David Davies, their pastor, was a great man, and an eminent preacher, but he was an Arian, and the Church members were chiefly of the same school of thought; and the convictions of both youths were altogether of too deep, and matured an order, to be satisfied by the Arian view of the person, and work of Christ. Moreover, they both, by the advice of friends, were looking to the work of the Ministry, for which they must have early shown their fitness; and, as we have noticed in the case of Christmas Evans, there was a rule in the Church at Castell Hywel, that no one should be permitted to preach who had not received an academical training.
This, in addition to their dissatisfaction with services devoted chiefly to the frigid statements of speculative points of doctrine, or the illustration of worldly politics, soon operated to move the young men into other fields. Evans, as we know, united himself with the Baptists; Davies found a congenial ministration at Pencadair, under the direction of a noted evangelical teacher of those parts, the Rev. William Perkins. There his deepest religious convictions became informed, and strengthened. Davies was always a man of emotion; it was his great strength when he became a preacher; and his biographer very pleasingly states the relation of his after-work to this moment of his life, when he says that, “Beneath the teaching of Mr. Perkins, a delightful change came over his feelings; he could now see, in the revealed testimony concerning the work finished by our Divine Surety, and Redeemer, enough to give confidence of approach ‘into the holiest,’ to every one who believes the report of it, as made known to all alike in the Scriptures. We may justly say, ‘Blessed are their eyes who see’ this; who see that God is now ‘reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses.’ They, indeed, see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending, and descending upon the Son of Man. They see that fulfilled which was set forth of old in vision to Jacob, the restoration of intercourse between earth and heaven through a mediator; and, in the discovery of it, they walk joyfully in the way of peace, and in the gracious presence of their reconciled Father.”