Prayer

One of the great features of Revival is the adding to the Church of people who have not grown up within the bosom of the church visible. The 1904-5 Revival was no exception. In his Reminiscences of My Country and People David Davies gives a few examples of the prayers of older people converted in this revival.

A farmer, aware that someone had been pilfering potatoes, prayed in family worship that God would convince the thief of his sin, saying 'Lord, Thou knowest well who he is! - I suspect, too!'

Another farmer, having lost £5 - then a considerable sum of money, prayed: "O Lord, thou knowest I have mislaid the £5, and Thou, too, knowest where they are - tell me. Lord, tell me, for Thou knowest where they are'. When this did not avail, he added 'If Thou hadst lost them, Lord, and I knew where they were, I would tell Thee'.

If this prayer had been uttered by one brought up in church or chapel, it would have been the very height of irreverence, but the old farmer had never before known God as Father. And, Davies remarks, the Father who knows us so well heard the prayer in the way it was meant, and answered it. "[H]e no sooner opened his eyes, and got up on his feet, than he placed his hand upon his mislaid treasure!"