This rare book – published in 1860 as the first comprehensive account of the 1859 revival in Wales – holds a primary place in the authentic records of periods of remarkable spiritual recovery and growth. The author was an eye witness of much that he records, and he also gives the testimony of other contemporary observers from all parts of Wales. They all shared the conviction that ‘the Almighty is opening the sluices of grace and pouring out streams of blessings on the churches of all denominations’.
1859 was unmistakeably a time of profound emotion and of extraordinary numbers of professed converts but the author is not pre-occupied with these things. His greater concern is to show the marks of true Christianity in a time of revival and, pre-eminently, the moral change which is to be found in every true convert: ‘They are told that excitement is not conversion and that whatever confidence they may have it is a delusion unless it is accompanied by hatred of sin, and a renunciation of it in every shape and form’.
