The
“subject which has perhaps caused more excitement in the public mind than any
other feature of the Revival” were the “mysterious lights . . . associated with
the name of Mrs. Jones of Islawrffordd,” a woman preacher and a “homely
farmer’s wife”[1] in the
holiness revival.[2]  With “Wales worked up to a state of religious
frenzy by the revival fervour of Evan Roberts . . . Mrs. Mary Jones . . .
[g]reatly impressed by the work which Evan Roberts was doing in the South of
Wales . . . lifted up her voice in public prayer for the first time, and broke
down hopelessly.”  Soon she had a vision,[3]
read “Sheldon’s book, In His Steps,”[4]
and “being much moved by it . . . she began her ministry early in December
1904” as an “evangelist” among the “Calvinistic Methodists” and others,
receiving confirmation of her call to a preaching ministry “after seeing a
strange light on her way from Islaw’r Ffordd to Egryn chapel.”[5]  She affirmed that she had seen “quickly
vibrating lights, as though full of eyes. 
She had seen light hovering over some hilltops.  The light . . . frequently accompanied her,
leading the way as she went.”[6]  Witnesses stated that she “is attended by
lights of various kinds wherever she goes,” which were well attested and seen
by a great number of people.  These
lights are “tokens of heavenly approval of Mrs. Jones and the Revival.”  Indeed, “Mrs. Jones solemnly stated . . .
that [the planet] Venus . . . was a new star, had only appeared since the
Revival, and was situated a short distance above her house.”  One man saw a mysterious light “from the
beginning of the Revival [in his area] six weeks ago.  Sometimes it appears like a motor-car lamp
flashing and going out . . . other times like two lamps and tongues of fire all
round . . . other times a quick flash and going out immediately, and when the
fire goes out a vapour of smoke comes in its place; also a rainbow of vapour
and a very bright star.”  Lights were
seen both by those professedly converted in the Revival and those who were not,
“Chapel members and non-members alike.” 
Another entire family saw lights “hovering above a certain farmhouse . .
. as three lamps about three yards apart, in the shape of a Prince of Wales’s
feathers, very brilliant and dazzling, moving and jumping like a sea-wave . . .
continu[ing] so for ten minutes.” 
Others, “a few minutes afte[r] Mrs. Jones . . . pass[ed], on the main
road, . . . [saw] a brilliant light twice, tinged with blue.”  A woman “saw two very bright lights . . . one
a big white light, the other smaller and red in colour.  The latter flashed backwards and forwards,
and finally seemed to become merged in the other.”  Another saw a large light “and in the middle
of it something like [a] bottle or black person, also some little lights
scattering around the large light in many colours.  Last of all the whole thing came to a large
piece of fog, out of sight.”  Another
person saw a “pillar of fire, quite perpendicular, about two feet wide and
three yards in height.”  Others saw “a
cross and two other crosses [of light] . . . [t]he two crosses came nearer . .
. and stood not far [away], and dozens of small balls of fire [were dancing
back and fro behind the crosses . . . [while they] heard a voice singing.”  A “medical man” saw “a globe of light about
the size of a cheese plate, or nearly the apparent diameter of the moon, over
the chapel where Mrs. Jones was that evening preaching. . . . Mrs. Jones . . .
declared that she had also seen it, but from within the chapel.”  At another meeting where Mrs. Jones was
preaching and many were “very much affected . . . religious fervour was intense
and the service lasted until 1 a. m.,” people present saw “a ball of light
about the size of the moon,” with a “slight mist over it.  The stars began to shoot out around it, [and]
the light rose higher and grew brighter but smaller.”  Others saw a “block of fire” rising “from the
mountain side and moving along for about 200 or 300 yards.  It went upwards, a star” then “shot out to
meet it, and they clapped together and formed into a ball of fire,” the
appearance changing into “something like the helm of a ship.”  Others present saw “a ball of fire, white,
silvery, vibrating, stationary.”  From
the ball “two streamers of gray mist [were] emanating . . . in the space
between them a number of stars.”  A
“meeting of the Salvation Army” in the same location was visited by “a black
cloud from which emerged first a white light, then a yellow, and finally a
brilliantly red triangle.”[7]  Thus, Evan Roberts was very far from the only
one experiencing marvels in the Welsh holiness revival.

Indeed,
“the revival in Wales under Evan Roberts” not only “produced [these]
psychological and physical abnormalities” among others in Wales, but “sparked
them also in other countries,” leading to “speaking in tongues and similar
phenomena as a renewal of the gifts of Pentecost and powerful evidence of the
working of the Holy Spirit” that produced the Pentecostal and charismatic
movement.^[8]  While such “tokens of heavenly approval” of
women preachers and Keswick revivalism are radically different in character from
Biblical miracles, possessing far greater similarity to pagan marvels and the
marvels of medieval Romanism, they certainly proved that the religious
excitement was not merely the work of men, but that the spirit world was
powerfully at work in the Welsh holiness revival.

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