Many would agree that events that came to pass in this chapel on
a late November evening in 1904 and then over the following months,
had one of the biggest influences on early 20th century evangelical
Christianity, not just in Wales, but worldwide.
Wales has periodically been a land of Christian revivals. It
experienced spiritual renewal in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. The Welsh revival of 1904-05 was a divine intervention
that drastically changed life in churches, homes, mines, factories,
schools and even places of leisure and entertainment.
On November 7th, 1904 Moriah Chapel was filled to capacity for a
prayer meeting that lasted until 3:00 a.m. The effects of this and
subsequent meetings spread through the local community and
especially the men of the coal mines. Profane swearing stopped.
Even the miners' horses were puzzled when their masters stopped
cursing. Orders to the Bible Society "for Scriptures from Wales
during November and December, were over three times the amount for
the corresponding months of 1903..." The Times said this
resulted from the Welsh revival, adding that this demand showed no
sign of falling off.
One of the key people at the start of this revival was a young
man named Evan Roberts and there is a memorial to him and the
revival outside the chapel.
Based on an account of the revival by Oliver W. Price.
Moriah's own web site has a
lot more information about the chapel's history and the
revival.
This was the start of what is now called the 1904/1905 Welsh
revival that swept the religious community of Wales and beyond.
