When Evan Roberts Wept in a Chapel

In the autumn of 1904, a twenty-six-year-old Welsh coal miner named Evan Roberts stood before seventeen people in a small chapel in Loughor, Wales. He had no seminary degree, no publishing deal, no platform. He simply asked those present to pray one honest prayer: "Send the Spirit now, for Jesus Christ's sake." It was barely a trickle — a handful of voices in a cramped room on an ordinary Tuesday night.…