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The Revivals
From: Classic Books for Today #156
By S. B. Shaw (1905)
(Used by Permission)

"Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?"   Psalm 85:6

This was a feature that specially appealed to a London journalist, who visited the scene of the revival one Sunday in December. "The most extraordinary thing about the meetings I attended," he writes, "was the extent to which they were absolutely without any human direction or leadership. `We must obey the Spirit,' is the watchword of Evan Roberts, and he is as obedient as the humblest of his followers. The meetings open -- after any amount of singing while the congregation is assembling -- by the reading of a chapter or a psalm. Then it is go-as-you-please for two hours or more. And the amazing thing is that it does go, and does not entangle in what might seem to be inevitable confusion.

Three-fourths of the meeting consists of singing. No one uses a hymn book. No one gives out a hymn. The last person to control the meetings in any way is Mr. Evan Roberts. People pray and sing, give testimony, exhort as the Spirit moves them. As a study of the psychology of crowds, I have seen nothing like it. You feel that the thousand or fifteen hundred per-sons before you have become merged into one myriad-headed butsingle-souled personality."

The new theology is swamped, and sectarianism reduced to its proper level. "There is one lesson," says The Christian, "to be learned from the revival in Wales, which it is to be hoped will not be over-looked by the Church of Christ, viz., the breaking down of the barriers of sect. The separating walls are in most cases built up only of non-essentials; but, unhappily, they frequently are strong enough to impede spiritual waves. When the flood-tide of a great revival comes they are swept away, and men clasp hands in the common blessing and joy. Why should they ever be re-built? The necessary separation is that `unto the gospel of God' (Rom. 1:1)."

The rise of the movement is associated with the name of Evan Roberts, a young Welshman of twenty-six years, who had left the coal-pit to study for the ministry. Last September he received that baptism of the Spirit which he had been seeking for thirteen years, and, under Divine impulsion, suspended his studies, and went to preach the gospel at his home. Artless, shy, and unassuming, discouraging any dependence on his personality, he points people beyond himself to the Divine Agent who is at work in the land; and the course of the revival seems in no way tied to the movements of the evangelist. No one speaks of him as an orator. Living in the sphere of the eternal realities, he talks simply of them in his native tongue, as a child might. For instance: -

"You desire an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in your district? Well four conditions must be observed. They are essential -- mark the word, essential.

"(1) Is there any sin in your past that you have not confessed to God? On your knees at once! Your past must be put away and cleansed.

"(2) Is there anything in your life that is doubtful -- anything you can not decide whether it is good or evil? Away with it! There must not be a trace of a cloud between you and God. Have you forgiven everybody --everybody? If not, don't expect forgiveness for your own sins: you won't get it.

"(3) Do what the Spirit prompts. Obedience -- prompt, implicit, unquestioning obedience to the Spirit. Better offend ten thousand friends than quench the Spirit of God.

"(4) A public confession of Christ as your Savior. There is a vast difference between profession and confession.

"You praise the Father, praise the Son; why don't you praise the Holy Spirit? You speak of Him as 'some-thing.' The Spirit has been smothered in hundreds of our churches. Quench not the Spirit. When the fire burns, it purifies, and when purified you are useful in the work of God" There arises the question, What is to be done with the fruits of this movement? "Bend the churches and save the people," has been one of its watchwords; and truly, from all accounts, the churches have been wonderfully bent.

The Spirit of the Lord has broken up, as Rev. John M'Neill writes, "that which we value far too much -- this deadly, dull, respectable formality that passes for Christian worship and Christian work" But, unless we are mistaken, the religious systems as a whole must be prepared for permanent transformation, and must seek to adapt and accommodate themselves to this new spirit of life. To attempt to organize the work into forced conformity to the old types, corking up the "new wine" in "old bottles," must be a fatal course.

As Mr. Lloyd George, M.P., points out, in wishing Godspeed to the Revival: "The most important thing to urge in connection with it is that the religious leaders of Wales should see, in time, that the great forces which have been aroused into activity should not be wasted in mere out-bursts of emotion. Let them in time overhaul their denominational machinery, and adapt it to the new and the greater demand upon its re-sources which has been created by this remarkable upheaval, which seems to be rocking Welsh life like a great earthquake."

This is no passing enthusiasm. The Welsh are poetical, but not hysterical; well-informed, sober, intelligent. Their best moral and religious impulses in the past two centuries have sprung from movements such as this.

And there are evidences already that the revival is not to be merely local. The Welsh community in London is wakening, and there is a stirring of new life in some of the English countries. Mr. Roberts has Divine assurance that the movement is to be worldwide. Among ourselves there has been the impression that the special prayers of the past two years are about to be answered. Pilgrim Lyall's article of this month was prepared before the Welsh Revival was heard of. Unheard of was it also when the day of prayer for revival was announced in our October number. Is the answer to our prayers upon us?

We can not do better than close with Mrs. Penn-Lewis's words: --"All that we read of this work in Wales must awaken a great longing in many hearts for such a movement of God all over Great Britain. Oh, that individual churches would suspend ordinary services, and appoint gatherings for prayer until the same Holy Spirit breaks forth in theirmidst! Does this seeking unto God in prayer not correspond to the ten days of prayer by the hundred and twenty before Pentecost, until the Holy Spirit came? Dr. John Smith pointed out at Keswick, that He is the Eternal Spirit `which proceedeth' -- i.e., is eternally and ceaselessly proceeding -- `from the Father' into the world. He is ready to pour into every soul, and every church, and every town, in answer to united prayer. He must and will respond, as He is honored and given His place among men. He is `the Executive Power of the Godhead,' in charge of the Church of Christ on earth. He will manifest Himself as soon as He is recognized and given His place. `Oh, Spirit of burning, come!"'

Revival Paragraphs

Before The Revival. --