FIFTY years ago one of the Welsh Weeklies reported, “If one who is familiar with the populous districts of South Wales were to go on a journey through the places that he knew well in the past, he would see and feel that the transformation was indescribable. The villages and towns are completely revolutionized. Filthy corrupt language has disappeared; pure speech has been restored among thousands of young people and in place of swearing and blasphemy, one hears prayer and praise in all directions. It is a rare thing to hear a base, indelicate word. The language of heaven is the language one hears today, and all kinds of places are turned into houses of prayer — railway-station platforms, train compartments, buses, street corners, river banks and woodland glens, coal mines and colleges — men and women, boys and girls calling upon God.

The first thing that the writer of this article must say is this: he would not be writing the article at all were it not for the Welsh Revival of fifty years ago and he would certainly not be in the ministry and probably not in the Church were it not for that gracious visitation of God to the hills and dales of Wales!

Every nation has its poets, musicians, and artists, men of deep emotion who express that emotion by word or song or some other artistic medium. But the practice of giving vent to the emotions may be a disturbing thing and sometimes, indeed, a very destructive thing. Still, no great work of any kind in any realm has been accomplished without emotional disturbance of some sort of other: it is the man who feels deeply who achieves mightily.

The Celtic race, to which the Welsh people, in the main, belong, is characteristically emotional. Wales, the “Land of Song,” is also the “Land of Religious Revivals.” In the life of such a people, religious awakenings and upheavals are both natural and indeed, inevitable. They are also necessary, since a warm-blooded, fiery-hearted people can likewise sin passionately and violently!

In ancient and medieval Wales, the people were often roused from spiritual lethargy and sleep by a missionary saint, or again, by some ardent, zealous preaching friar. In the seventeenth century, Rhys Pritchard, Vicar of Llanddovery in Carmarthenshire, attracted immense congregations and it is evident, from the records of the period that he made a deep impression on a large number of people who came from far and near to hear him preach; through his zeal and activity, innumerable evils were abolished. Judged by his writings, which are full of vivid imagery and healthy humour and rare common sense, he must have preached in a very unconventional and intimate and popular manner.

The Great Awakening under the leadership of Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland at the beginning of the eighteenth century moved the whole of Wales in the direction of a higher type of cultural, moral, and spiritual life.

Later, in 1859, under the inspiration of Dafydd Morgan, Yspyty, Cardiganshire, there was a stirring movement that had far-reaching results — educational and cultural as well as ethical and religious results. This Revival may be said to have had its origin in the United States of America, for the soul of Dafydd Morgan was fired by a sermon he heard by the Rev. Humphrey Jones who had returned from America to his native land having experienced the tremendous power of the Holy Spirit in the churches of Ohio.