Illuminations: An Anthology of Welsh Short Prose

about Bishop Morgan ¹; and I had a picture of him hung up at the front; he was dressed in the clerical garments of the period, all frills and pleats. At the end I asked whether there were any questions. Dafydd the Pandy is always very ready with his questions, and he put up his hand. 'Well, Dafydd,' I said, 'what's your question?' 'Is he a man or a preacher?' he asked. Nobody smiled. It was clear that the question for them was completely reasonable, and that as far as they were concerned I wasn't a man — like their fathers and grandfathers and uncles — but a preacher. And this is how I seem to them. I see a sign, when they think I'm not watching, that that one over there is trying to stick a pin into his neighbour, but do they know that I could show them tricks they have never even imagined, because in my younger days we had to rely much more on our own resources than children do today? And if they knew, would I lose respect and influence? Yes, that's my difficulty, to get to know these children as children, to get behind the angelic mask they all wear — children in their naughty and their good moods, their innocent and cruel tricks, their mindless pranks and sincere sympathy. To know them as children, and to be able to enter their world, there lies my only hope of leading them to the One who once walked upon 'the fair land of Judea', who could treat children as themselves because he was so like them, and thus was so wonderfully able to make them so like Him.

Yes, it's difficult for all these people in front of me to see me as myself and not as a preacher. If they did, would they be more ready to accept the Gospel I preach?

Ah well, the announcements are nearly at an end, and now I have to give out the next hymn.

Ar Ddisberod (Gwasg y Brython, 1954)

Harri Gwynn

Every now and again you come across a farmer who is also a bachelor. It may be that you feel he has a fine old life, especially if you are a youngish man. You may even find something rather

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