Frank
Bartleman[1]
was likewise profoundly impacted by the Welsh holiness revival on his journey
to becoming an Apostle of Pentecostalism.  He was born to a Quaker mother and adopted the
Gospel of Wealth form of pseudo-Christianity, a form of religion dependent on
Social Darwinism.[2]  Further, the movement possessed similarites
to the Word of Faith doctrine that all believers should be rich, an idea
expounded in the preaching of Russell Conwell, “author of the gospel of wealth
classic, Acres of Diamonds.”[3]  Conwell baptized Bartleman and licensed him
to preach, at which time Bartleman “decided to ‘trust God’ for his body.  A lifelong devotion to the doctrine of divine
healing followed,”[4] although
Bartleman was, “in his own words . . . a ‘life-long semi-invalid[,]’ who
‘always lived with death looking over my shoulder’”[5]  and lived in “poor health to the end.”[6]  Furthermore, as an unregenerate person,
Bartleman was able to reject the Trinity and the true gospel by working with
and accepting the modalism and works-salvation of the Oneness Pentecostal
movement, becoming an important leader in the “Jesus-only” heresy shortly after
it began.[7]  Nevertheless, Bartleman, “[s]tirred by the
revival in Wales
in 1904 . . . quickly became part of the Azusa Street meetings and the new
movement.”[8]  After hearing F. B. Meyer testify to the
marvels going on in Wales through the work of Evan Roberts—a work which Meyer
associated with the presence of the miraculous gifts of 1 Corinthians 12,[9]
where tongues are included—Bartleman’s heart was passionately stirred to see
the same marvels take place in Los Angeles also.  He read chronicles of the Welsh holiness
revival and began to distribute many thousands of copies of such works, which
were used to “spread the fire in the churches wonderfully.”  He “spoke . . . on the revival in Wales” in religious organizations such as the “Friends Church” and other congregations
committed to the Higher Life continuationism.[10]  He also received the ability to prophecy from
supernatural spirits, and he “prophesied continually of a mighty outpouring”
that was to come.[11]  Indeed, among those brought under the
influence of Evan Roberts, the “spirit of prophecy began to work . . . on a
large scale,” as people prayed for the gifts of “discernment of spirits,
healing, [and] prophecy.”[12]  Through testimonies about what was going on
in the Welsh holiness revival, the expectation of a soon-coming mighty
restoration of all the sign gifts spread rapidly through the already very
sympathetic Higher Life assemblies.  Evan
Roberts and his holiness revivalism brought a widespread expectation of the
restoration of all the sign gifts, including tongues.[13]  Bartleman began to correspond with Evan
Roberts, exchanging letters “which linked us [in Los
Angeles] up with the revival there [in Wales].”  Roberts and Bartleman rejoiced together that
in Wales and Los Angeles many a “soul
[was] finding its way to the White Throne.”[14]  Roberts called the prophesying,
marvel-working Bartleman “[m]y dear brother in the faith” and his “comrade” in
the “terrible fight” with the “kingdom of evil,” as both engaged in the warfare
with spirits described by Roberts and Penn-Lewis in War on the Saints. Following the pattern of Evan Roberts,[15]
Bartleman plunged into “a constant conflict in prayer with the powers of
darkness,” experienced much “Soul Travail,” was “deal[t] with . . . much also
about the ‘blood,’” and learned much about “‘the fellowship of His sufferings’
in prayer,” with the result that, again following the pattern of Evan Roberts,[16]
his “nerves were getting very worn.”[17]  Roberts wrote to Bartleman concerning the
marvels that were taking place in Los
Angeles:[18]
“I was exceedingly pleased to learn the good news of how you are beginning to
experience wonderful things.”[19] A
vision of a being that Bartleman and another wonder-worker thought was Jesus
Christ confirmed that an outpouring was going to come.[20]  “Slowly but surely the conviction is coming
upon the saints of Southern California that God is going to pour out His Spirit
here as in Wales. . . . Wales
will not long stand alone in this glorious triumph . . . ‘Pentecost’ is
knocking at our doors . . . in the very near future . . . a deluge . . . will
sweep all before it.”[21]  Although the Lord Jesus repeatedly
warned:  “An evil and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign,”[22]
nonetheless, while working with Smale at the New Testament Church, where both
men were charter members,[23]
in February 1906 Bartleman began to “ask the Lord to pour out His Spirit
speedily, with ‘signs following.’”[24]  It became evident what was coming:  “A final call, a world-wide Revival.  Then judgment upon the whole world.  Some tremendous event is about to transpire.”[25]  “It was into this charged atmosphere that Seymour came, early in
1906.  In his first sermon . . . he
preached on Acts 2:4,” declaring that the initial evidence of Spirit baptism
was speaking in tongues to those who already believed that tongues were “one of
the gifts that were to be poured out upon sanctified believers”[26]
because of Higher Life continuationism and the Welsh holiness revival.  The soil was ripe.  Very shortly thereafter tongues—or at least
gibberish claiming to be tongues[27]—had
broken out in Los Angeles.  “Sunday Morning, April 15, [at] the New Testament
Church . . . [a] colored
sister was there and spoke in ‘tongues.’ . . . It seemed like Pentecostal ‘signs.’
. . . [A] few nights before, April 9,” at a “little cottage on Bonnie Brae Street
. . . the Spirit had fallen” and a “number had spoken in ‘tongues.’ . . . The
pioneers had broken through, for the multitude to follow.”[28]  The spiritual warfare taught and modeled by
Roberts and Penn-Lewis had come to its fructifying point.  “Demons are being cast out, the sick healed,
many blessedly saved, restored, and baptized with the Holy Ghost and power.”[29]  The Power behind the marvels of the Welsh
holiness Revival had moved into Los
Angeles. The signs that had been sought for had
come.  The Welsh holiness revival had
given birth:  the world-wide Pentecostal
movement had come forth in Los Angeles.

Pentecostal
pioneers, influenced by the Welsh holiness revival to the restoration of
tongues, rapidly spread Pentecostalism from Asusa Street in Los Angeles, California
to the rest of the world.[30]  Hence, the spirits that authored the confused
Welsh meetings brought not only the babbling alleged to be the restored gift of
tongues but also many other heretical doctrines and practices found at Asusa Street and in
budding Pentecostalism.[31]  British Israelism, the partial-Rapture
theory,[32]
modalism, and practices such as unmarried men and women kissing each other, all
accompanied with many supernatural marvels, were blazed abroad everywhere.[33]  Bartleman and Smale[34]
were not by any means exceptional in their transition from Welsh holiness
revival and Keswick influences into Pentecostalism; vast numbers of men in
Higher Life and “holiness leadership . . . promptly took places of leadership
in the pentecostal revival.  It was the
Kings, the Tomlinsons, the Seymours, the Bartlemans, the Barrats, the Pauls,
the Parhams, the Masons, the Ebys—all of the holiness movement . . . that
dominated the pentecostal revival’s formative years.”[35]  Throughout the American “south . . . there
were significant shifts of groups of holiness churches to the new movement . .
. other holiness bodies were also affected.”[36]  First in Los Angeles,[37]
and then in the rest of the world, huge numbers of Higher Life churches and
individuals moved into Pentecostalism. 
For example, all but three members of the Southern Florida Holiness
Association became Pentecostals in the Church
of God, and their camp meeting became
a Pentecostal center, while all the Nazarene churches in Florida, except one, turned Pentecostal.[38]  Entire Higher Life denominations, such as the
Pentecostal Holiness
Church, the Fire
Baptized Holiness
Church, the Church
of God, the United Holy Church of
America, and the Pentecostal
Free Will
Baptist Church,
entered the charismatic fold wholesale after receiving the strange fire arising
from Asusa Street.  The majority of the Church of God
in Christ turned Pentecostal after its leader became a charismatic at Asusa Street.[39]  “Most important for the rapid dissemination
of the Pentecostal message was its propagation at convocations of Holiness
people gathered from all across the nation and around the world. . . . From
these places the Pentecostal evangel was carried . . . back to the innumerable
religious groups and locals from which they came. . . . Initially, the use of Holiness resources and institutions
was of enormous, perhaps crucial, significance for spreading the Pentecostal
movement.”[40]  The supernatural spirits that led Evan
Roberts throughout the Welsh holiness revival unleashed an incalculable impact
on the United States
and the rest of the world through the rise of worldwide Pentecostalism.  As people came from all over the world to see
the marvels in the work of Evan Roberts, and took from Wales the same strange
fire to their own countries, so people came to Asusa Street from across America
and from other continents, and took the Pentecostal fire with them.[41]  Returning home, they brought countless
others, especially those already prepared for Pentecostalism by the
continuationism of Keswick and the Higher Life theology, into the Pentecostal
fold.[42]  “The Welsh Revival” was “the last ‘gap’
across which the latest sparks of the holiness enthusiasm leapt igniting the
Pentecostal movement.”[43]  Pentecostalism was the true child and heir of
the Welsh holiness revival work of Evan Roberts.  It is historically certain that the
“world-wide . . . Pentecostal . . . revival was rocked in the cradle of little Wales . . . becoming full grown in Los Angeles.”[44]

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