Dazzling Lights Are Seen in the Sky By a Converted Woman
Bedroom of Woman Visited by Angels
All of Wales Roused by the Marvelous Phenomena--Materialists Say That the Lights Are Due to Natural Causes
Special Cable, London, March 11.--Mrs. Mary Jones, the wife of a farmer at Egryn, is rapidly becoming one of the most noteworthy personages in the Welsh religious revival.
She roused the countryside early in January by her simple and earnest appeals, and she touched the superstitious side of her countrymen's nature by the visions which she saw and the lights in the sky which hovered over houses and guided her to the salvation of souls during the past two months.
The "Lights of Egryn" have become a household word in the Principality, and they are regarded as a "divine seal" set upon the mission of Mrs. Jones.
Mrs. Jones is a slim, gentle-looking woman. She has the light hair and expressive eyes of the true Celt, but her voice and her manner give the impression of unnatural reserve.
She claims to have seen visions. Six angels, she said, came into her bedroom. They were fair and shapely in form. They knelt, prayed and vanished.
The following account of the mysterious lights which have so astonished the district during the last weeks is told by an "Express" representative who was taken to see the phenomena by one of the converts of the revival:
It was nearly eight when we set out. The convert led the way by a few paces, and when a couple of miles were passed he began to scan the flanking hills with feverish, eager, expectant gaze.
"That," he said, pointing to a high brick structure which faced the road, "is Egryn chapel, where the revival started, and where already some fifty converts have been added to the church."
"I hope we may see the lights," he said, and added, half apologetically, half pityingly: "It is not given to every one to see them. Spiritual things are not discernable of all men."
The road now rose quickly, and at the summit the farmer suddenly stopped, excitedly seized my arm, and shouted triumphantly: "Yonder are the lights!"
He pointed with outstretched arm and shaking finger to the spot where, among the uncertain shadows, the dark outline of the chapel appeared to rest upon the hills. Beyond I saw some half-dozen lights. They gleamed, scintillated, jumped, and then vanished, to reappear at brief intervals.
"Now you will believe," said my guide, who seemd to take it for granted that I should at once accept the phenomena as miraculous.
A still more remarkable light appeared after the farmer and I had parted company. Faint at first, it rapidly gained dazzling intensity, when from a globelike center it flung out nine long, distinct radiations. It lingered for a full sixty seconds and expired.
A similar display occurred on the road while once a curious gleam shot across my path and circled around me.
There were several visitors around Mrs. Jones' door when I reached it on Sunday evening. She gave a cordial welcome to each. "I hope you have seen the lights," she said, adding immediately, "they are the visible signs of my work, and I want every one to believe in them."
I thought that she looked anxious, and again and again she endeavored to impress upon me the divine character of her mission. She insisted, among other things, that a star--her star, she styled it--settled over the chapel at [Rhondda?--nearly illegible] where she preached on Saturday night, and that mysterious lights accompanied her on her journey home. "One of them lashed into my carriage," she said. "It was a glowing ball of fire of exceeding brightness, but perfectly harmless."
Some of her visions are most extraordinary. She is probably not acquainted with the story of Goethe's "Faust," but she insists that she has seen the devil, who reversing the mephistophelean method, changed from human form into a dog.
"I saw some one coming," she said, "I thought it was my brother. Then it shrank into a small, snarling, ferocious hound, which ran yelping into the darkness." Nothing will shake her conviction, which is credited by the countryside.
"It would not matter so much," said a well-known resident at Barmouth,"if Mrs. Jones would managed to preserve a monopoly of these dangerous symptoms, but other people, unfortunately, have caught some thing of her spirit, and they, too, are dreaming dreams and seeing visions."
"One man told me quite seriously yesterday that he had resisted the devil, although he was profered [sic] a bottle of elixir of life and renewed youth and vigor."
"In so far as the revival is rational, good is being done, but it certainly seems as if the border-line were passed."
Mrs. Mary Jones went last night to Arthog, a thinly populated hamlet at the foot of the bold and striking summit of Cedar Idris. She journeyed there by train, and, owing to a slight hoarseness, did not return home the same night.
It was a dark, damp, desolate night. Thick mists veiled the hills and overhung the sky, while a steady downpour of rain intesified the prevailing gloom.
Undismayed by the weather, the villagers proceeded to the chapel in large numbers, while visitors at Barmouth who have been attracted there by Mrs. Jones' growing fame, willingly trudged the two weary miles along the deserted sillhides.[sic]
The proceedings at the chapel bore a striking resemblance to those in the Rhondda Valley. "Diolch Iddo," the "Glory song" of the Welsh revival, seemed to lay hold of the congregation, who sang themselves into a sort of religious frenzy.
Mrs. Jones' entrance was quiet and undramatic. She appeared perfectly calm and self-possessed, but it was noticeable that bright, feverish lights gleamed fitfully in her eyes, and that a brooding melancholy at times settled upon her face.
There was no star over the chapel; there were no guiding lights to lead the way there.
Mrs. Jones occupied the pulpit alone, but, as in Evan Roberts' meetings, there was no attempt to arrange the order of the service. Now and again she broke into loud and earnest exhortations, or swayed rythmically to the stirring singing of the congregation.
"Tell mother I'll be there," has reached even these out-of-the-way Welsh villages, and it was sung last night with all the touching power of the huge crowds in the Albert Hall.
Mrs. Jones speak fluently with emphasis. The hearers hung upon her words in a silence that was almost painful. The
fact is that they regard her as an inspired woman set divinely apart
from sacred missions.
Large crowds awaited her return from the chapel, and whiled away the hours by singing "Diolch Iddo." They ex- pected to see the lights, but no glory light appeared to relieve the unpierced blackness of the hills. Only the shifting gleams from some cattle driver's lamp shone occasionally from the wide spreading meadows.
It would seem that atmospheric conditions have something to do with the appearance of the lights. This, of course, would at once deprive them of any claims to the supernatural.