Stead - The Welsh Revival

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Narratiu?
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By
Rev.
W.
T.
By Rev.
STEAD
Editor of
Review of Reviews
London
G.
CAMPBELL
MORGAN
Pastor
Westminster Chapel
London
pignut
NEW YORK
CHICAGO
R.
STEAD'S
of the great
graphic account
Welsh
herewith given, was
revival,
first
pub-
magazine which he edits,

and afterwards reprinted in pamphlet
form. The few copies of the pamphlet
which reached this country were eagerly
sought and made a profound impression
on all who read them.
lished in the
The
account by Rev. G. Campbell
Morgan was
first printed in
Christian Common<wea.lth, London,
afterwards
in
The
The
and
Congrega.iiona.list,
Boston.
The
authors have kindly cabled us
their
permission to reprint these

also have reprinted the
articles.
Morgan
We
article separately.
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el so
Keviva.
Narrative of Facts
Byj
W.
STEAD
T.
,,
II
The
Revival
By G.
"
Behold,
Its
Power and Source
CAMPBELL MORGAN
I bring you good
tidings
of great joy."
BOSTON
Ube pilgrim press

NEW YORK
CHICAGO
The Wei
Narrative of Facts
ByJ
W.
STEAD
n
T.
II
The
Revival
By G.
Its
Power and Source
CAMPBELL MORGAN
"Behold, I bring you good
tidings
of great joy."
BOSTON
Ube BMlarim press

NEW YORK
CHICAGO
" * *
BY
COPYRIGHT, 1905
J. H. TEWKSBURY
1 1
,&
.-Jl_
Contents
A
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Narrative of Facts
FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE READER
THE NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVIVALS

WHAT I SAW IN WALES
EVAN ROBERTS
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE REVIVAL
WHAT OUGHT I TO Do ?
.
15
28
48
.
65
-74
-77
II
The Revival
ITS
POWER AND SOURCE
Narrative of Facts
The Welsh
Revival
CHAPTER
FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE READER

THIS
is
the reason
why
this little
book
is
written
I have witI am a child of the revival of 1859-60.

nessed the revival in South Wales, and it is borne in upon
me that I must testify as to what I have seen and know.
have been urged and entreated to speak in public on the

I have refused, although sorely tempted to comsubject.
But though I am not physically strong enough to face
ply.
I
immense
strain which public speaking always makes

nervous
Woe is me
upon my
system, I cannot keep silent.
if I bear not my testimony, and bear it now
For never is
the
it
so true as in times of revival that
time
now
That
is
day of salvation."
not a mere hackneyed text
is
"Now
is
the accepted
the
inspiring fact.
fact,
it is
a somewhat awe-
The importance
not a theory.
the psychological moment so much insisted upon

marck is as true in religion as in politics. It
familiar
truth,
which
all
is
a tide in the
Which, taken
Omitted,
Is
bound
affairs
of
men
at the flood, leads
on
to fortune.
the voyage of their life

in shallows, and in miseries."
all
by
is
the
admit in other departments of
life.
" There
of
Bis-
THE WELSH REVIVAL
Let
me
preface my narrative, as is the custom in all

the awakened soul cries for facts from the
meetings when
experience of living
men
rather than for things at secondI came to be able to speak
how
hand, by stating briefly

with knowledge of the mysterious force operating upon
the heart of men which is in action at times of revival.
I first
woke up
to a sense of
my own
sinfulness
when
was a child of eleven.

was a child of the manse. My
father was an Independent minister, and both my parents
I
were earnest, devoted evangelical Christians. Independents

sixty years ago were more Calvinistic than are their present-
and a sense of the exceeding sinfulness

of sin and of the grim reality of the wrath of God permeated the atmosphere of our home.
The higher the ideal
of life and conduct to which we were taught to aspire, the
more bitterly and constantly we were compelled to realize
day
representatives,
by every childish fault of selfishness or of temper how true

it was that we had all sinned and come short of the glory of
God. We were condemned by our own consciences. Even
when we would do good, evil was present with us. How
could we, with all our imperfections, our sins and our
shortcomings, think without a shudder of the day when all
secrets were revealed, and the soul, stripped bare of all
wrappings and pretence, had to render account to its
Maker for all the deeds that had been done in the body?
It is
the fashion of our
day
to regard
such striving after
Ideal as morbid ; but although the phraseology may

need revision, the essential truth remains the same.
It is not surprising, then, that one night, at eleven years
of age, when I went to bed, I was seized with an appalling
the
sense of
ness.
my own
God was
be damned.
unworthiness,
my own
exceeding
sinful-
so good, and I was so bad

I deserved to
I accepted as a postulate the infinite goodness
FROM AUTHOR TO READER

and
of God,
knew only
too well
how
often I
had done
not to have done, and left undone

the things I ought to have done, and that there was no
I sobbed and cried in the darkness with a
strength in me.
of
sense
my own sin and of the terrible doom which
vague
the
things
awaited me.
ought
had a passionate longing
to escape
from
condemnation and be forgiven. At last my mother overheard me, took me into her arms, and told me comforting
things about the love of God, and how it was made manifest
us
who had suffered

from condemnation and make us
by Jesus
Christ,
in our stead, to save

heirs of heaven.
have no remembrance of anything beyond the soothing caress of
my
mother's words.
When
she
left
me
the terror
had gone ; and although I had not in any way experienced

the change which is called conversion, I felt sufficiently
When I woke the memory of the
tranquil to go to sleep.
alarm
was
but as the remembrance of a
previous night's
thunder-storm when
This was
in the
begun
has passed.
when the revival which had

United States of America in 1857 or 1858
the Atlantic,
crossed
1858,
it
in the year 1860,
covered
England, where
and 1861.
In July,
traversed
Wales
was sent
sons, to
were
at
admitted,
There were about

teen or seventeen.
fifty
was
of
and then
felt
all
Ireland
moved
in
into
through 1860
Conwhich some sons of laymen
to a boarding-school for
gregational ministers'
also
the north
1859,
influence
its
1 86 1, I
in
Silcoates
Hall,
near Wakefield.
of us boys, from ten years old to sixtradition of the school in the fifties
The
and in 1860 had not been distinctly religious. All of us

came from Christian homes, but as a school it was very
much like other schools. About a month after I entered
Silcoates
own
some of the lads started a prayer-meeting of their

summer-house in the garden. They asked me to
in a
THE WELSH REVIVAL
join,
and
went more out of
curiosity,
and
to oblige
my
chum, than from any other motive. There were about half a
dozen of us, perhaps more, none of us over fourteen. We
read a chapter in the Bible, and we prayed.
No master
was present, nor was there any attempt made on the part of
the masters to encourage the prayer-meeting.
One master,
The majority of the

frankly contemptuous.
" the
boys had nothing to do with
prayer-meeting fellows."
One or two of us were under deep conviction of sin, and we
talked among ourselves, and read the Bible, and prayed.
indeed, was
Suddenly, one day, after the prayer-meeting had been going

for a week or two, there seemed to be a sudden change
on
in the atmosphere.
All that
How
it
we did know was
came about no one ever knew.

that there
seemed
to
have de-
scended from the sky, with the suddenness of a drenching

thunder-shower, a spirit of intense, earnest seeking after God
for the forgiveness of sins and consecration to his service.
The summer-house was crowded with boys. A deputation

waited upon the principal, and told him what was happening.
He
was very sympathetic and
helpful.
Preparation
all
the evening
was dispensed with that night
There was no singthe prayer-meeting was kept going.
of exhortation,
a
few
brief
words
Bible
reading,
ing, only
a confession of sin, and asking for prayers, and ever and
class
anon a joyful acknowledgment of an assurance of forgiveThose of us who could not find peace were taken out
ness.
into the playground by one or two of their happier comrades,
How well to this

labored with them to accept Christ.
of
that memorable
do
I
remember
the
solemn
hush
very day
of
in
the
course
which
and
day
night,
forty out of the fifty
who
lads publicly professed conversion.

Only half a dozen out
of the whole school, and these exclusively of the oldest boys,
held aloof from the movement, and were prayed for jointly
and
severally
by name by
their converted comrades.
remember the way in which it came to me that my

were forgiven, and that from being a rebel against
sins
God
I
to
was
had no
admitted
ecstasy.
My
ecstasies.
the family
into
Alas
my
a
friend,
of the redeemed.
temperament
of
lad
me
is
not subject
my own
age,
was
with texts,
plying
by my
As we
and appealing to me to believe only in Christ.
dawn
to
seemed
it
and
talked
walked
slowly
together
and
the
time,
all
upon my mind that I had been saved
side
walking
had never known

merit
of
my
it
till
just
diligently
then
saved
not
by any
own, but because in some mysterious way,
positively asserted in the
New
Testament, and verified by
the best
beings whom I knew or

had reconciled the world
human
the experience of
had heard of, the death of Christ
all
God. He had borne my sins, therefore they were no

There was no condemnation
longer on record against me.
And who were "in
for those who were in Christ Jesus.
?
Christ Jesus
The whole human race, excepting those
to
' '
who
and would none of

had always inverted
the position.
Instead of thinking I had to do some strange
act
described
as " coming to Jesus," when my sins
spiritual
would be forgiven and I should be adopted as a son of God,
I came to see that Christ had already reconciled me to God,
had forgiven my sins, thousands of years before they had
been committed, and that I had just to accept the position
in which he had graciously placed me.
Of my own self
I could have done nothing.
I was a sinner, not only in the
I had
sight of God, but in my own inner consciousness.
been made in the image of God, and had unmade myself
him.
thrust themselves out of his fold
In short,
it
seemed
to
me
that I
image of a very ordinary, bad-tempered, selfish

not perhaps more bad-tempered or more selfish than
into the
lad,
other twelve-year-old lads, but a very ordinary sinner, not

by any means the saint and the hero which I ought to have
THE WELSH REVIVAL
io
was a poor wretch, but God in his unspeakable

love and mercy had blotted out my sins, and taken me into
been.
junior
very junior
The
partnership with himself.
terms
do what he told me, and, on

my
his side, that he would tell me quite clearly what he wanted
me to do. And although I had no ecstasy, and was gladdened by no heavenly vision, a sense of great peace and deliverance settled upon me.
I was seized with the longing to tell others of the discovery I had made that we were saved all the time if we
only knew it, and that God was a great deal more anxious
were, on
to
side, that I
had
to
take us into partnership than
gracious an
we were
to
accept so
Writing was a sore cross to me, &tat 12,

but I wrote to rny parents and told them the good news.
I
wrote to my elder sister, urging her to be converted.
We
had prayer circles for the conversion of our unconverted
offer.
In the fervor of my boyish zeal I decided to be

a missionary, and applied myself all the more diligently to
my lessons. About twenty of us joined the church as com-
comrades.
Every night during the two years I was at

was kept up by the lads. Half
an hour after tea, before preparation, was given to the
But and this brings me to the point of
prayer-meeting.
municants.
Silcoates the prayer-meeting
all this confession of personal experience

although the tone
of the school was kept up at a high level, and although the
prayer-meeting was kept going, and the solid fruits of the
revival lasted all the time I
was
there,
we never had
an-
other conversion after that strange outpouring of the Spirit

which overwhelmed us all, unexpectant, at the beginning of
the term.
week stood
Those who were brought in during the revival

for the most part firm; those who stood out
against the revival never
new
came
in afterward.
Neither, so
remember, with perhaps one or two exceptions, did the

lads who entered school later on seek or find conversion.
far as I
am not setting forth the conception of the relation beman and his Maker embodied in the foregoing narrative as if it were the truth of God to any other soul exceptAnd for those who deny both God and the
ing my own.
soul, I am willing, for the sake of argument, to admit that
I
tween
the whole episode in my life was nothing more or less than

the delusion of something that imagined itself to be a soul
as to the reality of
agined was
notions
Creator.
its
in this
is,
For what
its
am
The
which
it
im-
truth or the falsehood of
my
relations with a nullity
immediate connection, quite immaterial.
wanting to
insist
upon
is, first,
that these
seasons of spiritual exaltation which we call revivals are

realities to those who come under their influence, perma-
nently affecting their whole future lives ; and, secondly, that

they come like the wind and vanish as mysteriously, and
that those
who
call to a
resist
them may never again
feel so
potent a
life.
higher
sense of the fact that the revival, when it comes,
does not stop but passes on, which fills me with such a sense
It is this
of the infinite importance of this present time, that I feel I

must do what I can to bring to the knowledge of as many
persons as I can reach, the glad tidings of great joy that a

revival of religion is once more in our midst.
The old story of the man who was gathering eggs from
the face of a precipitous cliff always recurs to me at such
seasons of opportunity.
The man, clinging to a rope, had
lowered himself from the overhanging edge of a beetling
cliff, till
he was opposite the ledge where the sea-birds laid

Owing to the extent to which the brow of the
their eggs.
cliff
overhung the
sea,
whose waves were dashing 200
feet
below, the egg-gatherer found himself some ten feet distant

from the ledge of the nests. By swaying to and fro, he was
able to make himself swing as a pendulum outward and in-
ward, until at
last
the extreme inward swing of the rope
THE WELSH REVIVAL
12
As he
brought him to the ledge, onto which he sprang.
did so he lost hold of the rope.
There he stood for one
awful
moment midway between
sea
and sky.
The
rope,
he had quitted his hold, was returnlike

a
ing
pendulum. It came, but not so far as to enable
him to clutch it from where he stood. Outward it swung
again, and he realized with agony that as each time it
swinging outward
after
swayed to and fro it would be further and further off, until

at last it would hang stationary far out of his reach.
When
the rope began slowly to swing inwards, he saw that the next
time it would be out of his reach.
Breathless, he waited
until the rope
was
about to pause before swinging back,

was
now or never, he leaped into space,
knowing
the
and
was
Another second and he
saved.
caught
rope,
would have lost his chance. It is just so, it seems to me,
with revivals.
They come and they go, and if they are not
just
that
then,
it
utilized the opportunity goes
by
For the churches the revival
in
some
cases forever.
The good
sown then springs up and bears fruit, whereas ten
times the quantity of seed sown in winter's frost or summer's
But in these prefatory observaheat would simply perish.
is
like spring.
seed
am not thinking of the churches so much as of the

individual reader who does not believe, who is not con-
tions I
verted, and who is only idly curious as to whether there is

anything in "this revival business," or whether there is not.
It is for them that I have told, for the first time in my life,
the story of
it
how
a revival affected me, and what I
know
of
hand.
And there is one other point upon which I
may fairly claim to speak at first hand, and that is
at first
think I
as to the effect of that experience at Silcoates in 1861
upon
Whatever may be the objective reality of the
altered relations which I then recognized as existing between
my soul and its Maker, there is absolutely no question as to
the abiding nature of the change it effected in my life.
It is
my own
life.

forty-three years since that revival at school.
my life during all these forty-three years has
13
The whole
of
been influenced
by the change which men call conversion which occurred

with me when I was twelve.
My views as to many things
have naturally broadened much in these forty-three years,
but that was the conscious starting-point of everything that
there has been in
creatures.
It
my
was
life
my
of good or of service for my fellow

first conversion.
Other spiritual
experiences, involving a wider conception of the reality of

God in man, a deeper sense of the need for self-surrender, I
have had, and hope yet to have.
But the fundamental
change, the conscious recognition of the fact that I had been

most graciously allotted a junior partnership with God Almighty in the great task of making this world a little bit
more
life
like
heaven than
it is
to-day,
came
to
me
then.
My
many failures, darkened with many

which was good, which has enabled
has been flawed with
sins,
but the thing in
it
me
to resist temptations to which I would otherwise have

succumbed, to bear burdens which would otherwise have
crushed me with their weight, and which has kept the soul
within
me
ever joyfully conscious that, despite all appearances to the contrary, this is God's world, and that he and I
are fellow workers in the work of its renovation
that potent
and however you may exand

abides with me to this
then,
plain it,
my
hour my one incentive and inspiration in this life; my
sole hope for that which is to come.
thing, whatever
came
you may
into
call
it,
life
Therefore I hope my reader will understand how it is that

I, being a child of the revival of 1858 to 1861, should hail
with exceeding great joy the reappearance of the revival in
1904.
For as the mysterious outpouring of the blessing

ago has been of permanent help and strength
forty- three years
and comfort to my own life ever since that time, so will this
Wales change, transform, inspire and glorify the
revival in
THE WELSH REVIVAL
lives
of multitudes
who
at present
make
nothing for the things that

the welfare of their fellow men.
And
until I
know nothing and care

own peace and
for their
the thought that haunts me and will not let me rest

send out this little book is that if I do not write it,
and write it now, you,

call which is sounding
my
reader,
may
not hear the bugle
in Wales ; the revival may pass by,

and, too late, you may awake to discover that you have
missed the gift of God which it bore for your soul.
CHAPTER
II
THE NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVIVALS

Slowly the Bible of the race is writ,
And 'not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone.
Each
age, each kindred adds a verse to
it,
Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan ;

While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud,
While thunders' surges burst on

Still at
cliffs
the prophet's feet the nations
of cloud,
sit.
Lowell.
ONE of these newly written verses is spelling itself out

before our eyes in Wales.
In order to understand its significance we need to look backward across some centuries to
what vast issues may be in this upheaval among the
Welsh country folk.
The word revival is not to be found in the index to the
latest edition of the "
Britannica."
Neither
realize
Encyclopsedia
does
it
figure in the comprehensive index to Baring-Gould's
" Lives of the Saints."

ists,
Yet the Saints were great revivaland the history of the progress of the world is largely
made up
of the record of successive revivals.
The
revival
of religion has been the invariable precursor of social and

This was very admirably put by the Rev.
political reform.
F. B.
tional
Meyer
in his Presidential
Address to the Ninth Na-
Council of the Evangelical Free Churches at New-
castle-on-Tyne in 1904.
religion has issued in social and
In
no history has the effect of the
reconstruction.
political
one upon the other been more carefully traced than in
Green's "History of the English People." Take, for in-
Every great revival of
15
THE WELSH REVIVAL
16
stance, his account of the revival of the twelfth century.

" At the close of
" and
Henry's reign," he says,
throughout
that of Stephen, England was stirred by the first of those

great religious movements, which it was afterward to experience in the preaching of the Friars, the Lollardism of
Wycliffe, the Reformation, the Puritan enthusiasm, and the
mission work of the Wesleys.
Everywhere, in town and
country, men banded themselves together for prayer ;

hermits flocked to the woods ; noble and churl welcomed
the austere Cistercians as they spread over the moors and
forests of the North.
new spirit of devotion woke the
slumbers of the religious houses, and penetrated alike to the
homes of the noble and the trader. The power of this revival eventually became strong
enough to wrest England
from the chaos of feudal misrule after a long period of
feudal anarchy, and laid the foundations of the Great
Charta."
We may go further, and assert that the movements which led to the abolition of the Slave Trade and the
Corn Laws originated in the evangelistic efforts of Wesley
and Whitefield. Even Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in his " Social
Evolution," lays great stress on the religious foundations
upon which civilization rests. He tells us that the intellect
has always mistaken the nature of religious forces, and regarded them as beneath its notice, though they had within
them power to control the course of human development for
hundreds and even thousands of years. Discussing the opposition of the educated classes in England to progress, he
" The motive force behind the
long list of progressive
says
measures has not, to any appreciable extent, come from the
educated classes it has come almost exclusively from the
middle and lower classes, who have in turn acted, not under
the stimulus of intellectual motives, but under the influence
of their religious feelings."
It is, therefore, on the authority
of history and economics that we base our contention that
society can only be saved through a great revival of re:
ligion.
There are certain phenomena which precede and which

follow revivals of religion.
The symptoms premonitory of
a revival are the phenomena of death, corruption and decay.
NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVIVALS

The
ever the darkest hour before the dawn.
It is
17
nation
the
always seems to be given over to the Evil One before
coming of the Son of Man. The decay of religious faith,
the deadness of the churches, the atheism of the well-to-do,
the brutality of the masses, all these, when at their worst,
herald the approach of the revival.
Things seem to get too
The
reign of evil becomes intolerable.

the soul of the nation awakes.
bad
to last.
That the
familiar
us and abound,
phenomena of the reign of
no
serious observer will
Then
sin are with
dispute.
As
nation we have once more stooped to those depths of bloody

mire in which from time to time Britain has wallowed.
Drunkenness, gambling and gluttony, with others of the

Worldliness is universal.
seven deadly sins, abound.
High
Plain living and high thinking

see as in a mirror the vacuous mind
ideals are eclipsed.
are at a discount.
To
of a generation which eschews serious thought you have

only to read the popular newspapers and periodicals of the day.
Life has
become
for the comfortable classes little better
than a musical comedy.

high-spirited youth
who
You
look in vain for the strenuous,

scorn delights and live laborious
days in order to achieve something of
men.
To have
millions.
a good time
is
Indolence, indifference
good
the end-all
and
for their fellow
and
be-all of
selfishness so
domi-
nate that even the healthy game of football has become little
better than a modern substitute for the gladiatorial sports of
ancient
summer
Rome
the winter gambling-hell that replaces the
race-course.
Our young men do not play them-
on while professionals play.

; they look
In politics degradation shows itself chiefly in the indifference to bloodshed and the waste of the resources of our own
selves
people in making believe to be ready to slaughter our neighAs a condemnation alike of the morality and intellect
bors.
of the nation, the army and navy expenditure of Britain
THE WELSH REVIVAL
for the last twelve years stands without a parallel.
Here
we have
way
That
the very note of the decadence of our time.
madness lies, and the supreme and crowning demon-
lunacy which has overtaken us is

by the proposal to tax the bread and sugar of the
poor in order to meet the demands of insatiate Mars.
If, therefore, a revival never comes until the nation has
sunk into the slough of luxury and vice, and wallows in
brutality and crime, then this precursory symptom is asstration of the criminal
afforded
It is interestsuredly net wanting in the present situation.

"
turn
the
to
over
of
Green's
ing
pages
History of the
and
to
note
how
English People,"
invariably the revival is
preceded by a period of corruption and followed by a great

advance in the direction of national progress.
Take, for instance, what he tells us about the state of
England on the eve of the second revival. The effect of the

first revival had passed away by the middle of the thirteenth
The second was brought about by the Franciscans
century.
and the Dominicans.
Speaking of
says
the
coming
of
the
Friars,
Mr.
Green
The religious hold of the priesthood on the people was

The disuse of preaching,
loosening day by day.
the decline of the monastic orders into rich landowners, the
non-residence and ignorance of the parish priests, robbed
The abuses of the
the clergy of their spiritual influence.
times foiled even the energy of such men as Bishop GrosseTo bring the world back again within
teste, of Lincoln.
the pale of the Church was the aim of two religious orders
which sprang suddenly into life in the opening of the
.
thirteenth century.
He
then
Friars of St.
how the revival due to the Black

Dominic and the Gray Friars of St. Francis
describes
swept in a great tide of popular enthusiasm over the land.
19
carried the gospel to the poor by the entire reversal

of the older monasticism by seeking personal salvation in
Their fervid
effort for the salvation of their fellow men.
They
into
appeal, coarse wit and familiar story brought religion
the
Unithe fair and the market-place.
They captured
the front line in
versity of Oxford, and made it stand in
its
resistance to Papal exactions
and
its
claim of English
liberty.
The classes in the towns on whom the influence of the

Friars told most directly were the steady supporters of freedom throughout the Barons' War. Adam Marsh was the
closest friend and confidant both of Grosseteste and Earl
Simon of Montfort.
Thus,
the
if
first
revival preceded the signing of the
Magna Charta, the second paved the

of the first English Parliament.
way
for the
assembly
The third revival mentioned by Green was that of Wycliffe.

The second revival had spent its force in a hundred years.
The Church of the Middle Ages had, at the middle of the
fourteenth
century,
sunk
to
its
lowest point of spiritual
The
clergy were worldly and corrupt, and paradecay.

The early enthusiasm of
lyzed by their own dissensions.
the Friars
had died away, leaving a crowd of impudent
mendicants behind.
Then
Wycliffe arose.
He
recalled
"the Kingdom of God" before the eyes of

"
"
or
mankind, and established his order of Simple Priests
Poor Preachers, who, with coarse speech and russet dress,
the ideal of
preached the gospel throughout the land with such success

that the enemy declared in alarm that " every second man
Wycliffe died, but the seed he
had sowed sprang up and bore terrible fruit in the Peasant
Revolt, which, although ultimately trampled out in blood-
one meets
is
a Lollard."
THE WELSH REVIVAL
20
first great warning given to the landlords of

that the serf not only had the rights of man, but
shed, was the
England
was capable on occasion of
asserting them, even by such

extreme measures as the decapitation of an archbishop.
The fourth revival was that which preceded the Reforma-
Tyndale, with his translation of the Bible, blew upon

the smouldering embers of Lollardry and they burst into
The new Scriptures were disputed, rimed, sung, and
flame.
tion.
From that revival of

jangled in every tavern and ale-house.
the
masses
came
popular religion among
by tortuous roads
the triumph of Protestantism.
After the Reformation and the Renaissance
had achieved
Elizabeth, a
of
decadence
of
in
and
set
under the
period
corruption
their culminating glory in the reign of
Under James
Stuarts.
stable
of
all
I,
-unclean ness,
Queen
Whitehall became an Augean

and a vicious Court assailed
the liberties of England.

Against this corruption in high
a
fierce
rebellion
broke out amongst the
religious
places
serious English folk.
The
Puritan Revival of the
first
half
The
of the seventeenth century had two notable offshoots.
first was the founding of New England by the men of the
Mayflower ; the other was the founding of the English
Commonwealth by the Ironsides of Cromwell. The great
struggle of the seventeenth century was primarily religious,
As Green remarks, " There was
only secondarily political.
one thing dearer
in England than free speech in Parliament,

than security for property, or even personal liberty, and that
one thing was, in the phrase of the day, the Gospel." It
was the
religious revival that
summoned Milton from
litera-
So long as the question between king and

was
political, he shut himself up with his
purely
parliament
books and " calmly awaited the issue of the contest, which I
trusted to the wise conduct of Providence and to the courage
ture to politics.
of the people."
But when men began
to
demand
the re-
21
forming of the Church in accordance with the Word of God,

Milton tells us in his " Second Defence of the People of
"
England
This awakened all

attention and
zeal.
I saw
that a way was opening for the establishment of real liberty,
that the foundation was laying for the deliverance of man
my
my
from the yoke of slavery and superstition, that the principles of religion, which were the first objects of our care,
would exert a salutary influence on the manners and conand as I had from my youth
stitution of the republic
studied the distinction between religious and civil rights, I
perceived that if I ever wished to be of use I ought at least
not to be wanting to my country, to the Church, and to so
:
in a crisis of so much
to relinquish the other
determined
danger.
pursuits in which I was engaged, and to transfer the whole
force of my talents and industry to this one important sub-
of
many
my
fellow-Christians
therefore
ject.
Others besides Milton
movement
ligious
felt
of his time.
the imperious call of the re-
Nor did
its
impulse
fail until
the death of Oliver Cromwell opened the door to the rabble

rout of the Restoration.
Once more England plunged heavily toward the nethermost abyss, and once again a great revival of religion took
It was
place to save the soul of the nation from perdition.
partly
but
due
it
to the relentless persecution of the Nonconformists,
owed much
also to the flaming zeal of the Quakers,
who were
the great revivalists of the second half of the

seventeenth century.
The government had at one time in
horrible dungeons as many as four thousand of these excellent
Quaker
Professor William James truly says of the

religion that it "is something which it is impossible
men.
to overpraise."
In a day of shams,
it
was a
religion of veracity rooted
THE WELSH REVIVAL
22
in spiritual inwardness and a return to something

the original Gospel truth than men had ever
So
more
like
known
in
our Christian sects to-day are evolving

into liberality, they are simply reverting in essence to the
position which Fox and the early Quakers so long ago
assumed.
England.
far as
The Quaker Revival had

result the
as
its
immediate
founding of Pennsylvania, and among
remote and indirect
effects the final
political
its
more
expulsion of the Stuarts.

of the savory salt that it
Quakerism, tolerated, lost much

possessed when it was kept up to the standard of the apostles
by the
sufferings of the martyrs.
The
reversion of the
English people, especially of the highest and the lowest, to

sheer paganism is one of the most constant phenomena of
our history.
After the Stuarts
had vanished and the Prot-
estant succession secured, the land relapsed into brutality

infidelity in the eighteenth century, as it had done in
and
every century since the Conquest.

Then came the seventh and best
known
revival of all
under Wesley and Whitefield. Once again England had

" In the
gone rotten at the head.
higher circles of society
said
one
Montesquieu on his visit to Engevery
laughs,"
" if one talks of
Of the prominent statesmen
land,
religion.
of the time, the greater part were unbelievers in any form of
and distinguished for the grossness and imof

their
As at the top, so at the bottom.
lives."
morality
The masses were brutalized beyond belief. " In London,
Christianity,
at
one time, gin-shops invited every passer-by to get drunk

and dead drunk for twopence." But in the
for a penny,
midst of this moral wilderness a religious revival sprang up

which carried to the hearts of the people a fresh spirit of
moral
"A
zeal,
while
it
purified our literature
new philanthropy reformed our
and our manners.
prisons, infused clem-
ency and wisdom into our penal laws, abolished the slave
23
and gave the first impulse to popular education."

The revival then was not without many features which
trade,
"Women fell down in

caused the sinner to blaspheme.
convulsions ; strong men were smitten suddenly to the earth ;
the preacher was interrupted by bursts of hysteric laughter
or hysteric sobbing."
Very foolish and absurd, no doubt,
But if Mr.
sniggered the superior persons of that day.
it was that foolbe
and
other
observers
believed,
may
Lecky
ishness of the Methodist revival that saved the children of
these superior persons from having their heads sheared off

by an outburst of revolutionary frenzy similar to that of the
Reign of Terror.
About the same time that Wesley was preaching in England a great revival broke out in Wales, of which one of
the outward and visible signs most plainly perceptible
us to-day is
the Education Act.
among
day a
solid
the fact of the
Welsh
revolt against
That the Liberal party commands tomajority among the Welsh members is the
of the revival of 1759, which is associated

with the name of Howell Harris, a layman of the Church
direct
result
of England, who, while taking part in the Litany in his

parish church, became suddenly filled with a fervent zeal,
and went
first
the
forth to preach the gospel to his fel]ow
movement was within
men.
At
Ten
the pale of the Church.

clergymen were among the revivalists of that
What would have happened if the. Anglican au-
beneficed
day.
thorities had possessed the wisdom of the serpent and had

followed the example of the Church of Rome in utilizing
the zeal of her enthusiasts to extend her own borders, who
can say?
But the problem never
Church, true to
its
arose.
and Welsh Nonconformity was born.

the direct
tury.
The Anglican
evil traditions, cast out the revivalists,
Modern Wales
is
product of the revival of the eighteenth cen-
THE WELSH REVIVAL
24
As a leading Baptist
ject on November
minister said, writing
on
this sub-
The Nonconformist bodies of Wales owe their origin to

religious revivals, two to that of the seventeenth century
and two to that of the eighteenth century. Wales has to
thank her past revivals
for the greater part of the energy

exhibited in her national, political and social life.
In the
revivals with which the people of Wales have been blessed
of God, his Spirit engraved upon the conscience of the
nation the terribly solemn truths of existence and the things
which belong unto her peace. This gave to her men of
conviction and of courage, and taught her to aspire to all
that is good and noble, and whatever her achievements are
religiously and socially, they are due mainly to the stimulus
received during periods of outpouring of the Spirit of
God.
In the nineteenth century the Tractarian Movement
may
be regarded by some as a revival. But it was neither preceded by great apathy nor followed by vigorous political
The most notable revival of the century was
progress.
which broke out in the United States in the latter end of

and which spread in a few years over Ulster and
and
from thence made its way into England and
Wales,
that
the
fifties,
The
Scotland.
direction to the sun.
Jonathan Edwards in
years
the
English
Welsh
revival
manner the
seems to travel in the opposite

The great revival of 1740, under
revival
New
revival
England, preceded by many

under Howell Harris and the
In like
under Wesley and Whitefield.
that touched Wales in 1859 and
revival
in the early sixties had its birth in 1857 or 1858

across the Atlantic, where it was the direct precursor of the
England
The
great civil war and the emancipation of the slaves.
revival of 1859 to 18.61 coincided with the closing years
of Whig domination, and was followed very speedily by a
25
movement of popular reform. There was no direct

connection between the establishment of household suffrage
great
and the penitent forms and prayer-meetings of 1859 and

1 86 1.
Post hoc is not profiler hoc. But when reform follows revival, the plain man may be pardoned if he sees
some connection between the two other than mere coincidence.
The coincidence, if it be
The record of revivals
markable.
thus
such,
in
is
surely very re-
English history runs
REVIVAL
The Cistercian
The Friars
2th century
"
3th
"
I4th
"
1 6th
Wycliffe
Tyndale
Puritanism
RESULT
Magna Charta
Parliamentary Government
The Peasant Revolt
The Reformation
The Fall of Despotism and
Quakerism
the
New
Founding of
England
The Revolution of 1688 and
the Founding of Pennsylvania
"
American
The Era of Reform

The Era of Democracy
"
Welsh
Who
Methodist
8th
1 9th
20th
can say
To the observer of the phenomena of national growth

and the evolution of society these periodical revivals of
religion are as marked a phenomenon in the history of
England, possibly of other lands, as the processions of
the seasons.
To appreciate the prophetic significance of a
revival
does not necessarily involve any acceptreligious
ance of the truth of the religion.
All that we have to
is
that
the
of
human
history
recognize
progress in this
country has always followed a certain course, which in
main
make up
its
as invariable as the great changes which

our year. Always there is the winter of corrup-
features
is
of luxury, of indolence, of vice, during which the

nation seems to have forgotten God, and to have given it-
tion,
THE WELSH REVIVAL
26
up to drunkenness, gambling, avarice, and impurity.

Men's hearts fail them for fear, and the love of many grows
self
It is the season when, through most of the

cold.
day, the
sun withholds his beams, and a bitter frost chills all the
nobler aspirations of the soul.
Through such a period of
eclipse
But
we have been
as the
passing during the last few

rainbow in the ancient story stands eternal
years.
in the
heavens as a proof that summer and winter, seed-time and

harvest, shall fail not, so after such periods of black and
bitter wintry reaction always comes the
gracious spring-tide
with healing in its wings.
And,
the
we have
as
seen, the
coming of spring
outward and
revival of religious earnestness
outburst of evangelistic fervor.

its
manifestations, as
visible sign of
in the history of the nation
we
is
a great
a sudden and wide-spread

We may dislike many of
dislike the
winds of March or the
showers of April, but they occur in almost identical fashion

The form changes. The preaching
century after century.
of the Friars was not exactly the same as the preaching of
Wycliffe's Poor Preachers and the Early
But at
Friends differed both in dialect and in doctrine.
the Methodists.
bottom
and
all
One
the English revivals have been identical.
faith
of
in
the
heart
of
the
represent
springtime
all
given him not to

please his senses, but to serve his Maker, and that time is
The sense of the reality of
but the vestibule of eternity.
man, a sudden rediscovery that
an ever-living
whom we
God
within,
life
around,
is
above,
beneath,
in
and move and have our being, and the rea

lated sense of
never-dying soul, whose destiny throughout
numberless eons of the future years will be influenced by
the
way
in
live
which each day of our mortal probation
is
spent
these two great truths are rediscovered afresh by the English people every century.
The truths blossom in the
national heart at these times of spiritual spring-tide as the
27
hawthorn blossoms on the hedge in the merry month of

May.
That the revival time passes is true. So passes springtide with
its
flowers.
But
as spring
is
followed
by summer,
so the revival of religion in this country has ever been followed by the summer of reform and the harvest of garnered
which ought to make every thoughtful percreeds, or of no creed, watch with the keenest
the symptoms which indicate the coming of a
fruit.
It is this
son of
all
interest
national revival.
form,
work.
it
Until this nation goes to the penitent
never really pulls
itself
together for any serious
CHAPTER
WHAT
THE
first
III
SAW IN WALES
notice of the existence of the revival that ap-
was published on November 7, 1904.

was not until December 10 that I went down to Cardiff, and
was joined there by the Rev. Thomas Law, the Organizing
Secretary of the National Council, and Gipsy Smith, the
evangelist, whom I had not seen since I bade him farewell
at Cape Town.
On Sunday we went over to the mining
of
Mardy and attended three services at which Mr.
village
peared in the press
It
Evan Roberts was present. I returned to Cardiff that evening and came on to London next morning.
As I wrote out before leaving Cardiff my report for The
Daily Chronicle where it appeared on December 13, was
',
interviewed early on Tuesday morning for The Methodist

Times of December 15, and wrote on Tuesday afternoon
a report for The Christian World of December 15, I cannot do better than reprint here these first clear impressions
of what I found going on in South Wales.
I will quote the
interview
first
because
what seems
idly
to
it
me
brings out more abruptly and vivthe supernatural side of the re-
vival.
Interview in " The Methodist Times,"

December i^th.
"Well, Mr. Stead, you 've been to the revival. What do
"
you think of it?
"
" the
Sir," said Mr. Stead,
question is not what I think
of
it,
For
but what
it
is
it thinks of me, of
you, and all the rest of us.
a very real thing, this revival a live thing which
:
28
WHAr I SAW IN WALES

to
seems
of a
have a power and a grip which

of us
good many
who
at
29
may
present are
get hold
mere spec-
tators."
"
"
Do you
think
it is
on the march, then?
"
something like a revolution. It is apt to be

But you can never say. Look at
wonderfully catching.
the way the revolutionary tempest swept over Europe in
revival
is
But since then revolutions have not spread much

beyond the border of the state in which they break out. We
may have become immune to revivals, gospel-hardened or
But I would not like
I do n't think so.
totally indifferent.
1848.
to
prophesy."
"
" But in South Wales the revival is
moving ?
"It reminded me," said Mr. Stead, "of the effect which
travelers say is produced on the desert by the winds which
propel the sand-storms, beneath which whole caravans have
been engulfed. The wind springs up, no one knows from
eddying gusts lick up the sands, and soon the

with moving columns of sand, swaying
and dancing and whirling as if they were instinct with life.
Woe be to the unprotected traveler whose path the sand-
whence.
Its
whole desert
is filled
storm traverses."
" Then do
you
feel
that
we
storm? "
" Can our
That
people sing?
swered before you can decide that.
are in the track of the
the question to be anHitherto the revival has
is
not strayed beyond the track of the singing people.

It has
followed the line of song, not of preaching. It has sung its
way from one end of South Wales to the other. But, then,
Welsh are a nation of singing birds."

" You
speak as if you dreaded the revival coming your
the
way?
"
"
No, that
expresses
my
is
not
so.
Dread
sentiment better.
is
not the right word.

Awe
in the presence
For you are
THE WELSH REVIVAL
3o
of the unknown.
and
I tell
you
it
a live thing this revival,
is
gets hold of the people in London, for instance,
if it
it
make
a pretty considerable shaking up."

"
" But
surely it will be all to the good ?
will
" Yes,
for the good or for those who are all good.

But
what about those who are not good, or who, like the most of
us, are a pretty mixed lot ?
Henry Ward Beecher used to
say that if God were to answer the Lord's Prayer and

cause his will to be done in earth as it is in heaven, there
were streets in New York which would be wrecked as if they
had been struck by a tornado. Of course, it may be all to

the good that we should be all shaken up, and tornadoes
the air ; earthquakes are wholesome, but they are
not particularly welcome to those who are at ease in Zion."
"Sand-storms in the desert, tornadoes, earthquakes
clear
your metaphors would imply that

Really,
in
Wales have been pretty bad ?"
South
your experiences
Mr.
"not
bad at all. Do you resaid
"No,"
Stead,
Mr.
Stead,
member what
the
little
Quaker child
said,
when the
Scottish
express rushed at full speed through the station on the platform on which he was standing ? * Were you not frightened,
my boy?
'a.
'
'
said his father.
Oh,
no,' said the little chap,
feeling of sweet peace stole into
that rather.
in ghosts ?
But the thing
is
my
awesome.
mind.'
I felt like
You do n't
believe
"
" Not much.
'11
believe
them when
I see one."
"Well, you have read ghost stories, and can imagine

what you would feel if you were alone at midnight in the
haunted chamber of some old castle, and you heard slow
and
stealthy steps stealing along the corridor
ant from the other world was said to walk.
where the visitIf
you go
to
South Wales and watch the revival you will feel pretty much
There is something there from the Other World.
like that.
You cannot
say whence
it
came
or whither
it is
going, but
WHAT I SAW
it
IN WALES
31
moves and lives and reaches for you all the time. You
men and women go down in sobbing agony before your
see
Hand
eyes as the invisible
clutches at their hearts.
And
you shudder. It 's pretty grim, I tell you. If you are

afraid of strong emotions you 'd better give the revival a
wide berth."
"
" But is it all emotion? Is there no
teaching?
Precious little.
Do you think that teaching is what
' '
people want in a revival ? These people, all the people in a

land like ours, are taught to death, preached to insensibility.
They all know the essential truths. They know that they
are not living as they ought to live, and no amount of teachTo hear some
ing will add anything to that conviction.
people talk you would imagine that the best way to get a
sluggard out of bed is to send a tract on astronomy showing
that according to the fixed and eternal law the sun will
at a certain hour in the morning.
The sluggard does
him
rise
not deny
knows
is
He
it.
that
morning, and
entirely convinced of
is
it.
But what he
precious cold at sunrise on a winter's

very snug and warm between the blankets.
is
it
it is
What
the sluggard needs is to be well shaken, and in case of

'
need to be pulled out of bed.
Roused,' the revival calls
it.
that
And the
is why
revival
is
I think
a rouser rather than a teacher.
those churches
which want
to
And
go on
dozing in the ancient ways had better hold a special series

of prayer-meetings that the revival may be prevented coming
their
way."
"
" Then I take it that
your net impressions were favorable?
" How could
be otherwise? Did I not feel the
they
of that unseen
Hand ?
pull
And
have
not heard the glad outburst of melody that hailed the confession of some who in
very truth had found salvation? There is a wonderful
spontaneity about it all, and so far its fruits have been good,
and only good.
' '
THE WELSH REVIVAL
32
"Will
it
last?"
"
Nothing lasts forever in this mutable world, and the

revival will no more last than the blossom lasted in the field
But if the blossom had not come and gone,

would be no bread in the world to-day.
And as it is
with the bread which Mr. Chamberlain would tax, so it is
with that other bread which is the harvest that will be gath-
in springtime.
there
ered in long after this revival has taken its place in history.
if the analogy of all previous revivals holds good, this re-
But
awakening will be influencing for good the lives of

men and women who will be living and toiling
and carrying on the work of this God's world of ours long
ligious
numberless
after
you and
have been gathered to our
'
fathers.
'
The
report which I wrote for The Christian World was

written for people inside the churches, who might naturally
be supposed to be interested
in the reality of the spiritual
side of the revival.
From "The
Christian World,"
December i$th.
Will the revival in South Wales be like a bonfire on

ice or will
it
set the
heather
no man can extinguish?
kindling a blaze which
afire,
The answer
is
that
no one can
prophesy confidently as to what the future may bring to us,

excepting that it will always both disappoint and exceed
our expectations.
The revival in Wales will, in some places,
like
a
be
bonfire on ice, which speedily expires for lack of
and yet in other places it may set the heather on fire

and produce quite incalculable results.
I cannot profess to have made any exhaustive study of
fuel,
the revival.
the
Until
newspapers.
last
Saturday
had only followed
But from Saturday night
till
it
in
Monday
WHAT I SAW
IN WALES
33
morning I employed every available moment in observing

it and in interviewing those who had been in it from the
I was accompanied throughout the whole of my brief
first.
tour by two men who have had as much experience of mission work of a revivalist nature as any one outside the SalOne of them, Gipsy Smith, had come over
vation Army.
The other, the
the same day as I did on the same errand.
Rev. Thomas Law, Organizing Secretary of the Free Church
Federation, has been in Wales for some time, and had excellent
opportunities
districts in
that both Mr.
with
me
of studying the question in various

I think I am justified in saying
South Wales.
Law and Gipsy Smith
in the conclusions
which
are absolutely at one
embodied in
my
report
The Daily Chronicle of Tuesday. During my stay in

Wales I had the advantage of hearing the opinions of Principal Edwards and of Commissioner Nicol, of the Salvation
Army, and of several other ministers who have been actively
to
engaged in Christian service in the

vival has taken place.
districts
where the
re-
return I had a long consultation with Mr. Bramwell Booth, who knows the district
and who had

met members of his
After
my
on Saturday, where he
parts of South Wales, for
the express purpose of ascertaining on the spot what was
the exact significance of the revival.
I also saw the special
the
Rev.
F.
B.
emissary despatched by
Meyer for the purwell,
visited Cardiff
staff
from
all
pose of spying out the land, and heard from him the impression produced on his mind by what he had seen and heard.
The
fill
reports in the
five
two
local newspapers,
columns and always
fill
two or
which occasionally
three, also supplied ad-
which the movement has taken on the Welsh. I attended three protracted
meetings on the Sunday, and I had an hour with Mr. Evan
ditional confirmatory evidence as to the grip
Roberts.
am
careful to particularize all
information in order that
my
readers
my
sources of
may know
exactly
THE WELSH REVIVAL
34
what data
have to go upon in drawing up this report for

the readers of The Christian World.
My own experience
was
and
visit
of
the
be
my
wonderfully brief.
slightest,
may
I
may claim that there are few Free ChurchUnited Kingdom who would not admit that I
could not possibly have had more expert advisers or dispas-
But
I think that I
men
in the
sionate witnesses than the persons
whom
have named.
think that any one of them would demur in the

least to any statement of fact or broad deduction from the
Nor do
which will be found in this article. Had time permitted I would have gladly submitted my report to each
and all of them in proofs, nor do I think that they would
facts
have made any material alteration.

This being so, I take it that the Christian churches in
England may accept
it
as
now being
absolutely beyond all

Wales is a very
serious dispute that the revival in South
and a very genuine thing. That there may have been

here and there instances of unwisdom and of extravagance
real
is
They have been very few and unimportant.
possible.
The Welsh
are
an emotional race, and they are apt to
demonstrate their feelings more effusively than phlegmatic

But I certainly saw nothing of that kind that
Saxons.
might not be paralleled in mission services in England.

The fact is, there has been so little handle given to the
enemy who ever
is
hungering for occasion to blaspheme,
that the revival, so far, lacks that one great testimony in its
favor which all good causes have in the furious abuse of
those
picturesquely be de-
who may compendiously and
"Woe
unto you,
" was true of revivals
of
well
you
speak
as of anything else.
The revival has, so far, had little of
that cause for rejoicing that is supplied by persecution and
scribed as the staff-officers of the devil.
when
abuse.
all
men
shall
The testimony
monotonous.
in
its
favor
is
almost wearisomely
Magistrates and policemen,
journalists
and
WHAr I SAW IN WALES
35
employers of labor, Salvationists and ordained ministers,

say the same thing, to wit, that the revival
mightily for good wherever it has broken out.
all
Of
is
working
Doubting Thomases of the land will shake

their sceptical heads, and, when convinced against their will
that the revival is bearing good fruit, will ask whether it
course, the
To which
will last.
fruits will last as
its
do not
hesitate to reply that
human
long as the
some of
That
soul endures.
good deal of the seed which, having
fallen
on stony
ground, has sprung up speedily will presently wither away

is a matter of course.
It was so when the Parable of the
But the cavilers forget

it is so to-day.
a better thing for seed to spring up, even if it does
Even if the
wither, than for it never to spring up at all.
farmer does not get the full corn in the ear, the green stalk
Sower was spoken ;

that
it is
with
its
succulent leaves will
Most of the seed sown
stock.
showers of blessings to
all.
make
fertilize
Little as the cavilers
capital fodder for his
at times
when we hear
of no
the soil never springs up at
about the evanescent nature of
revivals realize
it, they are appealing to -one of the most

notions
of a narrow orthodoxy.
Those who imantiquated
agine that the only object of the Christian gospel is to save

a man's soul from the
everlasting burnings may reasonably
object that a revival is of no good if, after having roused
the sinner,
hour and
it
does not keep
article of death.
him soundly saved
It is in that
case very
until the
much
like
taking out an insurance policy and letting it lapse by forgetting to pay the premiums regularly till death.
But there
are very few
who
regard conversion as an insurance policy
Hence every single day or week or month

or year is all to the good.
It is, of course, best of all when
a consecrated life is crowned
by a triumphant death. But
against hell-fire.
it
is
thing
not a bad thing

to raise
human
on the contrary,
lives to
it is a
very good
a higher moral level for a
THE WELSH REVIVAL
36
comparatively short period, even if after that time they all

It is better to have lived well for a year than
slide back.
have
been above the mire at all. As a matter of
never to
fact,
most of the best men of the older generation
to-day were brought in

revival of 1859.
when
quite
in
Wales
youths in the great
So far as I could discover, the movement is in very good

hands so far as it is in any hands at all save those of the
invisible Spirit to which all the revivalists constantly appeal.
Never was there a
religious
the guiding brain of

''
own."
its
ing
the
There
is
advance.
open the meetings.

11
obey the
its
movement
leaders.
It
so
little
indebted to
seems to be going
no commanding human genius

Ministers,
each
in
his
"on
inspir-
own church,
But when once they are started they

reminds one of the Quakers in more
Spirit.'*..- It
ways than one.
In the seventeenth century the Friends

were the revivalists of the time. With the exception of the
singing, they
would
feel
themselves thoroughly at
home
in
South Wales to-day. In most missions tune is everything.

In South Wales the leading role is taken by the third Person
So jealous are they of quenching the Spirit
of the Trinity.
Tory daily paper just think of it the organ of

the Established Church and ease and order and all the rest
that the
of the conventions
actually
fumed and
fretted because at
one meeting some persons who were giving unbridled rein to

their spiritual impulses, to the annoyance of the whole congregation, were asked to restrain their exuberance of their
If this thing goes on we shall see The
demonstrations
!
The Guardian reproving General Booth
for
endeavoring to repress the excesses of excitement at
all-
Times and
night meetings.
I
have said that the early Friends would be
Welsh
at
home
valleys with the exception of the singing.

For the special note of the revival
great exception.
the
It is
is
in
that
WHAT I SAW
IN WALES
37
the gospel message
is being sung rather than preached.

such singing
The whole congregation sing as if
were
making melody in their hearts to the Lord. The
they
And
sermon
a poor thing compared with the psalm and hymn

and spiritual song. The Welsh have hymns of their own,
is
which were strange to me. I have no musical ear, but the

rhythm and the cadence of some of these Welsh tunes linger
in my memory as the murmur of the wave in the convolutions of the shell.
There is one beginning with the Welsh
"
equivalent for
Holy breezes," which was a great favorite ;
another which gives thanks to the all-merciful God
remembering us poor creatures who are as the dust
and so
for
of the
is
earth.
But most of them were the old familiar
hymns of every mission service. Occasionally they sang

"
"Lead, kindly Light," but much more frequently Jesus,
lover of my soul," "I need thee every hour," "Lord, I
hear of showers of blessings,"
all
in Welsh, of course,
although very often, after singing the chorus over and over
again in Welsh, they would sing it once or twice in English.
was Mr. Sankey's "Ninety and

out of the revised Methodist
turned
nine," which, although
is
written
on the hearts of the Welsh. " Jesus
Hymn Book,
"
of Nazareth passes by
is another favorite solo.
The only
new song taken over from the Torrey and Alexander Mis-
Among
sion
the solos
there
was sung over and over again

Tell mother I
'11
be there
In answer to her prayer,
This message, blessed Saviour, to her bear.

Tell mother I '11 be there,
Oh,
Heaven's joys with her to share,

my darling mother I '11 be there.
tell
In the Gospel the Prodigal Son comes back to his father.

perhaps an indication of the swing of the slow pendu-
It is
THE WELSH REVIVAL
38
lum back
father takes a
day the
Wales tothe mother who is
to the days of the matriarchate that in
back
seat.
It is
always to the front.
Nor
is
that the only welcome indication of the toppling of

and unchristian ascendancy of the male. The
the hateful
old objection of many of the Welsh churches to the equal

The Singing
ministry of women has gone by the board.
who surround Mr. Evan Roberts
Sisters
are as indispensable
Mr. Sankey was to Mr. Moody. Women pray, sing,

no one daring to make
testify and speak as freely as men
as
them afraid. The Salvation Army has not labored in vain.

There is no inquiry room, no penitent form. The
wrestle with unbelief, the
combat with the evil one for the

on in the midst of the
soul of the convicted sinner, goes
people.
It is
ably tragic
intensely dramatic
all
sometimes unspeak-
at other times full of exultant triumph.
Evan
Roberts, toward the close of the meeting, asks
from
their hearts believe
all
Mr.
who
and confess their Saviour to rise.

At the meetings at which I was present nearly everybody
was standing. Then for the sitting remnant the storm of
prayer rises to the mercy
rises to his feet,
seat.
When
glad strains of jubilant
one
after another
song burst from the
watching multitude. No one has a hymn-book; no one

The congregation seems moved by a
gives out a hymn.
It is all very wonderful, sometimes
simultaneous impulse.
suggestiveness of the presence of Another
no eye can see, but who moves on the wings of the
almost eery in
whom
its
wind.
Who can say to what this thing may not grow ? Who
can put bounds to the flood of awakened enthusiasm ? One
thing is certain no one could wish to erect a barrier save
those
who do
not love their fellow men.
WHAT I SAW
IN WALES
39
Chronicle was
report which I wrote for The Daily
written for the general public, who are comparatively indifferent to the spiritual side of the revival, but who regard its
The
and psychological aspects with a mild degree of
social
interest.
From
"
The Daily Chronicle
"
December igth.
As springtime precedes summer, and seed-time harvest,
so every great onward step in the social and political progGreat Britain has ever been preceded by a national
The sequence is as unmistakable as it
revival of religion.
It was as constant when England was Cathis invariable.
ress of
olic as
it
has been since the Reformation.
not necessary to be evangelical, Christian, or

even religious, to regard with keen interest every stirring of
form of a revival.
popular enthusiasm that takes the familiar
there is no misbut
fear
Men may despise it, hate it, or
it,
Hence
it
is
taking its significance.

It
herald of advance.
may
of the orchard, but without
The
the precursor of progress, the
It is
question, therefore,
be as evanescent as the blossom

it
would be no
there
which
who are in
The Welsh Revival was whether
to discuss with those
I set
fruit.
out to South Wales
the midst of what

this
stir
is
called
and wide-
popular
spread awakening might be regarded as the forerunner of a
nay, possibly of a still wider movement,
great national
its wake social and political changes
profoundly improving the condition of the human race.
Nor would I like to venture to predict how long or how
which might bring in

1
short a time
have
to give
it
will
way
be before that heading in

to the simple title of
its
"The
turn will
Revival,"
be neither in the West alone, nor in the East, but

which will spread over the whole land as the waters cover
which
will
the face of the mighty deep.
Of
course, the signs of the
THE WELSH REVIVAL
40
may be misleading, and that which seems most probmay never happen. But writing to-day in the midst of
times
able
" Look out "

I would say with all earnestness,
" The British
Empire," as Admiral Fisher is never tired
But the
of repeating, "floats upon the British navy."
The driving force of
British navy steams on Welsh coal.
all our battleships is hewn from the mines of these Welsh
it all,
by the men amongst

awakening has taken place.
valleys
slow train crawled

the mirk of
down
coming snow
whom this remarkable religious

On Sunday morning, as the
for there was

the gloomy valleys
was
no sun in
in the air, and there
could not avoid the obvious and insistent sugof

the
gestion
thought that Welsh religious enthusiasm may
be destined to impart as compelling an impulse to the
churches of the world as Welsh coal supplies to its navies.
the sky
Nor was the
force of the suggestion weakened when, after

three
attending
prolonged services at Mardy, a village of
5,000 inhabitants, lying on the other side of Pontypridd, I
found the flame of Welsh religious enthusiasm as smokeless

as its coal.
There are no advertisements, no brass bands,
no
posters,
no huge
tents.
All the paraphernalia of the
got-up job are conspicuous by their absence.

Neither is there any organization, nor is there a director,
at least none that is visible to the human
In the
eye.
crowded
chapels
they even
dispense
with
instrumental
On Sunday
night no note issued from the organ

There
was
no
need of instruments, for in and
pipes.
around and above and beneath surged the all-pervading
thrill and throb of a multitude
praying, and singing as they
music.
prayed.
The
and
vast congregations were as soberly sane, as orderly,

any congregation I ever saw be-
at least as reverent as
dome of St. Paul's, when I used to go to hear

Canon Liddon, the Chrysostom of the English pulpit. But
neath the
WHAT I SAW
IN WALES
41
was aflame with a passionate religious enthusiasm, the

Tier above
like of which I have never seen in St. Paul's.
tier, from the crowded aisles to the loftiest gallery, sat or
stood, as necessity dictated, eager hundreds of serious men
and thoughtful women, their eyes riveted upon the platform or upon whatever other part of the building was the
it
storm center of the meeting.
There was absolutely nothing wild, violent, hysterical,

it be hysterical for the laboring breast to heave with
unless
sobbing that cannot be repressed, and the throat to choke

with emotion as a sense of the awful horror and shame of a
wasted
life
suddenly bursts upon the
On
soul.
there was the solemn gladness of men

whose eyes has dawned the splendor of a
all sides
and women upon
new
day, the fore-
whose
glories they are enjoying in the quickened

sense of human fellowship and a keen, glad zest added to
taste of
own lives.
The most thoroughgoing
their
materialist who resolutely and

forever rejects as inconceivable the existence of the soul in
" the universe is but the infinite
man, and to whom
empty
eye-socket of a dead God," could not fail to be impressed

by the pathetic sincerity of these men ; nor, if he were just,
could he refuse to recognize that out of their faith in the
creed which he has rejected they have drawn, and are drawing, a motive power that makes for righteousness, and not
only for righteousness, but for the joy of living, that he

would be powerless to give them.
Employers
tell
me
that the quality of the
are putting in has improved.
Waste
is less,
work
the miners
men go
to their
In
daily toil with a new spirit of gladness in their labor.
the long, dim galleries of the mine, where once the hauliers
swore at their ponies in Welshified English terms of blasphemy, there is now but to be heard the haunting melody of
the revival music.
The pit ponies, like the American mules,
THE WELSH REVIVAL
42
having been driven by oaths and curses since they

the yoke, are being retrained to do their
incentive of profanity.
first
bore
work without the
Men
drinking, less idleness, less gambling.
record with almost incredulous amazement how one footThere
is less
ball player after another has foresworn cards
and drink and
the gladiatorial games, and is living a sober and godly life,

More wonderful still,
putting his energy into the revival.
and almost incredible to those who know how journalism

lives and thrives upon gambling, and how Toryism is broadbased upon the drinking habits of the people, the Tory daily
paper of South Wales has devoted its columns day after day
to reporting and defending the movement which declares war
to the death against both
How came
?
Who
Some
tell
community
listeth.
gambling and drink.
this strange uplift of the earnestness of a
whole
can say ? The wind bloweth where it

you one thing, some another. All agree
hither
began some few months ago in Cardiganshire, eddied

and thither, spreading like fire from valley to valley,
until,
as
that
it
one observer said to me, "Wherever it came

it began, all South Wales to-day is in a
from, or however
flame."
One
report says that the
outward and
visible sign that

the
among
people was witnessed at a meeting in a country chapel in Cardiganshire.
The preacher, after an earnest appeal to the unconverted,
there
was a new power and
first
spirit
besought those of his hearers whose hearts were moved

within them to testify before the congregation their decision
to serve the Lord.
long and painful pause followed.
came
the
solemn
Again
Again the embarrassing
appeal.
silence.
But
it was broken after a pause by the rising of a girl, a

Welsh
woman, who with trembling accents spoke up
young
and said, " If no one else will, then I must say that I do
WHAT I SAW IN WALES

love ray
Lord Jesus Christ with
was broken.
One
it
must."
So
began.
It is
it is
" Here
consecration, this
my
The ice
made public
heart."
and thanksgiving.
confessions with tears
So
all
another stood up and
after
43
going on.
I
send
am
"If no one
me
else,
then I
"
This public selfdefinite and decisive avowal of a determi:
nation to put under their feet their dead past of vice and sin
and indifference, and to reach out toward a higher ideal of
human existence, is going on everywhere in South Wales.
we
sanely and look at it in the right perspective, is there a nobler spectacle appealing more directly
to the highest instincts of our nature to be seen in all the
Nor,
if
think of
it
world to-day.
At Mardy, where
tarily
taxing
spent Sunday, the miners are volunthemselves this year three-halfpence in the
I
weekly wages to build an institute, public

and
library,
By their express request
reading-room.
the money is deducted from their wages on pay-day.
They
have created a library of 2,000 books, capitally selected and
pound of
their
hall,
used.
They have about half-a-dozen chapels and
churches, a cooperative society, and the usual appliances of
civilization.
They have every outward and visible sign of
well
a mining village pure and

simple, industrial democracy in its nakedest primitive form.
In this village I attended three meetings on Sunday two
industrial
prosperity.
It
is
and a half hours in the morning, two and a half hours in

the afternoon, and two hours at night, when I had to leave
to catch the train.
At all these meetings the same kind of
thing went on the same kind of congregations assembled,
the same strained, intense emotion was manifest.
Aisles
were crowded. Pulpit stairs were packed, w\&mirabile.
dictu !
two-thirds of the congregation were men, and at
least one-half young men.
"There," said one," is the hope and the glory of the
44-
THE WELSH REVIVAL
movement."
Here and
there
is
a gray head.
But the ma-
jority of the congregation were stalwart young miners, who

gave the meeting all the fervor and swing and enthusiasm
The
of youth.
revival
had been going on in Mardy
for a
All the churches had been holding services every

At the Baptist church they had to
with
night
great results.
the
addition
of
report
nearly fifty members, fifty were wait-
fortnight.
ing for
claimed.
In
baptism,
Mardy the
thirty-five
backsliders
fortnight's services
had
had been
re-
resulted in five hun-
And this, be it noted, when each place

was going "on its own." Mr. Evan Roberts,
dred conversions.
of worship
the so-called boy preacher of the revival, and his singing
sisterhood did not reach Mardy until the Sunday of my
visit.
have called Evan Roberts the so-called boy preacher,

is neither a boy nor a preacher.
He is a tall,
because he
good-looking young man of twenty-six, with a

and a most winsome smile. If he is a boy, he
eye
pleading
graceful,
is
a six-foot boy, and six-footers are usually past their boyAs he is not a boy, neither is he a preacher. He
hood.
talks simply, unaffectedly, earnestly,
makes no sermons, and preaching

note of this revival in the West.
now and
then, but
he
emphatically not the

If it has been by the
is
foolishness of preaching men have been saved heretofore,

that agency seems as if it were destined to take a back seat
in the present
The revival
song.
movement.
is
borne along upon billowing waves of sacred

what the Italian opera is to the
It is to other revivals
It is the singing, not the preaching, that

ordinary theater.
is the instrument which is most efficacious in striking the
hearts of men.
In this respect these services in the Welsh
chapel reminded me strangely of the beautiful liturgical

services of the Greek Church, notably in St. Isaac of St.
WHAT I SAW IN WALES
45
Petersburg on Easter morn, and in the receptions of the

grim at the Troitski Monastery, near Moscow.
The most
pil-
extraordinary thing about the meetings which I
was the extent to which they were absolutely with" We must

out any human direction or leadership.
obey
the Spirit," is the watchword of Evan Roberts, and he is as
attended,
obedient as the humblest of his followers.
The meetings
open
any amount of preliminary singing, while the
congregation is assembling by the reading of a chapter or
after
Then it is go-as-you-please for two hours or more.

the amazing thing is that it does go and does not
get entangled in what might seem to be inevitable confusion.
No one
Three-fourths of the meeting consist of singing.
a psalm.
And
uses a
hymn-book.
No
one gives out a hymn.
The last
Mr. Evan
person to control the meeting in any way is

Roberts.
People pray and sing, give testimony, exhort as
the Spirit moves them.
As a study of the psychology of
You feel that the

crowds, I have seen nothing like it.
thousand or fifteen hundred persons before you have become merged into one myriad-headed but single-souled
personality.
You can watch what they call the influence of the power
of the Spirit playing over the crowded congregation as an
eddying wind plays over the surface of a pond. If any one
carried
away by his feelings prays too long, or if any one

when speaking fails to touch the right note, some one it
may be anybody commences to sing. For a moment there
a hesitation as
if the meeting were in doubt as to its dewhether to hear the speaker, or to continue to join in
the prayer, or whether to sing.
If it decides to hear and to
is
cision,
If, on the other hand, as it

pray, the singing dies away.
the
decide
to sing, the chorus swells
usually happens,
people
in
volume
until
it
drowns
all
other sound.
very remarkable instance of this abandonment of the
THE WELSH REVIVAL
46
meeting to the spontaneous impulse, not merely of those

within the walls, but of those crowded outside, who were
unable to get in, occurred on Sunday night.
Twice the
order of proceeding, if order it can be called, was altered by
the crowd outside, who, being moved by some mysterious
impulse, started a hymn on their own account, which was at
once taken up by the congregation within.
On one of these
occasions
Evan Roberts was
addressing the meeting.
He at
once gave way, and the singing became general.
The prayers are largely autobiographical, and some of

them intensely dramatic. On one occasion an impassioned
and moving appeal to the Deity was accompanied throughout by an exquisitely rendered hymn, sung by three of the
It was like the undertone of the orchestra
Singing Sisters.
when some leading singer is holding the house.
The Singing Sisters there are five of them, one, Mme.
Morgan, who was a professional singer are as conspicuous
Some of
figures in the movement as Evan Roberts himself.
and musical appeal.
the singers, like the
the
fact
that
by
The
speakers, sometimes break down in sobs and tears.
meeting always breaks out into a passionate and consoling
solos
their
Nor
is
are wonders of dramatic
the effect lessened
song, until the soloist, having recovered her breath, rises
from her knees and resumes her song.

The praying and singing are both wonderful, but more
impressive than either are' the breaks which occur when
utterance can no more, and the sobbing in the silence
mentarily heard is drowned in a tempest of melody.
mo-
No
need for an organ. The assembly was its own organ as a

thousand sorrowing or rejoicing hearts found expression in
the sacred psalmody of their native
hills.
and,
a liturgy unwritten but heartfelt, a mighty chorus rising like the thunder
Repentance, open
above all else, this marvelous musical liturgy
confession, intercessory prayer,
WHAT I SAW IN WALES
47
of the surge on a rock-bound shore, ever and anon broken

by the flute-like note of the Singing Sisters, whose melody
was
as sweet
and
as spontaneous as the
in the grove or the lark in the sky.
music of the
And
all
throstle
this vast,
quivering, throbbing, singing, praying, exultant multitude

intensely conscious of the all-pervading influence of some
invisible reality
now
for
the
first
though not tangible in their midst.

They called it the Spirit of God.
time moving palpable
Those who have not

I am inclined to
will
what
;
they
may
For man, being, according
agree with those on the spot.
to the orthodox, evil, can do no good thing of himself, so,
as Cardinal Manning used to say. " Wherever you behold a
good thing, there you see the working of the Holy Ghost."
And the revival, as I saw it, was emphatically a good thing.
witnessed
it
call it
CHAPTER
IV
EVAN ROBERTS
THE revival in South Wales is not the work of any one
man or of any number of men, but the most conspicuous
figure in this strange religious
awakening
is
undoubtedly that
young Welsh collier-student, Mr. Evan Roberts.

Until last November no one had heard of him.
To-day his
name is on every tongue in Wales, and everywhere in all the
land people are asking what manner of man this new evanof the
gelist
may
be.
is a tall, graceful young man of twentywho, until last year, was at work as a collier in the
Broadoak Colliery, Lough or, a Welsh village near which an
express train was wrecked a few months ago, with great loss
Mr. Evan Roberts
six,
of
the
He
life.
the son of Methodist parents, and attended
is
Movrah Methodist Chapel

is
to the Golofn
Gymraag
name
in
Loughor.
a poet, and contributed
Welshmen, he
of " Bwlchydd."
in
Like
many
many
fine verses
The Cardiff Times under
the
He
was always of a pious dispoto

his
own
account, although he was a
sition, but according
church member and a worker in the Sunday-school, he was
more than fifteen months ago.

Trecynon, on November i4th, were as
not a Christian until
His own words

follows
at
little
Some people had said he was a Methodist. He did not

know what he was. Sectarianism melted in the fire of the
Holy Spirit, and all men who believed became one happy
For years he was a faithful member of the church,
family.
48
EVAN ROBERTS
49
But he had recently

a zealous worker, and a free giver.
discovered that he was not a Christian, and there were
thousands like him.
It was only since he had made that
That
a
that
new
discovery
light had come into his life.
same light was shining upon all

their eyes and their hearts.
How
did he
make
men
if
they would but open
that discovery?
Various accounts
have been given of the awakening of Evan Roberts. According to one account, he was present at an address
delivered
by the Rev. F. B. Meyer
tion in August, 1903,
at
a religious Conven-
when a pledge was given by
several
would spend a whole

day every month praying for a revival. According to Mr.
Roberts' own account, he seems to have been chiefly exerpresent, including Roberts, that they
by a melancholy conviction of the
cised in his devotions
of Christianity.
He was then living at Loughor,
in
the
mine
and spending his leisure in studying for
working
the ministry.
He used to take his Bible down the mine,
failure
and while at work would put it away in some convenient

hole or nook near his working place, ready to his hand when
he could snatch a moment or two to scan its beloved pages.
serious explosion occurred
one day.
The
future
Welsh
revivalist escaped practically unhurt, but the leaves of his
Bible were scorched by the fiery blast.

It was during the latter months of his stay at Loughor,
before he went to the preparatory school or college at Newcastle
Emlyn, that the
of his
prayer.
own room.
dawned upon him in the privacy

seems to have been very fervent in
light
He
Mr. Davies, a Newport Baptist, is the authority

was turned out of his lodg-
for the statement that Roberts
by his landlady, who thought that in his enthusiasm he

was possessed or somewhat mad. He spent hours praying
and preaching in his rooms, until the lady became afraid of
ings
him and asked him
to leave.
The
following narrative I had
THE WELSH REVIVAL
50
his own lips when I met him at tea on Sunday afternoon at Mardy. I asked him
"
" Can
you tell me how you began to take to this work?
" Oh,
" if
yes, that I will," said Mr. Roberts,
you wish
For a long, long time I was much troubled in
to hear of it.
my soul and my heart by thinking over the failure of ChrisOh, it seemed such a failure such a failure and
tianity.
I prayed and prayed, but nothing seemed to give me any
But one night, after I had been in great distress
relief
praying about this, I went to sleep, and at one o'clock in
the morning suddenly I was waked up out of my sleep, and
I found myself, with unspeakable joy and awe, in the very
And for the space of four
presence of Almighty God.
hours I was privileged to speak face to face with him as a
man speaks face to face with a friend. At five o'clock it
seemed to me as if I again returned to earth."
"
" Were
you not dreaming ? I asked.
"No, I was wide awake. And it was not only that
from
'
morning, but every morning for three or four months. Always I enjoyed four hours of that wonderful communion with
God.
cannot describe
I felt
it.
it,
and
it
seemed
to
Mr. J. Addington Symonds records a somewhat similar experience

when under chloroform. He says " I thought that I was near death,
when suddenly my soul became aware of God, who was manifestly
1
dealing with me, handling me, so to speak, in an intense personal

I canI felt him streaming in like light upon me.
present reality.
not describe the ecstasy I felt." \Vhen the effect of the anaesthetic
" that
faded, he longed for death, rather than to lose
long dateless
" in
which he felt " the very God in all purity and
ecstasy of vision
tenderness and truth and absolute love."
He adds: " The question
remains, is it possible that the inner sense of reality which succeeded
when my flesh was dead to impressions from without to the ordinary
sense of physical relations was not a delusion but an actual experience ?
Is it possible that I in that moment felt what some of the saints have
said they always felt, the undemonstrable but irrefragable certainty of
God
"
?
Sy mo-lids' s works, cited by James, p. 392.
" It seemed to me
See also the experiences of Madame Guyon
that God came at the precise time and woke me from sleep in order
that I might enjoy him."
Ib., p. 277.
:
EF4N ROBERTS
51
change all my nature, and I saw things in a different light,

and I knew that God was going to work in the land, and not
this land only, but in all the world.
' '
"Excuse me," I said, "but, as an old interviewer, may

when the mystic ecstasy passed, you put on
if,
all
that you remembered of these times of compaper
munion? "
ask
wrote nothing at all," 2 said Mr. Roberts.

"It
went on all the time until I had to go to Newcastle Emlyn
"No,
to the college to prepare for the ministry.
dreaded to go,
God every
morning. But I had to go, and it happened as I feared.
For a whole month he came no more, and I was in dark-
for
fear
should lose these four hours with
And my
ness.
heart
became
as a stone.
Even
the sight
So it continued
of the cross brought no tears to my eyes.
until, to my great joy, he returned to me, and I had again
1
This mystic vision, which enables a man to comprehend the secret

in the creation and ordering of the universe, was common to
the great saints, and also to one not usually classed as a saint,
God
of
all
George Fox was so confident that the nature and

had been opened to him by the Lord that he
actually contemplated practising physic for the good of mankind.
Ignatius Loyola, on the steps of the choir of the Dominican church,
saw in a distinct manner the plan of Divine Wisdom in the creation
St. Teresa says that it was granted to her one day to
of the world.
perceive in one instant how all things are seen and contained in God.
Jacob Boehme, in one quarter of a day in trance, saw and knew the
Walt Whitman.
virtues of all things
being of all things.

" I mind how once
Whitman wrote
we (my soul and
I) lay, such a transparent sum-
mer morning,
Swiftly arose to spread around me the peace and knowledge
That pass all the argument of the earth ;
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own ;
And I know that the Spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the
women my
sisters and lovers,

that a kelson of the creation is love."
Professor James writing on the mystical
And
Id., p. 396.
absorption of the Sufis
" The incommunicableness of the
into God says :
transport is the
key-note of all mysticism. Mystical truth exists for the individual who
has the transport, but for no one else." Symond's -works, etc., p. 404.
2
THE WELSH RE7IVAL
52
the
And
communion.
glorious
he said
must go and
But I did not go.

people in my own village.
feel as if I could go to speak to
my own people."
I
I
"if
he
of
whom
"May ask," said,
you speak ap"
peared to you as Jesus Christ?
my
speak to
I did not
"No,"
Mr. Roberts, "not so;
said
it
was the personal
God, not as Jesus."

"
" As God the Father
Almighty? I said.
"
Yes," said Mr. Roberts, " and the Holy Spirit."
"Pardon me," I said, "but I interrupted you. Pray go
'
on."
"I
did not go to
And one
ease.
my
was troubled and
people, but I
Sunday,
ill
at
as I sat in the chapel, I could not
my mind upon
fix
the service, for always before my eyes I

in a vision, the schoolroom in
my own village.
saw,
as
And
there, sitting in
panions and
rows before me,
saw
my
old com-
the young people, and I saw myself address-
all
I shook my head impatiently, and strove to

ing them.
drive away this vision, but it always came back.
And I
heard a voice in
'
ing,
I
Go and
would
and
resist
'
But the pressure became greater and
greater,
Then
at last I
no longer, and
I said,
'
Well, Lord,
if it is
thy
Then instantly the vision vanished, and

go.
whole chapel became filled with light so dazzling
will, I will
the
speak
inward ear as plain as anything, sayAnd for a long time
to these people.
could hear nothing of the sermon.
could
not.
my
that I could
'
faintly see
George Fox used
the
minister in the pulpit,
and
with Jesus Christ ; but St. Teresa,

She says " God establishes
himself in the interior of the soul in such a way that when she returns
to herself it is wholly impossible for her to doubt that she has been in
God and God in her. This truth remained so strongly impressed on
her that even though many years should pass without the condition returning, she can neither forget the favor she received nor doubt of the
1
like
to converse
Evan Roberts, spoke with God.
reality."
Symoud's works,
etc., p.
409.
EVAN ROBERTS
me
between him and

heaven."
53
the glory as the light of the sun in
"And
then you went
"No;
asked him
went
to
my
home ? "
and
tutor,
told
him
was of
all
things,
God
and
or of the
he believed that it
he said the devil does not put good thoughts
I must go and obey the heavenly vision.
into the mind.
I
went
back
to my own village, and I saw my own
So
if
And
devil ?
minister,
and him
And
also I told.
he said that I might
and see what I could do, but that the ground was stony,
and the task would be hard."
try
"Did you
"
find
I asked the
it
so?"
young people
to
together, for I wanted

I stood up to talk to
come
They came, and

them, and, behold, it was even as I had seen it in the church
The young people sat as I had seen
at Newcastle Emlyn.
to talk to them.
them
rows before me, and I was speakhad been shown to me. At first they
sitting, all together in
ing to them even as it

did not seem inclined to listen
the power of the Spirit
Jesus.
me
But
was not
but I went on, and at last

six came out for
came down, and

satisfied.
<O
Lord,' I said, 'give
more
And we prayed toand then the eighth and
the ninth together, and after a time the tenth, and then the
But no
eleventh, and last of all came the twelfth also.
And
saw
that
the
Lord
had
me
the
secmore.
they
given
ond six, and they began to believe in the power of prayer."
six
gether.
more
At
must have
last
six
'
the seventh came,
1
This, again, is one of the most familiar phenomena of ecstasy.
" There is one form of
Professor James says :
sensory automatism
which possibly deserves special notice on account of its frequency. I
refer to hallucinatory or pseudo-hallucinatory luminous phenomena,
St. Paul's blinding
photisms, to use the term of the psychologists.
heavenly vision seems to have been a phenomenon of this order. So
does Constantine's cross in the sky. Colonel Gardner sees a blazing
"
'
light perfectly ineffable shone in my soul.'
light.
Finney says,
Symond's works,
etc., p.
252.
THE WELSH REVIVAL
54
"
" Then after that
you went on ?
" First I tried to
speak to some other young people in anBut the news had
other church, and asked them to come.
gone out, and the old people said, May we not come too ?
And I could not refuse them. So they came, and they
kept on coming now here, now there, all the time, and I
'
'
have never had time
to go back to college."
Not much chance, indeed, at present. Three meetings
every day, lasting, with breaks for meals, from 10 A. M.

till 12 p. M., and sometimes later, leave scant leisure for
If
studying elsewhere than in the hearts and souls of men.
only his body will hold out, and his nervous system does not
At present
give way, he will have time to study hereafter.
he has other work in hand.
The
story that
Roberts'
own
is
told
narrative.
in
the
papers
According
to
pieces out Mr.

the Rev. Seth
Joshua, a mission from the New Quay Christian Endeavor

Society came to Newcastle Emlyn, and it was at one of
their meetings that Evan Roberts first showed his marvelous
power in prayer.
Whatever truth there may be in this link in the chain,
there is no doubt that Mr. Evan Roberts began to preach
to pray at the Movrah Methodist Church in Loughor
The most extraordinary
about the beginning of November.
and
results
followed.
The
whole community
was
shaken.
Meetings were kept up till half-past four, and then at six the
villagers would be wakened by the tramp of the crowds go-
morning prayer-meetings. His energy

seemed inexhaustible. In those early days,, said a writer in
The South Wales Daily News (November i4th)
ing to the early
Roberts does not call his hearers to repentance, but

speaks of having been called to fulfil the words of the
"Your old men shall dream dreams, your
prophet Joel:
young men shall see visions." He tells the audience that he
EVAN ROBERTS
55
is speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and he

describes what he sees, and it strikes some of the congregation that he is unfathoming unconsciously some of the mysHis words have a reteries of the Book of Revelation.
markable effect. He does not speak much, but invites the
congregation to sing, or pray, or read the Scripture as the
Spirit
moves them.
Mr. Roberts frequently describes visions that had apFor instance

peared to him at prayer.
:
He said that when he was before the throne of grace he

saw appearing before him a key. He did not understand
the meaning of this sign.
Just then, however, three members of the congregation rose to their feet and said that they
had been converted. " My vision is explained," said Mr.
" it was the
Roberts, ecstatically ;
key by which God opened
hearts."
your
On
another occasion he reverted to his experiences at
Newcastle Emlyn, and told them of another vision.

said (The South Wales Daily News, November
He
It was a few Sundays ago at Newcastle Emlyn.

For
days he had been brooding over the apparent failure of
modern Christian agencies; and he felt wounded in the
spirit that the Church of God should so often be attacked.
While in this Slough of Despond he walked in the garden.
It was about 4 p. M.
Suddenly, in the hedge on his left, he
saw a face full of scorn, hatred and derision, and heard a
It was the prince of this world, who

laugh as of defiance.
exulted in his despondency.
Then there suddenly appeared
another figure, gloriously arrayed in white, bearing in hand
a flaming sword borne aloft.
The sword fell athwart the
first figure, and it instantly disappeared.
He could not see
"
" Do
the face of the sword-bearer.
not
see the moral ?
you
"
Is
queried the missioner, with face beaming with delight.
"
it not that the Church of Christ is to be
triumphant?
THE WELSH REFIV4L
5&
Significant glances passed between many people in the

Visions ? What does the man mean ? He
congregation.
is speaking in parables.
So far he has been a sane speaker,
and with no trace about him of the fanatic. He cannot
But we are speedily undeceived.
mean to convey that
11
1 told the Rev. Evan Phillips of what I had seen, and he
answered me that in the state of despondency I was in I
But " with strong
might easily have imagined the vision.
It was a distinct vision.
emphasis "I know what I saw.
There was no mistake. And, full of the promise which that
.
went to Loughor, and from Loughor to

And what
Aberdare, and from Aberdare to Pontycymmer.
do I see? The promise literally fulfilled. The sword is
descending on all hands, and Satan is put to flight.
vision conveyed, I
Amen."
has been said that Mr. Roberts never preaches.
He
or
rather
he
at
of
his
did
the
does, however,
beginning
It
long addresses, which were simple, direct

Gospel appeals.
Joyousness was the note of all his discourse, the joyousness of a junior partner conscious that his
career
Senior
deliver
is
with him and
is
entrusting
him with a most respon-
sible mission.
He exclaimed once: "Oh, if you only saw Christ, you

How can I repay him for the privilege of
would love him
Wales
to proclaim his love?"
going through
At Pyle, November 21, speaking of the work that is being done, Mr. Roberts joyously clapped his hands and
shouted, "Aha, aha," but remarked that this sort of thing
could not go on forever this fever-heat could not be kept
going long; but let them keep it going as long as they
could j let them keep it going with a swing (which he
!
with a swing of his right arm), to raise the

churches to a higher level, and then they could "settle
down to business." At the end of November he gave it as
illustrated
his conviction that one
hundred thousand souls would be
EVAN ROBERTS
won
57
In December
before the end of the revival in Wales.
"At one time I said I would be satisfied with one

hundred thousand converts and then would be willing to die,
but now I want the whole world."
"Isn't it all wonderful how the Spirit
Again he says:
he said
To
me
the Spirit, the Spirit."

describe the address that follows as a sermon would be a
responds
misnomer.
It is
not
He
is
with merriment.
buoyant, joyous, almost bubbling over

is "the joy of Christ," he explains,
It
"and you can laugh

throne of grace.
it is
yes,
laugh out of sheer joy at the
' '
Yet he always shrinks modestly from claiming any of the

sometimes he declines to let
;
results that follow his mission
movements be announced. "People must not rely upon

me." This is his constant cry. " I have nothing for them.
They must rely upon Him who alone can minister to their
his
needs."
When I talked with him, he said

"The movement is not of me, it is
:
dare to try to direct

in everything.
It is
of God.
would not
the Spirit, that is our word

the Spirit alone which is leading us in
it.
Obey
our meetings and in all that is done."

"
" You do not
preach, or teach, or control the meetings?
"Why should I teach when the Spirit is teaching?
What need have these people to be told that they are sinWhat they need is salvation. Do they not know it ?
ners?
not knowledge that they lack, but decision action.

And why should I control the meetings? The meetings
control themselves, or rather the Spirit that is in them conIt
is
them."
"
" You find the
ministry of the Singing Sisters useful ?
" Most useful.
They go with me wherever I go. I
never part from them without feeling that something is
trols
absent
if
they are not there.
The
singing
is
very important,
THE WELSH REVIVAL
58
but not everything.
No.
The
public confession
portant
more so than the speaking.
But the meetings go of themselves."
little.
is
also im-
True, I talk to
them
"
"Do
you propose to go to England ?

"No. To North Wales next. They say North Wales
is
stony cold, but I believe the Holy Spirit will work there
also.
Oh,
God
yes,
will
move North Wales
also."
movements are governed by the answers he reto prayer.

"Will you go to Cardiff? " they asked
He paused, and then replied in the negative, the an-
All his
ceives
him.
swer to his thought-prayer having been almost instantaneous.

He usually speaks in Welsh, but he can speak English,
although not with the beauty and polish of his native
The newspapers publish translated scraps rather

tongue.
than reports of his remarks.
Here are a few sentences
:
"Whilst
was fighting against
sect
sect the devil
was clap-
Let
ping his hands with glee, and encouraging the fight.
the salvation of sinners.
all people be one, with one object
Men
refused to accept the gospel and confess because, they

said, of the gloom and uncertainty of the future.
They
looked to the future without having opened their eyes to the
infinite glories
is
of the present."
"All must obey," he declares, " all must work. There

no room in the church for idlers. Are you an idler ?
Then your
place
is
outside."
shiping as possible, the
need
"Be
simpler
as simple in
the better.
your wor-
There
is
no
he went on, "and no one need be ashamed
to shout,"
to confess Christ."
He
falls
dwells sometimes on the sufferings of Christ until he

While absolutely
prone, sobs choking his utterance.
tolerant of all manifestations of the Spirit, he
is
stern to
check any disorder. At Ferndale, where some persons had

been disturbing the meeting by exuberant and unseemly
" He who would walk with God must
noises, he said
:
EVAN ROBERTS
come
59
of prayer, of humility, of awe.

Joy
permissible in the house, but it must be sanctified joy.
For think of the majesty of the Divine Person. Father
to his
house in a
spirit
is
yes, a
we must be even as little children,

remembering that we are sinners. We can, we
Father truly, but
in humility,
are taught to entreat for the descent of the Spirit, but beware lest the entreaty becomes a rude, imperious command.
If
we
truly walk with
God, there can be no disorder, no
indecency."
On another occasion he pleaded for a Service of Silence,
to convince the world that the power at work in those
gatherings was the power of the Holy Spirit, not that of
man.
"Let
"
us
an
prayers
have
effective
five
of
minutes
reversion
absolutely
the
to
silent
practice of
the
Society of Friends.
His method of conducting a meeting is to allow it to conduct itself. But he usually contrives to expound his four
principles, and to summon his hearers to make public confession.
The
following
is
the best report which I have been able

diligent study of all the papers
to piece together after a
He
published since the revival began.

ence thus
addresses his audi-
Do you
Very
desire an outpouring of the
Holy
Spirit ?
Four conditions must be observed.
well.
They
are essential.
Is there any sin in your past life that you have
(1)
not confessed to God ? On your knees at once.
Your past
must be
at peace.
anything in your life that is doubtful ?

cannot
decide whether it is good or evil?
Anything you
There must not be
Away with it
there
(2)
Is
(3)
(4)
Obey
the Spirit.
Confess Christ publicly before
men."
THE WELSH REVIVAL
60
After the meeting has gone on for some time Roberts

I quote the descripproceeds to put his testing questions.
tion given by The South Wales Daily News on December
14:
missioner is now at work.
He has three questions
He has been told, commanded, imperatively commanded, to put the questions, and he dare not disobey. He
could never sleep if he didn't put them.
" Will
every member of a Christian Church stand
(1)
The
to put.
up?"
There is immediate response. Few, very few, are sitBut a second later we are surprised by the announceting.
ment from the gallery that some are standing who are not
" have
members. "
exclaims the
Come, friends,"
missioner,
the courage for once to show your side.
You will be welcome to come over to our side once you are truly ashamed
of your own.
Not until then. Let us have no hypocrisy."
"Will
all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ
(2)
?
Now, please, be careful. Act conscientiously,
God's judgment fall upon you. Those who truly love
the Lord Jesus
and they only."
" Do
Again a great crowd responds, and to the query,
a
him?"
there
comes
loud, triyou really and truly love
" Yes."
umphant answer,
"Now for the question which Christ put to Peter.
(3)
stand up
lest
you individually. Do " you love Jesus

more than all things?
the query is so startling and unIt 's a crucial moment
There is a momentary hesitation, and then once
expected.
more the congregation is on its feet, and there is a joyful,
of " Diadem."
It
'
is
now put
to
more than these
'
triumphant rendering
Bring forth the royal diaddm
And crown him Lord
of all.
" You have made a
great declaration
you love him more
shall presently see how sinshall see it in crowded attendcere is
shall see
ances at prayer-meetings, at church-meetings.
than
all
We
We
things, all things.

the declaration.
We
EVAN ROBERTS
it
61
God's own Book.
in the daily study of
We
shall
no
'
No time to read the Bible.
longer hear the old excuse,
Have you time to eat ? The needs of the body are attended
to, but, bobol anwyl, what of the sustenance of the soul that
The soul ever thirsts for God.
is so much more precious ?
You must be in touch with God's Word every day, every
day, were it only one verse."
Have all obeyed the third command to stand up ? No,
The test is too severe. " One
few are sitting.
not all.
a
voice in the gallery ; " he cannot
has gone out," exclaims
stand it."
'
"
Bring him back, Lord, bring him back," prays a young

" Do n't let
thy judgment
fall upon him.
He has felt the Spirit moving he said so
"He will come
but he is fleeing.
Bring him back."
" he will come
back;
back, friend," the missioner assures us,
the fact that he has run away is a proof that he will come
back."
The next question is one that gives relief
fellow of nineteen near the door.
" All those who want to love the Lord

Jesus, will
"
they stand up ?
There is now not a single seat occupied. Members,
non-members, sceptics, scoffers all, all are on their feet,
and the silence that supervenes is oppressive. But the missioner is all happiness and smiles.
(4)
Presently
we
are singing that inspiring
Duw mawr
Rhyfeddol
hymn
of praise
y rhyfeddodau maith
rhan o'th waith,
yw pob
and we are reminded by the missioner that in that hymn we

are addressing God himself, and that if we cannot sing with
all our hearts we had better be silent,
In the same issue the reporter publishes a special message
After emphaticgiven him by Mr. Roberts for the public.
share
in
the
ally disclaiming any
religious upheaval, which
he attributed solely to the Holy Spirit, Mr. Roberts said

" I will
I should like the people to
give you a message.
wait
for
believe.
me.
They
They should wait only for
:
THE WELSH REFIF4L
62
Some one
the Spirit.
hearts for
me
the
Holy
Spirit ?
the
Word
say
to go.
'
said they are almost breaking their

Will they almost break their hearts for
Then it must come down. What does
Ask and
receive.'
It is just that.
'
Ask
and ye shall receive.' That is the promise. Believe it.

Don't wait for me. Some are talking of the share that this
denomination or that has in the work. It is not denominaIn Loughor we had all denominations Methodists,
tional.
Churchmen, Congregationalists,
" Give me a
message
Baptists, every one."
distinct, plain, for the people,
Mr.
Roberts."
He
waited a minute or two before answering, and then
said:
" This
is the message.
Of course I had to pray for it.
ask for guidance how the prophecy of Joel is being fulThere the Lord says, ' I will pour out my Spirit
filled.
To
all
upon
receive
' '
to
flesh.'
First.
God.
If that
be so
all flesh
Note the four conditions

The past must be clear
it.
Any wrong
put
must be prepared
to
every sin confessed

be made
upon any man must
right.
" Second.
Everything doubtful must be removed once
and for all out of our lives.
" Third. Obedience
prompt and implicit to the Holy
Spirit.
" Fourth. Public confession must be made of Christ.

" These are the four conditions
If every church
given.
comply with these four conditions, then all will be made
one.
Once the Spirit comes down and takes possession of
a man, he is made one with Christ and one with all men.
You know what Christ said,
All denominations are one.
all men unto me.
if
I
lifted
will
draw
There it
be
I,
up,
will
'
'
is.
Christ
is all
in all."
Mr. Roberts indulges
in
no invectives against anything
EVAN ROBERTS
63
He
does not even denounce the publican.

At one meeting, on December 4th, he heard a young fellow
week ago I was blind drunk; to-day I am
declaring,
or anybody.
"A
and the craving is gone." " Aye, aye," exclaims the

t(
and there 's no need to preach against the
missioner,
free,
drink
that
but preach Christ, proclaim Christ unto the people
is all-sufficient.
' '
The truth about Evan Roberts is that he is very psychic,

with clairvoyance well developed and a strong visualizing
One peculiarity about him is that he has not yet
gift.
found any watch that will keep time when
it
is
carried in
pocket.
Many of his visions are merely the vivid
visualization of mental concepts, as, for instance, when he
his
says
" When I
go out to the garden I see the devil grinning at
me, but I am not afraid of him ; I go into the house, and
when I go out again to the back I see Jesus Christ smiling
at me.
Then I know all is well."
This, again,
is
much
the
same thing
While listening to a sermon at Newcastle Emlyn once,

he said, he received much more of the Spirit of the gospel
from what he saw than from what he heard. The preacher
was doing very well, was warming with his work, and
And when he
sweating by the very energy of his delivery.
(Evan Roberts) saw the sweat on the preacher's brow he
looked beyond and saw another vision
his Lord sweating
the bloody sweat in the garden
(and then, as Mr. Roberts
thought of the "vision," he utterly broke down).
:
The
missioners go like the Friars of old, or like the

Seventy in the gospel, without money and without scrip.
As
Sir
A.
are
no
bills,
Thomas
no
said, the revival finances itself.
halls,
no
salaries.
There
CHAPTER V
THE
AND PROGRESS OF THE REVIVAL
RISE
MR. GEORGE MEREDITH once remarked
that one great

of
the
over
Christianity
triumph
paganism of
imperial Rome was the astonishing discovery made by the
Apostle Paul as to the value of women as religious teachers.
secret of the
women served in the sanctuary indeed, but

of sense, for the degradation rather than as
embodiments of souls capable of inspiring and uplifting the
Before his time

as creatures
human
race.
Paul, it is true, when introducing so great an
innovation, found it necessary, while addressing the Church
of Corinth, to draw a very hard and fast line limiting the
sphere of female activity

local
and
this limitation,
and temporary, being necessitated
solely
which was
by the
cor-
ruption of sex morality in Corinth at that time, has been

used, no doubt to the apostle's infinite chagrin, to limit the
beneficent action of
in other ages
is
and
women
in the ministry of the
in other climes.
Church
Christianity, however,
sloughing the Corinthian limitation and asserting

freedom which Paul secured for women elsewhere.
at last
the full
The Quakers began
the good work.
something in the same direction.
It
The Methodists did

was reserved
for the
Army, the only religious organization founded by

a husband and wife acting in absolute unity, to make the
Now in South
equality of the sexes a chief corner-stone.
Salvation
of this devoted testimony.

The
to the time of the last revival, were in the
Wales we see the
fruits
Welsh, down
bonds of the Corinthian limitation. Even in the
lady lecturer on temperance was looked at askance
parts of Wales.
64
sixties a
in
many
PROGRESS OF THE REVIVAL

Now
revival
all
gone by the board.
that has
women
65
In the present
are everywhere to the fore, singing, testify-
Henry Rees, who prothe

tested publicly in 1866 against
ministry of women,
At
died with him.
appears to be dead, and his spirit has
last these good people have realized the great saying that as
in Christ there is neither bond nor free, so there is neither
ing, praying
and preaching.
The change
Dr.
marked
that it suggests
of
the happy thought that as the revival
1859 to 1861 led to
the enfranchisement of the male householder, the present
the recognition by the State of
be crowned
revival
male nor female.
may
the full citizenship of
is
so
by
women.
Women came
soon found
into this revival chiefly as singers, but they

that the ministry of sacred song needed to be
supplemented by that of prayer and of exhortation. But

even if they had done- nothing but sing, they would have
had a leading part in this revival. For it is as Dr. Joseph
Parry predicted, as long ago as 1891, that
it
would be a
singing revival.
How did it begin, this revival? Where was it nursed
What influences nurtured it into the full mainto being ?
turity of
its
powers ?
.For a long time past the Welsh Christians had been

moved to pray specially for the quickening of religious life
in their midst.
The impulse appears
and spontaneous.
to have been sporadic

In remote country hamlets, in mining
villages buried in distant valleys,
would have
it
laid
upon
one
man
or one
woman
his or her soul to pray that the
might be poured out upon the cause in which

were
There does not seem to
they
spiritually concerned.
have been much organized effort. It was all individual,
Holy
Spirit
and strictly limited to the neighborhood.

But prayer circles formed by devout persons who agree to
unite together in prayer at a given hour every day have
local,
THE WELSH REVIVAL
66
long been a recognized form of prevailing prayer.

circles there are
some
By
these
thirty or forty thousand people
now
banded together to pray for a world- wide revival.

All this was general.
It was preparing the
way. A great
The churches
longing for revival was abroad in the land.
were conscious that there was something in the air. It was
at
New Quay,
have
first
in Cardiganshire, that the spark appears to

the charged train of religious emotion.
fired
Fortunately, we have from the Rev. Joseph Jenkins, the

pastor of the Calvinistic church in which the revival first
made its
The first
appearance, an authentic account of
its
beginning.
be awakened was the pastor himself. He

was a good man, a devoted Christian, and a faithful minister; but, like Evan Roberts, he felt that there was still
person to
something lacking. It was before midsummer, 1903, that

the conviction was borne in upon the good pastor's mind
that the occasion had come for special services with greater
It was his own quickened spiritual
the
institution of these meetings as
which
experience
sought
a means of giving expression to the life of the church.
The meetings he had in view were to have no set form.
freedom
for testifying.
each to assume its own peculiar form

Those
present would be expected to pray,
spontaneously.
or
read
sing,
speak, according to the impulse of the mo-
They must be
ment.
free,
He
longed to pour his spiritual experience into

He found himself frequently in close
sympathetic ears.
communion with his heavenly Father, and seemed to be
given everything necessary to efficient service.
his experience in fear
and trembling.
He
felt
He
that
related
he him-
must have been saved many years ago, although he had

missed the joy which the knowledge of such a fact brings.
self
He
had no doubt that his efforts to preach Christ had been

honest, and that he had done his best to obtain for himself
also some of the benefits of his preaching.
And yet he had
67
never before understood the gospel as he understands it

to-day the power of God unto present assurance of full
salvation.
Some time ago

and
the preacher was speaking in November,

sermon was reported in The South Wales Daily
of November i6th, and no more precise date is
his
News
the experience occurred which may be regarded as

I give the
the first outward and visible sign of the revival.
" Seiat "
a
to
be
as
it
is
religious
appears
story
reported.
given
for prayer
meeting
Some time ago he had returned from a journey, and

"
found that a " Seiat
had been set aside in favor of a soiree
to be held in the town.
Somebody rose "at one of the
was being set
church meetings and asked why the " Seiat
It was deaside
the soiree was not a sufficient reason.
cided to hold a " Seiat," and in that meeting were seen and
heard the first indications of the dayspring from on high
A young girl
that was surely dawning upon the church.
prayed, and that prayer was the most wonderful and touchThe response was immediate. All
ing he had ever heard.
were lifted up into a high plane of spiritual experience.
One
of the older deacons,
came forward.
Hot
he
all
said,
"It's
tears
right,
who was
standing by the door,
were rolling down his face when

I know him.
He is the Holy
Spirit."
The
minister as he sat marveled at the signs of the new

experience that he knew must be coming to the church.
Nevertheless, his heart
was not
perfectly right before the
brother minister with whom he had spent a night

had, in course of conversation upon religious matters, said
Lord.
"
friend, I am afraid you
straightforwardly,
are backsliding ; there is something in your view of things,
and in the cadences of your voice, that betokens serious
to
him very
My
backsliding in your spiritual life."
It
was too
true,
he ad-
THE WELSH REVIVAL
68
mitted
The
and the charge went home.
conviction of
its
A bosom
guilt sank deep into his soul.
friend
Mr. Ceredig Evans to whom he told his experience, wept and prayed with him, and promised to continue at the throne of grace on his behalf.
He was pertruth and of
its
fectly convinced that the matter of his soul as between

himself and God was not settled altogether in God's way.
Voice within him demanded work of him, demanded the
of his
ministry.
He
talents, as
he was
told, yet
fulfilment
humbler
was shown others with

with far better records
of real work done in the Master's vineyard.

present,
and knew
how he prayed
all his
His wife was
private experience in this matter
all night,
and night
after night
continued
pray and read, until one night in his study, in the small
hours of the morning, a vision of the cross arose filling his
to
and peace.
Here again we have the vision. " In point of fact," says
Professor James, " you will hardly find a religious leader of
any kind in whose life there is no record of such things.
St. Paul had his visions, his ecstasies, his gift of tongues.
The whole array of Christian saints and heresiarchs, insoul with joy
cluding the greatest, the Bernards, the Loyolas, the Luthers,

the Foxes, the Wesleys, had these visions, voices, rapt con-
They had these

guiding impressions, and openings.
exalted
sensibility, and to such
things because they had
things persons of exalted sensibility are liable."
ditions,
Pastor Jenkins, having thus entered into a

lation with the Spirit,
summoned
new and fuller re-
young people to the

of meetings which he saw were called for.
They
were well attended, and were conducted on the principle of
his
new kind
leaving every one free to pray, sing, and speak, or

as the Spirit moved him.
sit silent
One Sunday night he preached from the text, " This is

the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."
69
He
had preached before on some phases of that subject, but

felt his very soul go out in his words, which God
blessed immediately.
That night a young girl came to his
now he
house
to consult
him concerning
the salvation of her soul.
She did not know how she should speak to him, and remained walking to and fro outside the house for some time.
But she was intensely in earnest, and, courage coming, she
entered the house.
He
advised her to receive Jesus as her
him
Lord as well as
She must pray
until her soul allowed the matter to be settled on God's
terms.
She promised to follow his advice, and she did, for
her soul was moved to its lowest depth.
A Christian En-
Saviour, but that she must receive
she must surrender
Saviour
all
as
to him.
deavor meeting was coming, and he would then see how far
He spoke, explaining
they understood spiritual experience.
it in the best
he
all
the force at his comand
with
could,
way
mand. Others followed with speeches, but he required of

them expressions of spiritual experience pure and simple,
and then it was that the young girl already referred to
stood up, and with beaming face and thrilling voice said,
"Oh,
I love Jesus with all
my
heart."
After
this, spiritual
was made rapidly at the Christian Endeavor meetsome revealing great depths of emotion, others mani-
history
ings,
festing the keenest sense of spiritual relations.
That public confession of her faith by the young girl

who may be regarded as the first convert of the revival
was followed by
One
come.
others.
It
was evident the revival had

who had prepared a pa-
Christian Endeavorer,
per to read on the existence of God, could not bring himread it for the same reason that Professor James dis-
self to
misses
the
religion.
arguments of philosophy as a foundation for
He
said that spiritually the meeting was far in adThe Christian Endeavorers had the
vance of his paper.
proofs of his existence in their
own
hearts.
There was no
THE WELSH REVIVAL
70
shadow of doubt of his

them then, transforming
He
was there amongst
their very lives.
In this way their
existence.
From New Quay, which lies midmeetings were started.

way been Cardigan and Aberystwyth, the Christian Endeavorers went out to hold meetings elsewhere.
Among other
they went
places,
to Newcastle
Emlyn, where they met
Evan Roberts.
So
far as I
can
fix it
from the materials
at
my
disposal,
confession of the young girl which marks the

of
the revival occurred in New Quay in Febbeginning
the
public
ruary, 1904.
It was in September that
Evan Roberts prayed
at the
New
Christian Endeavorers' meeting and saw the visions

which directed him to Loughor. It was in the beginning
Quay
of
November he began
to
hold the special services at
Loughor, which attracted the attention of the
press.
After
The Western
Mail and The Cardiff Daily News spread the revival
that the full reports of the proceedings in
through the whole of South Wales.
worthy of note that the great revival of 1859 also began in Cardiganshire, although somewhat farther to the
It is
north than
visited
district,
New Quay.
The
following notes as to the places
by Mr. Evan Roberts will give those who know the

but to no one else, some idea how the fire spread
along the valleys of Wales.
November i4th and i5th, Trecynon November i6th to

Pontycymmer ; November i9th, Bridgend, Pyle, AberNovember 2oth, Abercynon November 21 st and
gwynfi
22d, Mountain Ash; November 23d and 24th, Ynysybwl;
November 25th, ill; November 26th, Cilfyngdd; November 27th and 28th, Porth November 29th, Treorky December 2d to 4th, Pentre; December 5th and 6th, Caerphilly; December yth, Senghenydd; December 8th to loth,
Ferndale ; December nth, Mardy ; December i2th and
;
8th,
71
Tylorstown; December i4th and i5th, Aberfan ; December

i6th and i7th, Hafod (Pontypridd) ; December i8th, Pontypridd ; December ipth and 2oth, Clydach Vale; December
2ist, Tonypandy; December 22d, Penygraig; December
23d, Treherbert.
"The supreme
test
of a revival," says the Rev. F. B.
Meyer, "is the ethical result." As to this, the testimony

of all on the spot is unanimous.
Not merely are all the
grosser vices reduced to vanishing point, but the subtler sins
unforgiving rancor, non-payment of debts, dishonest
work are abated. In nothing is Mr. Evan Roberts clearer
and more emphatic than in his insistence upon forgiveness
of
it be as to the duty of the payment of

"It's no use asking God to forgive you," he tells
his hearers, " unless you have forgiven all your enemies
of injuries, unless
debts.
every one.
as
You
you forgive."
be forgiven in the same measure

Again he says: "How can there be,
will only
when
there are family feuds and personal animosities,

churches torn by little dissensions, members cold towards
each other? If you are not prepared to forgive others it
is
no use going on your knees to-night
to ask
God
to forgive
your transgressions. I don't say don't do it ; please yourselves, of course ; but one thing is absolutely certain, God
will not listen to
you."
The result has been excellent

However we may explain it,
everywhere excellent.
the veriest sceptic must admit that what the revivalist seeks to effect is of all things the
most important object of human endeavor. No political or

change can be regarded as having any serious impor-
social
tance, excepting so far as
it
tends to facilitate indirectly the
achievement of the same result which the revivalist seeks directly.
The aim of all reformers is the

To make a bad man good,
individual.
ful,
a lazy
man
industrious, a
regeneration of the
a cruel man merci-
drunkard sober, and
to sub-
THE WELSH REVIVAL
72
stitute selfless struggle to help others for a selfish
seize everything for oneself
scramble to
that in the aim-all, the be-all,
and the end-all of all those who seek the improvement of soIt makes no difference
ciety and the progress of the world.
whether the reformer
is
called Blatchford or Liddon, Brad-
laugh or Price Hughes, John Morley or General Booth,

Frederic Harrison or the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
President of the Free Thinkers'
Rome
that
what they
is
timate, nothing but that.
Congress or the Pope of
are all after
And when
that,
it
and
comes
to
in the ul-
be looked
who can deny that a great religious revival

often succeeds in achieving the result which we all desire
at scientifically,
more
rapidly,
may
discount
there.
It
decisively,
and
is
it
not
the results which
as
much
as
we
number of
mankind? We
in a greater
any other agency known
than
cases,
more
like,
to
but the facts are
necessary to credit the revival with all

it reveals, any more than we may credit a
day's sunshine in spring with
all
the flowers
it
brings to
So does a revival. And

brings them out.
if there had been no revival, the latent sainthood of multitudes would never have been born, just as the flowers
would never come out in May if there were no sun.
birth.
But
it
But as
It is often argued that revivalism is ephemeral.
our brief historical retrospect shows, the fruits of revivals are
among
the most permanent things in history.
CHAPTER VI
WHAT OUGHT
TO DO?
SPREAD the good news, and spread it now

If you can do nothing else, send copies of this pamphlet
to any relative, friend or other person whom you think may
become interested in the subject. Speak to people about it.
!
Write to your friends about it.

If you belong to a church, try to get the members interested in the revival.
If
you are a minister, preach about it, and ask your peoon the subject.
ple to hold prayer-meetings
For
if
those
who have
seen most of the revival are right,
a great blessing in this movement for each of us,

and for all of us, if we but make the most of our present
there
is
opportunity.
What we have
to
do
is
to take time
by the forelock and
be ready to clutch the boon before the moment has passed.

As a start, we might well begin each in our sphere by doing
to our enemies, wiping out the memories of old
grudges, reconciling offended relatives, and forgiving others,
good turns
even as we hope to be forgiven.
God
more
or no God, soul or no soul, this earth
like hell
is
made much
than heaven by persisting in these grudges,

and unkind feelings one toward an-
jealousies, animosities,
What a merry Christmas, what a glad New Year it

if we could begin by being in charity with everyin
love with every man, woman and child with whom
body,
we have a personal acquaintance
Then when we have cast out from our own souls the evil
other.
would be
73
THE WELSH REVIVAL
74
of bitterness, rancor, unfriendliness, jealousy, and

all those who have injured us, or, a much
spirits
have forgiven
whom we
have injured, we shall be better prepared to receive the outpouring of the divine blessing which
harder task,
we
all
profess to desire.
After the revival has come, as
come
it
will if
we but make
by ejecting hatred, malice and uncharitableness

from our hearts, then a great duty will be laid upon the
room
for
it
churches to supply fresh interests for the
who have
The Rev.
new
converts,
given up everything that filled their leisure.

Dr. Morris, of Treorky, and ex-president of the
Baptist Union, told an interviewer of The South Wales Daily

News that he at least is fully alive to the importance of this
subject
"Do you know," he said, "this revival has thrown a

tremendous responsibility upon the churches?
Publichouses and football fields are being emptied of young men.
What
are the churches going to do with them?

Unfortunately, we in Wales are lamentably deficient in provision
for the development of the body, mind and spirit of a man.
I agree absolutely with the leading articles in The South
Wales Daily News, when they urge that Christianity should

provide for the education and development of the whole of
a man, and not merely a part of him.
The churches have
been brought face to face with a difficult problem. How
shall we keep our young people, now that they have been
induced to join the church ? In small places there is no
church ; no accommodation
moral well-being."
attraction in the
for their
"What would you

"
is
attempted
suggest as a means of meeting this
contingency?
"
My
suggestion would be the provision of an institu-
There should be young men's and young

women's parlors, separate classrooms, lecture-rooms, museums, and libraries. I would also advise the encouragement
of physical culture of course, we must guard against extremes but some means must be devised to hold our young
tional church.
WHAT OUGHT I TO DO
people, otherwise a great part of the
vival will be lost."
good
some
hints
Upon
from
my
this question possibly
Christmas story,
"Here
Am I
75
effect
of the re-
may be
Send
Me
gained
"
The
Revival:
Its
Power and Source
The
By
Revival:
Its
Power and Source
Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, D. D., London
[We are permitted by Dr. Morgan, who controls the copyright, to

condense into the following article a recent sermon by him to his people at Westminster Chapel, London, and published in the Christian
Commonwealth.
EDITORS.]
IT was my holy privilege to come into the center of this

wonderful work and movement.
Arriving in the morning
in the village, everything
seemed
quiet,
and we wended our
where a group of chapels stood. Oh, these

way
Thank God for them
Everychapels through Wales
thing was so quiet and orderly that we had to ask where the
to the place
meeting was.
there."
Not a
lad,
pointing
to
said, "In
made our way
a chapel,
single person outside.
We
through the open door, and just managed to get inside, and
found the chapel crowded from floor to ceiling with a great
mass of people.
THE THREE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEETINGS

It was a meeting characterized by a perpetual series of
It was a meeting charinterruptions and disorderliness.
acterized by a great continuity and an absolute order.
You say,
do you reconcile these things?" I do
"How
not reconcile them.
are both there.

If you put a
one of these meetings who knows
nothing of the language of the Spirit, and nothing of the
life of the Spirit, one of two things will happen to him.
man
He
They
into the midst of
will
either pass out saying,
or he himself will be swept up
79
"These men
by the
fire
are drunk,"
into the
kingdom
THE WELSH REVIVAL
8o
God. If you put a man down who knows the language

of the Spirit, he will be struck by this most peculiar thing.
I have never seen anything like it in my life ; while a man
of
is no
and the prayer merges into song, and
back into testimony, and back again into song for hour
These are the three occupaafter hour, without guidance.
is
praying
disturbed by the breaking out of song, there
sense of disorder,
tions
singing, prayer, testimony.
In the afternoon
meeting, equally
He came
ent.
hour and a
we were
full,
and
at another chapel,
this
into the meeting
He
and another
time Evan Roberts was pres-
when
it
had been on
for
an
could be
was punctuated perpetually by song and
Evan Roberts works on that plan,
prayer and testimony.
called
half.
spoke, but his address
if it
an address
I venture to say that if that address

never hindering any one.
Evan Roberts gave in broken fragments had been reported,
the whole of
utes.
As
it
could have been read in six or seven min-
the meeting went on, a
man
rose in the gallery
"So and
So," naming some man, "has decided

for Christ," and then in a moment the song began.
They
did not sing Songs of Praises, they sang Diolch Iddo, and
and
said,
It
the weirdness and beauty of it swept over the audience.
was a song of praise because that man was born again.
There are no inquiry rooms, no penitent forms, but some
worker announces, or an inquirer openly confesses Christ,

the name is registered and the song breaks out, and they go
to testimony and prayer.
In the evening I stood for three solid hours wedged so
That which imthat I could not lift my hands at all.
back
me most was
I stood wedged,
the congregation.
and I looked along the gallery of the chapel on my right,
and there were three women, and the rest were men packed
pressed
solidly in.
If
you could but
evidently colliers,
for
once have seen the men,
with the blue seam that told of their work
ITS
on
POWER AND SOURCE
their faces, clean
Many
of them
and
beautiful.
with heaven's
lit
own
81
Beautiful, did I say?

light, radiant with the
never was on sea and land.
Great rough, magnificent, poetic men by nature, but the nature had slumbered
To-day it is awakened, and I looked on many a
light that
long.
men
did not see me, did not see

the face of God and the
saw
Evan Roberts, but they
I left that evening, after having been in the
eternities.
meeting three hours, at 10:30, and it swept on, packed as it
was, until an early hour next morning, song and prayer and
and
face,
knew
that
testimony and conversion and confession of sin by leading

church-members publicly, and the putting of it away, and
thing to
human
no one indicating the next

do, no one checking the spontaneous movement.
the while no
all
leader,
THE MAN HIMSELF

Evan Roberts is hardly more than a
no orator ; with nothing of the
natural,
boy, simple and

masterfulness that
men as Wesley and Whitefield and

Dwight Lyman Moody no leader of men. One of the most
characterized
such
one of our papers said of Evan Roberts,

in a tone of sorrow, that he lacked the qualities of leaderbrilliant writers in
ship,
he
but some prophet did now arise

God has not
everything before him.
and the writer said
could
if
sweep
chosen that a prophet shall arise. It
Roberts is no orator, no leader.
What
Evan
mean now
is
quite true.
is
he
with regard to this great movement.

He is the mouthpiece
of the fact that there is no human guidance as to man or
The burden of what he says to the people is
organization.
It is not man ; do not wait for me
depend on God ;
obey the Spirit. But whenever moved to do so, he speaks
under the guidance of the Spirit. His work is not that of
this
appealing to
men
so
much
as that of creating an atmosphere
THE WELSH REVIVAL
82
by
calling
men
to follow the guidance of the Spirit in what-
ever the Spirit shall say to them.

God has set his hand upon the lad, beautiful in simplicity,
ordained in his devotion, lacking all the qualities that we
have looked for in preachers and prophets and leaders.

has put
him
in the forefront of this
movement
He
that the world
see that he does choose the things that are not to bring
to naught the things that are, the weak things of the world
may
confound the things that are mighty ; a man who lacks all
the essential qualities which we say make for greatness, in
order that through him in simplicity and power he may
move to victory.
to
PECULIARITIES OF THE
/
choirs,
is
am
want you
to
tising.
MOVEMENT
no preaching, no order, no hymn books, no

no organs, no collections and, finally, no adver-
There
not saying these things are wrong.

see
what God
is
doing.
simply
There were the
organs, but silent ; the ministers, but among the rest

of the people, rejoicing and prophesying with the rest, only
was no preaching.
Everybody is preaching. No
from
it
moves
and
day to day, week to week,
order,
yet
there
county to county, with matchless precision, with the order

Mr. Stead was asked if he thought
of an attacking force.
would spread to London, and he said, " It depends upon whether you can sing." He was not so wide of
the mark.
When these Welshmen sing, they sing the words
like men who believe them.
They abandon themselves to
their singing.
We sing as though we thought it would not be
the revival
by the man next to us. No choir,

I stood and
was all choir. And hymns
wonder and amazement as that congregation on
respectable to be heard
did I say ?
listened in
It
that night sang
hymn
without hymn-books.
after
^
hymn, long hymns, sung through
ITS
POWER AND SOURCE
The Sunday-school
family altar is
hymns and
is
having
having
the Bible
is
its
having
its
Welsh
those
No
harvest now.
The
harvest now.
its
harvest now.
among
83
The
hills
advertising.
teaching of
and
valleys
The whole
You tell me the press is advertising

thing advertises itself.
it.
did
not
advertising until the thing caught
begin
They
fire
and spread. One of the most remarkable things is the

Welsh press. I come across instance after
attitude of the
men
converted by reading the story of the revival in The Western Mail'and The South Wales Daily News.
instance of
THE ORIGIN OF THE MOVEMENT

name of God let us all cease trying to
In the
least let us cease trying to trace
You
it
to
any one
find
man
At
it.
or con-
and yet I will trace it toAll

over Wales I am giving
night.
you roughly the result of the questioning of fifty or more
persons at random in the week a praying remnant have
vention.
cannot trace
Whence has
it
come
it,
been agonizing before God about the state of the beloved

land, and it is through that the answer of fire has come.
You
tell
me
that the revival originates with Roberts.
is a product of the revival.

You tell me
an Endeavor meeting where a dear girl bore
I tell you that was part of the result of a revival
you
that Roberts
that
it
began
I tell
in
testimony.
breaking out everywhere.
you and I could stand above

Wales, looking at it, you would see fire breaking out here
and there, and yonder, and somewhere else, without any
If
collusion or prearrangement.
which God
let
me
It
is
a divine visitation in
say this reverently
in
which
God
is
See what I can do without the things you are

depending on ; see what I can do in answer to a praying
people ; see what I can do through the simplest who are
saying to us
ready to
upon me.
fall
in line
and depend wholly and absolutely
THE WELSH REVIVAL
84
A CHURCH
What
is
REVIVAL
the character of this revival
a church re-
It is
do not mean by that merely a revival among

church members. It is that, but it is held in church buildI have been saying for a long time that the revival
ings.
which is to be permanent in the life of a nation must be asI
vival.
sociated with the
life
for is that there shall
regular church
life.
of the churches.
What
am
looking
come a revival breaking out in all our

The meetings are held in the chapels,
up and down the valleys, and it began among churchmembers, and when it touches the outside man it makes
him into a church-member at once. I am tremendously
suspicious of any mission or revival movement that treats
with contempt the Church of Christ, and affects to despise
all
the churches.
Within
five
weeks twenty thousand have
I think more than that have been conjoined the churches.

the
churches
in Wales have enrolled during the
verted, but
last
five
movement
weeks twenty thousand new members. It is a

in the Church and of the Church, a movement in
which the true functions and

exercised
and
forces of the
Church are being
filled.
STRIKING CASES OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE
What
effect is this
is
There
is
all,
think.
work producing upon men ?
First of
into
evangelists.
turning Christians everywhere
nothing more remarkable about it than that, I
People you never expected to see doing this kind of
it
friend of
thing are becoming definite personal workers.
mine went to one of the meetings, and he walked down to
the meeting with an old friend of his, a deacon of the Con-
man whose piety no one doubted, a man

had worked in the life of the church in
departments, but a man who never would think
gregational church, a
who
for long years
some of
its
ITS
POWER AND SOURCE
85
men about their souls, although he would not

have objected to some one else doing it. As my friend
"I
walked down with the deacon, the deacon said to him
of speaking to
have eighteen young
men
which
in an athletic class of
am
hope some of them will be in the meeting topresident.

There
was a new manifestation. This man had had
night.
that athletic class for years, and he had never hoped that
any one of them would be in any meeting to be saved.
Within fifteen minutes he left his seat by my friend and was
I
' '
Presseen talking to a young man down in front of him.

So
and
"Thank
God
for
deacon
rose
and
this
said,
ently
So," giving his name; "he has given his heart to Christ
In a moment or two he left him, and was with
right here."
another young man.
Before that meeting closed that deacon had led every one of those eighteen young men to Jesus
Christ, who never before thought of speaking to men about
their souls.
My own friend,
with
whom
reticent of speaking to
men,
I stayed,
told
me
who
has always been

sitting in his
how,
office, there surged upon him the great conviction that he

ought to go and speak to another man with whom he had
done business for long years. My friend suddenly put down

his pen and left his office and went on 'Change, and there
he saw the very man ; and going up to him, passing the
time of day to him, the man said to him, " What do you
of this revival?"
And my friend looked
" How is it with
squarely in the eye and said,
your
think
soul?"
at
him
own
The man looked back at him and said, "Last

twelve, for some unknown reason, I had to get
night
out of bed and give myself to Jesus Christ, and I was
hungering for some one to come and talk to me." Here is

a man turned into an evangelist by supernatural means.
If
this is emotional, then
God send
us more of
it
cool, calculating, business ship owner, that I
Here
is
have known
THE WELSH REVIVAL
86
my
all
life,
leaving his office to go on 'Change and ask a
man about his soul.

Down in one of
the mines a collier was walking along,

to his great surprise, to where one of the prinThe official said,
cipal officials in the mine was standing.
"Jim, I have been waiting two hours here for you."
!
*
and he came,
"What do you want?"

you, sir?" said Jim.
"I want to be saved, Jim." The man said, " Let us get
and there in the mine the colliery
right down here
"Have
' '
by the collier, passed into the kingdom

he got up he said, " Tell all the men, tell
official, instructed
of God.
When
everybody you meet,
The movement
confession of sin
is
am
'
converted."
characterized by the most remarkable
confessions that must be costly.
heard
fj
some of them, men rising who have been members of the

church and officers of the church, confessing hidden sin in
their heart, impurity committed and condoned, and seeking
The whole movement is marprayer for its putting away.
velously characterized by a confession of Jesus Christ, testimony to his power, to his goodness, to his beneficence, and
testimony merging forevermore into outbursts of singing.

This whole thing is of God ; it is a visitation in which he
|j
making men conscious of Himself, without any human

The revival is far more wide-spread than the fire
agency.
is
In this sense you may understand that the fire zone

where the meetings are actually held, and where you feel
the flame that burns.
But even when you come out of it,
and go into railway trains, or into a shop, a bank, anywhere,
zone.
is
|
I
men everywhere
not
is
Whether they obey or

are talking of God.
There are thousands not yielded to
another matter.
God has given Wales in these

and
consciousness
of himself.
That
a
new
conviction
days
the constraint of God, but
is
the profound thing, the underlying truth.
FOR THE PROMOTION OF
ttmupliam
THE PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC
COMMITTEE ORDERED
FOR PERSONAL WORKERS by
10,000
STUDIES
Howard Agnew Johnston.
Studies covering the principal fea-
Work. Adapted
Church and Young People's
tures of Personal
Cloth, 66 cents, postpaid
'Paper, 45 cents
for
Classes, or for individual
study*
NDIVIDUAL WORK FOR
I INDIVIDUALS,
by the late
H. Clay Trumbull. Incidents
\ 3,000
of personal conversations in the

experience of the author, -who was
Cloth,
75 cents, postpaid
35 cents
'Paper,
one of the most remarkable personal workers of this generation*
ISSUED BY
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF YOUNG MEN'S

CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS
We
have special editions of each of the above works

use in the Evangelistic campaign. Order from
ilgrim
for
BRANCHES AT NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
THE WELSH REVIVAL
86
my
all
life,
leaving his office to go on 'Change and ask a
man about his soul.

Down in one of
and he came,
the mines a collier was walking along,

where one of the prin-
to his great surprise, to
cipal officials in the

I
"Jim,
"Have
"I
mine was standing.
sir?" said Jim.

want to be saved, Jim."
right
The
official said,
have been waiting two hours here
you,
down
' '
here
you."
you want?"
The man said, " Let us get
and there
for
"What do
in the
mine the
colliery
by the collier, passed into the kingdom

he got up he said, " Tell all the men, tell
instructed
official,
of God.
When
everybody you meet,
The movement
confession of sin
is
am
"
converted."
characterized
by the most remarkable
confessions that must be costly.
heard
some of them, men rising who have been members of the

church and officers of the church, confessing hidden sin in
their heart, impurity committed and condoned, and seeking
The whole movement is marprayer for its putting away.
velously characterized
mony
by a confession of Jesus
Christ, testi-
to his power, to his goodness, to his beneficence,
and
testimony merging forevermore into outbursts of singing.

This whole thing is of God ; it is a visitation in which he
making men conscious of Himself, without any human

The revival is far more wide-spread than the fire
agency.
is
In this sense you may understand that the fire zone

where the meetings are actually held, and where you feel
the flame that burns.
But even when you come out of it,
and go into railway trains, or into a shop, a bank, anywhere,
zone.
is
men everywhere
not
is
Whether they obey or

are talking of God.
There are thousands not yielded to
another matter.
God has given Wales in these

That
and
consciousness
of himself.
a
new
conviction
days
is the profound thing, the underlying truth.
the constraint of God, but
FOR THE PROMOTION OF
THE PRESBYTERIAN EVANGELISTIC

COMMITTEE ORDERED
FOR PERSONAL WORKERS by
10,000
STUDIES
Howard Agne<iv Johnston.
Studies covering the principal fea-
Work, Adapted
Church and Young People's
tures of Personal
Cloihf 66 cents, postpaid
'Paper,
45 cents
for
Classes, or for individual
study.
NDIVIDUAL WORK FOR
I INDIVIDUALS,
H
13,000
by the
late
Clay TrumbulL Incidents
of personal conversations in the
Cloth,
75 cents, postpaid
"Paper,
35 cents
experience of the author, -who -was

one of the most remarkable personal workers of this generation,
*
ISSUED BY
THE INTERNATIONAL, COMMITTEE OF YOUNG MEN'S

CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS
We
have special editions of each of the above works

use in the Evangelistic campaign. Order from
ilgrim
for
* *
BRANCHES AT NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
cMarch
lt
1905
The Needed
Religious
Discipline for
Youth
SHOWN BY PSYCHOLOGICAL
AS
STUD-
OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE

CHILD INTO THE MAN ^J ^J ^? ^> ^?
IES
Rev. Charles E. McKinley
By
Price, $1.25 net
Pp. 265
VERY TIMELY BOOK
CONTENTS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
An
Introduction to
The Drama
The Genesis
Where
Youth
Youth
of Christian Character
Christian Nurture Fails
The Evangelism
of Jesus
Personal Adjustment
Graded Gospel
The
School
IX Aims and
of
-of
Worship
Expectations
Agencies and Methods
NewYor,
Chicago
BOSTON
3117
11
'345- -003-
^m^^.;
UNIVERSITY OF
LIBRARY
345

Stead - The Welsh Revival

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L,bc

herewith given, was

magazine which he edits,

account by Rev. G. Campbell

authors have kindly cabled us

permission to reprint these

JO cents ; $1.00 per dozen

OF THE MORGAN LEAFLET ALONE

Power and Source

Ube pilgrim press

Power and Source

"Behold, I bring you good

Ube BMlarim press

FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE READER

THE NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF REVIVALS

POWER AND SOURCE

FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE READER

I have witI am a child of the revival of 1859-60.

have been urged and entreated to speak in public on the

strain which public speaking always makes

so true as in times of revival that

the psychological moment so much insisted upon

at the flood, leads

the voyage of their life

admit in other departments of

THE WELSH REVIVAL

preface my narrative, as is the custom in all

rather than for things at secondI came to be able to speak

hand, by stating briefly

was a child of eleven.

were earnest, devoted evangelical Christians. Independents

and a sense of the exceeding sinfulness

by every childish fault of selfishness or of temper how true

the fashion of our

such striving after

Ideal as morbid ; but although the phraseology may

so good, and I was so bad

FROM AUTHOR TO READER

not to have done, and left undone

had a passionate longing

who had suffered

in our stead, to save

have no remembrance of anything beyond the soothing caress of

had gone ; and although I had not in any way experienced

when the revival which had

in the year 1860,

There were about

Conwhich some sons of laymen

and in 1860 had not been distinctly religious. All of us

some of the lads started a prayer-meeting of their

THE WELSH REVIVAL

went more out of

The majority of the

Suddenly, one day, after the prayer-meeting had been going

we did know was

came about no one ever knew.

scended from the sky, with the suddenness of a drenching

The summer-house was crowded with boys. A deputation

was very sympathetic and