George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

HOWEL HARRIS 79
ings of the people. In some cases he would be invited by
parishioners, without the consent of their clergyman, to come
and preach to them ;
in which case the clergyman would pro-
bably make sure of the church key, and compel both his
people and their favourite preacher to take their stand in the
open air \ next he would lodge an accusation in the Eccle-
siastical Court. Griffith Jones had twenty years of litigation.
By the establishment of ' Welsh Circulating Schools ' he did
his greatest work. His plan was to send a schoolmaster into
a locality that wished for instruction, to teach reading the
Bible in the Welsh tongue, psalmody, and the catechism.
From one district the schoolmaster would pass to another, to
do the same work. Jones testifies that in Wales not one
Dissenter in ten separated from the Church of England for
any other reason than ' for want of plain, practical, pressing,
and zealous preaching, in a language and dialect they are able
to understand.' For the same reason Methodism obtained a
strong footing.
Howel Harris, born the same year as Whitefield, was not
unlike the great evangelist in disposition, in gifts, in expe-
rience, and in whole-hearted consecration to the Saviour.
Ignorant of all the disputed points of religion, he lived in the
simple faith that God loved him, and would, for His own
name's sake, love him freely to the end. Oxford having
proved a disappointment to him, he returned to Wales, and
began in his own home-parish, Talgarth, Brecon, to visit from
house to house, and then to preach in the houses. The effects
were marvellous, and, as a consequence, he had to encounter
the opposition of the clergy, the magistrates, and the mob.
Yet the work grew ;
there was a general reformation in several
counties, and places of worship were everywhere crowded.
When the news of Whitefield's labours in London reached
him he felt his heart united to the evangelist ' in such a