fully an hour, were in the Welsh
language; and David on his three or four visits--and it can be
imagined what a sensation _they_ caused! The Vicar's son--himself
perhaps about to confess his sins!--understood very little of the
subject matter, save from the extravagant gestures of the
participants. But he soon made up his mind that religion for
religion, that expressed by the English--"Well, father, you are
right--the 'British'"--Church in Wales was many hundred times
superior in reasonableness and stability to the negroid ebullitions
of the Calvinists. As a matter of fact they were scarcely more
followers of the reformer Calvin than they were of Ignatius Loyola;
it was just a symptomatic outbreak of some prehistoric Iberian,
Silurian form of worship, something deeply planted in the soil of
Wales, something far older than Druidism, something contemporary
with the beliefs of Neolithic days.

Eighteen years ago, much of Wales was as enslaved by whiskey as are
still Keltic Scotland, Keltiberian Ireland, Lancashire, London and
wicked little Kent. It was only saved from going under completely by
decennial religious revivals, which for three months or so were
followed by total abstinence and a fierce-eyed continence.

Just about this time--during David's extended spring holiday in
Wales (he had brought many law books down with him to read)--there
had begun one of the newspaper-made-famous Revivals. It was led by a
young prophet--a football half-back or whatever they are called,
though I, who prefer thoroughness, would, if I played football,
offer up the whole of my back to bear the brunt--who saw visions of
Teutonically-conceived angels with wings, who heard "voices," was in
constant communication with the Redeemer of Mankind and on familiar
terms with God, had a lovely tenor voice and moved emotional men and
hysterical, love-sick women to tears, even to bellowings by his
prayers and songs. He had for some weeks been confined in publicity
to half-contemptuous paragraphs in the South Wales Press. Then the
_Daily Chronicle_ took him up. Their well-known, emotional-article
writer, Mr. Sigsbee, saw "copy" in him, and--to do him justice (for
there I agreed with him)--a chance to pierce the armour of the
hand-in-glove-with-Government distillers, so went down to Wales to
write him up. For three weeks he became more interesting than a
Cabinet Minister. Indeed Cabinet Ministers or those who aspired to
become such at the next turn