The Song That Swept Through the Welsh Valleys

In the autumn of 1904, a young coal miner named Evan Roberts stood before a small prayer meeting in Loughor, Wales, and spoke with such conviction about the goodness of God that something unprecedented began. Within weeks, the Welsh Revival had spread through mining villages and harbor towns like fire through dry brush. But what made this movement remarkable was not the preaching — it was the singing.

Entire congregations began composing new hymns on the spot, harmonies rising spontaneously from people who had spent their days underground in darkness. Coal-blackened men wept openly as they sang. Pit ponies stood idle because miners refused to leave their prayer meetings. Pubs emptied. Police officers reported so little crime they formed quartets and joined the singing themselves. Magistrates were presented with white gloves — the traditional symbol of a court with no cases to try.

The revival touched over 100,000 lives in less than a year, and observers from around the world traveled to those valleys simply to hear the sound. One journalist wrote that the singing seemed to come not just from the chapels but from the hills themselves.

Psalm 98 calls us to "sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things." The Welsh Revival reminds us that when God's people truly encounter His salvation, the response is never silence. It is a song so compelling that even the watching world leans in to listen.