erenced and cherished in provincial families, was not
published till 1770, and for many the printed Word was far to seek.[41]
But the gospel minstrels carried the Word with them. Some of the long
hymns contained nearly a whole body of divinity.

[Footnote 41: As an incident contributory to the formation of the
British and Foreign Bible Society, the story has been often repeated of
the little girl who wept when she missed her Catechism appointment, and
told Thomas Charles of Bala that the bad weather was the cause of it,
for she had to walk seven miles to find a Bible every time she prepared
her lessons. See page 380.]

The Welsh learn their hymns by heart, as they do the Bible--a habit
inherited from those old days of scarcity, when memory served pious
people instead of print--so that a Welsh prayer-meeting is never
embarrassed by a lack of books. An anecdote illustrates this
characteristic readiness. In February, 1797, when Napoleon's name was a
terror to England, the French landed some troops near Fishguard,
Pembrokeshire. Mounted heralds spread the news through Wales, and in the
village of Rhydybont, Cardiganshire, the fright nearly broke up a
religious meeting; but one brave woman, Nancy Jones, stopped a panic by
singing this stanza of one of Thomas Williams' hymns,--

_Diuw os wyt am ddylenu'r bya_

If Thou wouldst end the world, O Lord,
Accomplish first Thy promised Word,
And gather home with one accord
From every part Thine own,
Send out Thy Word from pole to pole,
And with Thy blood make thousands whole,
And, _after that come down_.

Nancy Jones would have been a useful member of the "Singing Sisters"
band, so efficient a century or more afterwards.

The _tunes_ of the Reformation under the "Methodist Fathers" continued
far down the century to be the country airs of the nation, and
reverberations of the great spiritual movement were heard in their rude
music in the mountain-born revival led by Jack Edward Watkin in 1779 and
in the local awakenings of 1791 and 1817. Later in the 19th century new
hymns, and many of the old, found new tunes, made for their sake or
imported from England and America.

The sanctified gift of song helped to make 1829 a year of jubilee in
South Wales, nor was the same aid wanting during the plague in 1831,
when the famous Presbyterian preacher, John Elias,[42] won nearly a
whole county to Christ.

[Footnote 42: Those who read his biography