So few frequented the weekly prayer-meeting at Llangristiolus in the summer of 1859, that the church was on the point of giving it up. On Sunday evening, October 8, David Morgan preached, and after the final address asked, *'Is there to be an after-meeting?" ''Yes," replied one of the deacons, looking glum and disappointed. " Yes, there will be an after-meeting," announced the Revivalist; " but I don't urge anyone to remain behind anew unless your burden is heavier than you can carry; this church is too frost-bound to receive you — you will but starve here. Let us try Heaven," he added; "it is hard enough here.'* Having prayed, he dismissed the hearers, who went no farther, though, than the chapel-yard; then he went and closed both doors. As he did so, a verse shot like a bolt into the heart of a woman who stood in the yard — "And the door was shut." She forthwith joined the society. " Your attitude has overcome me," said the Revivalist to the church. "Those who have gone out have felt the gospel appeal, but you have felt nothing. You are disappointed because there are few converts — what would you do with them? You have no food for them; yet if any have remained we had better speak to them, lest they be discouraged." Seven had remained: after conversing with them, David Morgan invited addresses from the brethren, and one of them betrayed his mortification at the result of the service. "I anticipated this result when I climbed into the pulpit," said the Revivalist. "I could have preached in such a way as to capture fifty converts, but that would wrong them and you. The present result is best for the church. I want you to get something that will help you for ten years. Some of you say that you long for the Holy Spirit. I should like to know if you have so longed for Him as to sacrifice a night's sleep to pray for Him." Then he went all around the chapel, asking all present, individually, if they had lost a single night's rest in yearning prayer for the Holy Spirit. The answer was "No" from every mouth until he came to an old man by the door. " No, I never have," said he, "but I have determined that I will." "Here is one who promises to sacrifice a whole night's rest to pray for the Holy Ghost," cried the preacher. "Who will join him?" A dark-browed, pallid lad raised his hand, saying, "I will." His name was Richard Owen. "Is there anyone else here? " Another old gentleman having signified his resolve to join also in this self-denying ordinance, the Revivalist said: "I will ask for no more; if only these three perform their promise, they will draw heaven down on your heads in less than a fortnight." "Then he knelt by the converts," wrote an eyewitness, "and having prayed for them and the three volunteers, he began to pray for the church. I feel that I am treading on very sacred ground in describing what followed. We have sometimes seen a thunder-shower fall very unexpectedly. While Mr Morgan was praying for the church, suddenly, 'there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.' The place was truly awful to be in. Nearly everyone there was crying. I was within two yards to Mr Morgan, but such was the tumult in the chapel, that his words, in spite of his sonorous voice, were unintelligible to me. This spectacle only lasted a short time, but it was certainly the most real thing that I ever saw."
The last thing that David Morgan said to his host, the minister of the church, was, " Prepare thy chariot, for I hear a sound of abundance of rain/' Nearly 200 souls were won in the village within a few weeks.
From, 'The '59 Revival', by J J Morgan, pages 174-6.