The Report of a Great Revival
FROM an article in The Independent, by David Williams, we take the following statements descriptive of the great religious revival in Wales, the news of which has reached all parts of the civilized world:— It was in the prayer-meetings that the movement began. There was a certain intensity of feeling, and then young men whose voices had never been heard in public began to pray, and young women began to sing and speak in the congregation. Dozens of members were added to the church; and when the good news spread abroad, the pastor and his young assistants were invited into other churches. During a service held by them at Blaenanerch, where the revival of 1859 began, a young man named Evan Roberts felt that the Spirit had descended upon him, as on the day of Pentecost. He rose up, went back to Casllwchwr in Glamorgan, where he was born, and began to preach. The revival began among a rural population, but the preaching of Roberts took it among an industrial population, and the blaze of Cardigan became a conflagration in Glamorgan. At the present time all Wales is on its knees every night, and hundreds of day meetings are held. The people think and talk and dream of nothing else. Temperance and other religious meetings dated weeks before are changed by common consent into revival meetings. Lecturers come to fill engagements; but if they happen to be ministers, they are pressed to preach instead. Travelers gather at a station, but before the train arrives, a young woman begins to sing, and a prayer-meeting follows. Fairs are held to buy and sell, but the people remain to pray. The miners run out of trams in the pits, and a prayer-meeting is held in the depths. An accident occurs in the pits, making it necessary to bring the men to the top, and they hold a prayer-meeting at the shaft while waiting for the cages. Meetings are held in front of the taverns and the theaters before7proceeding to the churches or halls. Of the central figure in the movement, Evan Roberts, it is stated: “Roberts is a young man twenty-six years old and single. He is the son of a pumper, and at the age of twelve he became his father’s helper in the mines.” Later he became a divinity student, and “while thus engaged, he attended the meeting at Blaenanerch, and received the message which sent him to his native place at Casllwchwr. . . . He had been a great Bible student for years, taking his Bible with him daily down into the pits, to be read during any leisure minutes offered.” Of Mr. Roberts’s revival methods it is said:— When Roberts enters a hall or church where hundreds await his coming, he asks for a short prayer, and on the instant some one responds. He then asks for a song, and a young woman begins singing,—some familiar air,—and the congregation joins, repeating those old Welsh tunes that combine the sublimity of the mountains and the roar of the sea. Then Roberts speaks, without a text and without entering the pulpit. He continues sometimes for an hour, frequently interrupted by part or choral singing. He believes the movement is fulfilling the prophecy of Joel 2: 28: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions,” etc. The following four points are emphasized by Mr. Roberts as necessary conditions precedent to the reception of the Spirit:— - Wipe out the past. Confess your sins to God, and begin anew.
- Remove everything doubtful, habit, practise, pleasure, sport, or business.
- Obey implicitly and immediately the promptings of the Spirit.
- Confess Christ in public, profession privately being insufficient.
It is further characteristic of this revival movement, says Mr. Williams, that there is an entire absence of any effort to excite fear. No mention is made of future punishment. “It is a revival without a hell, and the love of God for his children is the great thought presented.” The movement began last summer, and by the end of the year had added thirty-five thousand members to the churches. Of the results Mr. Williams says further:— The movement is killing sectarianism, which has been the bane of Welsh Protestantism in the past, and all the churches are holding union meetings where necessary. . . . It is bringing an era of good feeling by healing all differences between church-members, and some of the most sensational incidents of the meetings have been the public apologies and adjustments of differences. . . . Liquor drinking has been greatly reduced in many places, and a number of taverns are closed for want of patronage. Arrests for drunkenness have been reduced fully seventy-five per cent in some towns. The theaters have been closed in the middle of the season, and many theatrical troupes have abandoned the principality. Clubs and dancing halls have been deserted. Quarreling and profanity are heard on the streets no longer, crimes and misdemeanors are rarer, and drivers in the pits and the carters are more human. . . . Churchmen agree that the movement is the greatest visitation of benign influence in the history of the island. L. A. S.