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| Early in 1904, at New
Quay in Cardiganshire, a minister, the
Revd Joseph Jenkins, was praying earnestly that a change might come
over the churches in the neighbourhood, his own church included. And
there seemed to be something strange at work in the meetings.
One Sunday morning in February, 1904,
at a young people's prayer meeting held at the Revd Joseph Jenkins'
church, a young girl, Florrie Evans, got up and said simply, "I
love Jesus Christ with all my heart."
Immediately, the whole meeting seemed to "catch fire". Young people
found it easy to pray and to give their experiences. Soon, this
"fire" spread to other places near by - one of them a village named
Blaenannerch, where the Minister, Revd M. P. Morgan threw himself
heart and soul into the movement. It was arranged to hold a conference
at Blaenannerch in September 1904, and to this conference came a
number of young men from the Grammar School at Newcastle Emlyn -
a school which prepared young men to enter the college at Trevecca
(Howell Harries' home), in order to train for the ministry.
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| Revd Seth Joshua, (pictured right)
- a Forward Movement Minister from Cardiff, who was conducting services
at Newcastle Emlyn at that time. |
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| Seth Joshua told the others that he
had been praying for years that God would send a young man to lead
a Revival in Wales, an ordinary young man, he said, not one from Oxford
or from Cambridge, but a young man from the coal-mines, or from the
fields like Elisha, who had been called to do God's work while ploughing
on his father's farm. Till that moment, he had not mentioned his prayer
to anyone at all. |
| During the series of meetings
held at Blaenannerch that day, something happened. Evan Roberts
was overcome with a tremendous experience.As Revd Seth Joshua was
offering a prayer at the close of one of the meetings that day,
he asked God to do several things and the last phrase he used was
"and bend us". Evan Roberts wept bitterly. At last, a feeling of
peace beyond understanding came over him. He was willing for God
to use him as He willed. He was not "converted" that day; that
had happened years before; but on that day God's Holy Spirit came
to him and found that he was ready to do anything, say anything,
go anywhere, as God wanted him to do. He was, to use his own words,
utterly "obedient, utterly willing". |
| Then a picture rose before
his eyes - a picture of the church (Moriah). He went to the Revd Evan
Phillips - his tutor's father - to ask his advice, and Mr Phillips
said that it was clear that the Holy Spirit wished him to go to Loughor,
and he must go. That night there began
a series of meetings at Moriah, which, night after night, became
more and more filled with the strange influence we have mentioned
several times before. People became overwhelmed with distress at
their sinfulness, and when they told God about it, and begged for
forgiveness with all their hearts, a flood of joy filled them, and
they could not refrain from getting up and telling everyone that
they loved the Lord because He had taken away their hard hearts
and all their evil desires and thoughts. This was the beginning
of the greatest Revival Wales has ever seen. Truly something extraordinary
was happening.
From this time on, it spread like wildfire
from place to place, all over the country, and it was found that
where people had been praying for months that such a thing might
happen, there God sent the Holy Spirit
- the Comforter - the Power - with
greatest force and influence. |
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