The work of Christmas Evans, so far successful, seemed likely to be undone; all the Churches seemed inoculated by these new and narrow notions, and Christmas Evans himself appears, as we have seen, to have been not altogether unscathed. There is something so plausible in this purism of pride; and many such a creed of pessimism is the outgrowth of indifference born, and nurtured, upon decaying faith,—a faith which, perhaps, as in the instance of Ramoth Jones and his Sandemanian teachers, continued true to Christ, so far as that is compatible with utter indifference to humanity at large, and an utter separation from the larger view of the Communion of Saints.
There was, however, a grand man, who stood firm while ministers and Churches around him were reeling, Thomas Jones, of Glynceiriog, in Denbighshire; he is said to have been the one and only minister, at all known to the public, who remained in his own denomination firm, and, successfully in his own spirit, withstood, and even conquered, in this storm of new opinion. And this Thomas Jones did not stand like an insensible stone or rock, but like a living oak, braving the blasts of veering opinion. Most men think in crowds,—which is only to say they are the victims of thoughtless plausibilities. This Thomas Jones appears to have known what he believed; he was eminent for his politeness, and greatly deferential in his bearing; but with all this, his courtesy was the courtesy of the branch which bows, but retains its place. He was a man of marvellous memory, and Christmas Evans used to say of him, that wherever Thomas Jones was, no Concordance would be necessary. He was a great master in the study of Edwards “On the Freedom of the Will,” and his method of reading the book was characteristic; he would first seize a proposition, then close the book, and close his eyes, and turn the proposition round and round that it might be undisturbed by anything inside the treatise, or outside of it, and in this way he would proceed with the rigorous demonstration. He was a calm and dignified knight in the tournament of discussion; and, before his lance, more vehement but less trained thinkers and theologians went down.
Thus it was that he preached a great Association sermon at Llangevni, in 1802, which dealt the Sandemanian schism a fatal blow; the captivity beneath the spell of the influence of Ramoth Jones was broken, and turned as streams in the south. While the sermon was being preached, Christmas Evans said, “This Thomas Jones is a monster of a man!” Then the great revival sprang up,—the ice reign was over; but shortly after, he was called away to Rhydwilym, in Caermarthenshire. Young as he was, when John Elias heard of his departure, he said, “The light of the north is removed.” He died full of years, full of honours, full of love; closing a life, says one, of quiet beauty, which perhaps has never been surpassed, at Rhydwilym, in 1850.