Horeb Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church - Old Colwyn (1905)



Old Colwyn is being baptised, as it were, in a great spiritual fire. The Revival spirit has reached the village in its onward flow throughout the country and already upwards of a hundred persons of all ages have surrendered themselves. These marvellous results have been accomplished within a week.

The first manifestations of spiritual awakening were witnessed during the preaching services held in the Hebron C. M. Chapel. These services attracted immense congregations, and after they were over the Rev. Dr Phillips started a united mission, in which the Calvinistic Methodists, the Congregationalists and the Wesleyans joined. The movement immediately became a strong one, and gained, and is gaining, immense influence.

It is difficult to give anything like a coherent account of the Old Colwyn Revival, as incidents and events have crowded thick and fast upon one another, and everybody is lifted up to such a state of spiritual exaltation. A report received on Tuesday morning showed that the number of converts up to the previous night was 101, the penitents including many people of from sixty to eighty years of age, some of whom had never taken any interest in religion before, whilst others had long since fallen away from grace and believed themselves to be irreclaimable. Others, again, had attended places of worship as "hearers" during the last forty years but had never before given themselves up to God's work.

Some of the incidents of the mission have been remarkable. People walk into the village from Llanddulas, Abergele, and other, localities, and remain until midnight, starting the homeward journey at that late hour, indifferent to the darkness and the hilly roads, indifferent to everything but the joy of new-found salvation.

One night, a party going home to Llanddulas in, the darkness halted art Penmaen to hold a second prayer meeting and obtained permission to enter the Wesleyan Chapel for the purpose.

At the meetings, all marked throughout by great fervour, and. similar in character to those held in South Wales, prayers have been offered that the Revival might reach Colwyn Bay, Dyserth, Gwytherin and other localities.

The effectiveness of prayer has been revealed in truly wonderful fashion. Men and women who kept aloof from religion were prayed for by name by relatives and friends, and these people obeying some unaccountable influence, actually presented themselves at the meetings and became converted. Boys and girls pray with a simple eloquence which is most pathetic; English people, understanding scarcely a word of Welsh, have attended all the meetings and offered prayers in their own language; and men who for years have endeavoured in vain to get free from the bondage of the drink habit have come in with a request that the congregation would pray for their salvation.

'Many a drunkard has been freed from his chains during the Old Colwyn Revival, and in many other ways the movement has been rich in blessings. 'Dr. Phillips's visit will ever be remembered in the village, as he was the instrument in the hands of the Master to bring many souls to repentance.

The Revival here, as elsewhere, has done a great deal towards breaking down the barriers of denominationalism, and there is now existent a unity amongst Christians of various churches which has been absent far too long,

From, 'The North Wales Weekly News', 17th February 1905.


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