This article is part two of a series. The previous section (Williams' early years, conversion, and call to ministry) can be read here.
William Williams moved to the farmhouse at Pantycelyn, by whose name he is generally known, soon after his marriage in or around 1747. His bride, Mary Francis, had stayed in the household of Griffith Jones, the evangelical curate of Llanddowror, one of the foremost educationalists of his age.
They frequently travelled together, Williams relying on his wife to care for him, and supply paper and pen when he was moved to write. In contrast to the experience of many of the Methodist leaders, theirs was a happy marriage. Mary presented him with two sons and five daughters. Both of their sons became ministers, his younger son, John, was principal at the Countess of Huntingdon's college at Trefecca, and translated many of his father's hymns into English, whilst his eldest son, William, was a curate in Cornwall for many years.
William Williams was pre-eminently an experimental preacher and teacher, dealing with the deep things of God and the state of the souls of the Lord's living family. Having laid aside thoughts of a medical career when the gospel of Jesus Christ gripped his formerly careless heart, William Williams, Pantycelyn, became a skilled physician of souls. He served as a counsellor to many, and, through his writings, reached a far wider constituency than any of the other early Methodist leaders.
Newly-married couples might benefit by reading his book on the married state, whilst the perplexed would be comforted by reading his accounts of the struggles of the grace-taught soul, and those who wondered whether the multiplicity of religions in the world overthrew the claims of Christ could find a ready guide among Pantycelyn's works. And why was this? It was because God, by his grace, led the poet-preacher in this path and gave him grace day by day. Having himself tasted of the fountain of grace, William Williams, Pantycelyn, could speak of its sweetness from his own experience.
Williams' books (together with packets of tea) were sold among the societies, augmenting the preacher's income. This, combined with the profits of his farms in Carmarthenshire, meant that Williams was able to preach without payment, relieving the Lord's poor and afflicted people.
Having written to Harris, Williams spoke also with Rowland, and was able to mend the breach between the two men. Williams was probably the only man who could have brought this about; his willingness to occupy a subordinate place, despite his talents and prominent place within Methodism, made him ideal for this task. Not only could he speak of the need for mutual submission, but he showed that humble spirit in his own life and walk.
Jones & Morgan, Fathers, p.246.
By way of thanks, this meeting house now sports two stained-glass windows depicting Williams.
R. R. Williams, Flames from the Altar: Harris and His Contemporaries (Caernarfon, 1962), p.44.
William Williams to Thomas Charles, 1 January 1791, reproduced in D. E. Jenkins, Thomas Charles of Bala (Denbigh, 1908), vol. 2, p.52.
Jones & Morgan, Fathers, p.237; Roberts, Revival, p.95.
Evans, Bread of Heaven, pp.163-7.
Quoted in and translated by Evans, Bread of Heaven, pp.166-7.
David Ceri Jones, Erin Many White & Boyd Stanley Schlenther, The Elect Methodists: Calvinistic Methodism in England and Wales 1735-1811 (Cardiff, 2012), pp.125-8.
Iestyn Roberts, William Williams Pantycelyn (Llandysul, 2004), pp.16-17; Roberts, Revival, p.108.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 'Introduction', in William Williams (trans. Bethan Lloyd-Jones), The Experience Meeting (Vancouver, 1995), p.6.
D. E. Jenkins, Thomas Charles of Bala (Denbigh, 1908), vol. 2, p.58; Roberts, Revival, p.100.
Quoted in Jones & Morgan, Fathers, p.232.
Lewis, Sweet Singers of Wales, p.33.
Geraint Tudur, Howell Harris: From Conversion to Separation 1735-1750 (Cardiff, 2000), p.181; Eifion Evans, Daniel Rowland and the Great Evangelical Awakening in Wales (Edinburgh, 1985), pp.273-5.
Where, incidentally, he was instrumental in reviving vital religion in Great Yarmouth (Arthur Patterson, From Hayloft to Temple: The Story of Primitive Methodism in Yarmouth (London, 1903), pp.5-8).