Cylchgronau Cymru

Pan oedd y Seintie gynt ein plaid, A'n gweddi atyn' nhwy, Rhyglyddai'r rheini wrth ein rhaid Gan Grist iachaid ein clwyf Pan fo'r Eglwys yn ei braint A phawb yn gwellaf un, Yno, trwy gymyn mwyn y Saint Y cawn ein byd yn wyn.109 ('When the saints of yore were our supporters and our prayer was offered to them, their merits met our needs and Christ healed our wounds When the Church regains her place of honour and everyone is better, then through the gentle intercession of the Saints we shall find our world will be blessed.') Even on the eve of the Methodist Revival, a loyal Anglican commentator, Erasmus Saunders, reviewing the state of religion in the diocese of St David's in 1721, could not fail to observe the people's devotion to the saints 'as if they had hardly yet forgotten the use of praying to them' or their habit of repairing to chapels and 'springs and fountains dedicated to those saints' and leaving offerings for them.110 Among a hard-pressed, conservative rural population, largely illiterate and living mainly by tradition, habits of thought, emotional ties and longings for reassurance, orally transmitted from one generation to another, died only by inches and still found off-the-record expression in verse.111 109 Ibid., 544-5. 110 A View of the State of Religion in the Diocese of St. Davitfs (Repnnt Cardiff, 1949), 35-6.