While
Baptist church membership, and that of old-school evangelicalism, began to
decline after Evan Roberts finished his revivalistic course, Pentecostalism
boomed, as Roberts’s influence had led many others in the holiness revival to
have supernatural encounters with the spirit world similar to those he had
experienced.  Donald Gee notes:  “It is impossible, and would be historically
incorrect, to dissociate the Pentecostal Movement from . . . the Welsh Revival
[through which] . . . the spiritual soil was prepared . . . for [its] rise.”[1]  Jessie Penn-Lewis wrote: 

[T]he Pentecostal character
of the Awakening in Wales
is unmistakably clear . . . the wider fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy [in
chapter two about signs and wonders through Spirit baptism] is at hand.  Undoubtedly we are in a new era of the
world’s history, when we may expect supernatural workings of God such as have
not been known since the days of the primitive Church. . . . [B]y [receiving] a
baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire, “signs and wonders” w[ill] follow.[2] 

Not Roberts
only, but very many saw visions and heard voices.[3]  Prominent ministers and witnesses testified
that Wales was seeing what
“was spoken by the prophet Joel . . . the promise [is] now evidently fulfilled
in Wales”:  “If you ask for proof of that assertion, I
point to the signs.  ‘Your young men
shall see visions!’  That is exactly what
is happening. . . . It does not at all matter that some regular people are
objecting to the irregular doings. . . . If you ask me the meaning of the Welsh
revival, I say—IT IS PENTECOST CONTINUED, without one single moment’s doubt.”[4]  Consequently, throughout the holiness revival
of 1904-5 there were “many stories of aerial lights, aerial choirs, flashes and
visions.”[5]  “Dreams, religious and otherwise, were
registered by the score.”[6]  “During the Revival many persons vowed that
they had heard voices in the air calling them by name and speaking to them in
distinct tones and words.”[7]  The multiplication of such marvels from the
spirit world was natural, since “[v]isions were looked upon as the gift of the
Holy Spirit, a mark of Divine favour, and one of the concomitants of true
conversion.”  With the the neglect of the
Word of God “there were many who appeared to know more about their visions than
about their Bible.”[8]  Thus, “Miss Florie Evans,” Evan Roberts’s
coworker, “could speak of visions and messages . . . [and] prophesied.”[9]  The marvels attending Roberts made it clear
that women were to preach and teach men:

The old objection of many of
the Welsh Churches to the equal ministry of women has gone by the board. . . .
Women pray, sing, testify, and speak as freely as men . . . the toppling of the
hateful . . . ascendency of the male. . . . Paul, it is true . . . found it
necessary, while addressing the Church of Corinth, to draw a very hard and fast
line limiting the sphere of female activity . . . Christianity, however, is at
last sloughing the Corinthian limitation[.] . . . The Quakers began the good
work. . . . Now in South Wales we see the fruit
of this devoted testimony . . . [i]n the present Revival women are everywhere
to the fore, singing, testifying, praying, and preaching.[10]

Indeed, the
visions were innumerable, but unlike Biblical visions, where God revealed real,
specific, and knowable truth, the visions of the holiness revival either set
forth all sorts of meaningless foolishness or specifically taught unbiblical
errors.

[P]arishoners . . . heard bells chiming . . . a
thunder clap followed by lovely singing in the air . . . [others heard] strange
music, similar to that caused by the vibration of telegraph wires, only much
louder. . . . The Vicar[11] of a parish . . . heard voices singing . . .
[g]radually the voices seemed to increase in volume until they became
overpowering. . . . It was as real to his senses as anything he ever heard and
the words were distinct, in Welsh.[12]

A “young girl,
18 years of age” who was “almost illiterate” was supernaturally enabled to pray
with “the most refined and literary sentiments, couched in admirable phraseology[,]”
and her “changed appearance” was very striking, becoming “much more
gentle.  Her face, previously course, has
now quite a refined appearance . . . [becoming] a Madonna-like face” as she
also has gained “contact with . . . her mother, though she has been dead about
15 years. . . . [S]he seems to feel her mother’s unseen influence, certainly
seeing and perhaps helping her in her difficulties.”[13]  Another woman “heard the voice of her dead
son, and [affirmed] that the conversations that had repeatedly passed between
them were as real to her as those that had passed between them in the days of
his flesh.”[14]  A “young man . . . heard a voice speaking
distinctly.  The Spirit said (in Welsh)”
a variety of things, including a command that “in the most public place” the
young man was to deliver the message: 
“Tell them that hypocrisy is the worst sin against Me . . . [t]he
Spirit,”[15] a
message contradicting what Christ said was the worst sin against the Spirit, to
blaspheme Him (Matthew 12:31; Mark 3:29-30; Luke 12:10).[16]  The man also testified:  “I had a vision . . . a beautiful light,
pure, and brighter than any light I have ever seen, and clusters of something
very soft and white falling upon me gently and covering me all over.  I called them blessings.”  He also had other “dreams,” although he said,
“I doubted whether it was the Holy Spirit.”[17]  The minister Joseph Jenkins was “clothed with
strength from above, and he knew it,” receiving power from the spirit world,
after “a strange blue flame took hold of him until he was almost completely
covered.  It rose . . . from the floor of
the room and billowed up, encircling him. 
It retreated and returned a second time, and then retreated and returned
again.”[18]

            While Scripture states that saving
faith comes not by seeing miracles but by hearing the Word of God (Romans
10:17), in the holiness revival people professed conversion and were led to
become members of congregations because of the marvels they experienced.  For example, in a “Revival service” at “St.
Mary the Virgin’s Church”:

[A] young man . . . saw a lighted candle emerge from
the font [for administering infant baptism and, according to Anglican dogma,
regenerating infants thereby] and the figure of an angel shielding it with his
wing[19] from the draught that came from the open door.  The flame was very small, and the least
breath of wind would have extinguished it but for the protecting wing.  Before the service was ended he gave his adhesion
to the Church. . . . [The man testified:] 
“I did not believe in Christ before [the vision] that He was our God and
my Saviour.  I had always denied Him, but
never again, for I believed then [at the time of the vision].”[20]

A woman who
was hostile to the holiness revival, but whose husband was part of “the Church
Army,” “began to feel very queer,” saw “the room” where she was become “all
dark,” and “it seemed as if the room was full, or like a swarm of bees around
[her, and she] heard some sound . . . like the buzzing of bees,” and then saw
her “four children [who] had died in infancy . . . singing the hymn, ‘O
Paradise,’” and then “saw the children again and Jesus Christ . . . [a]s
natural as you see Him on a picture[21] .
. . behind them, and the children said, ‘Crown Him, Mam,’[22]
and they disappeared.”  As a consequence
she “has been quite a different woman and is present in all the services.”[23]  A boy whose father was far away
testified:  “I distinctly saw my father
in the [revival] service [in  a vision].  He knelt alongside of me and looked at me
with a pitiful face and said, ‘My dear boy, pray for me.’ . . . I had never
taken religion very seriously before, but I do now.”[24]  Another man’s testimony was noteworthy:

[He saw] a faint light
playing over his head.  As it came nearer
it increased in size . . . he saw . . . a man’s body in a shining robe.  The figure had wings . . . every feather in
the wings . . . was heavenly beyond description. . . . [I]t did not touch the
ground.  He looked at the hand and saw
the prints of the wounds . . . recognized Him as Jesus . . . [and] shouted—“O
my Jesus,” and the figure ascended . . . on His wing . . . out of sight.[25]  He felt filled with love, and from that time
he can love every one without difference.[26] 

A lady felt
that she had been cut off from God until she saw a “vision of Christ in his
kingly robes . . . that had set all right.”[27]  At another meeting people were filled with
“agony . . . men and women jumping in their seats . . . others testifying that
they had received the Holy Spirit, and one person said, ‘Don’t try to
understand this, but throw yourself into it. 
It surpasseth all understanding.’” 
Another who “did not believe much in the Revival” was turned into an
advocate by marvels:

[He was] caught in his hat and began walking down the
staircase, when he was instantaneously knocked (as it were) unconscious.  He ran down the stair, and he then jumped
five of the steps to the floor[.] . . . He looked like a madman . . . and
shouted out, “Here is reality to-night.” . . . [H]e ran into the chapel, and on
by the pulpit.  He jumped on top of a
seat, and he threw his hat with all his might up towards the ceiling of the
church, and with a loud voice [gave out his experience.]  “It is above all understanding,” he
said.  He remained partly unconscious for
a fortnight . . . and he saw a vision of a place beautifully white, and a voice
came to him that God would be his refuge and strength. . . . He was moved by
the Spirit twice after this fortnight to unconsciousness.  How he escaped from injury while jumping and
passing across seats was marvellous . . . he received such physical strength
that he thought he could move away a tremendous weight.[28]

Another man,
at a holiness revival meeting, testified:

I had a thrill through my
body, causing great pain.  I cried
bitterly; why, I don’t know. . . . [For a few days] I felt great pain, and . .
. I lost all appetite for food. . . . [at a] prayer meeting . . . there was
great agony through my body.  Why, I know
not.  But it remained through the week. .
. . I prayed unto God to forgive my sins and reveal unto me Himself.  I don’t remember the prayer.  I lost all consciousness that night. . . . I
perspired very much, so that I thought that water had been thrown over me. . .
. A voice told me that [a particular person was] in the meeting to-night by the
door.  And I said, ‘No, he is not
here[.’] . . . Then the voice told me the second time exactly the same words,
and I answered him back[.] . . . I was astonished when I found [out that the
voice was] true.  Had the voice only told
me once, I would [not] have believed . . . but when I heard the voice the
second time, I was surprised [and found out what it said was true]. . . . [M]y
body lost all its pain on that Saturday night . . . [and] I am happier than
ever[.][29]

By means of
such visions, voices, excitements, and marvels—rather than by means of clear
preaching of the gospel—vast numbers were professedly converted.[30]

---