RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Revivals of Religion
eleven countries, spoke in sixty cities — in Australia, China, Japan, and England. Late in the winter of 1910-11 he resumed work in Brooklyn, N. Y.
The period of Mills, Torrey, and Chapman has been the most fruitful in the history of revivals in American Christianity. Those named have had as associates and imitators men like A. C. Dixon, H. M. Wharton, Major Whittle, J. Arthur Smith, and others; and so their methods have been adopted in many places with greater or less effect.
S. B. Dunn.
IV. The Welsh Revival of 1904- 1906: Wales is
well known as the land of revivals. Owing to the
intense national spirit of the Welsh people these
awakenings possess characteristics
1. The which distinguish them from the gen- Welsh eral religious movements of Great People. Britain as a whole. Through the long
centuries of Saxon domination the inhabitants of Wales — who number, all told, less than one-half of the population of London — have preserved their independence in language, literature, and national consciousness. A fiery and imaginative race of mountaineers, imbued with a strong religious spirit, they have from time to time experienced great spiritual upheavals which have proved epochal in the life of the nation. Thus the revival^ of the eighteenth century under Daniel Rowlands and Howel Harris was a national renaissance which liberated the forces of Christian democracy in the principality and introduced a new era of progress and education.
The religious movement known as " The Great Welsh Revival " is the latest and most widely
known of these national awakenings.
2. The This revival covers a period of two Revival years — from the early part of 1904 to
Described, the beginning of 1906. During that time it is estimated that over 100,000 professed conversion. Of this number some 60,000 can be accounted for as being in 1910 members in good standing in the Protestant churches of Wales. The immediate ethical results of the movement were remarkable. A great wave of sobriety overswept the country so that the liquor trade suffered enormous financial losses; the decrease in criminal cases was no less remarkable; hundreds of outlawed debts were settled; goods stolen fifteen or twenty years before were returned to their owners; a phenomenal increase was recorded in the demand for good literature; feuds of long standing were healed; and sectarianism, a great curse of Welsh national life, was softened by a larger charity and a deeper consciousness of an underlying unity. The movement must not be confused with the organized missions that were held about this time in various parts of Great Britain. The genius of the Welsh revival was quite distinct from that of any of these missions. It was spontaneous, unconventional, and without organization of any sort. None of its " leaders " was over thirty years of age, and none was a great preacher. Most of the workers were from the humble walks of life and were comparatively uneducated. Some of the most successful were young girls, under twenty, who assisted at the meetings with exhortation and song. In X.— 2
method — or its absence — the services have been termed a triumph for Quakerism; " obedience to the Spirit " was the only condition insisted upon. Only very rarely was a sermon attempted; the meetings were devoted to prayer, song, testimony, and exhortation, and seldom concluded before the small hours of the morning. They were characterized by far less violent demonstrations than previous revivals in the principality. The burden of the revival-message was the love of God. As is usually the case in Wales, there were many apparently occult phenomena — visions, voices, and signs in the heavens (see § 6, below).
So far as the origin of the movement can be traced at all, it appears to have begun in Feb., 1904, in New Quay, Carmarthenshire, South Wales. Revival manifestations were first noticed in the local Calvinistic Methodist Church, of 3. Its which Joseph Jenkins was pastor. Origin. Later, a convention was held in Blaenanerch where there were many indications of a spiritual awakening. This convention was attended by a young man who was to I e known later as the " leader " of the revival — Evan John Roberts, at that time a candidate for the Welsh Presbyterian ministry and student in a preparatory school in Newcastle Emlyn, South Wales. In the autumn of the same year the revival flame that had been nickering obscurely in New Quay and other places, burst forth and quickly spread over the country, sweeping upward from the South to the mountainous extremities of northern Wales and subduing all before it. The remarkable scenes witnessed were reported in the English press and presently aroused the interest of the entire civilized world. By this time Evan Roberts had become the central figure of the awakening; still, to designate him the "leader" of the revival is to contradict the real genius of the movement, which, throughout, was without organization or executive direction. The revival was really begun before Roberts started upon his apostolate; but undoubtedly he became the chief and most honored representative of the movement.
Evan John Roberts was born on July 8, 1878.
He is of humble parentage and is the ninth of a
family of fourteen children; of these, two sisters are
living in the United States. His birth-
4. Evan place is Bwlchymynydd, Loughor, John South Wales, a small mining town of
Roberts; 3,000 or 4,000 inhabitants. He was Early Life, brought up in the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church (see Presbyterians. IV.), of which his parents are members and which he himself joined at the age of thirteen. When eleven years old Roberts left school and went to work as door-boy in a local coal mine where his father also labored. Here he narrowly escaped death in a coal-truck accident, and, later on, in a colliery explosion A third narrow escape happened toward the end of the revival when, a few yards from a steep precipice, he was thrown from a carriage drawn by a runaway team. At twenty-four Evan Roberts left the mines and apprenticed himself to the trade of his uncle, Evan Edwards, a blacksmith. A year later he was accepted as candidate for the Welsh
Eevivals of Religion