Wales is a land of periodic revivals. In the middle of the eighteenth century “a love coal from off the altar” touched the lips of Daniel Rowlands, a clergyman of the Church of England, and inspired him with a fervour which no opposition could quench. The genteel and respectable Christians of the period called him the “cracked clergyman” of Liangeitho. But if he were cracked, the Welsh nation has reason to be for ever grateful, for through the “cracks” he beheld God and Eternity, and the vision filled his soul with boundless enthusiasm. In a few years all Wales was ablaze. People from far and near came to witness the stirring effects of his preaching ; the hearers wept and shouted, thus outraging all the proprieties. Did that marvellous Revival leave anything behind it of permanent value to the nation? Yes. First, as the Revival in England left behind it a new religious Communion, the great Wesleyan Methodist Church, so in Wales it created a new denomination, the Calvinistic Methodist Church, which in numbers, influence, and learning, ranks with the foremost of the denominations in the country. Second, it gave Wales its Hymnology. Till then the nation had no hymns. Now we have a heritage of hymns rich beyond compare. These hymns revitalised the religious life, and as a consequence the nation has moved on a higher level ever since.

That movement in course of time expended its force. But in the beginning of the last century another Revival started. John Elias with his theological sermons, Christmas Evans with his poetical sermons, and Williams of Wern with his philosophical sermons, travelled the country, proclaiming the doctrines of grace, each in his own way, overpowering their hearers, throwing them into a religious ecstasy, and once again the large congregation shouted and sang with joy. All Wales was like a boiling cauldron. Gradually the flames of emotion died out. What was left—ashes? By no means; that convulsion in the spiritual experience of the population raised the national life to a higher level. Emotionalism? Aye; but it fed the roots of intellect, infused new life into the Tree of Knowledge as well as the Tree of Life.

However it be among other nations, in Wales the Life is always the Light. As the first Revival gave us our Hymnology, so the second gave us our Theology. Probably there were not men learned enough to write standard books of their own, but there were many able to translate the standard works of other authors. Accordingly, under the influence of this Revival, were rendered into the vernacular of Wales, Dr. Owen on the “Person of Christ,” “Justification,” and the “Work of the Holy Spirit “; Matthew Henry’s Commentary, and a number of other Puritan books. Under its influence Bunyan’s Pilgrim learned to speak Welsh on his journey to the Celestial City! In the absence of light literature, the farmers and the peasantry spent their long winter evenings pondering over these books, discussing their teaching in their adult Sunday Schools and their week evening meetings, with the inevitable result that they became thoroughly grounded in the fundamental doctrines of Salvation. Puritanism entered the blood of the Welshman, it still colours his every thought, and can never be expelled. Hence his aversion to rites and ceremonies—to all appeals to his aesthetic nature, and his readiness on the other hand to respond to all appeals to his spiritual nature.

In 1850 the enthusiasm of the former days had quite died out. Church life was placid even to torpidity. The elderly men and women were calling to mind the years of the right Hand of the Almighty, and sighing for a wee bit of a breeze. And in 1859 the third Revival broke out. Humphrey Jones, a young Wesleyan minister, catching the fire of the American Revival, crossed the ocean to convey the flame to his native land. He held prayer and preaching meetings; all the countryside in North Cardigan was talking of the young Revivalist. Alas! his bodily frame could not stand the strain, and in three or four months his nervous system broke down, and he could never face a congregation again. But he had not laboured in vain, for before his collapse he had imparted the fire to a neighbour of his, the Rev. David Morgan, a Calvinistic Methodist minister, a man of splendid physique. The transformation wrought in the latter was simply miraculous. That which I know I speak, for I was an eye-witness of it all. He toured the country from Holyhead to Cardiff, spoke as one inspired, towered high above all his compeers during the three years of his strange uplifting. Crowds hung upon his lips, the ungodly cried out in agony of soul, the saints shouted for joy—their noise was like the noise of many waters. All the country was aflame. It is computed that about 100,000 converts were added to the churches.

There were critics and scoffers then as now. “If, therefore, the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak, and there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? “ (1 Cor. xiv. 23). Literally, will they not say that ye are under the influence of a demon? That probably was the criticism of unbelievers on the revival in Corinth; that certainly was their criticism on the revival of rang in Wales! Fortunately there were others, more sensitive to spiritual influences, who replied, “Well, well, if this be the work of the devil, he must be a very new devil to Wales. The old one sent the people to the public-houses, the new sends them to the churches; the old made them dance and swear, the new makes them leap and praise.”

By their fruits ye shall know them.” Emotionalism, extravagance—yes; but they burnt out the old impurities. Wales was lifted high on the crest of that revival wave; when the wave subsided, what was left—froth? No, but higher aspirations after holiness and an intense love of learning. Since then the number of worshipping places has been doubled, thousands of schools have been built, and three national colleges established— all having their roots in the revivification of the religious life of nearly fifty years ago. The first Revival gave us our Hymnology, the second our Theology, the third our educational system, which competent authorities pronounce to be second to none in the world to-day. Every Revival, like the overflowing of the Nile, leaves a rich deposit behind to fertilize the national character.

That memorable Revival in the roll of the years spent its force. For the last ten years the spiritual life in our churches was becoming more and more depressed. Our best spirits were lamenting the impending lapse of our fatherland into barbarism. Earnest crying was made unto heaven. For months we felt there was a vague, indefinite, mysterious something in the air—a going in the top of the mulberry trees. The godly mothers and maidens were the first to feel the return of the tide, which for the last few months have swept all before it. The story of this fourth Revival will be told in the following pages by one in complete sympathy with all spiritual movements, and possessing the advantage of understanding thoroughly the generous impulses of the Celtic heart and the subtle windings of the Celtic brain. But I may be allowed to indicate two or three of its outstanding features.

1. It is independent of all human organisations - straight from heaven. Missions are revivals. Men can organise the former, not the latter, and it is a pity the distinction should be so often over-looked. Man’s method of saving the world is by costly and complicated machinery-salvation by mechanics; but God’s method is by vital energy-salvation by dynamics. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power, the dynamic, of God unto salvation” (Romans i.16). St. Paul, the missionary, relying upon prayer and the dynamic power of the Gospel, changed the face of the Roman Empire. And in Wales to-day all is spontaneous. The dynamite is working, explosion follows explosion , and already scores of thousands of rough, hard stones have been loosened from the quarry of corrupt humanity, and where explosion frequent and powerful take place, is it to be wondered at that there is tumult and confusion? Better the confusion of the city than the order of the cemetery.

2. Much importance is attached to the work of the Spirit, at least in its initial stages. Heretofore the work of Christ has been the all-important truth, to the exclusion to a large extent of the doctrine of the Spirit. Much emphasis has been laid on receiving Christ, scant stress on receiving the Spirit. Now, however, the question is coming to the forefront, “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” (Acts xix. 2). There were thousands of believers in our churches, who like the disciples St. Paul met at Ephesus, had received Christ, but had never received the Holy Ghost. The mark of Christ’s blood was upon them, but where was the mark of the Spirit’s anointing? Saved themselves, they made no attempt to save others. The present Revival, however, whilst not obscuring the doctrine of the Cross, has brought into prominence the doctrine of the Spirit. Thousands of Christians, who had received the Christ, have now received the Holy Ghost, and as a consequence they are filled with the spirit of service—no task seems to them too hard for Christ’s sake.

Whilst this doctrine is by no means new to theology, in the present movement it has assumed a new forms at least in experience. Orthodoxy has always conceded that conscience speaks within us; but in practice we have effected too wide a separation between conscience and the Holy Spirit. This Revival has again united these. “ Something tells me to do this and avoid that,” says the man. “Some Thing,” answers the young Revivalist, “why don’t you be honest? Why don’t you say Some One? “ And the Revivalist is right. A Thing can never speak. It is not Some Thing but Some One who speaks, none other than the Third Person in the Holy Trinity. Does not this invest conscience with grand sacredness? We all believe in the need of the Spirit to regenerate and sanctify—— to accomplish the great tasks of life, the works which we know no human power can effect; but alas! we are not in the habit of introducing the Spirit into the common acts of our every day life. But the Scripture teaches us to seek the Spirit’s guidance in all things—He is the source of all prudence and wisdom.

3. The third feature is enthusiasm, a feature common to all Revivals. Many Christians who love gentility and moderation would like to receive the baptism of the Spirit without the baptism of Fire. But what God has joined cannot be sundered. “He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire “ (Matt. iii. II) ; there is the verse—what will you do with it? There is only one preposition in the original, not two as in the English, to show the identity of the two baptisms, or rather that there is but one. Wherever the Spirit descends He brings fire in His train. “There appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Hearts of Fire and Tongues of Flame. Is enthusiasm permissible in every department of life, but forbidden in church life? A thousand times, No. How speaks the Apostle ? “Fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” Fervent, literally, boiling. “ Boiling in spirit.” Let none be ashamed of “boiling” in the service of the Saviour. At all events I prefer the congregations that boil over to the congregations that will not boil at all. “The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Literally, the boiling prayer. The cold prayer even of a good man will avail nothing in heaven or on earth, but the boiling prayer of a righteous man has ere now performed wonders, and will perform them again.

How very cold and formal the prayers of the Church have been for many a long year! But for the last four months there has been everywhere a marked change—the prayers have been boiling and whole multitudes have been thrown into a state of extraordinary fervour. It rejoices me to see the rising generation boiling with a great enthusiasm in the service of Christ—the mark of the “ boiling will be on them as long as they live. None are the same after boiling as before. Hundreds of our young men and women had been brought up religiously in the home and the church; but their religion was cold, format, following routine. Hardly any of them had courage enough to bow the knee in public; prayer, with the inevitable consequence that only aged men engaged publicly in the weekly prayer-meetings.

Behold the difference! Now our young people flock to the services, prayers flow spontaneously from their lips like water from the spring, praise ascends to heaven like the carol of birds in spring. No forcing, no inviting— spontaneity characterises the proceedings from beginning to end. No one is ashamed of confessing Christ as his or her Saviour— rather the shame is on the other side. All the chapels are crowded, the valleys and mountains ring with praise. The following story will show how gamblers refuse money won by bets made before conversion, how prize-fighters are now soul winners, how thieves restore stolen goods, how husbands return to their deserted homes, how enemies are made friends. Scores of pages can be filled with as striking conversions as any in the annals of the Christian Church.

Do we justify the extravagances? Not more than Paul justified them at Corinth (I Cor. xiv.)! We know what they mean, are able to interpret the tongues. Out of the confusion will emerge order and beauty and life. All criticisms are met by the prophet’s question, “What is the chaff to the wheat? “ (Jer. xxiii. ~8).

J. CYNDDYLAN JONES.