The year 2004 marked the 100th anniversary of one of the most profound spiritual awakenings in the history of the Christian Church. Revival swept powerfully over the land of Wales. From there it reverberated to many parts of the world, including America. There it fed the fires of the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, a catalytic event for the modern Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. In this issue we present an eyewitness report of the Welsh revival from a leading journalist of his day. William Stead was editor of the Pall Mall Gazette in London. He had been personally affected by an earlier revival in Wales in 1859-1860, so was eager to observe and report on this new movement that swept his native land. His article reveals both the cold eye of a trained observer as well as a sympathetic supporter. These comments appeared first in the Daily Chronicle on Dec. 13, 1904.

After attending three prolonged services at Mardy, a village of 5,000 inhabitants, lying on the other side of Pontypridd, I found the flame of Welsh religious enthusiasm as smokeless as its coal. There are no advertisements, no brass bands, no posters, no huge tents. All the paraphernalia of the got-up job are conspicuous by their absence. Neither is there any organization, nor is there a director, at least none that is visible to the human eye. In the crowded chapels they even dispense with instrumental music. On Sunday night no note issued from the organ pipes. There was no need of instrument, for in and around and above and beneath surged the all-pervading thrill and throb of a multitude praying, and singing as they prayed. The vast congregations were as soberly sane, as orderly, and at least as reverent as any congregation I ever saw beneath the dome of St. Paul's.... But it was aflame with a passionate religious enthusiasm, the like of which I have never seen in St Paul's.

IMAGE LEFT: The report in this issue was by William Stead (1849-1912). As editor of London's Pall Mall Gazette, he became famous for efforts at social reform, including opposition to childhood prostitution. Stead was a passenger on the Titanic and died at sea when the ship sank in 1912.

Tier above tier, from the crowded aisles to the loftiest gallery, sat or stood, as necessity dictated, eager hundreds of serious men and thoughtful women, their eyes riveted upon the platform or upon whatever other part of the building was the storm centre of the meeting. There was absolutely nothing wild, violent, hysterical, unless it be hysterical for the labouring breast to heave with sobbing that cannot be repressed, and the throat to choke with emotion as a sense of the awful horror and shame of a wasted life suddenly bursts upon the soul.

On all sides there was the solemn gladness of men and women upon whose eyes has dawned the splendour of a new day, the foretaste of whose glories they are enjoying in the quickened sense of human fellowship and a keen glad zest added to their own lives. The most thorough-going materialist who resolutely and for ever rejects as inconceivable the existence of the soul in man, and to whom "the universe is but the infinite empty eye-socket of a dead God," could not fail to be impressed by the sincerity of these men; nor, if he were just, could he refuse to recognize that out of their faith in the creed which he has rejected they have drawn, and are drawing, a motive power that makes for righteousness, and not only for righteousness, but for the joy of living, that he would be powerless to give them.