USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > The Welsh of Columbus, Ohio; a study in adaptation and assimilation > Part 9
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Revivals among the Welsh .-- Revivals are not peculiar to the Welsh people, but a Welsh religious revival is unique. The revivals of Wales are such as possess the whole nation.
1 The organization of the St. David's Society in Columbus in March 1913 may suggest the fact that the Welsh church in Columbus is now approaching the point where it is not equal to the task of holding together the many in- fluential Welsh of the city. Be that as it may. The Welsh of Columbus are now agitating the organization of a "Welsh Social Center." Such an organi- zation may doubtless have its advantages to the Welsh of the city at large, but it will be a disadvantage to the Welsh church. About four years ago, (1909), the Welsh C. M. Church considered erecting a new church edifice which would accommodate social aspects of work, commonly known as "the institutional church" work, making provision for social rooms and reading rooms for the scores of young Welsh men and women who are in the city, many of whom have come from country homes and are living in rooming houses in Columbus. The measure failed to carry four years ago. Now the question of a new church has been revived, and likewise the question of a social gathering place, but now it comes up as a double-header, viz. a new church and a Welsh social center, as two separate institutions The church, in December 1913, decided to erect a new edifice, and the Welsh of the city are planning a "Welsh social center." (See Preliminary Program of Columbus Eisteddfod announcement for January 1, 1913.)
A "social center," as such, could not well be carried on under the auspices of a church, for it wants to be free from sectarianism and racial lines. It is the same to Jew and Gentile, the same to Cotholic and Protestant. It must be in a public place-at the public school building where "all paths meet." But when the Welsh social center is considered, the ordinary objections to its being associated with the church do not hold.
The Welsh have always regarded the church as their rallying place. The church has always been the Welshman's social center. The result of a "Welsh social center" apart from the church in Columbus will be detrimental to the Welsh church, especially with its present insistance on more Welsh speaking in the church than the conditions warrant. The result will be that the young will go to the social center for their Welsh social life, where they can mingle with their own nationality, for the Welsh are clannish, and they will go to an English church for their religious exercises. So between the Welsh social center and the lack of sufficient English in the Welsh church the Welsh church will more and more lose its control over the Welsh population of the city.
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During a Welsh revival, the whole nation is stirred by a re- ligious awakening and upheaval. The Welsh communities in America have experienced such religious awakenings in pioneer days. Such a revival started in America in 1858. It swept through Welsh communities in the United States and the fire of the revival crossed the Atlantic in the person of its leader,1 and it stirred all Wales.
A similar revival shook Wales in 1904-1905 when the whole nation was ablaze with the heat of it. The revival was led by a young man 26 years of age, and it resulted in over 80,000 conversions. Such a revival may visit Wales again, but it is very unlikely that the Welsh in America will ever experience a revival similar to that of 1859, and such as swept over Wales in 1904 and 1905. In 1905-06, an effort towards a revival of the Welsh type was made in many Welsh communities in America. In some instances the people were somewhat awakened but nothing of an unusual nature resulted from the effort. Some of the revival singers came from Wales to America. Two young men visited Columbus; good meetings were held, but nothing of any consequence was known to fol- low their work.
Our reasons for believing that the Welsh in America may never again experience the old-time Welsh revivals are: (i) The Welshman has lived in America too long and he has be- come Americanized, and has lost through association and as- similiation a great deal of his highly emotional qualities and his vividness of imagination. (ii) He is far removed from the superstitions which once possessed the people in the Fatherland, and he is educated to the extent that he has over- come much of the superstitious in him; and this has affected his temperament.2 (iii) The waning of the Welsh language will also have its effects upon the revival spirit among the Welsh in this country. (iv) The manner of Welsh preach- ing has changed. Welsh preaching is not so highly exciting
1 See Diwygiadau Crefyddol Cymru, p. 404.
2 Let the reader not assume or conclude that the writer regards super- stition and revival as identical for he does not, but that a superstitious nature is an easy target for certain forms of revival appeals is beyond question.
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as it once was, and the Welsh clergy indulge less in realisms in their discourses. This form of preaching in the past has had a great deal of influence upon the highly imaginative Welshman, or Celt. For these reasons we believe that the old- time Welsh revivals are not likely to visit the Welsh in Ameri- ca in the future.
THE PROBLEM FOR THE CHURCH-NEW CONDITIONS
The Problem for the Welsh Church in America is closely linked with the Linguistic Question. Conditions being as they are, the problem for the church cannot be fairly discussed apart from the question of the Welsh language,-and the Welsh language, as we have pointed out, is a vanishing quan- tity.1 The Welsh people, generally speaking, are regarded as religious and very devoted to the church. To what extent this reputation for religion given the Welsh is due to their natural make-up, and how much of it is traditional, is difficult to state. If the Welshman is religiously inclined by constitu- tion, apart from tradition, language, and customs, we would expect to find the full blood Welshman just as religious after he has forgotten the Welsh language as he was before.
The Calvinistic Methodist denomination, which is by far the best organized and strongest Welsh church in America today, has never conceived of giving the gospel to any com- munity in America, except to communities where there are Welsh-speaking people. The writer knows of not a single church organized, nor a mission maintained, by the Calvinistic Methodist Church in the United States, except where there are Welsh speaking Welshmen. In a few instances, in recent years, churches which had gone down as Welsh churches have been resurrected by the denomination as churches in which the English language is to be used for worship. The Sugar
1 See "Y Cyfaill" for November 1911, the address of the late Rev. Daniel Thomas M. A., as resigning Moderator of the General Assembly of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church in the United States, at Cotter, Iowa, August 1911. In this address, or sermon, Mr. Thomas declares that the C. M. denomination is now passing through a crisis. Two important considerations he presents, viz. (i) The denomination in relation to language in its churches, (ii) in relation to its future existence. He declares that three-fourths of those who leave the church do so for linguistic reasons.
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Creek Church in Putnam county is one such church. But in no instance, known to the writer, has a church been organized or a mission maintained in any community which was not Welsh. It is thus fair to conclude that the Calvinistic Metho- dist Church in the United States conceives its function to be to serve people of the Welsh nationality only. That is to say, it is a church for Welshmen in the United States.
If this conclusion, drawn from observation of what seems to be the policy of the denomination-or at least its practice- is correct, the next question forced upon us for consideration is: Does the Welsh church in America meet the religious needs of the Welsh community ? In order to answer this ques- tion we must ask ourselves, What is a Welshman? Are they Welsh who are born in Wales and who can speak the Welsh language? The answer assuredly is "Yes."
Are they Welsh who are born in Wales and of Welsh par- ents, but who cannot speak the Welsh language? Are the native born of foreign Welsh parents, and who can speak the Welsh language, to be regarded as Welsh? Are the native born of foreign Welsh parents, and who cannot speak the Welsh language, to be regarded as Welsh? Are native born children of native born parents who can speak the Welsh language to be considered as Welsh? Are native born childr- ren of native born parents of pure Welsh blood who cannot speak the Welsh language to be regarded as Welsh? Our question is, What constitutes a Welshman? Is he a Welsh- man, who is born in America and whose parents are American born, when neither he nor his parents can speak the Welsh language, but in whose veins every drop of blood comes from a pure Welsh ancestry ? If the Welsh church in America con- siders its functions to be to serve only the Welsh speaking of the Welsh people in the United States, it fails to meet the re- ligious needs of the large majority of the Welsh nationality in America. Then what of the child of the mixed marriage, one of whose parents is Welsh? Who is responsible for his religious instruction and training ? If the Welsh church seeks
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only to minister to those Welshmen who speak the Welsh language, it falls far short of providing for its own nationality in this country. It serves only that portion of the Welsh people who can receive religious instruction through the medi- um of the Welsh language.
With these questions in mind, let us turn our attention to the statistics on the Welsh of Columbus, and study existing conditions with respect to church affiliations among them.
Table XII., on church affiliations, shows a total of 1,118 church members.1 Of this total 512 are in the Calvinistic Methodist Church. The remaining 606 are from the General Canvass in the city at large. The 512 members of the Calvin- istic Methodist Church, here counted, include the children of that church over 12 years of age who have been admitted into full church membership. The remaining 606 are only the adults regularly classified in the general canvass. Were the 423 children of Welsh parents and the 806 children of mixed parents (not classified as to church affiliation) added here the number of Welsh and half-Welsh in churches other than Welsh churches in Columbus would be much larger. But our con- clusions must be drawn from materials at our disposal. Among the Welsh of Columbus besides those in the two Welsh churches, as the table shows, there are Welsh people distributed among twenty other religious bodies, and one man insisted that Socialism was his religion.
From the array of church membership in table XII., we can see how scattered are the Welsh of Columbus regarding their religious tendencies and church affiliations. The Metho- dist Episcopal Church has more Welsh members than any other denomination in the city, barring the Calvinistic Metho- dist Church. It has 181 Welsh people in its ranks in the city. There may be several reasons assigned for this: (i) A few may have been Welsh Wesleyans, and therefore naturally went to the Methodist Episcopal Church. (ii) The spirit of the Methodist Episcopal Church appeals to the Welsh tempera- ment. The Methodist Episcopal Church is often called the
1 See Table page 99.
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church of the people, i. e. of the masses ; that fact would appeal to a large number of Welsh people. (iii) The Methodist "class-meeting" comes closer to the Calvinistic "fellowship meeting" than any other church institution in any other de- nomination known to the writer. (iv) The Calvinistic Methodists, when speaking of their church, call it "Methodist" for brevity, just as the Methodist Episcopalians call their church "Methodist" for the same reason. This coincidence of names has attracted many a Calvinistic Methodist to the Methodist Episcopal church. A Calvinistic Methodist, on leaving his old home church and going to a town where there were different denominations, if he identified himself with any English church, frequently united with the Methodist Episcopal Church instead of going to a Presbyterian Church which would have been practically equivalent to his own Cal- vinistic Methodist Church, except for the language. The wri- ter's attention was called to this fact by one who had been a resident of Jackson County from childhood until recent years. He stated that scores, who had gone from that Welsh settlement, entered the Methodist Episcopal Church in just that way, being misled by the name "Methodist." It was only a few weeks after this conversation with the friend from Jack- son that the writer found an illustration of this very thing. A man, who had been a member all his life, up to that time, in a Calvinistic Methodist Church, had moved to town and had identified himself with the Methodist Episcopal Church. When asked by the writer why he did not go to the Presby- terian Church, his immediate and direct reply, and that almost in the spirit of a retort, was, "Why should a Methodist go to a Presbyterian Church ?" The percent of Welsh in the other churches in the city may be seen by consulting the table.
The important question for the Welsh church in America with its heretofore strict allegiance to the Welsh language is the problem of the unchurched Welsh in our cities, and the abandoned Welsh churches in our rural communities. Of the 1,273 persons regularly classified in our general canvass of the
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city, only 606, or 47.4 percent, were church members. Of the remaining 52.6 percent, who were not church members, 25.7 percent attended church; and 26.7 percent were non-church- goers. When more than one-half of the 1,273 adults here considered are non-church members and over one-fourth never attend church, it presents a serious aspect of religious condi- tion among a people generally known as good church people.1 When we remember that the Welsh church has made no effort toward missionary work outside of its own nationality, and it never could until very recent years because of linguistic limi- tations which it placed upon its work; and when we realize that out of the above 1,273 regularly classified persons only 27.4 percent speak the Welsh language and that a very large percent of that number are foreign born Welsh, a portion which is becoming smaller year by year because of little or no immigration from Wales; and when we remember that 411 of the above 1,273, (or about one-third of the whole number) are native born of native parents, and of this only 10.9 percent are able to speak the Welsh language; add to this again the fact that out of 212 persons under 21 years of age in the Cal- vinistic Methodist Church only 12.7 percent are able intelli- gently to handle the Welsh language, may we not fairly con- clude that the Calvinistic Methodist Church has not in the past served the Welsh people, but only a portion of the people of Welsh blood, viz. those who understood the Welsh language?
If the Welsh churches of Columbus were composed of a large membership which did not understand the English language clinging to the Welsh would be commendable, pro- vided a strong effort were put forth at the same time to serve the Welsh population which does not understand the Welsh language; over one-half of whom are not members in any church and one-fourth of them never attend church. But the number of Welsh people in the Calvinistic Methodist Church who do not understand English is very small, if there are any. There is not a single person in the Calvinistic Methodist Church who cannot carry on a conversation in Eng- 1 See Appendix E. and Figure 5, page 102.
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lish. There are over 250 members who cannot carry on a conversation in Welsh. The older people tell us that they cannot understand English sermons, but when Chapman and Alexander1 come to the city, or any other far-famed persons ; these people attend the entire series of discourses and they are able to report intelligently on what they have heard. The Welshman's sentiment regarding language runs away with his better judgment and what should be his regard for the highest welfare of the growing generation of Welsh in America. The writer believes that the time is ripe when the Welsh church in America should give less attention to the Welsh language, as the vehicle for conveying instruction, and that it should apply itself more diligently to the dissemination of truth through the medium of a language which practically all the Welsh people now possess, and thus endeavor to serve all the people in the community.
The Church and its Ministry .- The Calvinistic Methodist Church is rapidly approaching a crisis with respect to minis- terial supply for its pulpits. Almost all of the Welsh com- munities in America are in a transitional stage, but only a few of them thus far have recognized that fact, and consequently the church has suffered, or, speaking from a standpoint of the community, the church has failed to meet the religious need of the community. One Ohioan who has been an officer in the Calvinistic Methodist Church for over 40 years in one of our large cities, and who is American born, said to the writer in a conversation on this question: "Our fathers who laid the foundation of our denomination in this country never dreamed of the present condition of things. They believed that our church would always remain Welsh." The statement is doubtless very true. The fathers of the Calvinistic Methodist Church perhaps did not dream of changing linguistic condi- tions. But they did meet the need of the community in their day. Theirs was a day of planning and providing for the im- migrant from Wales. He was thoroughly Welsh and they did well in providing for him. And whatever their opinion as to
1 Evangelists.
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the permanence of the Welsh language may have been, we know that it is vanishing and the problem for the Welsh church today is to provide for a Welsh population which does not know the Welsh language. Does the Welsh church meet this emergency ?
One of the difficulties in the way of meeting the need of the community is the question of ministerial supply for the pulpits and the right type of pastors for the parishes. We do not here raise the question of the character and ability of the clergy from Wales. They are men of most excellent charac- ter and, a large majority of them, are men of ability. But the training and early environment of the Welsh ministers in im- portant Welsh churches have not been the sort which fit them for the most successful work in many Welsh communities to- day. The church in the past has been supplied very largely by ministers from Wales, great men and able preachers many of them. And for the early generations of Welsh in America, they were fully able to cope with conditions in the Welsh parish and community. There was perfect sympathy between pastor and people. The condition was that of a foreigner serving foreigners in a foreigner's way. The spirit and cus- tom of the parishoners were not American, and the preacher from Wales served acceptably and well.
During the last decade or two, the minister from Wales has not been the success in Welsh communities in America that his predecessors were. The reason for this is the change that has come into the Welsh community. The pastor, whose early years have been spent in Wales, and whose training and entire education have been received in Welsh schools and col- leges, and whose ideals are the ideals of the "Welshman in Wales," does not meet the requirements of a Welsh parish in America. A man with such a training, excellent as it may be for the clergy in Wales, lacks sympathy for the American ideals with which his parishioners are imbued, and is too firmly rooted in his own type of thinking ever fully to adapt himself to conditions in this country where the environment is thor-
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oughly American. We have striking examples of able minis- ters from Wales who have not been a success in Welsh parishes in America for these reasons, even though some of them were abundantly able to preach in the English language.
The chief reasons for the lack of success of the Welsh minister from Wales, in Welsh communities in America, may be fairly summed up as follows: (i) The form of ministry in Wales, where the pastor preaches in his own church only one Sunday in the month, unfits a man for a permanent pastorate in America where the minister occupies his own pul- pit twice every Sunday throughout the year. (ii) The lack of sympathy for American ideals and institutions with which his parishioners are imbued, especially the young of the parish, with the result that he does not get a hold on his people as he otherwise would. (iii) The insistence of the Welsh pastor from Wales upon the use of the Welsh language in the church services, and his continual emphasis on the importance of the Welsh, instead of an acceptance of the language known to the people of his charge as a medium for conveying religious in- struction. The strongest witnesses possible to this fact, and the only witnesses necessary, are the many Welsh churches closed and abandoned in communities where children of the early Welsh settlers still live, but who do not understand the Welsh language. The older Welsh pastors and elders in the church insisted on having Welsh as the language of the church until the church went down. The churches are down, but the descendants of the early Welsh families are still in the com- munity ; some going to English churches of other denomina- tions, while others belong to the army of the non-church-going Welsh.
There is a second class of Welsh ministers which has been a compromise in this transitional stage in the recent past. Namely, young men from Wales who have come to the United States in their 'teens and twenties and have entered our col- leges and theological seminaries in certain of the States, par- ticularly Wisconsin, in which the synod of the Calvinistic
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Methodist denomination has a fund for the educating of can- didates for the ministry. From such a source has come many good men, and well qualified, to the Welsh pulpit during the past twenty or twenty-five years. They are Welsh by birth and training up to the High School or College age, and their education for the ministry has been received in America. But even with these men as leaders the Welsh note prevails, and their tendency has been to insist upon things Welsh, especially the Welsh language, rather than to accept conditions as they are and to put their strength and effort upon the moral and religious development of society as they find it in America. While these men have met an emergency in the past decade or two, their tendency has been reactionary,-"back to the Welsh,"-and this in the future will lose rather than gain for the Welsh church.
There is a third class of ministers to be considered in this connection, viz. the American born Welsh preacher. This class, from the point of view of sympathy with American spirit, customs and ideals, and the complete understanding of the American environment which surrounds our people in a given community, is well equipped for the task. These men are of Welsh stock. They have been raised in Welsh homes with a certain knowledge of Welsh institutions and customs and habits of mind; and they are possessed of a good knowledge of present day conditions which surround their people. But for the Welsh church most of them are entirely inadequate because, even though they are of pure Welsh blood, they do not know the Welsh language sufficiently to use it in public service in the Welsh pulpit, where at least one sermon on Sunday in the Welsh language is required. The result is that a great majority of young Welshmen who are candidates for the ministry from the Calvinistic Methodist Church enter the ministry in an English speaking church.
The crisis which the Calvinistic Methodist Church is ap-
The Welsh Press abounds with articles opposing the introduction of English into various church services. In the columns of the "Drych" articles appear insisting upon more Welsh in the Welsh churches. The writer has many clip- pings on the subject.
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proaching is this : unless conditions indicated by the signs of the times in the church are anticipated, the church will find itself, in the not distant future, a church without an efficient ministry such as it now possesses. For, in the first place, if our reasoning is correct, the clergy from Wales will not meet the requirements of conditions in the Welsh communities in America. Secondly, if the older ministers and elders, who control in the councils of the church, continue to insist on the maintainance of the Welsh language in the churches of the denomination, the denomination will be unable to retain its candidates for the ministry in the Welsh church. The young men who are studying for the ministry in the Welsh church are also studying conditions and are aware of social forces operating in Welsh communities in this country. They are aware of linguistic limitations in the Welsh parish. They have not the same passion for the Welsh language as their predecessors had, and they will seek opportunities to serve the church, regardless of language and nationality, as Americans. They are not likely to cling to the Welsh language at the ex- pense of rendering greater services in an American pulpit.
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