As compared with other great Welsh preachers, Davies must be spoken of as, in an eminent manner, a singer, a prophet of song, and the swell, and cadences of his voice were like the many voices, which blend to make up one complete concert. He was not only a master of the deep bass notes, but he had a rich soprano kind of power, too; for we read that “when he raised his voice to a higher pitch than ordinary, it increased in melody, and power, and its effects were thrilling in the extreme; there were no jarring notes—all was the music of eloquence throughout.” This must not be thought wonderful—it is natural; all men cannot be thus, nor all preachers, however good, and great. There are a few noble organs in the world. The organ itself, however considered, is a wonderful instrument, but there are some built with such extraordinary art that they are capable of producing transcendent effects beyond most other instruments. Davies, the preacher, was one of these amazing organs, in a human frame; but the power of melody was still within his own soul, and it was the wonderful score which he was able to read, and which he compelled his voice to follow, which yet produced these amazing effects.
Surely, it is not more wonderful, that the human voice should have its great, and extraordinary exceptions, than that most wonderful piece of mechanism and art, an organ. We have the organs of Berne, Haarlem, and the Sistine Chapel—such are great exceptions in those powers which art exercises over the kingdom of sound; their building, their architecture, has made them singular, and set them apart as great instruments. But even in these, who does not remember the power of the _vox humana_ stop? We apprehend that few who have heard it in the organs of Berne, or Fribourg, will sympathise with Dr. Burney’s irreverent, and ridiculous condemnation of it, in his “History of Music,” as the “cracked voice of an old woman of ninety, or Punch singing through a comb.” Far from this, the hearer waits with intense anxiety, almost goes to hear this note, and realizes in it, what has been said so truly, that music, as it murmurs through the ear, is the nurse of the soul. But all organs have not the _vox humana_ stop, nor all preachers either. The human voice, like the organ, is a mighty instrument, but it is the soul which informs the instrument with this singular power, so that within its breast all the passions seem to reign in turn. Singular, that we have thought so much of the great organs of the Continent, and have listened with such intensity to the great singers, and have failed to apply the reflection that the greatest preachers must be, in some measure, a combination of both.