On December 31st 1903 and January 1st 1904, Joseph Jenkins a minister in New Quay Cardiganshire, who was undoubtedly a key man in the Revival, held a "Deeper Spiritual Life Convention". Joseph had been seeking an enduement of power, and shared the testimony of his experience of the Holy Spirit engulfing him as a flame of fire. This was to impact his Church.
On February 14th, in a Sunday service at his Chapel, a young woman named Florrie Evans stood to her feet and publicly confessed "I love the Lord Jesus with all my heart". As she spoke these words the Holy Spirit seemed to fall on the meeting. Many say this was the real
beginning of the Revival. A move of God took place in that Church, as after-church meetings were held to seek the Lord's presence and empowerment, and God began baptising - initially young people, mainly girls and women in their teens and early twenties - with the Holy Spirit, and the fire quickly spread to other young people in the Cardiganshire area.
In September of the same year, Forward Movement Evangelist Seth Joshua was addressing a Convention which included these Spirit-filled young people, at Blaenanerch, just 5 miles north of Cardigan. Seth himself had been praying for years that God would raise up a young man from the coal pits to revive the churches - little did he know that on Thursday September 29th 1904 his prayer was to be answered in a life changing experience for one 26 year old student, Evan Roberts.
Evan Roberts
During the spring of 1904 a young Welshman named Evan Roberts was repeatedly awakened at 1:00 a.m. He met with God in prayer until 5:00 a.m.
Evan Roberts was born in 1878, in Loughor near Swansea, and left school at 11 to go and work down in the coalmine with his father until his early 20's, when he became a blacksmith's apprentice with his uncle in nearby Pontarddulais.
Evan had a thirst for spiritual things from an early age. The story is often told of how he would take his Bible down the mine to read it during rest periods. One day there was an explosion that took the lives of five of his fellow workers. He narrowly escaped death, but the flames scorched the pages of the Bible he was reading. Later, when the revival came, pictures of Evan Roberts' scorched Bible were sent around the world - epitomizing the fire that had fallen on Wales.
For years, Evan had been a faithful member of Moriah Calvinistic Methodist Chapel at Loughor. Having been converted as a young teenager, he was a Sunday School Superintendent, a conscientious reader of the main theological works of his day, and more than that, he had been praying for revival for over 11 years, and he continued
to pray regularly that God would again visit Wales, in Revival Power. Determined to do his part, he felt compelled to go into the Calvinistic Methodist Ministry, and on September 13th 1904, he became a pupil of the Newcastle Emlyn Grammar School to prepare for Trefecca Theological College.
It was only two and a half weeks after arriving that he found himself at Blaenanerch - and at a crossroads in his spiritual experience. He received a mighty Baptism of the Holy Spirit, which would lead him back to the young people of his own church Moriah, Loughor. On his return to Loughor, he went to the prayer meeting, and asked those who were seeking for a deeper spiritual life to stay behind. He shared with those who stayed what God was doing in New Quay, and what had happened to him. Prophesying that Revival would break out in two weeks, he gave them keys for receiving the Holy Spirit:-
(1) Confess all known sin to God, receiving forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
(2) Remove anything from your life that you are in doubt or feel unsure about.
(3) Be totally yielded and obedient to the Holy Spirit.
(4) Publicly confess the Lord Jesus Christ.
Slowly and quietly, Evan spoke of the deep things of God and Christ, the hours passing quite unobserved, while tears coursed uninterruptedly over the cheeks of his listeners. People passing by the church commented freely and wonderingly upon the unusual spectacle of lights burning in full blaze at such an hour.
Inside the building strange things were happening. Young men and women who had never been known to speak openly of any experience of saving grace stood and testified fearlessly. Others were bowed in prayer. Some sang the hymns of Zion. Tears, sobs, and songs of praise were intermingled, continuing until near midnight. Planning to meet the following evening, the happy throng dispersed in all directions. The next day the event was the talk of the village, and that evening, the chapel was packed with people, many coming out of curiosity. Revival broke out in Loughor, and within two weeks the Welsh Revival was national news! Evan Roberts and Loughor, from this point, became the main focus of the Revival, although many others were involved.
When it became known that some of the outstanding characters of the neighbourhood had been converted after withstanding gospel appeals of eminent preachers for a lifetime, and that these were declaring newfound joy and faith without shame or fear, the excitement became tense. Rumours sped far and wide.
Down in the bowels of the earth, miners not only discussed the services, but sang boisterously the grand old, almost forgotten hymns, learned in their childhood.
This was a Revival with youth on fire - young men, yes and especially young women. It was the prophecy of Joel chapter 2 being fulfilled. After the first stirrings at New Quay, young women continued to play a vital role in the Revival - Florrie Evans went on a team to North Wales with her friend Maud - others used their voices as instruments of God's message, and amongst the most well known was Annie Davies of Maesteg who travelled with Evan Roberts and his team.
Revival teams, consisting of young people, mostly Spirit-filled young women, led by such men as Joseph Jenkins the minister at New Quay, Forward Movement Evangelist Seth Joshua, Sydney Evans who was Evan Roberts' friend at College, and Evan Roberts himself, travelled throughout Wales with their Spirit-led teams, conducting evangelistic revival meetings.
Meetings went on for many hours - often for more than 10 without a break. People lost all sense of time and churches were so full that crowds gathered outside until they could somehow squeeze their way in.
The meetings broke with the conventional and bypassed the traditional - often the ministers just sat down, unable to preach or even to understand the phenomena that took over their usually sedate churches and chapels - and the mighty move of God that impacted them was a manifestation of love and power which completely transformed thousands of lives. The Revival rapidly spread all over Wales, as churches "caught the fire" and the Spirit moved throughout the land, in great power. News of dramatic conversions, confession of sin, and songs of joy spread rapidly.
Wherever Evan Roberts went the Holy Spirit brought deep conviction of sin and a new spiritual dimension into the lives of formerly cold churchgoers. Evan was not an expository preacher and his method was prayer and exhortation, leading to a moving of the Holy Spirit bringing deep conviction.
In one of the valley communities, young men and women walked in procession through the streets, singing hymns and visiting public houses to invite those inside to come to the revival. Many of the places were completely deserted and others had their trade depleted.
In one such drinking place there was one solitary customer sitting gloomily alone. Suddenly the evening air was rent with the jubilant voices of happy songsters, just outside the door. So infuriated were the man and woman in charge at the audacity of these zealous youths that they picked up some of the empty ale-pots and flung them recklessly at the happy youngsters. Disgusted with the conduct of his host and hostess, the solitary patron rose from his seat, joined the enthusiastic processionists, then went with them to the church, where he surrendered to Christ!
There was a new excitement about eternal things. Family devotions and public prayer meetings were started and continued regularly for years. The sales of Bibles increased to such a degree that the shops sold their entire stocks. Everywhere there was a new spirit of prayer and an urgency to preach the Gospel.
The effects of the Revival were not confined to Wales. Reports were distributed internationally in newspaper and magazine reports and the Holy Spirit repeated what He had done in Wales from America to Australia. Evan Roberts prayed for 100,000 converts, and it is estimated that there were, in fact, well over 150,000.
The Effects of the Revival
As revival fire spread across Wales in late 1904 and early 1905, although no official records were kept of the actual number converted, 150,000 is considered a very conservative estimate, during the first six months! People's lives were transformed by the thousands. This was indeed, a sovereign move of God's Holy Spirit!
Whole communities were turned upside down, and were radically changed from depravity to glorious goodness. The crime rate dropped, often to nothing. The police force reported that they had little more to do than supervise the coming and going of the people to the chapel prayer meetings, while magistrates turned up at courts to discover no cases to try. The alcohol trade was decimated, as people were caught up more by what happened in the local chapels than the local public houses and bars. Families experienced amazing renewal, where the money earning husband and father, the bread winner, had wasted away the income and sowed discord, but now under the moving power of the Holy Spirit, following the conversion to be a follower of Jesus Christ, he not only provided correctly for family needs, but was now with the family, rather than wasting his time, and wages, in the public houses of the village or town. Souls were saved, individual lives were changed and Society itself was changed. Countless numbers were converted to Christ.
There are men and women still in churches today whose parents or grandparents' testimonies were that they were converted in the Revival in 1904 or 1905. Not only were individual lives changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, but whole communities were changed, indeed society itself was changed. Wales again was a God-fearing
nation! Public houses were now almost empty. Men and women who used to waste their money getting drunk were saving it, giving it to help their churches, buying clothes and food for their families. And not only drunkenness, but stealing and other offences grew less and less, so that often a magistrate came to court, and found there were no cases for him.
Men whose language had been filthy before, learnt to talk purely. It is related that not only did the colliers put in a better day's work, but also that the pit ponies were so used to being cursed and sworn at, that they just couldn't understand orders being given in kind, clean words! Yet, still the work output increased. The dark tunnels underground in the mines echoed with the sounds of prayer and hymns, instead of oaths and nasty jokes and gossip.
People who had been careless about paying their bills, or paying back money they had borrowed, paid up all they owed. People who had fallen out became friends again.
