by the chief with the consent of the tribesmen. When the

Christian missionaries succeeded in obtaining the adhesion of the tribe to Christianity they established a settlement in each tribe. In time this Christian settlement became a recognized part of every tribe. "It is no tribe," says an ancient triad "without three dignitaries, the church, the Lord, the poet." The mode in which the church settlements were made is well illustrated by the account of the foundation about the year 545, of the church of Derry, and it may be taken as a typical instance of the way a Celtic Church was founded. There we find the king or chief-the representative of the tribe-giving to Columba a portion of the tribal territory, the common property of the tribe, to build a church upon. The church, by the gift, acquired a right against the land, the tribe by the gift acquired certain rights against the church, rights, the Irish Laws state to have been, to have divine service performed, the children of the tribe, or such of them who chose, to become religious persons, educated. This gift of the

tribal land to the church was the origin of the great division of the tribal land into two great classes, that portion which the tribe retained was known as "the property of the tribe of the land," that which was given to the church, was known as "the property of the tribe of the Saint. Saint." These two divisions form the leading features in Celtic ecclesiastical history, and are the key to many of its difficulties. There thus being in each tribe a church, the next point to consider is how that church was served, was it by one priest or by more than one, in other words was it parochial or monastic. The latter seems the most probable. The local churches all seem to have been offshoots from one of the great monasteries, and it is not

likely that a single monk would be sent to each place. It is more probable that a small colony of monks was established wherever required, in the same way that afterwards the Latin monasteries established offshoots or cells. The religious bodies probably lived or kept themselves apart from the lay body of the tribe. At the head of the religious body was usually the missionary, who obtained from the tribal chief the grant of land to establish the church. The gift of land to the missionary was for a distinct purpose, and if the purpose failed the land reverted to "the tribe of the land." The fact that the local churches were manastic tends to explain a custom in the Celtic Church that lasted until Norman times (to which Giraldus refers in his "Description of Wales,") viz. : the pluriality of priests in a single benefice. It is curious to see how long the monastic idea survived. An instance of it is found so late as 1291, in the valuation of Pope Nicholas, where the revenue of the church at Corwen was divided among five priests. The monastic origin of the Celtic Church gives a clue to another very difficult question in Welsh Ecclesiastical History, i. e., the early dedication of the churches. A number of churches exist that are said to be St. David's St. Teilo's, St. Padarn's, which are also dedicated to other saints. One theory is that these churches were actually founded by the saints whose names they bear. This is, however, very questionable; there is absolutely no evidence that this theory can rest upon. It is also very unlikely that they were dedicated to the saints in the way a church is now dedicated, as it is doubtful if in its modern sense such an idea as dedication then existed, and dedication is far more of a Latin than a Celtic ceremony. But if these

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churches are treated as a monastic churches, dependent upon the original monastery to a great extent, the difficulty is removed. As the donations were made to the monks of a monastery, the real founders of the church, dedication under these circumstances would probably mean the naming of the church from the place from whence its colonizers came. Then came a period when churches were really dedicated; most of them to St. Michael, followed by a third period of dedication to the Virgin Mary, which marked the rule of the Latin Church.

[To be Continued.]

MORGAN JONES, LLANMADOCK, IN AMERICA.

BY MR. HENRY BLACKWELL, NEW YORK.

Some time ago I noticed in the Magazine of American History, for February, 1878, the following note:

The credit of establishing the first Sabbath School has generally been ascribed to Miss Walker and Mr. Raikes This is an error, and it is time it should be corrected. The credit properly belongs to Morgan Jones, whose pretended statement, which originally appeared in The Gentlemen's Magazine, in 1740, is so often quoted to prove that Madoc discovered America in 1170. Mr. Jones established a Sabbath School at Newtown, Long Island, Feb. 28th, 1682, nearly a century before Mr. Raikes commenced his efforts in England.

Seeing this statement, and as Newtown was only half an hour's walk from my residence, I thought it worth my while to look Morgan Jones up, especially as Rees in his "Nonconformity of Wales," Richards in "Cambro-British Biography," and many others, say they have no mention of him after his ejectment from Wales. This is strange, as they must have

known of his letter in regard to the Welsh Indians which was inserted in The Gentlemen's Magazine by Theophilus Evans. Possibly they

were

unaware that

Madoc Jones and Ejectment Jones were the same Morgan Jones. Newtown is a small village, founded about 250 years ago, during which time it has made but little progress. A visit to Newtown and to the Presbyterian Church, which was founded in 1652 (the present building is about 100 years old), showed on investigation that Morgan Jones was its third pastor, commencing his ministry in 1680, and terminating it in 1686, and that he was a graduate of Oxford, England. Beyond this I was unable to get any further information; the town and church records as yet I have not seen. My attention was drawn to Riker's "Annals of Newtown," published at New York, 1852, an 8vo. volume of 440 pp. A diligent search finally secured for myself a copy of this scarce work. As it contains many interesting facts in relation to our lost worthy, I send the extracts, in order that there

may be preserved for future historians, what otherwise might have been lost, inasmuch as it was a mere accident that led to their discovery.

After a long and serious interruption of public religious worship, it was with great satisfaction that the services of Rev. Morgan Jones were obtained in the spring of 1680. After trial, it was resolved, in a town

meeting, April 3rd, to engage him for a year, and the constables and overseers accordingly entered into an agreement with him for the above term, to date from the 10th of the previous March, at the salary of fifty pounds; the town engaging "to fit the house up" for his residence, and fence the grounds about the same.

Mr. Jones was the son of John Jones, of Bassaleg, in Monmouthshire, England, who, there is cause to believe, was nearly related to Colonel John Jones, one of the judges of Charles I., and brother-in law to Oliver Cromwell. From following the plough, Morgan became a student at Jesus College, Oxford, where he was educated, and was by distinction known as Senior Jones. He settled in the ministry at Llanmadock, in Glamorganshire, Wales; but on the passage of the Act of Uniformity in 1662, refusing to bend his conscience to its terms, he suffered ejectment from his parish, a noble tribute to his piety. The severer measurers which followed probably led Mr. Jones to take refuge in America. Here he met with a varied fortune. At one time he is found pursuing an humble vocation in New England, at another officiating as chaplain under General Bennett, in Virginia. While in the

latter service he met with some curious adventurers among the Tuscarora and Doeg Indians.

The ministry of Mr. Jones at Newtown had continued one year, when trouble arose respecting the collection of his salary. This originated in a disrelish of the established law of the province, which, while securing to each town the privilege of choosing its own minister by a major vote, enjoined upon every inhabitant to contribute his portion of the salary agreed upon between the minister

and the town authorities. *

Some, therefore, refused to pay the minister's tax, as they were rated according to their possessions; and Jones, who had against these Mr. now left the town, having accepted a call from Staten Island, preferred a complaint through the constables at Newtown, to the Court of Sessions, which Court directed that the law be