There was a preacher of Caernarvon, one Richardson, a preacher of peculiar tenderness, and sweetness, who made his hearers weep beneath the lovely message he generally carried. On one occasion, while Elias was pouring forth his vehement, and dreadful words, painting the next world in very living, and fearful colours, his audience all panic-stricken, and carried along as if they were on the confines of the darkness, and the gates opening to receive them, a man, in the agony of his excitement, cried out, “Oh, I wish I could hear Mr. Richardson, of Caernarvon, just for five minutes!” No anecdote could better illustrate the peculiar gifts, and powers of both men.
John Elias was a native of Caernarvonshire. His parents were people in very humble circumstances, but greatly respected. His paternal grandfather lived with them. He was a member of the Church of England. His influence over the mind of Elias appears to have been especially good; and it is, perhaps, owing to this influence that, although he became a minister, and the eminent pride of the Calvinistic Methodist body, he, throughout his life, retained a strong affection for the services, and even the institution, of the Church of England. Through his grandfather, he acquired, what was not usual in that day, the rudiments of education very early, and as a young child, could read very well and impressively. Thus, when quite a child, they went together to hear some well-known Methodist preacher. The time for the service had long passed, and the preacher did not arrive. The old gentleman became impatient, and said to his little grandson, “It’s a pity the people should be idling like this; go up into the pulpit, John, and read a chapter to them;” and, suiting the action to the word, he pushed the child up into the pulpit, and shut the door after him. With much diffidence, he began to read portions of the Sermon on the Mount, until, venturing to withdraw his eye from the Bible, and look aside, lo! to his great dismay, there was the preacher quietly waiting outside the pulpit door. He gently closed the book, and slipped down the pulpit stairs. This was his first appearance in the pulpit. Little could any one dream that, in after years, he was to be so eminent a master in it.