Evan Roberts will be leaving Pontycymmer tomorrow morning. Since he came to the village on Wednesday he has revolutionised its religious and social life as no man has ever done before. The effects of his work are visible everywhere. Nothing else is talked about but the revival, and Evan Roberts’s name is on every tongue. He is surrounded by people wherever, he goes. Children follow him, and find a new joy in life by talking to him or touching his hand. He has had only one hour’s sleep since he has been in the village, but his vigour and enthusiasm are undiminished.

When I called upon him this afternoon he looked as fresh as if he had been resting like any other man. His health is excellent. Mrs. Maddocks, who is his hostess, told me that he eats very little food, and she never knows when to expect him to his meals. There was a gentleman from Cardiff in the house at the time I called, and be was pressing Mr Roberts to come to the Welsh Metropolis and hold a meeting or meetings in the Torrey-hall.

“I prayed this morning,” said the young revivalist, “but there was no bidding for me to go to Cardiff. and until I receive a message from God I shall not go there.”

What is your programme for the future?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” be replied, except that I go to Bridgend tomorrow and to Abercynon for the whole of next week.”

“Have you heard anything from the Methodist authorities to the effect that you are to cease your work as a revivalist?”

“No. I don’t want to say anything on the subject except that I don’t believe they will interfere with me, a surmise which, I understand, is confirmed by Methodist leaders in your columns.”

When asked to relate some of his most stirring experiences Mr. Roberts shook his head and, after a long pause, said: “I would rather not speak. I want to keep myself in the background. I saw in one paper that the success of those meetings was attributed to my personal magnetism. Nonsense!”

“Is it true that no watch you carry will keep time?”

“Yes; that is perfectly true. No watch will keep time with me.”

In the course of a general conversation Mr. Roberts remarked that the press had been of great assistance, and added, “Especially the ‘Western Mail.’ They have been very good.”

He also said that Thursday was the greatest day of his life. It appears that some remarkable scenes were witnessed at a prayer meeting yesterday morning. Mr. Maddocks, the young revivalist’s host, told me that he remembered the revival of 1859.

“It was nothing like this one,” he said. “I never saw such a thing as that prayer meeting yesterday morning. Mr Roberts fell prostrate, and remained with his face on the floor for some time. He seemed to be in agony. I shall never forget the meeting. Then, between midnight and two o’clock this morning the state of feeling in the service was quite beyond imagination. One young man who had come from a dance stood up before the end of the meeting and made open confession. Scores of notorious drunkards were there, and they are now changed men.”

Speaking to one of the people prominently identified with the revival, Evan Roberts made this remarkable statement:-,

“When I go out to the garden I see the devil grinning at me, but I am not afraid of him; I go into the house, and, when I go out again to the back I see Jesus Christ smiling at me. Then I know all is well. ”

Four young ladies who had come under the spell of the “Welsh Wesley,” and who were not religiously disposed prior, to this week, are now full of zeal and enthusiasm One of them is a beautiful singer, and she and three others banded themselves together and made a round of the public-houses and the clubs, where they sang hymns and induced men who were drinking there to come to the meeting at Bethel.

I used to go to dances,” said one of them. “and I thought I could never give it up, but I shall never go to a dance again.” She spoke these words at the close of the afternoon prayer meeting. Evan Roberts was there, and he was observed to be weeping like a child.

The whole village, if not, indeed, the entire Garw Valley, is in a maelstrom of religious emotion. From two o’clock until nearly four o’clock this morning a large number of men grouped together and broke the stillness of the night with song. The few people who were in their beds were awakened by that thrilling melody:—

Calon lan yn Ilawn daoni
Tecach yw na’r lili dloss;
Dim ond calon Ian all ganu.
Canu’r dydd a chanu’r nos.

At five o’clock this morning Mr. Roberts was at the pithead waiting for the night shift to come up from below. When the men appeared he shook hands with them all, and invited those of them who were not too tired to come to the prayer meeting. Most of them came. Stirring scenes were witnessed, strong men of rough exterior sobbing almost hysterically, and bearing testimony in quivering, broken accents.

Ostensibly, all this commotion is the result of the plain, simple appeals made by Evan Roberts—the man without the remotest claim to the title of orator. His language, even, is extremely colloquial and it cannot be truthfully said that what he says is above the common-place. Wherein, then, lies the charm of the man and his power? Perhaps the best answer is that he has an indefinable something in his manner and style. His joyous smile is that of a man in whom there is no guile. His genuineness is transparent, and he convinces people that the belief in what he preaches is impregnable. His restlessness is marvellous—he is walking about all day with the springiness of a man treading on wires, his arms swaying unceasingly. He is proof against weariness or fatigue.

“Is your health good?” I asked him.

“Oh, splendid,” he said, with a smile. “I was never better in my life.”

Imagine a man who has had only an hour’s sleep since Wednesday addressing such a meeting as that held at Bethel in the evening. The chapel was crowded, and the atmosphere stifling. The people seemed to be piled up in one huge mass nearly an hour before the meeting was due to begin. Seeing that press was so great at Bethel, Evan Roberta asked that the Tabernacle Chapel should be opened: This was done, and the building was filled at once. Mr. Roberts addressed this meeting first, and the people in Bethel had to wait for him. No one conducted the service in the orthodox way, but this made no difference. Leadership was not wanted. There was a constant unbroken flow of song, prayer and exhortation from young men alone. The meeting was seething with enthusiasm.

An old man, an octogenarian, rose in the “set fawr” and shouted out in ecstasy, “Diolch, diolch i’r Nefoedd.” It was only with great effort He unburdened himself, his final words in Welsh being, “We thank Heaven for this awakening in Wales, but Heaven ought to be gracious to Wales because there are hundreds of Welshmen there.”

Intensity of feeling was almost at breaking point when some man who sat in the front gallery gave a vivid description of a drowning man being saved by a comrade. He was about to point the moral when a young lady started singing—

Throw out the life-line, throw out the life-line,
Someone is sinking to-day.

The effect was dramatic. The enthusiasm with which the refrain was repeated again and again was uplifting. For some of the “weaker vessels” the effect was too much, and women had to be carried out in a state of collapse. But the tide only rose to its full height when

Marchog Iesu yn Ilwyddiannus

was sung to the tune of “Ebenzer,” or more popularly known as “Ton y Botel.” The balance of parts was suggestive of a trained choir, and perfect intonation, coupled with the huge volume of song, made the rendering majestic. The hymn was sung at thri request of Evan Roberts, who made his appearance at Bethel a little before nine o’clock.

Striking scenes were enacted among the hundreds of people congregated outside the chapel. Three or four hundred assembled in front of the Pontycymmer Hotel, one of the largest licensed houses in the village, and sang “Diolch iddo” and other familiar hymns, and the scene was one of great impressiveness.

To attempt to adequately describe the scenes which marked the meeting at Ebenezer Chapel, Trecynon, during the early hours of Friday morning would be a futile task, and the nearest approach to a due portrayal thereof would be the statement that men and women had become helpless victims to religious fervour. To employ a forcible remark which was used by one of the local ministers, who was present. “The incident was the embodiment of emotional pain which has so overcome the people that they were quite unconscious of the manner in which they unburdened themselves of their overwhelming emotion.” There can exist no doubt that the movement has penetrated into the very marrow, for prayer services were being held at the outside villages long before nine o’clock on Friday morning.

A well-known Atheist, named Tom Hughes, of Trecynon, got up at the meeting at Ebenezer Chapel, and said that during the day he had burned all his books. Then he went on his knees and prayed fervently for a very long time. In the course of his prayer he earnestly counselled all those persons, who, as he himself had done, were reading those Atheistical books to discard them forthwith, and to follow his example by embracing the faith.