Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

23 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

I Points of View.-XVIII.f

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

Points of View.-XVIII. By J.M.H. The week just ended bristled with meetings, On Wednesday he Finance Committee of the County Council, the Finance Committee of the Education Committee, and the County Health Committee were held. On Thursday Quarter Sessions and the Joint Standing Committee met. Amid these were funerals and weddings, the agony of nations, and the sound of the whir of the wings of the angel of death. When I reached Llandovery on Sunday morn- ing the first. news to be heard was that Private Cyril Jenkins, third son of the Rev. Joseph Jenkins, minister of the Tabernacle, late of New Quay, had died at the base hospital at Etaples, France, from gunshot wound in the chest received in the great action which began on March 21st. He was twenty years of age and joined the Royal West Surrey Regiment in May, 1916. His brother, Rheinallt, who was clerk at the N.P. Bank, Aberayron, is now in the Tank Corps, Cyril was an exceptional boy. His father mourns for him with all the fervid grief of David for Absalon. He said "Cyril since he joined the army had found his way to the mystery and wonder of the redemp- tive power of the Cross. He knew quite as much as I do after all the years of pondering and preaching." I told him that Carlyle had re- marked that "it was well that Sterling had died young so that he could be remembered as a youth for ever." This seemed to rouse Mr. Jenkins from a stupor of dejection in which his friends may imagine him to be. Logic and argument and fact do not help men and women much in the under world of sorrow. A High Church priest told me some time ago that the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer were ill-advised to include in the Burial Service the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians, a dialectical disquisition on the resurrection addressed to sophists. There is truth in what he said. People paralysed by the ache of suffering are in no mood to be helped by argument. A flash lit imagining is more to the purpose—"I am glad that Sterling died young, for he will* now always be to me a young man;" or, say, a verse from the Apocalypse,—"A Duw a sych ymaith bob deigr oddiwrth eu llygaid hwy." This rending of heart strings in a minister's home reminds one of the action of the London Welsh ministers advertised with leliborateness in last Saturday's papers. It will be remembered that last week was a week of unusual apprehension and despondency. It was thought not unlikely that the enemy would any day pound forward to Calais. The Man Power Bill had just been intro- duced and it included a clause which enlisted the clergy for non-combatant work. Mark the reservation. In that hour of peril and because of that clause in the Bill an emergency meeting of the Welsh ministers of London was held. It is not difficult to envisage them. They passed two resolutions to the following effect-that the Bill should have a conscience clause, and that no minister be called on to take the military oath. To complete the urgency of these operations a deputation was appointed to urge the claims en the attention of the Prime Minister, and Mr. Towyn Jones, M.P., accompanied the deputa- tion to Downing-street. During the same week the Executive of the Free Church Council and a Wesleyan Committee of Privileges and some of the bishops were discussing the measures that should be taken to carrying on the work of the churches when the ministers had gone. On Monday, April 15th, Sir George Cave announced that the Government had come to the conclusion that they would not press this element and that there would be a schedule in the Bill to exempt ministers of religion." The London Welsh ministers should claim the credit for exempting ministers from service and for safeguarding conscience, whatever that may mean. One is tempted to ask with Pilate "What is conscience?" It is quite a startling claim— a conscience clause for the purpose of exempt- ing London Welsh ministers from doing non- combatant work when the enemy is at our gates!—for we know there are ministers who rather live or die with the boys. A self-revealing letter read at the Court of Quarter Sessions on Thursday from a gentle- man residing near Blaenpennal, which pur- ported to represent the opinion of an organisa- tion called the Welsh Farmers' Union, or some such name. The letter called for a larger representation of farmers on the magisterial bench. I have before me a printed return of the names of magistrates, dated 1909. There has been no later return. In the list for the Petty Sessional Division of Penarth (Tregaron) there are thir- teen names and every one of them are land- owners and farmers. I presume that Mr. D. J. Williams. Mr. D. D. Evans, and Mr. R. S. Rowland, etc., etc., have a right to be called farmers as well as landowners. I think that in all the petty sessional divi- sions of the county the land is well represented. The instance which the correspondent cites to show that the interest of farmers is not adequately protected on the Bench cuts both ways. A farmer was summoned before Aber- ayron Bench for not reporting a case of scab on tack sheep on his land. Superintendent Phillips, who is a temperate prosecutor at all times, gave evidence that it was a bad case. There could have been no reason for failing to observe that. certain of the sheep were affected. The defendant did not appear to offer any explanation. The Bench imposed a fine of S5. The danger from an outbreak of scab and the evidence given seem to indicate that the ■ fine was imposed in the interest cf the farming community. The reference to sheep dip indicates to what an excess of ingenuity men may be carried who are out to seek for a grievance. It is the farmers' millennium and the poverty of the causes for complaint which the letter dis- closes is a proof of it. What if joy-riders do career, why should farmers act the part of the dog in the manger," for whoever uses petrol and howso- ever it is used, the farmer must be first served.

Stop Press.

WAR DAY BY DAY.

Itons)._______________ ,.…

.-'wI"""-TWO GEE AT WRONGS-

DREYFUS

PETTY PRAISE.

ABERYSTWYTH.

KILLED IN FRANCE.

LLANCWYRYFON'

jMethodist CymanfaI Gerddorol.

TREGARON.

! TRECARON RURAL COUNCIL.

; PENPARKE.

LLANVMEN j

-.--Forthcoming Events.

URBAN COUNCIL.

MACHYNLLETH GUARDIANS.

MACHYNLLETH RURAL COUNCIL

CROSSWOOD.

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