One of the most intense and spiritually transforming revivals occurred in what was the vast coal mining area of South Wales. It is reckoned that 150,000 souls were saved within a year, and communities changed almost beyond belief. Here are some descriptions of what was happening towards the end of 1904.¹
Just after 11pm on a Wednesday evening, the words of the hymn “Here is love vast as the ocean”² reached the ears and touched the hearts of maybe 1,000 people squeezing into every spare corner of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Abertillery. They had been there for more than four hours, in a service of intense emotion. Meetings like it were taking place across Wales night after night, with fervent prayer and passionate singing - and similar disregard for the clock.
The chapel was filled to capacity for a prayer meeting that lasted until 3.00am. Soul winning spread through the coalmines. Profane swearing stopped. Productivity in the mines increased. Even the pit ponies were confused by the change in their masters’ behaviour, as coaxing replaced kicking and cursing.
The chapel was packed in the afternoon ... and there was a warmer feeling in the assembly from the start. Probably this was due to the spirit which a company of colliery workmen - black faces, working clothes, and boxes and jacks - imparted when they dropped into the meeting on their way home ... and started in a spirited manner the songs of the revival, creating a fervour which did not flag during the remainder of the meeting.
Some deeply intelligent, but unconverted, men who had always led exemplary lives, would feel such sorrow of soul as made them tremble, turn deathly pale, and cry out for the prayers of their brethren. Others, very different in their past record, were, even when sodden in drink, so overwhelmed that they professed to be unable to continue in their drunken way, but were forced up to the Schoolroom or Chapel, preferring to wait there until they had sobered than fail to give themselves to the Lord.
On 11th January 1905, The Times noted that David Lloyd-George, later to become Prime Minister, said the Welsh revival gave hope “that at the next election Wales would declare with no uncertain sound against the corruption in high places which handed over the destiny of the people to the horrible brewing interest.”
The Times also observed that
The whole population had been suddenly stirred by a common impulse. Religion had become the absorbing interest of their lives. They had gathered at crowded services for six and eight hours at a time. Political meetings, and even football matches, were postponed ... quarrels between trade-union workmen and non-unionists had been made up ... At Glyn-Neath a feud had existed for 10 or 12 years between the two Independent chapels but, during the past week, united services have been held in both chapels, and the ministers have shaken hands before the congregations.
Four years later, David Collier, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church wrote:
Men who had not taken one penny home in 17 years now took all home. Houses became decently furnished, women and children became decently clad. The public houses became practically empty. Bridges and walls, instead of being covered with obscene remarks, were now covered with lines from Bible and hymn book. The streets echoed with hymns, rather than the drunkard’s songs.
Alas, that so many of the converts have fallen away - fallen away through such causes as always operate; but for the glory of God and the encouragement of men, let it be known that drunkards, swearers, gamblers of the most abandoned and hopeless type became holy men, that backsliders of 20 years returned to the fold, men who had entered only on the profession of religion, entered into its power, and they are with us still.
Evan Roberts (1878-1951)
Evan Roberts was a key figure in the revival, but he did not organise or control it. In fact, no single man directed it. It seemed to break out spontaneously in several places. But it was said that God used Roberts because of his simplicity and spiritual power. He had been a miner and blacksmith with little theological background, but with a heart to see souls saved. He said “The movement is not of me, it is of God. I would not dare to try to direct it. Obey the Spirit, that is our word in everything. It is the Spirit alone which is leading us in our meetings and in all that is done.”
He was one of 14 children born to Henry and Hannah Roberts. The spiritual atmosphere of his home and chapel shaped his life, and he developed a love of literature and music. A devout young lad, he would take his Bible everywhere with him, including down the mine to read during rest periods. One day an explosion took the lives of five of his fellow miners. He narrowly escaped, but the flames scorched the pages of the Bible he was reading (at 2 Chronicles 6). Later, pictures of his scorched Bible became a symbol of the fire of revival in Wales.
During 1904, prayer meetings for world revival were being held in many places throughout Great Britain. Evan Roberts had already prayed for 13 years for the Holy Spirit to control him. He regularly spent three to four hours every night in communion with the Lord until, in October 1904, he felt the Holy Spirit leading him to become a preacher of revival. Seth Joshua, a leading Bible teacher, had been asking God for four years to select someone for this task. Roberts went to hear Joshua at Blaenannerch. He closed the service praying “Lord ... bend us.” Roberts went to the front, knelt, and with deep feeling cried “Lord, bend me.” He later said “I felt ablaze with a desire to go through the length and breadth of Wales to tell of my Saviour”, and this he began to do in late 1904. He said to his best friend, Sydney Evans, “Oh, Syd, we are going to see the mightiest revival that Wales has ever known - the Holy Spirit is coming just now”, and added, “We must get ready. We must get a little band and go all over the country preaching.” Suddenly Roberts stopped, looked at Sydney, and asked, “Do you believe that God can give us 100,000 now?” Within six months, 100,000 were converted in Wales. The influence of the revival was to bring much blessing in many other places beyond - Bradford, Leeds, and Nuneaton in England; Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh; Lurgan and Bangor University in Ireland, to mention only a few.
While preaching in North Wales, Roberts collapsed. He was a strong young man, a former miner, only 27 when God used him to such effect, but the burden of his work became too much for him. The rest of his life was spent in seclusion. During this revival there was much emotion, and the emphasis was on the moving of the Spirit. But it seems that there was very little real Bible teaching, so that the many new converts were not instructed. About a fifth of those saved in Wales joined newly-formed Pentecostal fellowships, which also proliferated in the USA.
A hundred years later so much has changed. The coal industry and other large industries have gone, the population has moved, the number of ‘church-goers’ in Abertillery, and throughout the UK, is a mere fraction of what it was in those thrilling days of dramatic conversions. It is right for us to pray, and to long for a repeat of revival days among us. But let us never overlook the less spectacular ways in which the Holy Spirit still moves in individuals and communities. Let us never forget the importance of teaching the Scriptures along with the preaching of the Gospel. And remember also the ‘Four Points’, which Roberts maintained were essential for personal revival:
• Put away any unconfessed sin.
• Put away any doubtful habit.
• Obey the Holy Spirit promptly.
• Confess Christ publicly.
¹ From The Times and the Abertillery South Wales Gazette.
² This lovely hymn (by William Rees) became known as ‘The Love Song of the Revival’.
Useful internet sources: www.openheaven.com
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales theologicalstudies.org.uk
