Day 36: Praying for Williamstown (1909)

Join with Salvationists of the Wales Division for Day 36 of 150 days of prayer.

• ‘Lord your faithful love reaches as high as the sky. People can trust you beyond the clouds’ (Psalm 36:5, EasyEnglish Bible).

1909

‘Brother Horton, Cardiff IV’ informed readers of the 6 February War Cry heard from ‘One little boy … who had picked up a fag end … said to the other, “Ask that man for a match”; but the reply was, “He won’t give us one. He is a Salvation Army man and Salvationists don’t smoke.”’

The same issue included an ‘interesting story in pictures from Williamstown, South Wales’ and showed the old hall, the new hall and a ‘collection of pipes, whisky bottles, and other “idols” surrendered at the penitent form.’

In The Salvation Army the story of holiness has often been one of down-to-earth issues rather than heavenly, mystical experiences. Salvationists were respected because they didn’t smoke, drink, gamble or swear. And converts literally left their old life at the penitent form in the form of pipes, bottles and feathers, etc.

Prayer

• Pray for Williamstown Corps and its surrounding community.
• Give thanks for all the people with whom the corps is in contact and in whose lives God is working.

Closing thoughts on the 1990s

The story of the 1900s is the exciting story of revival in Wales, including The Salvation Army. The General was no longer regarded as ‘the leader of the new enfant terrible of the religious world’.* Instead, he was greeted and honoured by the great and the good wherever he went.

Behind the fervour of revival and the praise of dignitaries, the 15-year-old Sarah Williams and the poor, wronged little Sarah Jane were quietly being helped – and yet another young man lost his life in a pit accident.

* Eric Wickberg, In Darkest England and The Way Out, 6th edition, 1970