The life of a tutor and pastor in a secluded town furnishes few incidents for the biographer to record. Over the college which he was the means of founding he presided for nearly thirty years. It experienced many vicissitudes and discouragements but he faltered not in his course until in 1836 declining health led him to resign other hands that office which he had so long and worthily filled. In the course of his presidency upwards of eighty young men were under his instruction for the Christian ministry and not a few remain to attest their esteem and regard for the tutor and their affection for the man and the Christian.
The church which was formed on the removal of Mr Thomas to Abergavenny was truly a little one. It originally consisted only of four persons besides the pastor and his wife and for years they had no place of worship which they could call their own. The present chapel was erected in 1816 and subsequently enlarged and only a years prior to the pastor s death was improved. To this people the whole of his valuable life may be said had to been devoted. The early zeal and fire of manhood, the mature wisdom and culture of his developed powers and the mellow light and tenderness of age, all were consecrated to them. Every temptation to induce him to change station was steadfastly resisted. Many were those who were his glory and even on earth and it is not too much to hope that many who were of Jesus but secretly will be his of "crown of rejoicing in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming."
The latter years of Mr Thomas's life were spent in comparative privacy. In 1843 he preached the annual sermon for the college of which he had been president and in 1846 he rendered the same service to the college of which he had been a student. In the service of his own flock the evening of his life was especially spent. In the midst of them as in the bosom of his family he loved to dwell. For no pulpit did he prepare with greater carefulness than for his own and among no people did he love to minister as to his own endeared flock. In the very midst of his work and with unimpaired mental powers he was taken to his reward. Only one sabbath intervened between his occupancy of his pulpit and his departure, and the evening preceding his fatal attack he led the devotions of his people in their social meeting for prayer. After a week's severe suffering he yielded his spirit into his Saviour's hands on the 28th of November 1853 in the seventy fifth year of his age, the fifty sixth of his ministry and the forty seventh of his pastorate in Abergavenny.
On the 5th of December his remains were committed to the grave in the burial ground adjoining the place of worship in which he had so ministered and on that occasion signs of sorrow were not confined to ministerial brethren or to the church of which he had been pastor but extended to the whole town. The Rev H Clarke AM of Monmouth read the scriptures and prayed; the Rev T Thomas of Pontypool delivered the address in the chapel and the Rev Thomas Jones of Chepstow spoke at the grave. On the following Sunday the Rev J J Brown of Reading preached to a deeply affected congregation, and many were unable to get admission into the chapel.
It is not the writer's intention to delineate at any length the character of the deceased. To those who had the pleasure of knowing him this is unnecessary and to others it perhaps may be of little advantage. There was one quality which pervaded the whole of his life and character - the strictest conscientiousness and integrity. It extended from the minutest to the greatest acts in which he was engaged. It gave importance to the simplest duty and animated him in the discharge of the most weighty This quality especially marked his ministry. It was eminently distinguished by faithfulness and simplicity. He did not serve God with that which had cost him nothing. He did not come into the sanctuary with crude undigested rambling thoughts. Ample evidence remains to show with what care and thoughtfulness he prepared for the discharge of ministerial duties. The word of God in which he himself so much delighted and of the meaning of which he was so anxious to attain just views he no less carefully expounded to his hearers. Wide in the range of the subjects on which he discoursed; clear in the perception of the truths he meant to enunciate; precise and fervent in the utterance of his thoughts; out of the inexhaustible treasury he brought forth things new and old/ His views of divine truth neither cramped his appeals to the consciences of the unconverted nor his application of the promises and privileges of the gospel to the believer. In his pastoral relations wisdom and prudence were conspicuous. In patience, tenderness and candour, he ruled over the flock of God committed to his care.
As a man, he practised the truths which he taught. The qualities which marked his style of writing and speaking pre-eminently characterised his own mind as a Christian transparency and simplicity. He was an Israelite indeed in whom was no guile. Whatever differences of opinion might exist between him and any of his brethren, no one doubted the sincerity, integrity and unswerving honourableness of his character. It was one of the felicities of his long life that he survived prejudices which had been excited and was gathered to his fathers amid the love and esteem of all who knew him. He would be foremost in acknowledging and deploring his personal and official deficiencies but the writer would be unfaithful to his convictions if he did not record that there was a completeness of character about the deceased in the minor graces which adorn the Christian life that were blended with the principles which impart to it dignity and glory.
Mr Thomas sent but few of his productions to the press. He has embalmed with affectionate tenderness the memories of many of his Christian friends in the pages of the Baptist Magazine. For the Association with he was connected when at Ryeford he wrote the Circular Letter on Religious Education as a duty of Parents and for the South and Monmouthshire Associations wrote several of their annual epistles. In the heat of the Calvinistic controversy he delivered his sentiments in a sermon on Salvation of Sovereign Grace which was published at the request of the church. In 1841 and 1842 he published his discourses on the baptismal controversy and in 1843 he published the sermon addressed to students of the college of which he had been president.
"THEY THAT BE WISE SHALL SHINE AS THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE FIRMAMENT AND THEY THAT TURN MANY TO RIGHTEOUSNESS AS THE STARS FOR EVER AND EVER."
