Blaen-y-Cefn Calvinistic Methodist Chapel (1859)
One Sunday afternoon, at Blaencefn^ the young men studying a Bible lesson found the Word as a burning fire in their hearts and became weary with forbearing. They were still "rejoicing" when the older people gathered for a prayer-meeting at six, and even the blowing out of the candles at midnight did not extinguish their songs.
There were many old folks in this congregation. One of them, on the night of his surrender, was asked what made him decide after neglecting so many opportunities. His reply was that he had discovered his last refuge was on fire. William Thomas, a man of blameless walk, a great reader, a fine theologian, the best teacher in the Sabbath school, and a man who conducted family worship regularly, was the last of the veterans to bend. One evening he rose in his pew to leave, halted for a space by the big seat, then hardened his face and proceeded as far as the door, turned back, hesitating, but finally passed out into the court in front. He pulled up there again for a few minutes, then dragged his unwilling feet as far as the gate leading to the roadway. Once again he stopped short, listening to the music within. Stepping forward, his white locks floating on the breeze, he was heard soliloquising despairingly, "Oh! there is no one on the road but the devil and myself!" A few moments later he added, "This is the most terrible war I was ever in!" Before daybreak David Evans, shoemaker and deacon, heard a loud knock at his door, and a peremptory cry — "David Evans, how can you sleep in such a storm as this? " The distracted veteran was admitted, and after the reading of Scripture and prayer, the tempest-tossed soul found Him who is a hiding-place from the wind.
One Sunday morning at eight, the leader of the prayer- meeting called forward first an old deacon; next William Thomas, who could hardly kneel owing to rheumatism and decrepitude; then "Uncle James," who moved forward upon two crutches ; and lastly a white-haired pilgrim with one foot in the grave, who had only just commenced the heavenward journey. The sight of this almond-blossom-crowned heads bowing successively before the Ancient of Days was more than the audience could bear. Their emotion found an outlet in cataracts of "praise,'* immediately drowning the voice of the patriarch-priest.
From, 'The '59 Revival', by J J Morgan, pages 66-7.