The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-04-14 00:00:00

DAVID

COUR

A meeting of the friends of this church was held on Mon-
day night, at the Welsh School-room, in Russell-street, for
the purpose of petitioning the trustees to restore the Welsh
services to their original order. The attendance was small,
and consisted principally of that class of people who felt
personally interested in the object of the meeting.
The Rev. D. JAMES presided. The rev. gentleman, in
explaining the object of the meeting, entered into a brief
review of the past history of the church, and observed that
St. David's Church was built expressly for the use and ac-
commodation of the Welsh population of Liverpool. It was
opened for the performance of divine service about sixteen
years ago, when the late minister received his appointment
as incumbent. The act of parliament provided " that the
reading of the prayers and the preaching of two sermons in
the said church in the morning and evening of each Sunday
should be in the Welsh language, and the afternoon service
should be in the English language." Accordingly the ser•
vices were fixed in the following order :—Full service and
sermon in the Welsh language at eleven in the morning and
at half-past six in the evening, and English service at three
in the afternoon. This order of things was allowed to con-
tinue only a short time—far too short to give the church a
fair trial. The Welsh were not in haste to take pews, as is
generally the case in new churches, and fear was entertained
in some quarters that the minister's stipend would be but
small. To remedy this evil a series of changes and innova-
tions was soon commenced. The Welsh service of eleven
was thrown back to nine o'clock in the morning, to make
room for an English congregation, as the English appeared
more willing and able to pay pew-rents; and eventually the
Welsh service of half-past six in the evening was thrown
back to three in the afternoon, that the 4saglish service
might take its place. Thus the Welsh wereforced to attend
at the most inconvenient hours of the day, in order to ac-
commodate the English congregations, because the latter
paid the minister better. Under this new order of things,
the Church of St. David, whilst it retained the appearance
of a Welsh church, had really and virtually become an Eng-
lish church ; and the poor Welsh, for whose benefit and re-
ligious instruction it was built, as these changes were going
on, felt aggrieved, and gradually withdrew from it in disgust.
Several of the trustees disapproved of these innovations from
the first, and at length two of them took active and decided
measures to rescue the church from such unwarrantable per-
version, and lodged a complaint with the Bishop of the dio-
cese. The Bishop felt reluctant to interfere, because the
majority of the trustees were silent on the subject. • The
two trustees to whom he alluded, however, did not let the
matter rest, but continued their agitation until it produced a
conviction of the wrong in the public mind. The Bishop
preferred the minister to another post in the town, leaving
St. David's at the disposal of the trustees. This was the
present position of St. David s. It was without a minister,
and without congregations, either English or Welsh. A
mere handful of people attended its services. The English
had withdrawn from a sense of the injustice which had been
done to the Welsh, and had gone to other churches. The
trustees would proceed to the election of a new incumbent
on the 3d of May, and now was the time for the Welsh
people to express to the trustees their wishes as to what
should be the order and character in future of the services
at St. David's Church.

RICHARD LEWIS PARRY, Esq., moved the first resolu-
tion—" That this meeting, considering the fact that above
40,000 natives of Wales are permanently settled in the town
of Liverpool, and the importance of securing for them the
means of religious instruction through the medium of their
own language, begs to record its conviction, that as St. Da-
vid's Church was built expressly for the use of the Welsh
residents, it is the solemn duty of the patrons of that church
to place it on its original basis, and to render its services not
only more available, but in every respect acceptable to the
Welsh people." Mr. Parry spoke at some length, and ex-
pressed his conviction that time was never given for St. Da-
vid's to work its way in Liverpool as a Welsh church, and
that out of a population of 40,000 or 50,000 who spoke Welsh
and preferred it as the medium of divine worship, it Was ab-
surd to suppose there were not as many attached to the prin-
ciples of the established church as would fill one church.
Mr. ROBT. ROBERTS seconded the resolution, and stated
that he was one of the oldest attendants on the Welsh ser-
vices of the church in Liverpool. He used to attend St.
Paul's Church when the Rev. Mr. Pugh was one of the mi-
nisters, and preached in Welsh. The Welsh people at that
time filled the church, and continued until Mr. Pugh died.
An Englishman was appointed to succeed him, and the
Welsh were left without a church and without a minister.
They went to the chapels—for what else could they do 1--
and he (the speaker) went to Pall-mall chapel, until such
time as he found Welsh service in another church ; but it
was hard to gather the people after they had been once dis-
persed. He hoped to see St. David's Church made once
more a Welsh church, and time given to form a Welsh con-
gregation in it.

The resolution was then put and carried unanimously.
The Rev. WILLIAM HUGHES moved the second resolu-
tion—" That the following memorial to the trustees be
adopted, and forwarded to their secretary, with a request
that he will take the earliest opportunity to lay it before
them." The rev. gentleman addressed the meeting in
Welsh, and stated that he observed in the meeting a person
from whom he had received this communication—that among
the Welsh inhabitants of Liverpool, who had been used to
attend the Welsh chapels, it was very well known to be a
fact that hundreds of them had gone thither at first from
necessity, and still entertained feelings so friendly towards
the established religion of the land, that even now they
would gladly attach themselves to the church, provided they
could find in it the accommodation they wanted, and had a
minister to take an interest in their spiritual welfare.
Mr. ROBERT JONES seconded the resolution, which was
carried unanimously. The following memorial was at the
same time read, and adopted without a dissentient voice.
Thanks were voted to the chairman, and the meeting
closed about nine o'clock.

TO THE TRUSTEES OF ST. DAVID'S CHURCH, LIVERPOOL,
" The respectful Memorial of the undersigned.
" Showelh,

" That your memorialists have watched with lively interest
the late movements in reference to St. David's Church, in
this town, in the hope of seeing such measures adopted as
will render it what its original promoters intended it to be—
a Welsh church, for the Welsh population of Liverpool.
But they have learned with deep regret that the trustees in-
tend to continue, on thomplan hitherto pursued, those English
services by which the ;,arch has been perverted from its
original purpose. •

. _
" That as St. David's is the only Welsh church in Liver-
pool, the performance of Welsh service at so early an hour as
nine o'clock in the morning, especially during the winter
-
months, must ever debar many of the church going Welsh
residents from attending, inasmuch as they are not thrown
together in the immediate vicinity of the church, but lie
scattered through the wide extent of the town.
" That the appropriation of the only church belonging to a
population of 40,000 Welsh residents, to the use of the Eng-
lish during the most convenient hours of the Sabbath,
namely, at eleven in the morning and half-past six in the
evening, has been felt by the Welsh as a grievous wrong ;
but your memorialists are happy to state that as soon as this
feeling became known to the English congregations they
simultaneously withdraw from the church, and have since
taken seats elsewhere.
" Your memorialists, therefore, receiving these circum-
stances in connexion with the fact that St. David's Church
is now vacant, beg most respectfully to submit that the pre-
sent is a most favourable opportunity for restoring the church
to its original purpose and reinstating the Welsh services, as
prescribed in the act of parliament : and they venture to urge
this the more from a deliberate conviction, that if sufficient
time be given for the experiment to be made, and a faithful,
zealous, and right-minded minister be appointed as incum-
bent, the trustees will have the gratification to find that there
will he neither want of attendance, nor lack of support, on
the part of the Welsh people.