Howell Harris, one of the greatest
Welshmen ever to have lived, one of the great preachers of the eighteenth
century revival in the Principality, and a man who had a formative influence on
the fellowship here at New Inn, was born on January 24th 1714. Along with men such as Daniel Rowland and
William Williams in Wales, and the Wesley brothers and George Whitfield in
England, Harris was mightily used by God to call the nation back to himself.
Harris was born in Talgarth,
Breconshire, the son of a farmer. Though
he had little education he grew up to become a schoolmaster. The great change in
his life began to take place on Palm Sunday, March 30th, 1735, when Harris
attended the Parish Church at Talgarth. During the service the Vicar, Pryce
Davies, announced that there would be a Communion Service the following Sunday,
and said that he knew there were many people who did not come to the Communion
because they felt they were not fit to partake of it. He went on to say, 'If
you are not fit to take Communion you are not fit to pray, if you are not fit
to pray you are not fit to live, and if you are not fit to live you are not fit
to die'. These words hit this thoughtless schoolmaster with great force. He had
never been a riotous person but he had lived a loose life; so these
extraordinary words of the Vicar announcing a Communion Service began a process
of conviction of sin which from then on led to an agony of repentance.
He continued in an agony of repentance -
trying to find peace and unable to find it - until Whit Sunday, which was May
25th, when he went again to a Communion Service in the same church. He
describes how during a part of the service he had a tremendous fight with the
devil. He had found a certain amount of peace in a neighbouring church, where
he had given himself to God as best he could in his ignorance. That gave him a
measure of peace, but the devil came and attacked him in this Communion on Whit
Sunday, violently trying to shake his faith in everything. However, before the
service was over he had found peace. Here are his own words describing this:
'At the table, Christ bleeding on the Cross was kept before my eyes constantly;
and strength was given to me to believe that I was receiving pardon on account
of that blood. I lost my burden; I went home leaping for joy, and I said to my
neighbour who was sad, Why are you sad? I know my sins have been forgiven. Oh
blessed day! Would that I might remember it gratefully evermore'!
He immediately began to
tell others about this and to hold meetings in his own home encouraging others
to seek the same assurance that he had of Christ's forgiveness. Harris
was refused ordination in the Anglican Church on four occasions, because of his
“Methodist” tendencies, but remained a lay preacher throughout his life, both
in North and South Wales, tireless in his determination to bring the good news
to the lost of the Principality. His
home in Trevecca became a centre for mission work and the training of
preachers. This was in part due to his
association with the Countess of Huntingdon, who helped finance students to
train and go out with the gospel. He
might not have been an accomplished theologian, but he was a zealous
evangelist, whose preaching was powerfully accompanied by the Holy Spirit. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones says of him, “I have scarcely ever read of any man who has worked as hard
as Howell Harris did. He would preach many times during the day, and after that
would hold private societies with the converts, and after that would write his
diaries. Very often he had no sleep at all, and would go back to his school the
next day; or he would have a couple of hours' sleep and then travel and preach
somewhere else. On and on he went, working in an almost superhuman manner. His
voice became permanently husky quite early on in his preaching career, but he
still continued.” Harris has been
described by one historian as ‘the most successful preacher that ever ascended
a platform or pulpit in Wales.’ He died
on July 21st 1773, and over twenty thousand people were reported to
have attended his funeral, when nine sermons were preached!
His preaching often led him into personal danger, and he endured
considerable persecution. People formed into mobs that reviled and opposed
him, while magistrates threatened him and imposed fines upon those who met for
worship in their homes. Even the clergy were opposed to Harris and preached
against him, branding him a false prophet and deceiver.
Mobs often attacked Harris in all kinds of ways. He was shot at with pistols and pelted with apples and pears, dung and dirt, eggs and stones, and even a dead dog. In 1740, while ministering with William Seward in Caerleon, the two preachers were attacked so severely that that Seward eventually went blind in both eyes.
Mobs often attacked Harris in all kinds of ways. He was shot at with pistols and pelted with apples and pears, dung and dirt, eggs and stones, and even a dead dog. In 1740, while ministering with William Seward in Caerleon, the two preachers were attacked so severely that that Seward eventually went blind in both eyes.
Although the
exact details of the link between Howell Harris and the congregation here at
New Inn are lost in the mists of time, there is good evidence that he preached
here on numerous occasions. Harry
Lewis’s fine history of our fellowship records that Daniel James, minister at
New Inn during the late eighteenth century, stated that ‘The Gospel was first
introduced into this place by a Society of Methodists, many of whom had been
awakened under the preaching of the eminent Mr Howell Harris who, finding the
Established Church in those parts filled with carnal ministry, formed
themselves into an independent church’.
We know that New Inn was a convenient meeting place for the Methodist
Society Association meetings between 1744 and 1750, when Harris and Daniel
Rowland often preached.
The
tercentenary of the birth of Howell Harris reminds us that God can suddenly
break into the life of Wales, like He did again in 1859 and 1904, raising up
ordinary men and using them to turn the nation to Himself. Our need of
spiritual revival today is, if anything, greater than it was three hundred
years ago. But our God is the same
God. We need to pray urgently that He
will visit us again.