Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

19-1 J^HYS LEWIS.
rending visitations sucli as these ? When, in long nights of
■winter, ye sit warming yourselves by your coal fires— not
those of peat— remember that that -which ye enjoy is often
bought -with blood !
When the explosion took place at the Red Fields pit, which
caused the death of my brother Bob and divers others, there
■was, of course, not a moment's warning ; and the neighbour-
hood which, a few minutes before, was all peace and happiness,
was plunged into sore and indescribable sorrow. Every work-
man had his Davy lamp, so that how the accident happened no
one knew, and no one ever did know. It was not, however,
the why and the wherefore of the occurrence that troubled the
bereaved— amongst them mother and myself— but the results.
Mother lost a son who, since a mere youth, had stood her in a
husband's stead, upon whom she was wholly dependent for her
livelihood, and whom she loved much better than her own life.
I know she did not concern herself much about me ; but there
was never a day, nor an hour of the day, that her soul was not
entwined with Bob's. As for me, I lost a brother of brothers, to
whom I felt indebted for nearly all I possessed in the shape of
learning. Even to this minute I feel certain I should be some-
thing wholly different to what I am but for him. If I
attempted to describe my grief at his loss I should make my-
self an object of contempt in these my reminiscences. I
envied mother, whom I saw holding up so bravely, whilst I
was but a worthless, inert mass. How precious now is the re-
membrance of her behaviour ! Were all the works of the
Puritan fathers, and everything ever written on behalf of
Christianity, placed in one great pile before me, and could I,
by one single effort, comprehend the whole of their reasoning,
my mother's calmness and self-restraint in the face of this
terrible affliction would present an infinitely stronger argu-
ment, to my mind, of the truth and divinity of the religion of
the Gospel. Did she feel as deeply as other women bereaved by
this catastrophe, who screamed and became hysterical ? She
did, and much more so, I shall believe. But she had some
hidden spiritual support to fall back upon which enabled her
to view the most direful calamity as but an indispensable verae
in the chapter of her life, without which the context could not