Rev. Dr. Owen Thomas

Description

When Owen Thomas was fifteen years of age, his family moved to Bangor. He was then sent to one of the schools, and in, the course of these early studies in the small cathedral city there were apparent indications of more than ordinary intelligence.

The salutary influences exercised by godly parents proved themselves to be beneficial in this instance. Owen Thomas commenced to preach in 1831, when he was twenty-two years of age. The Calvinistic Methodist Church at Bangor was being rebuilt at that time, and on the Sunday evenings it was customary to hold services in the open air. Young Owen was a frequent open-air preacher on those occasions, and his aptitude for such service may be gathered from the fact that in after years he had frequently addressed audiences numbering 15,000 people, keeping his hearers spellbound.

In the year 1838 young Owen went to Bala College. It was then in the infancy of its career, and under the direction of the late Dr. Lewis Edwards. Three years afterwards, Mr. Owen Thomas proceeded to the Edinburgh University with a fellow-student, afterwards known as Dr. John Parry. He remained there three years and studied with untiring assiduity. At that time, he was greatly impressed under the influences of such worthies as the late celebrated Dr. Thomas Chalmers and Sir William Hamilton. On his return to the Principality, he settled at Pwllheli, having been ordained in the association at Bangor during September 1844.

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