sign from her husband, as soon as the fellow began the jig,
Mrs. Williams struck in with one of the poet-minister's well-known Welsh
hymns in the same metre,--

_Gwaed Dy groes sy'n c' odi fyny_

Calvary's blood the weak exalteth
More than conquerors to be,[38]

--and followed the player note for note, singing the sacred words in her
sweet, clear voice, till he stopped ashamed, and took himself off with
all his gang.

[Footnote 38: A less literal but more hymn-like translation is:
Jesu's blood can raise the feeble
As a conqueror to stand;
Jesu's blood is all-prevailing
O'er the mighty of the land:
Let the breezes
Blow from Calvary on me.

Says the author of _Sweet Singers of Wales_, "This refrain has been the
password of many powerful revivals."]

Another hymn--

_O' Llefara! addfwyn Jesu_,

Speak, O speak, thou gentle Jesus,

--recalls the well-known verse of Newton, "How sweet the name of Jesus
sounds." Like many of Williams' hymns, it was prompted by occasion. Some
converts suffered for lack of a "clear experience" and complained to
him. They were like the disciples in the ship, "It was dark, and Jesus
had not yet come unto them." The poet-preacher immediately made this
hymn-prayer for all souls similarly tried. Edward Griffiths translates
it thus:

Speak, I pray Thee, gentle Jesus,
O how passing sweet Thy words,
Breathing o'er my troubled spirit,
Peace which never earth affords,
All the world's distracting voices,
All th' enticing tones of ill,
At Thy accents, mild, melodious
Are subdued, and all is still.

Tell me Thou art mine, O Saviour
Grant me an assurance clear,
Banish all my dark misgivings,
Still my doubting, calm my fear.

Besides his Welsh hymns, published in the first and in the second and
larger editions of his _Hallelujah_, and in two or three other
collections, William Williams wrote and published two books of English
hymns,[39] the _Hosanna_ (1759) and the _Gloria_ (1772). He fills so
large a space in the hymnology and religious history of Wales that he
will necessarily reappear in other pages of this chapter.

[Footnote 39: Possibly they were written in Welsh, and translated into
English by his friend and neighbor, Peter Williams.]

From the days of the early religious awakenings under the 16th century
preachers, and after the ecclesiastical dynasty of Rome had b