Christmas Evans

In spite of his early disadvantages and personal disfigurement (he had lost an eye in a youthful brawl), Evans was a remarkably powerful preacher. To a natural aptitude for this calling he united a nimble mind and an inquiring spirit; his character was simple, his piety humble and his faith fervently evangelical. For a time he came under Sandemanian influence, and when the Wesleyans entered Wales he took the Calvinist side in the bitter controversies that were frequent between 1800 and 1810. His chief characteristic was a vivid and affluent imagination, which absorbed and controlled his other abilities, and earned for him the name "The Bunyan of Wales".