laborious preaching journeys every year all over Wales to collect money to pay off the chapel debts, which often weighed very heavily upon him. These constant wanderings spread his fame over all Wales. Crowds flocked to hear his sermons. His humour sometimes threw a congregation into roars of laughter, often changed in a moment by his pathos into tears, and his startling power of declamation exercised extraordinary influence on all who heard him, whom his brethren called the ‘Bunyan of Wales.’ He remained in Anglesey more than thirty years. In 1823 his wife died, and he suffered a good deal from ill-health. His wounded eye always gave him trouble, and sometimes he was threatened with blindness. At last the baptist churches of Anglesey threw off the yoke which Evans's government had imposed on them. They desired naturally to become independent churches, and his position as a sort of baptist bishop thus became untenable. He bitterly resented their choosing ministers without reference to him. A lawsuit about a chapel debt added to his difficulties, and he gladly accepted in 1826 the ministry of the chapel of Caerphilly in Glamorganshire. Here he preached very successfully for two years, and made his second marriage with his housekeeper, Mary Evans. But difficulties with his flock again arose and caused him to remove to Cardiff in September 1828; but the constitution of that church was so democratic that with his autocratic ways he had fresh troubles with the congregation, and in 1832 made his final change to Carnarvon. The dissensions of the thirty church members, the drunkenness of some, and the pressure of a debt of 800l. left him little peace. While on a begging journey to South Wales he was suddenly taken ill, and died on 19 July 1838 at Swansea, where on 23 July he was buried with great honour in the burial-ground of the Welsh baptist chapel. His sermons were published in Welsh (last edition, Wrexham, 1883), and several of them have been translated, besides the copious specimens of them given in English by most of his biographers. He also wrote some hymns and tracts in Welsh, and assisted in translating into that language an exposition of the New Testament.
[Memoirs of the late Christmas Evans, by David Rhys Stephen, 1847; Christmas Evans, a Memoir, by D. M. Evans, 1863; A Lecture on Christmas Evans, by R. Morris, 1870; Cofiant neu hanes bywyd y diweddar Barch. Christmas Evans, by W. Morgan of Holyhead, 1883, along with which are issued the current edition of Evans's Pregethau, Damegion ac Areithiau; Owen Jones's Great Preachers of Wales, 1885, pp. 159–224; Mr. Paxton Hood's Christmas Evans, 1881, is very full, but is rather wanting where knowledge of things and places specifically Welsh is desirable.]
EVANS, CORNELIUS (fl. 1648), impostor, a native of Marseilles, was the offspring of a Welshman and a woman of Provence. A certain resemblance which he bore to the Prince of Wales induced him to come to England in 1648, and pass himself off as the prince. Taking up his quarters at an inn at Sandwich, he gave out that he had fled from France because the queen his mother contemplated poisoning him. The mayor of the town paid his homage to him, while one of the aldermen lodged him at his own house, and treated him in every respect as the heir-apparent. Evans received these attentions with condescension, and obtained a number of presents from the well-to-do people of the county. His reign, however, had an undignified ending. A certain courtier, whom the queen and Prince Charles sent over expressly, came to Sandwich and denounced Evans as an impostor. Evans, far from showing any discomfiture, coolly ordered the mayor to take the courtier into custody. Meanwhile a party of royalists came to seize Evans, who fled by a back door. He was, however, soon captured, conducted to Canterbury, and thence to London, where he was committed to Newgate. He quickly contrived to make his escape, after which nothing more was heard of him.
[Achard's Histoire des Hommes illustres de la Provence, i. 268; Chandon and Delandine's Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique, iv. 600.]
EVANS, DANIEL (1774–1835), independent minister at Mynyddbach, Glamorganshire, was born at Maindala, Eglwyswrw, Pembrokeshire, 16 Jan. 1774. As a youth he was fond of frequenting prayer-meetings in private houses. At an early age he became church member, and soon afterwards began preaching with great enthusiasm from house to house. He thus trained himself for the future work, and became very successful as a missionary. His first settlement was at Llanwrtyd, Brecknockshire, as co-pastor with the Rev. Isaac Price, from 1796 to 1799. He went in 1799 to Bangor, where his congregation had but twenty-five members, who were not able to give him 10l. a year. He often wondered what could have brought him to so poor a place, but thanked God that he had a little private means. He enlarged his own congregation and established seven new ones in the immediate neighbourhood, several of them self-supporting. In 1808 he removed to Mynyddbach, where he was again very suc-
