Who sparked off the Welsh Revival of 1904-05? And where did that spark first see the light of day? Let’s turn our attention today to a period much loved in Welsh history – the Revival of 1904-05. Yesterday – the 31^st October – was the date in 1904 when Evan Roberts gathered a small number of young people together in Moriah Chapel, Loughor, to pray. It was the meeting, we are told, that sparked the Welsh Revival.

By the way, it is also the date in 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on Wittenburg Church door – an event that sparked a reformation so profound that it brought dramatic and much needed change to the church in Europe. Or so we are supposed to believe. Many historians now reckon that Luther sent his theses through the mail to his intended recipient and that the nailing incident is just an embellishment of the facts.

But what of Wales and her revival? In a little seen diary, now kept in the Archives of Bangor University, there is this short note entered after one of the preaching services conducted by the diarist, Edward Cefni Jones, then of Blaenau Ffestiniog, ‘A great revival – many came to the fellowship.’ (‘Coming to’ or ‘staying for’ the fellowship was synonymous with becoming a Christian in those days.) The chapel he was preaching at was Hebron – a Welsh Baptist church in the town of Dowlais near Merthyr Tydfil in industrial south Wales. And the date? 5^th September 1904 – nearly two months before Evan Roberts’ prayer meeting at Moriah. Indeed, according to a letter in the Welsh Baptist weekly, Seren Cymru, in December of that year, the revival had already sparked in Hebron a week before Cefni Jones was there for the church’s anniversary services, under the leadership of the church’s minister, W. C. Thomas. And this was no flash in the pan – for in 1905 the church saw 120 converts baptised, bringing the membership to a total of 510.

Historians have long accepted that the 31^st October meeting at Moriah as an important date within a movement that had already began much earlier in New Quay under the leadership of two Methodist ministers. And yet somehow it is Evan Roberts’ meetings that are regarded as the spark for revival as no other meetings were known of outside of west Wales. Well now we know differently – Hebron, Dowlais, was enjoying a powerful revival for weeks before the Loughor outbreak. So why has the story not been told?

It is partly because the events at Hebron don’t quite fit the narrative some wanted to tell at the time.  Cefni Jones was a theologically educated, ordained minister of some repute in his denomination. A hymn writer, an author, a member of many committees, a highly respected leader, a polished preacher – he was everything that Evan Roberts was not. But the preferred popular narrative of the time and since was that the revival was a movement for and led by young, uneducated, unpolished men and women not yet in official leadership positions in their churches. The truth is far less black and white.  Though there is no doubting Evan Roberts’ importance to the movement, he also happens to fit in well with this narrative.

So as we celebrate again what the Spirit did in Wales and the world in a short space of time, let us not only credit the youth of the time but also those urbane, Edwardian gentlemen of the pulpits – for they too were instruments in the hand of God.