RHYS LEWIS
Minister of Bethel
By Daniel Owen
Translated by Stephen Morris
Brown Cow publishing. 480 pages. £12.99
ISBN 978 0 956 703 132
Very few writers of literary merit have managed to describe the character and inner thought processes of an evangelical Christian. Generally Bible Christians are portrayed as, at worst, hypocritical, harsh and full of cant or, at best, wet, unreal and one-dimensional.
But Daniel Owen, a Victorian Welsh writer, avoided those pitfalls and produced a story worthy of greater attention than it has formerly had. Written in Welsh in 1865, it has recently been translated by Stephen Morris and not least among its attractions is a wonderful study of a worldview and pattern of life in a North Wales mining town of the time, steeped as it was in Bible and chapel.
