Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1862-05-21 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

VIII. to the breaking out of the Civil War in the reign of Charles 1., were, with very rare exceptions, notoriously immoral. Several years after the ;accession of Queen Elizabeth, we find that the clergy in the diocese of Bangor openly kept concubines' and that one who had three concubines was recommended to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1565 as a fit person to occupy the episcopal chair of the diocese which was then vacant! As late as the year 1587, Dr. William Hughes, Bishop of Si. Asaph, was accused of tolerating in his diocese the most disgraceful abuses. The Bishop himself held sixteen livings in rommeninni. Most of the other valuable livings were in the possession of persons who lived out of the country, two of the richest livings were held by a person who boarded in an alehouse, and only three clergymen in the diocese resided in their parishes,—Dr. David Powell, of Ruabon, Dr. William Morgan, of Llanrhaldr-yn-Moelnant, and the parson of Elanfeeran, in Montgomeryshire, an aged man about eighty years old. The testimony of the martyred John Parry fully confirms these glaring facts. "Wales," says he, "is said to be in a tolerable condition, for it hath many preachers of a long time. The more the shame for them, then, that it hath no more teaching. This I dare affirm and stand to, that if a view of all the registries in Wales be taken, the name of the shire, the town, or of the parish cannot be found, where for the space of six years together, within these twenty-nine years, a godly and learned minister hath executed the duty of a faithful teacher. Miserable days, into what times are we fallen ! that thieves and murderers of souls, the very patterns and patrons of all covetousness, proud, and more than Popelike tyrants, the very defcaters of God's truth, unlearned dolts, blind guides, unseasoned and unsavoury salt, drunkards, adulterers, foxes and wolves, mire and puddle; to be brief, the very swine-sty of all uncleanness, and the very ignominy and reproach of the sacred ministry, cannot be spoken against, but this will straightway he made a matter against the State. Anil therefore all the I misery, all the ignorance, all the profaneness in life and I conversation, bath been for the most part, by means of our bishops and our other blind guides; yet may not a man affirm 50 much in any safety, lest he be said to be a mutinous and factious fellow, and one that troubleth the State." Again, addressing the Bishops of Wales, he writes with his usual force and earnestness; " You yourselves know, and all Wales knoweth, that you have admitted into this sacred function rogues, vagabonds, gadding about the country under the name of scholars, spendthrifts, and starving men, who make the ministry their last refuge. You permit such to be in tho ministry as are known adulterers, known thieves, roisterers, and most abominable swearers."  The pious Vicar of Llandovery, who wrote at least forty years after Penry, says that it was difficult to decide whether the clergyman, the farmer, the labourer, the artisan, the bailiffe, the judge, or the nobleman, was the most daring in impiety. Even in the year 1611 a petition from Wales wan presented to Parliament, in which it is complained that there were scarcely as many faithful and efficient preachers in Wales as there were Counties.  While the clergy as a body were thus scandalously immoral, the small number among them who were , learned men and bore an irreproachable mural character, were notoriously inactive and negligent. We have no ; account of above seven or eight active and earnest I ministers in the Established Church in Wales, from the overthrow of Popery in the reign of Henry