Evan Roberts
Welsh Revival
1878-1951
“Bend the Church, and save the world,” is the watchword of this revival.
You must ask the Spirit to bend you afresh. Oh Lord, bend me!
Evan Roberts speaks: “Let us see what God’s Spirit will do for us in a quiet meeting. It did wonderful things at Lougher when no one sung or spoke." A few moments later all are kneeling in five minutes of silent prayer. The crowded room is still except for quick gasps of sobbing breath from those who are deeply moved. Here and there a half audible voice is mumbling inarticulate prayer. Deeper yet grows time silence and more impressive. Wrinkled faces are upturned, and unseeing eyes look upward. Heads are bowed in folded hands. Shoulders are convulsed with emotion, and lips are moving from which no sound comes. Still the preacher gives no sign. Gradually a single low voice is heard in all parts of the chapel, singing sweetly the hymn, 'Have you seen Him?” in Welsh. For an instant there is time stillness of listening with bated breath; then slowly other voices join in singing until the building rings with thrilling melody. It is as if they have burst from prayer into song. And this is a scene of the revival which so respected a paper as the Lancet, evidently without investigating it except through time reports of the sensational papers and its own prejudice, calls “a debauch of emotionalism,” “a hysterical outburst,” marked with “scenes of disorder.”
The vision is passing out into virtue, and men are paying their debts, and abandoning the public-house, and treating their horses well. Oh, my masters! Did you say the next Revival would be ethical? It is that, because it is spiritual, and you will never get an ethical revival except in this way.
It was a meeting characterized by a perpetual series of interruptions and disorderliness. It was a meeting characterized by a great continuity and an absolute order. You say, “How do you reconcile these things?” I do not reconcile them. They are both there. I leave you to reconcile them.
The impulse appears to have been sporadic and spontaneous. In remote country hamlets, in mining villages buried in distant valleys, one man or one woman would have it laid upon his or her soul to pray that the Holy Spirit might be poured out upon the cause in which they were spiritually concerned. There does not seem to have been any organized effort anywhere.
A praying remnant have been agonizing before God about the state of the beloved land, and it is through that the answer of fire has come.
There are two essential functions to the Christian priesthood: The first is eucharistic, the giving of thanks; the other is intercessory, praying. That is all. That is going on. The Church everywhere singing and praying and offering praise, and pleading with God. Every meeting is made up almost exclusively of these things.
I believe the world is upon the threshold of a great religious revival, and I pray that I may be allowed to help bring this about. I beseech all those that profess Christ to ask Him today, upon their knees, if He has not some work for them to do now. He will lead them all as He has led us. He will make them pillars of smoke by day and pillars of fire by night to guide all men to Him.
You must ask the Spirit to bend you afresh. Oh Lord, bend me!
Evan Roberts speaks: “Let us see what God’s Spirit will do for us in a quiet meeting. It did wonderful things at Lougher when no one sung or spoke." A few moments later all are kneeling in five minutes of silent prayer. The crowded room is still except for quick gasps of sobbing breath from those who are deeply moved. Here and there a half audible voice is mumbling inarticulate prayer. Deeper yet grows time silence and more impressive. Wrinkled faces are upturned, and unseeing eyes look upward. Heads are bowed in folded hands. Shoulders are convulsed with emotion, and lips are moving from which no sound comes. Still the preacher gives no sign. Gradually a single low voice is heard in all parts of the chapel, singing sweetly the hymn, 'Have you seen Him?” in Welsh. For an instant there is time stillness of listening with bated breath; then slowly other voices join in singing until the building rings with thrilling melody. It is as if they have burst from prayer into song. And this is a scene of the revival which so respected a paper as the Lancet, evidently without investigating it except through time reports of the sensational papers and its own prejudice, calls “a debauch of emotionalism,” “a hysterical outburst,” marked with “scenes of disorder.”
The vision is passing out into virtue, and men are paying their debts, and abandoning the public-house, and treating their horses well. Oh, my masters! Did you say the next Revival would be ethical? It is that, because it is spiritual, and you will never get an ethical revival except in this way.
It was a meeting characterized by a perpetual series of interruptions and disorderliness. It was a meeting characterized by a great continuity and an absolute order. You say, “How do you reconcile these things?” I do not reconcile them. They are both there. I leave you to reconcile them.
The impulse appears to have been sporadic and spontaneous. In remote country hamlets, in mining villages buried in distant valleys, one man or one woman would have it laid upon his or her soul to pray that the Holy Spirit might be poured out upon the cause in which they were spiritually concerned. There does not seem to have been any organized effort anywhere.
A praying remnant have been agonizing before God about the state of the beloved land, and it is through that the answer of fire has come.
There are two essential functions to the Christian priesthood: The first is eucharistic, the giving of thanks; the other is intercessory, praying. That is all. That is going on. The Church everywhere singing and praying and offering praise, and pleading with God. Every meeting is made up almost exclusively of these things.
I believe the world is upon the threshold of a great religious revival, and I pray that I may be allowed to help bring this about. I beseech all those that profess Christ to ask Him today, upon their knees, if He has not some work for them to do now. He will lead them all as He has led us. He will make them pillars of smoke by day and pillars of fire by night to guide all men to Him.