Memories of the 1904-05 revival in Wales - part 2

Crowding around the house

I may be wrong because memories tend to get mixed, but I think it was that same night that something else happened. As the meeting closed and the people began to move towards the doors, the congregation, with few exceptions, began to follow Evan, who was already on his way to Sunnyside. As he entered the house and went to his room, the hundreds from the meeting crowded round the house. My uncle stood in the doorway, wondering what to do with them.

One man spoke for them all: would Evan Roberts just come out and speak to them? There was no disorder, but an eager, hopeful expectation that could be felt. My uncle went to Evan's room and told him what the people wanted. Evan shook his head and said he could not do that - he was not given freedom, he was not free.

John Phillips was in despair, as he thought of the gathered crowd outside, but he did not try to press him. He asked him to send a message to the people, and Evan had the inward assurance that he was free to do that. I do not know which of them wrote it, but John Phillips went down the stairs and to the front door a very relieved man. He had a few lines written on half a sheet of notepaper in one hand and a lighted candle, which someone had pushed into his hand, in the other.

Sunnyside had a low 18-inch wall surrounded by railings all round; on this he stood, while the people waited, almost hungrily. I, with most of the family crowding behind me, stood in the front bedroom window - transfixed - and saw it all. I can still see my uncle, standing on the wall, trying to get the flickering light of the candle on the written message.

The packed mass of people, very quiet now, with the light flickering first onto one face and then onto another, were all eagerly expectant as my uncle began to speak. I have no idea what he said, nor what was in Evan Roberts's message, but the excitement and anxiety (for want of a better word) gradually faded and disappeared. With murmured 'Amens' and 'Diolch iddo' ('Thanks be to him'), the people drifted quietly away, and all was peace.

Unmistakable authority

This unquestioning heed and obedience to an unmistakable inner authority came to be recognised by all who knew Evan in those days, especially perhaps by the family at Sunnyside. At times, they thought he was going too far or was unreasonable or, indeed, unkind, in the things that he refused to do. Yet they inevitably found that he was right and showed a prescience and a wisdom far beyond any human capacity at the time. They learned to accept his decisions and to acknowledge them as obedience to God's will.

I recall an incident that illustrates this in a wonderful way. Very early one morning, as it was beginning to get light, there was a knock at the Sunnyside door. Auntie Ann flung on a dressing gown and went down to investigate. At the door stood a weary young man, looking dishevelled, somewhere in his late teens.
He sounded desperate and unhappy, as he said he must see Evan Roberts. 'It is very early', said Auntie Ann, 'but come in and I will tell him what you say.' She went up to his room and knocked. He was awake and she told him of this early caller, and of his desperate and pitiful appearance.

The answer was unequivocal: 'Ann, I can't see him. I have no freedom to do so. I am not free.' Now, she was as desperate as the young man, and she could not help pleading with him - the poor young man looked so pitiful. How could she send him away? She knew nothing about him, save that he was at her door, that he was exhausted and desperate, and that he wanted to see Evan Roberts.

'Oh, Evan, can't you give me some word, some message for him?' 'Yes, I can do that - tell him to read Psalm 27, verse 10'. She was back with the young man in a moment. No, Evan Roberts could not see him, but 'he has sent you a message. You are to read Psalm 27.10.'

Misery vanished

There lay the Bible on the table. Torn between disappointment and an almost doubting expectancy, he found the Psalm and then he found the verse. As he read, according to Auntie Ann, his misery vanished and he shed tears of joy in his amazement and relief. The verse read: 'When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.'

When he could speak, he told her his story. He was from Lampeter - about 30 miles from Newcastle Emlyn. The previous night he had been to a meeting in his home church and had come under the tremendous pressure of the Holy Spirit present in that meeting. He had been gloriously converted and, in the joy of that experience, had gone home to tell his parents.

Concentrated fury

He had been met, not by joy, not by indifference or mockery, but by concentrated fury from his parents. They would have none of it, and finally delivered their ultimatum: he must give it all up or go. They had literally turned him out late at night, with nowhere to go.

Then, remembering that Evan Roberts was in Newcastle Emlyn, he had walked the 30 miles through the night from Lampeter. He must have met some early riser, who had pointed out the house to him when he reached his destination.

When he left the house (not before he had been well fed) he was radiant. Nobody had known anything about him. God alone could have revealed his problem to Evan Roberts and moved his servant to give him such a message of comfort and reassurance. So he went, not knowing where he was going, but knowing that 'he who has led will lead...' and that, though his earthly parents had forsaken him, 'the Lord had taken him up'.

Like a pub with no beer

There were wonderful things happening all the time, and there was a spirit of thankfulness and wonder as people told of the conversion of one and another. Sunnyside was always full - someone once said it was like a public house without the beer! Many who had been longing and praying for revival for years, on hearing of the awakening in South Wales, came from far and near to see for themselves and share in the blessing, and to take an account of what they had experienced back to their own churches.

One of the most interesting of these visitors was a slight, bearded, dark-complexioned man, whom we knew as 'Isaac bach o Persia' (little Isaac from Persia). He was a universal favourite, a true Christian, godly and quiet. He had heard in his own country of the revival and had come all the way in order to see and experience it for himself. He revelled in it all and stayed for many months.
After his return home there was silence. He had found spoken English difficult and his friends knew that for him the written language would be impossible. Months or years later (it is difficult to pinpoint time when you are young, it tends to get telescoped) my uncle heard, on reliable authority, that he had died a martyr's death during the so-called 'Armenian atrocities'. The people who knew him in Newcastle Emlyn mourned for him and were grieved to know that he had been cruelly tortured and had died a brutal death. Their only comfort was to think of the reception that he would have received from the heavenly host.

Happy, never homesick

The impression left on my memory of those days is happiness. I don't remember ever being scolded or corrected, and I don't remember ever being homesick - even at bedtime! Everything was lovely. Of course, tears were often to be seen, but they were always tears of joy and never upset me.

Evan and Ann Phillips had eight children, five girls and three boys. My father, born in 1860, was the eldest, and it seems that they had, each one in turn, made a profession of conversion and had been received into the full membership of the church - even Mag!

Rebellious, restive

Magdalen was without doubt a rebel, restive under the strict (though never oppressive) regime of the house, and now somewhere in her early 30s. (I think she was either number five or six in the family.) She was distinctly uncomfortable in this atmosphere of revival. I don't know that she ever voiced her doubts and feelings - she was too devoted to her parents to do that. But she did not need to; her silence and aloofness spoke volumes.

She was a very great favourite with us children, for she was full of fun and could think up the most lovely things to do, such as baking potatoes in the back garden, or borrowing Evan Thomas the cabinet-maker's donkey cart to go three or four miles up the mountain to have a picnic on Moelfre, and pick can-fulls of whinberries. She was full of lovely ideas and we must ofen have been a nuisance to her.

Repentant, receptive

Now she was caught up in this tremendous visitation of God the Holy Spirit - resenting it and wishing no doubt that she could get away. She went to the meetings with the others, and seemed unmoved, until one night. The meeting was over and Sunnyside kitchen was alive with family and friends, when in rushed Mag, sobbing uncontrollably.

She fell on her knees in the middle of the floor, and poured her soul out, confessing the hardness of her heart and the rebelliousness and coldness of her spirit, thanking God for all he had done in Christ and beseeching him to forgive and receive her, weeping and crying aloud all the time.

Suddenly, in the open doorway, stood my grandfather. He had realised that something unusual was happening and had come to investigate. Now he recognised that his prayers were answered. With the tears pouring down his cheeks, he said: 'Thank God, oh thank God. I can die happy now that Mag is safe.'

Indeed, Mag was safe. Her experience was no flash in the pan. She was filled with an undeviating love and loyalty to the Lord, who had so wonderfully broken through all her resistance and given her the joy of salvation. She later married one of the ministerial students who became minister of the Welsh Presbyterian church at Senhenydd. It was during their time there that the terrible pit disaster occurred, when over 400 miners were killed.

Williams the guard and Harris the engine-driver were responsible for the little two-coach shuttle train that went back and forth between Pencader and Newcastle Emlyn three or four times a day (four stations, but not on Sunday).

Mr. Williams was a Welshman from the Llanelli area, and Martyn often saw him when he preached in his church. He was old then, and long retired, but the fire still burned in his bones. He was a deacon and also the precentor in his church, and all his delight was with the things of God.

Mr. Harris, the engine-driver, was an Englishman and for a time was completely nonplussed by what he saw in Newcastle Emlyn. Yet he could not ignore the things he saw - the wonderful change that took place in his friend, the guard, and others, and the deep overflowing joy that possessed them. He wanted it too.

The two of them were often in my grandfather's sitting room with the students in the evenings. Those present never forgot the day when the desperate Harris burst in, crying: 'I must have "diwigi", Mr. Phillips, I must have "diwigi"!' That was the nearest he could get to 'diwigiad' (hard 'g'), the Welsh for revival. It was not long before he was rejoicing with the others.

The house after that would often re-sound to someone singing: 'Tell mother I'll be there, In answer to her prayer, Oh tell my darling mother, I'll be there.' I think it was Harris who sang it, but memory - even of long ago things - does play tricks, so it may have been one of the others. But Harris, the engine-driver, was a changed man, rejoicing in his salvation and eager to tell any who would listen, all about it.

Happening all the time

Such miracles of grace were happening all the time. People loved to come to Sunnyside to hear the wonderful tales. Of course, there were some in whom the work went no deeper than the emotions but, as someone said: 'It is very easy to make a Welshman cry, but it takes a spiritual earthquake to change him'. And this great spiritual work of God in revival did just that - eternity alone will reveal the numbers.

Souls were saved and chapels were crammed. The town itself bore witness to what was happening. The public houses were half empty and some closed altogether. The drunkenness and brawling, so common at the close of market day in a market town, were almost non-existent.

Heartening legacy

After about two years the direct or immediate work of the Holy Spirit began to be withdrawn, but those who had lived through the glory of it, who had bowed and yielded to the power of it, never went back. What of the generation, like Ieuan and myself, who were children at the time? We may have had little understanding, but we had a great sense of awe for the reality of spiritual, unseen things. We certainly always had a deep respect for the memory and were shocked, almost frightened, when we heard the revival mocked.

The years moved on . . . to the summer of 1927. As the calls for Martyn to preach in other churches, in other towns, all over Wales, began to multiply, he became aware of a very interesting and heartening fact. In those days, when things had sunk to a low ebb in the chapels of Wales, the doors were being kept open in the vast majority of cases by the converts of the 1904-05 revival. He met them in many places.

As time went on and generation succeeded generation, the telling of the wonders of the revival, of necessity, became hearsay. Though the fathers could and did tell of the great things that their fathers and grandfathers experienced, they could not have the same impact. The history - the facts - of those experiences could be handed down from one generation to another, but the actual experience could not. No one can go through the wicket-gate of conversion - or revival - for another.

A Pictorial History of Revival (published by CWR, copyright 1904 Ltd.), from which some of the photographs in this article are reproduced, is available at £12.99 from www.1904revival.com or 01269 59 1904.