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Boed emendiceid y vachteith
ae golligant guydi gueith.
finaun-wenestir mor diffeith.

Accursed be the spinster

Who after the battle let it inThe well-servant of the dreary sea. Professor Rhys could not decide what may be precisely the meaning of the notion of a well with a woman set carefully to see that the door of the well is kept shut. It would occur, however, to everybody to compare the well which Undine wished to have kept shut on account of its affording a ready access from her subterranean country to the castle of her refactory knight. And in the case of the Glasfryn lake the walling and cover were to keep the spring from overflowing were according to the story not watertight. This suggests the idea that the cover was to prevent the passage of some such fullgrown fairies as those with which legend seems to have once peopled all the pools and tarns of Wales. But in the next place is the maiden in charge of the well, to be regarded as priestess of the well? This idea of a priesthood is not wholly unknown in connection with wells in Wales, [see Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Wales (1833,) s. v. Llandrilo: Rees Welsh Saints (1836) "St. Eilian ;" and Foulkes Enwogion Cymru, p. v. Eilian.] There is very little doubt that the owner or the guardian of the well was so to say the representative of its ancient priesthood. In conclusion the lecturer related an instance which came under his notice only last sum In quest of old inscriptions he visited Llandeilo Llwydiarth, near Maenclochog in the northern part of Pembrokeshire. This is one of the many churches bearing the name of St. Teilo in South Wales, the building is in ruins but the churchyard is still used and it contains two of the most ancient non-Roman inscriptions in the Principality. Enquiring for

mer.

Llandeilo now one is directed to the farmhouse close by. The landlady's family have been there for many generations, though they have not long been proprietors of the land. Above the house is St. Teilo's Well, considered to have the property of curing the whooping cough. The water must be lifted out of the well and given to the patient to drink by somebody born in the house, or as the son put it, by the heir. It is given in a skull-St. Teilo's skull-which Teilo the Professor's craniological knowledge was unable to determine. The thing, however, to be noticed is that here we have an instance of a well of which was probably sacred before the time of St. Teilo, in fact one would possibly be right in supposing that the sanctity of the well and its immediate surroundings was one of the causes of the site being chosen by a Christian missionary. The well of paganism was annexed by the saint which establised a belief ascribing him the skull used in the well ritual. The landlady and her family, whose name by the way was the odd one of Melchior, it is true do not believe in the efficacy of the well or take gifts from those who visit it, but continue out of kindness to hand the skull full of water to those who persist in believing in it. In other words the faith

in the well continues intact when the

walls of the church have fallen into decay, such is the great persistence of some ancient beliefs, and in this particular instance we have a succession which seems to point unmistakably to an ancient priesthood of the well.

The Prefessor's interesting paper was listened to with the greatest attention, and he received at its conclusion most cordial applause. In the discussion that followed, Mr. Gomme, president of the Folk Lors Society, maintained the theory that the rags

and the pins left by the devotees at the well represented one and the same thing, the devotee's offering. He laid considerable importance on the point of silence and not looking backwards in certain tales, and would be glad of more information on those points. The gallop of a horse stopping the overflow of water reminded him of the ancient measurements of grants of land "As far as a horse could gollop." Mr. Standish O'Grady, author of "Silva Gaedelica," Mr. Joseph Jacobs, Mr. T. E. Morris, and Dr. Lowe also discussed points raised by the lecturer, Mr, Morris adding a well at Llanfaglan, near Carnarvon, to the number already mentioned.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE

WELSH.

A local magazine, "The Nelson," calls attention to a newly published volume entitled "Shakespeare's True Life." The author, Major Walter, announces a discovery of interest as tending to explain how the great poet acquired his close and accurate knowledge of Wales and the Welsh. For instance, in connection with the parish register in Holy Trinity Church, at Stratford, we are told, "the church register discloses sundry Ap Williams, Ap Edwards, Hugh ap Shon, Ap Roberts, Ap Howell, Evan Meredith, Evan Rice, and other undoubted Cymric worthies as fellow-townsmen of the poet. He had, therefore, from infancy, ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with the dialect as well as the character of the Welsh people; and so Sir Hugh Evans, in the 'Merry Wives of Windsor' is accounted for." A correspondent writes: "In the year 1640, the first volume of William Shakespeare's works was published, and on the frontispiece the following old Welsh proverb is to be found, 'Heb Dduw heb ddim.''

THE UNCHANGING CHRIST.

BY PRINCIPAL EDWARDS, D.D., BALA.
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-

day, and for ever.—Hebrews xiii. 8.

(Continued from page 74.)

Let us return for a moment to the exposition of the text "Jesus Christ" -the human name. Therefore he speaks about the unchangeableness of man, not the unchangeableness of God. And at the end of the verse, too, the same thing: "Jesus yesterday and to-day the same." I no not think he would have said that of "the Lord." The Lord has no "yesterday." If he spoke about the immobility of the Son of God and the Divine person, which he does in the first chapter, he would have said, perhaps something to this effect: "The Son of God is unchangeable," or, "God is immutable." But here it is: "Jesus Christ is unchangeable, yesterday and to-day the same." For God has no yesterday, but Jesus Christ has a yesterday, and after that came the night of death. And after that night of death He rose, with a new name which is the Christly name, going on from century to century, until, far away in the future, Jesus to-day passing away also, will come the "forever,"

And to it there will be no end. Jesus had a yesterday, and we know what He was yesterday; He is the same to-day. The yesterday of Jesus will explain His character to-day, and that Man Jesus of Nazareth is immutable. All our hopes depend upon the unchangeable purpose of the Man. There is one Man who, if He changed His mind, all Christianity would collapse -Jesus Christ the Man, therefore, and that is true of the condition which is taught, which is that the Man Jesus is unchangeable, like God, and that the unchangeableness of the Man Jesus has made Him worthy to

un

be God, as He undoubtedly is. Therefore two remarks suggest themselves to my mind from the text. One is that the circumstances of the life of Jesus Christ on earth developed a strong unchanging character. And the second is that the unchangeableableness which grew in Him, in the changes of His earthly life, have formed a power which underlies all activity in the carrying on of His work on earth. Yesterday He became changeable, and therefore is unchangeable to-day; therefore will be unchangeable forever. For we must remember that Jesus grew. He developed a certain human character. He was not everything, any more than God is everything. He was not an infinite vague personality, without individuality; He was not a general principle, but a man. And every man becomes a man, gains or loses by all the circumstances of life. Jesus grew from small beginnings to a great and a new life, of love, of humanity. Some have been in danger, but that cloud is passing away; but some previous theologians have been, in our country, in danger of falling into the old Unitarian heresy, not realising that Jesus is a human soul, but speaking as if He assumed a human body, and took His place as a perfect man, not admitting any growth in humanity, as a Saviour, but thinking that whatever He did on the Cross He could have done when tempted of Satan in the wilderness. But I profoundly believe in that reformed doctrine that Jesus Christ grew. There was a time when He could not have done what He afterwards did. And He proves it in accomplishing the great end of His life. And in passing from life to death there comes that great development of character which grew in Him through all the changes of life, in all its changes unchangeable. One has said, "All is mutable save mutability."

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Everything changes except the fact that everything changes. But about Jesus, in all the changes of His life, and He had many and great ones; He remained unchanged; truly continuous, in every circumstance developing the same character with which He started until He became the "strong Son of God," and equally strong Son of Man, the immortal Saviour, whonever repented of anything He ever did. We do; we would alter, and make our past different. How often do we look back and say, "If only I could begin again, I should make a better thing of life than I have done, but I made a mistake." Many a man has to deplore a fatal mistake in life; he took a wrong turn, and he can never retrace his steps. And we are continually bemoaning our mistakes. Oh, that we could begin again!

You never find that in Jesus Christ. Not one sentence of the kind ever crossed his lips. He did not want to begin again. He had done right in every circumstance; He had conquered in every trial; won the victory in every temptation; and instead of making mistakes, instead of blundering as we do, all through life, He seemed to have a clear vision of that future that lay before Him and a thorough understanding of every duty connected with the glorious work; so that to-day was the preparation for His to-morrow. Like that garment of His, His life was seamless. We read, often, in the "lives of Jesus Christ," of divisions. But divisions of that life of His are all artificial, and in proportion as they are artificial they are untrue. There is nothing of the kind in the actual life of Jesus. You cannot say where a new epoch in His life begins, I mean in His own personal life. New circumstances come, and new duties. He enters upon them with a strength acquired by His previous life; and all His life through is.

of one piece, without a beginning and without an end. Not drawing back, but slowly accelerating His pace, He became stronger every day, until at last He comes face to face with Death, and is strong enough to conquer it.

I am told that the great rivers of our own and every country have to wind round the mountains in order to slacken their pace. And if any river, however small. were allowed to run straight on towards the sea, without turning round this hill and winding around that meadow, it would acquire such strength that it would carry all before it and rush with headlong impetuosity into the bosom of the ocean.

That is how our life winds. Like the journeying of the Israelites, which took forty years to do what ought to have been done in a few days, so our lives are. But not so the life of Jesus. And therefore it was not necessary to continue the life a little longer on earth. Oh, no! the course was perfectly straight, and His pace was becoming quicker and quicker year by year, day by day, until at last He rushed through Death-and Death actually died when He came face to face with the dead Jesus.

Therefore has he acquired that strength in His changes, even in the great change of death. You may be perfectly sure He will never change again. I am perfectly sure of that, whatever doubts and misgivings I may have about theology and religion, I am perfectly sure that Jesus will never change any more. It is in life that we change; it is the grand difficulty of living well that makes us cowards; and especially that terrible change of death. Then a man is divided into two parts-one rotting in the grave, another part a naked spirit before its God. In that intermediate state, abcut which so little is told us, but which, even granting that it is a conscious awaking of the spirit, still

nothing is said of any heroic deed accomplished in that state. The dead seem to be resting in the Lord; and looking back with thankfulness upon their conflicts on earth, and looking forward with patience for the resurrection of the body; they rest in God. But Jesus Christ does not rest in God in that sense. He does not sleep. He is not dead. He could not be holden of death. He broke the bands asunder; and on the third day at dawn, if not before, He broke the grave and rose the ever-living Jesus Christ. The Man is there still, and is actually all one with the very same Jesus who said, "Peace be unto you." The Jesus who bled on the accursed tree, and rescued the thief that was hanging with Him; the Jesus who did those wonderful works of miracle, and spoke those marvellous parables. The Jesus who loves humanity, and loves sinners, the Jesus who was willing to die for them, on the third day when He rose. The same Jesus, the very same. If we want to know what way the King governs the Church of to-day, let us read the gospels.

For no doubt His

That is one reason why I am thankful for the Gospels, not simply that I might have a perfect example of human life on earth, but also in order to understand what the Christ I am trying to serve once was. life on earth was a preparation for His life in Heaven. He was preparing Himself for being the King of His Church. It was a discipline without which He could not have been the absolute Monarch of the redeemed.

Tertullian says, in several passages, that the appearances of the Angel of the Covenant in the New Testament were intended as reversions of Jesus Christ, Beautiful is the expression. A genius must have said that. What is the Old Testament history, the author asks? Is there a person of Jesus Christ, as it were, learning to

become incarnate, trying incarnation as far as he could without committing Himself entirely to it, making experiments in incarnation until at last He found that He could do it, and committed Himself to humanity, and became for ever the Incarnate God. If that is true, and I have no doubt it is, how much more true is it for us to say to-night that His life here on earth was also a reversion. It was a grand event, a splendid work, a glorious performance, that life and that death; but it had also its eyes upon the future, and the reversion of His Kingdom in Heaven. When He was suffering here on earth, He was preparing Himself to be a King and a Saviour. He would not be fit to be the King of the Christian Church if He does not know what temptation is and trial is; not worthy to be our Lord. But it pleased our Lord to learn to sympathise by the pangs which He suffered, and now "He is able to succour them that are tempted."

Yes! my friends, let us remember that the Church is governed by an absolute Monarch. It is not governed by principles or theories, but by the energy of one Man, by the resolution of Jesus. He has got His purposes and plans for His servants, but it all depends upon Him whether this succeeds or that fails. It is not a democracy; it is not an oligarchy; the Christian Church is not to be governed by a majority; the Christian Church will not do its work on earth in committees; the Christian Church is something greater than all officials, from the Pope down to the lowest Puritan in the land.

And therefore we are here to-day to assert the grand truth that we are all the servants of the absolute Monarch Jesus Christ. We are here to day to listen, if we may, wistfully, to His command, and in utter subjection

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to His will. Let us come with the most profound spirit of meekness and prayer, and say, "We want to know,. blessed Jesus, what Thou wouldst have us do, and then we will do it, whatever it may cost. We will send out missionaries because Thou hast commanded; not knowing how they are going to win the world; for Thou commandest it. Ready to work, to live, to do, to suffer, and to be everything, and to be anything. We wait in doubt and perplexity sometimes. Put an end to it, blessed Lord, only let us know that Thou art our King to the very bottom of our being, and to the uttermost part of the earth."

And what we want dear friends, to begin the Congress with, is silent obedience in prayerfulness, to know the will of the Master, the absolute Monarch of our souls and consciences. and wills, who has bought us with His own most precious blood; to Whom we have entirely consecrated our personality for ever. For He is the same for ever. For ever! for ever! He may have changes in Heaven; I doubt it not. I have no hesitation in thinking that our great Saviour is becoming a better Saviour, every day growing, growing to the power of a heavenly discipline as the Son of God, understanding God's will better from age to age. And yet in. all these changes of heaven itself, the same Lord, having the same omnipotent power to rule over human souls; for ever the same. I do not think that this "for ever" is needed for this argument of the writer's. I may be wrong, but that is my opinion. It is simply thrown in superfluously. No doubt you will have observed the form of the verse. It looks unnatural to put in this "for ever." I would have said this, and no doubt he would have said it if he were only a poor logician: "Jesus Christ the same yesterday." Well! I did not observe.