Sex, Sects and Society: 'Pain and Pleasure': a Social History of Wales and the Welsh, 1870-1945 by Russell Davies

Author:Russell Davies
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786832153
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Published: 2013-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The re-enchantment of the world: the 1904–6 religious revival

It was the whole tormenting storm of sin, despair, God’s angels opting for cloth-capped squalor... A large, hastily assembled and vigorously abused world was lifting its sad sails to catch the wind of a little restitution.

Evan Roberts was the wind that came, and like the wind he went.

Gwyn Thomas, High on Hope (Bridgend, 1985), pp. 47–8.

To be born again, first you have to die. Spiritually your world has to turn upside down. These were the traumatic and transformative experiences of people such as Rosina Davies, Maggie Davies, Anne Davies, Sarah Jones, Alice Uray, Catherine Roberts, Mary evans, Maud Davies, Sidney evans, Seth Joshua, Frank Joshua, Joseph Jenkins, Nantlais Williams, and, of course, evan Roberts, and many, many more in the ‘spiritual earthquake’ of 1904–6.49 How many more – 100,000? Probably, for many insist that the number of people ‘saved’ in Wales far exceeded this number, which, evan Roberts claimed, God had challenged him in a dream to save – an entire nation on the road to Damascus. or 500,000? Possibly, for many people who were already chapel and church members were also traumatised in those ‘years of the spirit’. or 1,000,000? Potentially, for the revival was a transoceanic phenomenon that affected people from Bangor to Bangalore, Colwyn Bay to the Congo, Rhyl to Rio, Ynys-hir to Yokohama.50 The actual number? God knows. There was one born-again every minute in 1904–6.51

In the beginning, as the Bible insists, it is always worthwhile and wise to set down some basics. Though the revival is often referred to as the evan Roberts revival of 1905, there was far more to this remarkable phenomenon. The revival was like a contagion that affected separate parts of Wales simultaneously.52 Whilst evan Roberts concentrated his efforts on missions in Loughor in late october/early November 1904, there were also independent out-breaks of religious fervour in Blaenannerch, Cardigan and Llan-grannog in Cardiganshire, Llandudno and Rhosllanerchrugog in north Wales, and Ammanford and Pen-y-groes in Carmarthenshire.53 Sidney evans, Joseph Jenkins, W. Nantlais Williams, R. B. Jones and those brotherly fishers of men, Seth and Frank Joshua, were also working to convert Wales. Rosina Davies led a mission to Colwyn Bay. The revival lasted longer than 1905. Its origins were in one of the innumerable lantern-lit meetings that characterised 1903 and 1904. God knows which or when. In some areas the spirit of revival lasted long into 1906. In the Mynydd Mawr (the Great Mountain) area of Carmarthenshire and the Bryncrug area in Merioneth and Harlech, people jumped and jehova’d well into 1906, even until 1912 they prayed and praised, for these people of the spirit had stamina. At Maesteg in Glamorgan, the brothers George and Stephen Jeffreys channelled the enthusiasm of 1904–6 into the establishment of the elim Pentecostal Church in 1915, one of the world’s largest Christian groups.

Welsh religion is often portrayed as a masculine prerogative, but the moving forces in the Welsh revival were girls and young women. With their pointer-pigeon bodices,

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