He Was Born Near Aberdarron In Caernarvonshire, And In
Order To Make Me Understand The Position Of The Place, And Its
Bearing With Regard To Some Other Places, He Drew Marks In The
Coal-Dust On The Earth.
His father was a Baptist minister, who
when Morgan was about six years of age, went to live at Canol Lyn,
a place at some little distance from Port Heli.
With his father he
continued till he was old enough to gain his own maintenance, when
he went to serve a farmer in the neighbourhood. Having saved some
money young Morgan departed to the foundries at Cefn Mawr, at which
he worked thirty years with an interval of four, which he had
passed partly in working in slate quarries, and partly upon the
canal. About four years before the present time he came to where
he now lived, where he commenced selling coals, at first on his own
account and subsequently for some other person. He concluded his
narration by saying that he was now sixty-two years of age, was
afflicted with various disorders, and believed that he was breaking
up.
Such was Morgan's history; certainly not a very remarkable one.
Yet Morgan was a most remarkable individual, as I shall presently
make appear.
Rather affected at the bad account he gave me of his health I asked
him if he felt easy in his mind? He replied perfectly so, and when
I inquired how he came to feel so comfortable, he said that his
feeling so was owing to his baptism into the faith of Christ Jesus.
On my telling him that I too had been baptized, he asked me if I
had been dipped; and on learning that I had not, but only been
sprinkled, according to the practice of my church, he gave me to
understand that my baptism was not worth three halfpence. Feeling
rather nettled at hearing the baptism of my church so undervalued,
I stood up for it, and we were soon in a dispute, in which I got
rather the worst, for though he spuffled and sputtered in a most
extraordinary manner, and spoke in a dialect which was neither
Welsh, English nor Cheshire, but a mixture of all three, he said
two or three things rather difficult to be got over. Finding that
he had nearly silenced me, he observed that he did not deny that I
had a good deal of book learning, but that in matters of baptism I
was as ignorant as the rest of the people of the church were, and
had always been. He then said that many church people had entered
into argument with him on the subject of baptism, but that he had
got the better of them all; that Mr P., the minister of the parish
of L., in which we then were, had frequently entered into argument
with him, but quite unsuccessfully, and had at last given up the
matter, as a bad job.
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