03 - Chapter 03

Davies’ Pentecostal Movement: Chapter 3 The Beginning of the Pentecostal Movement in the Merthyr Borough by Davies, Price GOD DEALING WITH SEVERAL MEN INDIVIDUALLY IN ANSWER TO PRAYER.

T. E. Lewis and I were brought up together on Dowlais Top, and only a few years ago, (not long before he died) while we were standing outside Woolworths Stores in High Street Merthyr he related to me how and where he was saved. Every Saturday night he and his friends spent their time drinking in different pubs until eleven-o-clock Stop Tap; after this they used to take drinks with them to one or another of his friends homes, and drink until the early hours of Sunday morning. He told me he never went home until about two-o-clock in the morning. He was going home drunk one Sunday morning along along Gwernllwyn Road, with a railway along one side of it this was a lonely road. He told me he was brought down under an awful conviction by God of his sinfulness and guilt; and there alone on the solitary pavement he cried to God for mercy and forgiveness for some time. T. E. Lewis was saved there and went home a changed and sober young man and became a faithful member of Hebron Baptist Chapel for more than fifty (50) years. He said that the Lord Jesus Christ took that appetite and thirst for drink out of him that night for ever, for it never returned. Praise the Lord. T. E. Lewis was well knows as a Coster in Twynrodyn and Merthyr. Sam Brown, another friend of mine, was converted down in the Colliery-Number two Pit Bedlinog-there along between two ventilator doors. Praise God. I had an adopted brother, married and living in Dowlais Top. His hobbies were drinking, gambling, and fighting. Many of those he knew, who had lived the same kind of life, were at this time converted and he used to go with them to the meetings in Hebron; but he came out time after time saying "They are not going to have me". But the more he was coming and going out defiantly, the more an even greater volume of prayer would rise from the congregation to the Throne of God in Heaven that the Lord would have mercy on him and bring him to His Feet. Not long afterwards some of the members of Hebron were coming home at midnight one Saturday night after attending a Revival Meeting at Pantywain, a village on the mountains above Dowlais Top. Before they came to the houses in Dowlais Top they could hear somebody moaning and groaning on the side of the road, and Glory to God it was him; brought down under awful conviction and crying to God for mercy. Two of the men picked him up, one under each arm, and took him down, past his house to the meeting in Hebron where the meetings were going on all night. There, that night, or rather Sunday Morning, D. R. Williams, commonly called Dai Ruth was converted. Oh, What a change! He became a member of Hebron Baptist Chapel. In Ystradgwynlais there were two pals. Their hobbies were drinking, gambling and fighting. They loved going up the mountain stripping to the waist and fighting with bare fists. One of them had a quarrel with an official where he was working and went away to work at the Great Western Colliery, Pontypridd. While he was there the Revival came along and he was wonderfully saved, immediately his first concern was for his butty Danny Evans, and so he got up in one of the meetings and asked the congregations to pray for him. The whole congregation stood and prayed that God would bring him to Himself and save his soul. Just after this Danny got up one morning to go to work as usual and began to put on his working clothes, no pit-head baths in those days. But, when it came to putting his trousers on, he could put one leg on yet try and struggle as much as he could, he could not put the other leg of the trouser on. Davy could not make it out at all, to think he could put one leg on and not the other. He cursed and swore and blasphemed and kept on doing so in an awful temper; in the end he gave it up as hopeless feeling awful at having to lost a day’s work and nothing at all the matter with him. He began to dress in his ordinary suit and when he realized he put his trousers on easily he undressed again thinking everything was all right now for him to go to work. But no, when it came to putting on his working trouser the same thing happened again and so it went on until it became too late to go to work anyhow. In an awful temper he put his working clothes away and dressed himself in his suit then, when it was time for Open Tap in the pubs he went out to get himself a pint of beer. He asked the barmaid for a pint and paid for it, but when it came to drinking it-try as he did, he could not get the glass to his lips. Just as he could not get his working trousers on, so he could not get the beer to his mouth. More cursing and swearing, he cursed the place and the barmaid (as if she had anything to do with it) and so Danny spent the rest of that day going from one pub to another trying to get beer to his lips but failing. At six-o-clock in the evening, coming out of a public house, still having failed to get a drink, Danny noticed an open air meeting-a Revival Meeting-going on just over the road. Danny stood and listened, and behold behind the meeting he saw a large white sheet rising up, and on that white sheet he saw his sinful life like a panorama before his very eyes. Under awful conviction of sin Danny fell on his knees just where he was, cried to God for mercy and was gloriously saved. Hallelujah. I heard Danny Evans giving his testimony in the Temperance Hotel, LLandrinod Wells where we gathered after the Keswick Meeting in the tent August 1907. To God be all the Glory. Amen. A NOTABLE MIRACLE. *

*Note added by Roy Davies. According to the 1901 census they were living in number 73 in 1901. I think my grandfather said "’73" on the tape and, because of the poor sound quality, this was transcribed as "twenty three." The South Wales Echo and Western Mail said "74" but I think that should have been ’73. In 1904-1905, at number seventy three Brynhyfryd Street, Penydarren, Merthyr Tydfil, where Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Griffiths lived with their family, their daughter Annie Griffiths was bedridden with a Tubercular Hop (Hip disease) a large growth on her hip and the one leg shorter than the other, she was a helpless, hopeless cripple. The doctors gave no hope of her ever being able to walk again. The family were members of Elm Baptist Chapel, Penydarren, where Mr. Thomas Griffiths was a deacon, the minister was the Rev. O. M. Owen who had been wonderfully blessed of God during the early days of the Welsh Revival, and he was for many years the Secretary of the Keswick Convention at LLandrindod Wells. Mr. Owen was very friendly with the family and used to visit Miss Griffiths often and was very much grieved and burdened at seeing her sad plight and suffering as she was. He was spending much time in prayer with God on her behalf and also on behalf of the family as a whole. On one of his visits he asked Miss Griffiths if she believed God could work a miracle in our time and heal her. She said "Yes Mr. Owen, I believe God can do all things." "Well Annie," he said, "I don’t believe it is the Will of God for you to be lying there suffering like that." He gave her a tract to read that told of a young woman that had been healed in answer to prayer of Spinal Trouble. He also asked her to read some Scriptures especially James 5:14-16 which she gladly did.

One Saturday night, Miss Griffiths was in fact due to go into hospital the following Monday so that she could be made more comfortable on an Air Bed and also that her mother might be relieved a little; that evening another Baptist Minister from Aberduar, West Wales, called. His name was Mr. Francis and he was on his way to Fochriw to preach but lost his connection at Dowlais Top and so called at Mr. Owen’s House. During their conversation Mr. Owen asked Mr. Francis if he believe God could perform a miracle today in answer to prayer. "Of course I do, Why not?" said Mr. Francis. So Mr. Owen told him about Miss Griffiths. They decided there and then to visit the home and have a definite time of prayer with her father for her, so they came. After a little talk with Miss Griffiths the three of them knelt and prayed that God would touch and heal her. These are Annie’s own words to me, (after the ministers and her father had prayed for her and as she was about to ask the dear Lord herself to heal her,) she felt the Lord was there by her bedside and laid His Hand on her head and the Power of God came upon her and went right through her whole body and took the disease away, the bed itself shaking with the Power of God. Glory be to God she was Wonderfully and Miraculously healed. She told the ministers and her father that if they would leave the room she would get dressed. Praise the Lord for ever. One minute a helpless, hopeless cripple unable to move without help, the next minute Gloriously Healed by the touch of God. Hallelujah. She asked her mother for her clothes and then got up and dressed; then she walked from the front room where her bed was, through the middle room to the kitchen. When her father saw her he lept for joy, shouting "Hallelujah" with a loud voice. Mr. Owen asked her if he would see her in the meeting the following Sunday. Her father said "You tell Mr. Owen that you will be there before him tomorrow morning"., and she was. Praise God. Oh what a stir that miracle caused in the Borough. Elim chapel was thronged with people night after night for weeks, Open Air meetings were held on the bottom of the street. I remember Dai Ruth (D. R. Williams) taking his coat off in one of those meetings and laying it on the ground for people to kneel on it and get converted. That miracle was published in the Daily Papers and the Christian Herald. I remember reading the report in the South Wales Echo 20th September 1905. Some may ask "Are healings permanent?" Annie Griffiths was healed of a Tubercular Hip when she was twenty one years of age, she passed out of this life to her reward in heaven at seventy eight years of age with never a return of the complaint. Diolch Iddo Bendigedig. Just a few years later after her healing, in September 1908 she became my wife and became the mother of five children four boys, and one girl. During our married life we walked hundreds of miles together abundant proof of the perfect soundness of her limb. Acts 3:16. Praise God. Diolch Iddo.