Mary Jones and her Bible

Mary Jones was born in 1784. She lived with her widowed mother in a stone-built cottage at Llanfihangel-y-Pennant, not far from Cader Idris, in North Wales. Converted to Christ at eight years old, she walked a couple of miles each week to a farmhouse where she was allowed to read the family's Welsh Bible.

She was desperate to own a Bible of her own. They could be bought, it was said, from the Rev Thomas Charles in Bala. Mary saved her pennies for six years. At last, when she was15 years old, she had enough. She walked - barefoot - to Bala, 26 miles away. 

She knocked at Mr Charles' door, and asked him if she could please have a Bible. Alas, they had all gone. Mary burst into tears.

Well, she did eventually get her Bible. But Charles was so moved by her story that he told it to a group of gentlemen in London, who between them started the British and Foreign Bible Society, which now works, it is said, in 200 countries and territories.

If ypu are in North Wales, go to the Bible Society's Mary Jones World in a former church building at Llanycil, a short distance south of Bala on the A494. You will be thrilled again by her story.