Note 187 — COMMENCEMENT OF OUTDOOR PREACHING.

The Rev. Griffith Jones was a memorable man. Born in the parish of Kilredin, and educated in the Grammar-school at Camarthen, he was ordained a deacon in 1708, and a priest in 1709, by the learned Bishop Bull. He was preferred to the Rectory of Llandowror by Sir John Philips of Picton Castle. At the request of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, he consented to go as a missionary among the Indians; but, for some unknown reason, this arrangement was set aside. Divinity was the grand study of Mr. Jones's life. He was well versed in the writings of the most eminent English and foreign divines. His sermons were solid, lively, striking, and judicious. His voice was musical, his delivery agreeable, his action proper. As a preacher, he soon became famous, and great multitudes flocked to hear him wherever he went. Invitations to preach in other churches besides his own were frequent; and, in many instances, the crowds were such that he was obliged to preach in the churchyards. On some of these occasions, his sermons occupied three hours in delivery. He instituted, and for twenty-four years maintained by subscriptions, the circulating Welsh Free Schools, the object of which was to teach the poor to read their native language, and to instruct them in the principles of the Christian religion. At the time of his decease, the number of his schools was more than 3,000, and of their scholars 158,000, some of them sixty years old. Principally by his efforts, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was induced to print two editions of the Welsh Bible, of 15,000 copies each, which were sold as cheap as possible, for the benefit of the poor in Wales. He was also himself the author of at least a dozen different publications. He died on the 8th of April, 1761, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and was interred at his own parish church of Llandowror.—Gospel Magazine, 1777.