This past week our friends in Oxford kindly made available to us their family cottage in Defynnog, a little village in the beautiful Brecon Beacons, in Wales.
We were amazed to discover there were once no less than three chapels in this little village, as well as the parish church; 10 minutes walk away, in nearby Sennybridge (another little village) were two more chapels; and many more in the surrounding countryside.
Chapels were built all over Wales in the wake of almost continuous revivals in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Sadly, most of these (including the three in Defynnog) have now disappeared, fallen into disuse, or have been converted to private dwellings.
The following account of revival in Defynnog is abbreviated from a blog by David Edward Pike and appears in full here.
In this beautiful, still unspoiled area, overshadowed in importance by the market town of Brecon a few miles away, a powerful revival took place in 1808 which was to have significant repercussions elsewhere in Wales in the years that followed.
Defynnog had been one of the first places to feel the impact of the Methodist revival in the late 1730’s, following the conversion of Howel Harris at Talgarth in 1735. Harris mentions visiting the parish in his diaries, Defynnog being about twenty miles from his home. Harris seems to have been favourably received in the parish. One diary entry for the end of 1736 reads: ‘Defynnog. NB John Pritchard when I didn’t expect it, was converted, and in hopes of converting many more there in the neighbourhood.’
It sounds as if he had already visited the place before there to preach, and might have gone there within a few months of his conversion. Soon there was quite a group of his converts at Defynnog, who would have worshipped in the local parish church, but probably gathered informally in homes midweek to encourage each other in their new-found faith.
Possibly because of this renewal within the parish church, initially there seems to have been a favourable response from the local vicar, Rev. Lawrence Payne, who invited Daniel Rowland to preach there in 1737. Hearing that his fellow revivalist Rowland was going to be there, Howel Harris rode over from Trefecca to Defynnog to meet him. It was their first encounter, and Harris was favourably impressed, writing of Rowland’s preaching in the parish church that he seemed ‘surrounded by glory in the pulpit.’
Subsequently, Defynnog became a key place used by the early Welsh Methodists for their Association meetings in the early 1740’s. In these meetings, plans were made for the supervision and care of the new societies and matters of doctrine were discussed.
But it was not all plain sailing, and challenges had to be overcome. One issue arose at Defynnog itself, probably as a result of a degree of dissatisfaction being felt by new Methodist converts at having to take communion along with unbelieving religious observants in the parish church, rather than in their own society meetings. Adhering to the parish church reflected Methodist policy as encouraged by Harris, who was anxious for the Methodists to remain within the fold of the Anglican parish system rather than to cause offence and division. However, Edmund Jones, the Independent minister, without consulting Harris and Rowland whose converts they were, persuaded the new believers in Defynnog to break ranks and set up their own Independent cause in the parish.
In August 1742, Harris wrote a remarkably restrained and gracious letter to Edmund Jones about his disappointment that this had happened. It’s a lesson in how clearly to express disagreement while maintaining honour, and is a mark of how great a leader Harris was.
However, soon after the break with Harris, the new Independent church built a meeting place at Brychgoed, a couple of miles north of the parish church. One of the recent converts was the farmer at Brychgoed Farm, one John Watkins. It was on his land that the chapel was built. Mr. Watkins became the first minister, and was ordained August 15th, 1744.
Links with the Methodists seem not to have been entirely severed, and a working relationship between Howel Harris and Edmund Jones must have been maintained to some extent, for this same John Watkins was present at a Methodist Association meeting held at Llandeusant in 1743. John Watkins only served as pastor at Brychgoed for four years, for he died in 1748. Meanwhile William Williams, Pantycelyn preached at Defynnog, while Daniel Rowland visited the place every month for a period of six months in 1747 to hold communion services at Capel Illtyd in Crai within the parish.
The Methodists of Defynnog had built their own separate meeting place as early as 1793, while they were still technically a part of the Anglican church (Methodism didn’t formally break away until 1811). This was Trinity Chapel. While the Methodists held their own meetings at Trinity, they still took communion at the parish church until 1811. Sadly, the current Trinity chapel, a rebuild largely dating from 1829, closed in 2010, and is now being converted into a private dwelling.
Lewis Powell recorded the events of the 1808 revival in Defynnog. Lewis Powell was born at Defynnog two days after Christmas in 1788. His father John Powell was a weaver, a godly man who brought up his children to love the Bible and to observe the Sabbath. His mother’s name was Margaret.
She would be one of many who, though they had spent much of their lives in religious observance, would actually be converted in the powerful Revival which swept through the area in 1808.
Lewis Powell was converted in his teens and became a member of Brychgoed Chapel on Easter Sunday 1807 when he was eighteen years of age. Brychgoed was then being pastored by Peter Jenkins, who was a personal friend of William Williams, Pantycelyn, the great Welsh Methodist hymnwriter. [He wrote over 900 hymns in either Welsh or English, the most famous being “Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah”.]
Lewis Powell’s account of chapel life at that time shows it to have been a rather special place. I wonder if, after a lapse of over fifty years between 1808 and the time he wrote this, what Powell is actually describing here is the Revival itself rather that the time immediately before its outbreak:
I was made a member of Brychgoed during a season when no one had joined for a long time, though the work was secure enough. Nobody at that time was seeking to come to the house of the Lord, and there were no young men in the church. The people were all older brothers and sisters. Nevertheless, they all behaved as if they were much younger, travelling distances to the meetings, singing, jumping, praying, listening, enjoying fellowship, and everything else just as if they were all still in the fresh flowering of youth.
There was not a prayer meeting that was too far away to get to, no fellowship meeting too distant, no gathering to hear preaching that was beyond reach, no great preacher they would not travel to hear, nor any lesser preacher too unworthy of hearing. There was a real hunger for the word of life, the sound of the jubilee trumpet was heard by those who were captives, and people talked about Calvary. They travelled around Crai, Sennybridge, Glyn, and Cwmcamlais, and everywhere else around, as if the places were close together.
They brought heaven close to the earth, and earth was brought close to heaven. Also, the old came close to the young, the poor were close to the rich, and the manservant and maidservant seemed close to their master and mistress.
But what ways, what fellowship, what work, what atmosphere made the old people seem like young people, if not the religious ways, and religious fellowship, and religious work, and religious atmosphere? It was that that kept the people so youthful with religion throughout their life.
It was not long after Lewis joined the church that, in the autumn of 1808, the whole district was overwhelmed by a powerful move of the Holy Spirit. The revival began in the Calvinistic Methodist chapel in Defynnog, and spread rapdily from there to Brychgoed, which was about a couple of miles away further up the valley, and thence to Crai in the neighbouring valley, and then on to Trecastle, both further to the west; and to Cwmcamlais and Glyn in the Tarrell Valley in the east, and to Pontsenni [Sennybridge] and Pentre’r Felin to the north, until the whole district was soon ablaze with renewed passion for God. The Revival had a dramatic impact on the entire district. Powell’s description of Brychgoed ostensibly goes on to describe what happened in the Revival:
The Lord was pleased to visit this area with a very powerful Revival in October of 1808. It began in Defynnog village, among the Calvinistic Methodists, and then it moved to Brychgoed, Crai, and Trecastle. In the Sunday School at Cwmcamlais, at the home of Richard Price, I first heard the wonderful sound of the revival, and it was there that I first saw the amazing scenes of revival.
I think that many were brought in in Defynog, Brychgoed, Crai, and Trecastle, both young and old, so that the souls of those who were disciples were renewed. Yes, and the face of the earth was renewed. The names of Brychgoed, Pentre, Crai, and Trecastle, and Baili-du, became as if they were new names, and the names of the preachers as if they were new names, and the names of religious duties as if they were new names, and the names of the doctrines of the Christianity as if they were new names, and the names of the old houses where the meetings had previously been held as if they were new names, and each and every thing as if it were completely made new, so that it could be said, as did Apostle Paul, ‘Behold, all things are made new.’
Many became members at Brychgoed, both old and young, including, my dear mother, and Pally, the wife of John Phillip Thomas, and Thomas, the husband of Pally Morgan Rees. Richard Thomas Jenkins was also received, though an old man.
End of the abbreviated account from David Pike’s post: posted 25th August 2012
Postscript
Ten minutes’ drive from Defynnog (five minutes if you are fool enough to drive at more than 10 mph along the narrow hedged-in lanes) is a cute chapel, able to accommodate maybe 100 or more people. In its heyday it would’ve been full and resounded to gospel preaching. Without a settled minister they try and meet twice a month on a Sunday afternoon; I went along. When I arrived there were maybe a dozen locals present, who gave me a warm welcome. The visiting woman minister’s message, essentially: “Be good and do good because you are Christians”, was innocuous and innoculating and would’ve caused Daniel Rowland to weep.
But we fared better and were much blessed that morning when we attended Swansea Evangelical Reformed Church, about 45 mins from Defynnog. The message was sound on Romans 8:16 (a verse I have mulled over for years), the singing was inspirational (OK, so they are Welsh) and easily drowned out the accompaniment, and the people very friendly. An edifying Sunday morning.
How we need to pray for a new awakening in Wales.
And especially in Australia.
Once we regularly prayed for revival in this land.
Now we seem to pin our hope more on our own activity than on the Lord.