a daily fare of barley bread." When he learned
English it was like acquiring a foreign tongue. He grew up amid a great
revival of Welsh art, letters and religion that stirred his soul. He
missed the pulpit by a narrow margin, yet he has never lost the
evangelistic fervour which is one of the secrets of his control and
command of people.

With the alphabet Lloyd George absorbed the wrongs of his people and
they were many. The Welsh had a double bondage: the grasp of the
Landlord and the Thrall of the Church. All about him quivered the
aspiration for a free land, a free people and a free religion. In those
days Wales was like another Ireland with all the hardship that Eviction
imposes.

The call to leadership came early. As a boy in school he led his mates
in rebellion against the drastic dictates of a Church which prescribed
liberty of religious thoughts and speech. He became the Apostle of
Nonconformity and for it waged some of his fiercest battles.

Always the gift of oratory was his. He preached temperance almost with
his advent into his teens: he was a convincing speaker before most boys
talked straight.

In due time Lloyd George became a solicitor but it was merely the step
into public life. To plead is instinct with him and with advocacy of a
case in court he was always urging some reform for his little country.
Politics was meat and drink to him and he stood for Parliament. An
ardent Home Ruler, he swayed his followers with such intensity that what
came to be known as Lloyd George's Battle Song sprang into being. Sung
to the American tune of "Marching Through Georgia" it was hailed as the
fighting hymn of Welsh Nationalism. Two lines show where the young Welsh
lawyer stood in his early twenties: they also point his whole future:

"The Grand Young Man will triumph,
Lloyd George will win the day----"

There is something Lincoln-like in the spectacle of his first struggle.
This lowly lad fought the forces of "Squirearchy and Hierarchy." The
Tories hurled at him the anathema that he "had been born in a cottage."

"Ah," replied Lloyd George, when he heard of it: "the Tories have not
realised that the day of the cottage-bred man has dawned."

Before he got through he was destined to show, that so far as
opportunity was concerned, the Cottage in Great Britain was to be on a
par with a Palace.

As you analyse Lloyd George's life you find that he has always been a
sort of Human Lightning Rod that a