Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1899-05-11
A STRANGE CHURCH.
CUT OUT OF COAL, $50 FEET BE-
MEATH THE EARTH's SURFACE.
4 MEETING IN THIS WEIRD CHAPEL.
with Few Pickering Candles
Lighting the Rugged Faces, the
Miners Meet to Pray Before Begin
ming Their PeriIous Work.
wv Pickering Candles
fcorresnondence of the plspatch.l

Correspondence Of the Dispatch)
SWANSEA, WALES, April ID have
just returned from visiting the most re-
of worship situated $50 feet underground
in the heart OF a coal-mine, and fashioned
entirely with pick and shovel by hardy
toilers in the fossil woods. This strangest
OF all Christian temples is to be founc
at Mynydd Newydd, near Swansea,
In West Glamorgan. My way to church
lay first up a steep hill, then down by
means of a wet and dirty iron cage to
the bottom Of a shaft, and finally through
a series OF may labyinths, lighted by the
glimmer of the miners candles, 20 the
chapel. IL required considerable nerve
on my part TO get thus far, for it was my
first visit to a coal-mine. but having at
last reached the only coal-mine chapel
in the world | determined to make the
best use Of my eyes.
The walls are formed in part OF small
rough pine logs, through which the splen-
did thick coal seam "out crops 20
the view here and there, and In part of
loose dry waling. 1t is not an attrac-
overlooking place, and suggests TO those
unacquainted with coal-m!nes a speedy
death from want of oxygen. The roof is
somewhat menacingly close overhead,
but it is Of hard smooth cliff, and has
been whitened with lime. so that it looks
like an artificial ceiling. AS you enter
you observe that the chapel is 'timbered"
with pit props on either side, and furnish
ed with rude plank seats placed at
equal distances between the props. To
be exact, there are eight of these seats
on either hand with room for six persons
on each, whilst at the entrance and
at the desk, or pulpit, there are what
Welsh Nonconformists call ''set fawrs"-
or big seats-in which miners sit round
and face one another These would hold
at a pinch pefhaps a dozen apiece, SO
that there is sitting accommodation for
over a hundred in the little ccnyenticle.
Ii is not much like church, this little
chamber, and yet there are points of re-
semblance, too-especially 10 the fanciful
The double rows OF pine logs supporting
the roof--what are they but the columns
Of this minster?-the athway leading
between the seats and the pillars forms
the nave, and the seated portions inside
the columns are the aisles OF the build
ing There Is no altar, but the high
wooden desk at the end certainly suggests
a pulpit.
As the colliery Is worked with naked
lights there is no risk In Illuminating this
little chapel in the depths OF the fossil
lied forest: indeed, the miners subscribe
regularly for candles, which are stuck on
the pillars and fitted vaults all round
an ample allowance OF two being made TO
the pulpit. There is no regular officiating
minister, but conductor calls on any
one he pleases, and there Is no lack Of
spiritual gifts. The service is only held
once q week-on Monday morning. at the
early hour of g. before the men go to
their daily work.
But now the service, which takes the
form Of a short Welsh prayer meeting.
has commenced. The conductor has given
out n hymn, and the voices OF prayer and
praise ring out In this meeting-house In
the modern Catacomos. The seats are
All well filed, and even outside. all along,
a row Of men are squatting with their
lamps by their sides-for lamps are not
allowed inside the building" because or
ths smoke they emit. 1t Is only as the
ewes get accustomed to the gloom that
one fully sees all the shadowy forms as
senbled. They have taken their seats
noiselessly, and the place has nlied I'M
n.rcentibiy. But the "Amens" and the
welsh yes interpolated In the prayers
soon helm one to realize the large num-
Der In the audience. The service Is en-
tfrely in ~he Welsh language, ana con-
sIsts. as II almost invariably does, OF
chapter from the Bible. two hymns, ana