AT MANOR DEIFI.
TO E. WHITLEY, ESQ., BRONCOED.
Cardigan, March 30th, 1835
.
MY EVER DEAR SIR,
Old recollections—and recollections dearer for being old—make Broncoed and the name of Whitley much dearer to my memory and heart than other names and places. My own former humble home is now another's,—I know it no more; and there is scarcely a house now in the parish into which I would venture to turn besides yours, your cousin's, Mr. Clough's and two or three more. Yet, I feel a tie between me and Mold and its inhabitants, which nothing but death can unloose. There lies the grave of my dear, though poor parents, and there burst the dawn of my brightest days. The same Providence which smiled upon the beginning of my happier years, continues kind still. I have indeed abundant reason to thank heaven for the many, many blessings which have been showered upon my path; nor do I forget the kind hands which were employed in showering them, and your own amongst the number.
When I first came to Manordeifi, there was but one service on the Sunday, and that almost entirely in Welsh. Seeing that five of the principal families in Pembrokeshire were under my pastoral care, and that neither themselves nor their dependants understood any Welsh, I established two services, one entirely English, the other exclusively in our beloved Welsh.
