God, time and again, sent true servants to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ in Wales. Not the least of these, in abundant labours and striking success, was Daniel Rowlands of Llangeitho, Cardiganshire. John Owen, one of his biographers says that “no single individual in Wales has contributed so much towards the promotion of true religion”.2 Rowlands was the second son of Daniel Rowlands, incumbent of Llangeitho, and was born in 1713. His father was, like so many clergymen of his time, altogether ignorant of what true religion meant.
His son Daniel was trained for the ministry but, brought up under such influences, it is not to be expected that, as far as example was concerned, he had any ideas of the solemn responsibilities of the sacred office. He succeeded his father in Llangeitho, and began his dead ministry in a light and frivolous way. It is traditionally reported of him that he excelled in all kinds of sports, and that he was a ringleader in all the corrupting amusements of the age. “There was,” says his biographer, “commonly in every parish some place where the vain, the foolish, and the dissolute assembled; and there among them Rowlands, it is said, appeared the foremost, the liveliest, and the most active of the party, after having been in Church reading, praying and preaching in the morning”.3 The religious state of the parish, as might be expected from such a ministry, was deplorable.
Bala about 1742 may be taken as typical of other parts of Wales. “The common people”, says The Spiritual Treasury, “were more inclined to go to church on Sabbath mornings than the gentry; but in the afternoons they greedily followed their amusements. There was hardly a Sabbath afternoon on which they had not . . . some place for sports. Here the youths exhibited their strength, and a great number . . . came together to look at them. On Saturday nights, especially in summer, the young people, both males and females, kept what was called singing nights, and amused themselves by singing with the harp and dancing till the dawn of the Sabbath. In Bala they were usually on the Sabbath afternoons singing and dancing in the public houses . . . As to true religion and godliness, if by their fruits they are known, there was here but little of them, at least as things appeared to me.”
God in judgement might have left Rowlands to perish for daringly entering the ministry unconverted. But God, who deals with men according to His great mercy, visited Daniel Rowlands in a very unexpected way. He had gone with a number of his people to hear Griffith Jones, a noted preacher who was to preach nearby. So great was the crowd who gathered that for many who came to hear him there was no room to sit, among them Daniel Rowlands.
His biographer thus describes the incident: “His appearance at this time was very vain, full of conceit and levity. So large was the assembly that there was no room for them to sit down; in the midst of them, just opposite the preacher, stood Rowlands, evidently conceited and full of himself, and his countenance showing no small measure of contempt. His appearance such as to draw the attention of Mr Jones while he was preaching, and so much so that he suspended his discourse and offered up a very earnest and affecting prayer for the vain young man that stood before him, beseeching God in an especial manner to make him a suitable instrument for turning many from darkness into light. His prayer, it has been said, produced an amazing effect on the mind of Rowlands. His appearance when returning home was quite different from what it was when he went there. The proud gait had disappeared, and the vain talk was no longer heard. With the head and face towards the ground, he seemed very thoughtful. It was thus that the great change commenced.”
From this day onwards he was a different man, and his preaching was also different. He began by preaching the law, pointing out its high and minute demands and announcing its awful threatenings. “Awful and extremely terrifying was the message,” says his biographer, “nothing but the consuming flashes and dreadful thunders of the law, with hardly anything like the joyful sound of the gospel. Endless condemnation, deserved by sinners, was what he set forth with unusual power and energy. His own spirit seemed to have been filled with great and awful terror. He appeared as if he wished to kindle the fire of hell around the transgressors of God’s law, that he might terrify them. He unfolded the indignation of heaven against sin with amazing clearness, earnestness and vigour. But there was no harshness in his voice nor sternness in his countenance; but, on the contrary, the most melting tenderness. He spoke as one overflowing with compassion and under the deepest conviction of his own unworthiness.”
His preaching was his actual experience, and wonderful effects followed it. Hundreds and thousands flocked to hear him. The most thoughtless were sobered as by death, and the hardhearted, profane and godless wept under the proclamation of the awful message of condemnation. But deep though the convictions were, those so affected were not brought into the liberty of the gospel. “Deep convictions,” says Owen, “and hardly anything else, were produced. According to what the writer has heard from the oldest of Rowlands’ followers that he has consulted, those convictions lasted for some years – perhaps four or five, and he continued all that time in the same awful strain of preaching.”
At this time he had a true and judicious friend in Philip Pugh, a Presbyterian minister in the neighbourhood. When critics pointed to Rowlands’ defects, his friend would gently admonish them. “Let him alone; he is an instrument raised by God for some great work. He will improve in a short time. God will bring him right by degrees.”
A few years after Rowlands’ conversion, a remarkable change took place in his preaching. As Pugh listened to the solemn truths declared with such power and conviction, he felt that something was seriously lacking, notwithstanding the tremendous effect produced. He told Rowland: “Preach the gospel to the people; point them to the balm of Gilead and the blood of Christ”. Rowlands remonstrated with him, saying that he could only preach what he had experienced. “Yes, but tell the people that the gospel message is in the Bible though you do not yet feel its power; proclaim it on the authority of God’s Word.”
It was advice given in love, and in love it was taken. And through the abundant mercy of God the “son of thunder” became also a “son of consolation”. The law was still proclaimed, but the gospel trumpet sounded its clear, sweet, cheering message, gladdening the hearts of thousands. Owen has dealt with this notable change with spiritual insight and sober discrimination, as this quotation will show: “It was the law he preached at first, and after some time he . . . proclaimed as fully, as often, and as clearly the unfathomable treasures of the gospel. This was probably the reason that the deepest convictions were produced under his ministry, not only at first, but throughout the whole course of his life. . . . Breaking up the ground and harrowing was a very thorough work under his ministry.
“On this account probably it was that the religion of those who had been converted through him was purer, more serious, and more heavenly than I have observed in any other instances. There was something very tender and melting in their spirit, and their experience seemed deeper than what is found commonly in pious people. . . . The clearness and authority, the power and vigour, the sympathy and earnestness which he displayed before while preaching the law he displayed now while preaching the gospel, and that perhaps in a higher degree and to a greater extent. If he proclaimed before a righteous law, which required perfect obedience, and threatened eternal condemnation to its transgressors, he now proclaimed the complete obedience that was rendered to it by Him who came in the believer’s place, as being fully sufficient for the justification of the worst and the most guilty of men who saw and bewailed their miserable condition. The fullness of Christ and His readiness to receive the vilest and the most wretched, and to forgive freely all their sins, he set forth with so much clearness and effect that those who were before wounded by the arrows of conviction were filled with amazement and with joy unspeakable.”
Christmas Evans, himself a prince of preachers, has left a description of his preaching: “While Rowlands was preaching, the fashion of his countenance became altered; his voice became as if inspired; the worldly, dead and careless spirit was cast out by his presence. The people, as it were, drew near to the cloud, towards Christ and Moses and Elijah. Eternity, with its realities, rushed upon their vision. These mighty influences were felt more or less for 50 years.”
On one occasion while he was preaching on the Lord’s Day, a gentleman who had been out hunting dropped into the service on his way home with the intention of finishing off the day by making sport of the parson. When Rowlands came in, this sportsman stood up and made grimaces at the minister with the evident intention of disconcerting him. Nothing daunted, Rowlands went on preaching and, as he pointed out the claims of God’s law and the penalty that it exacted, the man, with those around him, was awed and he trembled and wept. When the service was over he came to Rowlands and asked him to stay with him, and during his lifetime he gave abundant evidence of being truly regenerated.
In his own district, the companions of the days of his ignorance and folly kept on their evil way, spending the Lord’s Day in revelry and games. Rowlands spirit was stirred within him, and as he could not get them to come to the church services, he decided to hold an open-air meeting at the devil’s playground. He proclaimed God’s truth with great power and authority in their hearing, and from that day Satan lost his power in assembling these Sabbath profaners at the spot where so many were making a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.
As he would not cease preaching wherever he had an opportunity, he was cast out of the Church of England, but he had a higher commission than that of men for preaching the truths of God, and thousands rejoiced in the precious message that fell from his lips. The effect produced by his preaching at times was extraordinary. He preached with great feeling, and it is recorded that so solemnly impressed was he on one occasion that as he uttered the words referring to the Redeemer’s sufferings, “By Thine agony and bloody sweat”, the vast congregation completely broke down.
As a true servant of Christ he fully recognised that conversion was not the work of man, but of God, as the following anecdote clearly shows. “There is a man,” he said, “whom I converted.” “Very probably, sir,” was the reply, “but you have converted many besides him.” “No, friend,” he added, “you do not understand me; it was I, and not God, that converted him; for he is gone back, poor man, to the world; but it would have been otherwise had God converted him.”
He died at the age of 76, on 16 October 1790. He had served in God’s vineyard for 53 years with great activity and an abundant blessing rested on his labours. His removal caused great sorrow to thousands who had heard the gospel as glad tidings from his lips.
- Taken, with editing, from The Free Presbyterian Magazine for January 1922. The writer’s name is not given.
- John Owen, A Memoir of the Rev Daniel Rowlands . . ., London, 1840, p 44. A more recent biography, by Eifion Evans, was published in 1985 but is now out of print. A significant account of Rowland’s life appears in The Calvinistic Methodist Fathers of Wales, published by the Banner of Truth (and available from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom).
- Owen, A Memoir of the Rev Daniel Rowlands, p 48.