170 DUE HYMNS :
gational." In the original it is given in eight stanzas of four lines each ; but in the " New Congregational " only four stanzas are given, and each is lengthened by the addition of the last two lines of the hymn. It is headed in the original, " The Privileges of God s children."
WILLIAM WILLIAMS.
17171791.
WILLIAMS, of Pantycelyn, who may be called the Watts of Wales, was born in 1717 at Cefnycoed, in the parish of Llanfair-ar-y-bryn, near Llandovery, Carmarthenshire. After receiving a good edu cation, he began to study for the medical profession ; but before completing his medical studies, an event happened to him that changed the current of his life. While listening to the burning words of Howell Harris, in Talgarth churchyard, his soul was stirred, and he was won to Christ. With the first fervour of the new life, he resolved to give himself to the work of the Christian ministry, and in his twenty-third year he was ordained deacon, and began his ministry at Llanwrtyd and Llanddewi Abergwesin. About the age of thirty-two he married Miss Mary Francis, in whom he found a worthy helpmeet. Being opposed in the Established Church, and refused priest s orders, he became an itinerant preacher in the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist connexion. In this capacity he laboured unceasingly for half a century, in cessantly hastening from place to place in every part of the Prin cipality, to preach the Gospel to listening thousands. His sermons, warm with his own fervour, bright with the vivid picturing of his lively imagination, and always radiant with the presence of his Divine master, produced a most powerful effect upon his impres sible fellow-countrymen ; and Williams, working with such men as Rowlands and Harris, was felt as a power in the " Asso ciation " meetings of the connexion to which he belonged. He was also a great power for good in the private society or church- meetings, held weekly, in which there was opportunity for
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