in their generally exposed situations is provided against by an entire absence of external ornamentation, and a rugged, solid simplicity of construction. Of these, Newton Nottage Church is a type.

Swansea is the copper metropolis of the kingdom. Copper smelting was introduced here as early as 1090, when the ores were brought over in boats from Cornwall and Devon, but now ores come from every part of the world, including Canada. The most extensive tinplate factories on earth are also at Swansea; not to speak of factories for the handling of gold, silver, zinc, lead, nickel, cobalt, alkali, arsenic, and other minerals. Iron, too, is an active agent in Swansea's bustle.

Travellers seldom penetrate into the old-world Land of Gower. There are no railroads, and few carriage-roads; none but the footpassengers can move quite freely about. There are, perhaps, a few inns which can entertain a man with beer and bread and cheese, but it is unsafe to count on much more; so that no stranger who objects to "roughing it" in a mild sort of way will venture far into Gower, unless he goes on a visit to one of the wealthy lords of the soil, who have here, as everywhere in Britain, their lovely country-seats.

The fancy of the ignorant peasant has freer play concerning a castle of which nothing definite is known. Tradition relates that Pennardd was built in a single night by the hand of an enchanter. It is believed to be still haunted by troops of fairies, who hold mad revels in its grassgrown precincts on summer nights. It was destroyed, the legends say, as it was built, built, in a single night, by a tornado of Irish sand blown across the sea by malignant Hibernian genii, and all that remains to tell the tale of its former grandeur are two round towers and some fragments of embattled wall.

Looking out to sea from its perch on the side of the mountain ridge called Cefn Bryn stands Arthur's Stone, renowned from time immemorial as one of the Seven Wonders of Wales. The erection of this stone where it now stands is mentioned in the Triads as one of the Three Arduous Undertakings that were accomplished in the Isle of Britain, the building of Stonehenge was another, and the third was the formation of an unknown pile in some unknown place. Romantic traditions in great number surround this stone; one of these ascribes its erection to the prodigious strength of King Arthur. In view of the fact that it is fourteen feet long and seven feet thick, and must weigh many tons, the task were enough for one man, even an Arthur.

Another superstitious belief still widely credited is that the stone was set up as an altar for human sacrifice by the Druids, who had beneath it a sacred well, and around it a forest of mystic oaks. The stone is a mass of millstone grit, stranded upon the old red of the mountain ridge thousands úpon thousands of years ago, a mute witness of the geological epoch when these mountains were sunk beneath the level of the sea.

The people of Carmarthenshire retain the primitive aspect and manners of old Wales in an unusual degree. The Welsh language is universally spoken. To many of the smaller towns the English language has hardly penetrated. The women wear the old Welsh peasant costume to an extent common nowhere else in Wales that I have seen. Old-fashioned social customs still prevail. The fishermen still use the coracle-a kind of boat obsolete in less primitive regions. The old Welsh songs are sung by the bards, the old Welsh tunes played by the harpers, and old Welsh superstitions linger in the vales and mountains, the old Welsh love of

Wales and all things Welsh burns with an ardour which seems undying and indestructible. By its history, by its manners and customs, by the spirit of the people, Carmarthenshire is Welsh of the Welsh.

Carmarthen town was in old time a grand place the capital of all Wales-the seat of the Welsh Parliament, Chancery, Exchequer, and Mint. Here Welsh sovereigns long held their court; the royal residence was in a castle whose only remains now are seen in an irregular broken wall or two, without apparent form or purpose.

The Huntsman's Leap is one of the most striking of the cliff

fissures; it gets its name from a tradition that a huntsman, coming upon it in full career, did not perceive it until too late to rein in his horse, and so was compelled to jump it. Standing near the brink of this chasm, you may estimate the chances for success in such an undertaking: the gorge is sixteen or eighteen feet broad in its narrowest part, and the turf slopes abruptly to the edge; but the tradition says the huntsman got across. The sides of the chasm are perpendicular, and through the fardistant cleft at the bottom the sea is seen, with a strange light on its breast.

T

admirable

sketch of British Methodism's most distinguished leader is that presented by his intimate friend, Rev. J. Gregory Mantle, in the volume now before us. The work possesses many excellencies, not the least of which is the brief, breezy manner in which the principal features in the life of this eminent preacher, evangelist and man of affairs has been placed on the canvas. The insight and keen appreciation of the writer appears on every page. That a life so full of interest and untiring activity, so responsive to the claims of missions, literature, politics, social and ecclesiastical reform, in addition to the work of preaching the Gospel and directing a great evangelistic organization should have been portrayed so vividly in the space of one hundred and fifty pages, is a quality of which we cannot speak too highly. We have no hesitation in saying that a book written with such marked ability and with such access to all the necessary material for such a life-record, will abundantly and immediately fulfil the expressed purpose of the writer, namely, to prove an inspiration to all earnest young men, and especially to all young ministers into whose possession the work

may come.

Hugh Price Hughes was born at Carmarthen, Wales, the 8th of February, 1847. His grandfather,

Hugh Price Hughes." By Rev. J. Gregory Mantle, London, 1902.

Hugh Hughes, was a distinguished Wesleyan Methodist minister, and the first Welshman ever elected a member of the Legal Hundred, a select body of men on whom the final authority of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference in England. rests. He is said to have been one of the most popular preachers of the day, a great saint and a great winner of souls. He was once preaching in London, and a good many of the audience were moved to tears. The minister said: "My dear friend, how do you make. them cry? I never do." Mr. Hughes replied: "If they only understood Welsh, I would make them jump."

So fragrant was the memory of this good man that when Hugh Price Hughes was a boy of but fourteen years of age he could get a crowded congregation anywhere because he was the grandson of Hugh Hughes.

John Hughes, the father of the subject of this attractive biography, was a man of far more than ordinary ability. He was a member of the College of Surgeons and rose to high distinction in his profession as surgeon, and became one of the most notable characters, especially for public service, in the town of Carmarthen. He was coroner, chairman of the Board of Guardians, chairman of the School Board, borough magistrate, income tax commissioner, member of the Board of Conservators, member of the Burial Board, police surgeon, governor of the Grammar School, surgeon of the Railway Provident Societies, president of the Literary and Scientific Institute. In fact, he

held every office that it was possible for his fellow-townsmen or public authority to confer upon him.

Dr. Hughes' life was governed by his persistent obedience to the gospel of duty, and he found that the reward of one duty done was the power to fulfil another. Throughout his busy life he was an earnest Christian and was ever loyal to the Church of his father, when to be a Dissenter was wholly against his personal and family interests.

It seems strange that such was

his exceeding sensitiveness that he never heard his gifted son preach, and to the deep regret of his family, he passed away in his eightieth year, less than twelve months before the highest honour which is in the gift of the Wesleyan Methodist Church was conferred upon that son.

So far as his ancestors were concerned, Hugh Price Hughes was richly endowed. He once laughingly said he was "Semitic, his mother being of Jewish descent, Celtic and Teutonic." Such a com

bination of ancestral qualities may to some extent explain a character so diverse and so full of force, fire, and surprises. "This body in which we journey across the isthmus between the two oceans," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, "is not a private carriage, but an omnibus in which all our ancestors ride." So it is not only true that we are a part of all that we have met, we are also a part of all that our forefathers have met. Who shall say how much we derive from our past, either in body, mind or soul?

School Days.

When only nine years of age Hugh was sent to a boardingschool in Swansea. The master was a Wesleyan local preacher, a well equipped scholar and an admirable teacher. The young pupil was so delicate a child that his mother feared he would never grow to manhood, and it was with no little anxiety, therefore, that he was sent from home. He was, however, cared for in a loving and conscientious manner both by the master and his wife, and by this timely and tender consideration for a frail youth they have earned the gratitude of the universal Church. It is specially interesting to note at this early stage of the boy's career indications of the coming man and the famous fighting spirit which distinguished him in coming years. He was, when a boy, full of fun and mischief, intense zeal in both. work and play, distinctly disputatious, but withal an attractive and promising boy, so that one of the tutors in the school felt it his duty to devote special care upon Hugh, feeling that the features that marked the boy might become in a man great powers for evil or for good.

Religious Impressions and Con

version.

When Hugh was thirteen years

as

we

old he was convicted of sin, and through the influence of a number of godly Cornish fishermen who had sailed into Swansea Bay at this time matters were brought to a crisis. "For weeks," says our author, "he was in deep distress, so unspeakably wretched was he through the discovery of his sinful condition that he describes himself as actually rolling on the grass in his anguish of spirit." One day, Mr. Leaker, his tutor, noticed the change that had come over his pupil and he was not slow to take ad"It was vantage of it. walked along a certain path," said Mr. Leaker, that we fell into conversation about religion, and I was moved to urge him to decision for Christ; Mr. Hughes never forgot the rock on which he stood when that decision was made." But the youth still lacked assurance of salvation. He needed the experience given to John Wesley in that little room in Aldersgate Street, where "he felt his heart strangely warmed," and where he realized an assurance of salvation most satisfying, and most blessed and abiding.

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As in the case of two other great revivalists, John Wesley and Charles Haddon Spurgeon, it was a layman who was instrumental in bringing assurance and comfort to the distressed heart of this mere youth. The pulpit," says the biography, "at Mumble's Chapel was occupied by a stranger on that memorable Sunday morning. Mr. Hughes did not even know the preacher's name. He forgot the preacher's text, but he distinctly remembers that this layman spoke in this strain, I have no time to give you a definition of regeneration, justification, or sanctification, but I can sum up everything in one word-Submit to Christ."

even

The light had come. "I saw, as in a flash of light," says Mr. Hughes, "that God was not fighting against me, but that I was