Preaching is, in Wales, the great national characteristic; the Derby Day is not more truly a characteristic of England than the great gatherings and meetings of the Associations all grouped around some popular favourites. The dwellers among those mountains and upon those hill-sides have no concerts, no theatres, no means of stimulating or satisfying their curiosity. For we, who care little for preaching, to whom the whole sermon system is perhaps becoming more tedious, can form but little idea, and have but little sympathy with that form of religious society where the pulpit is the orchestra, the stage, and the platform, and where the charms of music, painting, and acting are looked for, and found in the preacher. We very likely would be disposed even to look with complacent pity upon such a state of society,—it has not yet expired,—where the Bulwers, the Dickenses, the Thackerays, and Scotts are altogether unknown,—but where the peculiar forms of their genius—certainly without their peculiar education—display themselves in the pulpit. If our readers suppose, therefore, a large amount of ignorance,—well, upon such a subject, certainly, it is possible to enter easily upon the illimitable. Yet it is such an ignorance as that which developed itself in Job, and in his companions, and in his age—an ignorance like that which we may conceive in Æschylus. In fact, in Wales, the gates of every man’s being have been opened. It is possible to know much of the grammar, and the history, and the lexicography of things, and yet to be so utterly ignorant of _things_ as never to have felt the sentiment of strangeness and of terror; and without having been informed about the names of things, it is possible to have been brought into the presence and power of _things_ themselves. Thus, the ignorance of one man may be higher than the intelligence of another. There may be a large memory and a very narrow consciousness. On the contrary, there may be a large consciousness, while the forms it embraces may be uncertain and undefined in the misty twilight of the soul. This is much the state of many minds in Wales. It is the state of feeling, and of poetry, of subtle questionings, high religious musings, and raptures. This state has been aided by the secludedness of the country, and the exclusiveness of the language,—not less than by the rugged force and masculine majesty and strength of the language;—a language full of angles and sharp goads, admirably fitted for the masters of assemblies, admirably fitted to move like a wind over the soul, rousing and soothing, stirring into storm, and lulling into rest. Something in it makes an orator almost ludicrous when he attempts to convey himself in another language, but very powerful and impressive in that. It is a speaking and living language, a language without any shallows, a language which seems to compel the necessity of thought before using it. Our language is fast becoming serviceable for all that large part of the human family who speak without thinking. To this state the Welsh can never come. That unaccommodating tongue only moves with a soul behind it.