21: Howel Harris
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It is difficult to write about religion without giving offence.
Religion will come into politics, and must come into history. It has
given much, perhaps most, of its strength to modern Wales; it has
given it many, if not most, of its political difficulties.
There are periods of religious calm and periods of religious fervour
in the life of every nation. I do not know whether it is necessary,
but it is certainly the fact—the two periods condemn each other with
great energy. With regard to creed—the life of religion—you will
find that the periods of energy tend to be Calvinistic—an intense
belief that man is a mere instrument in the hands of God, working out
plans he does not understand; while in periods of rest it tends to be
Arminian—a comfortable belief that man sees his future clearly, and
that he can guide it as he likes. With regard to the Church—the
body of religion—it is fortunate, in times of calm, if it is
established, to keep the spirit of religion alive; it is fortunate,
in times of fervour, if it is free, in order that the new life may
give it a more perfect shape.
Now we must remember that there can be no calm without a little
indifference, and that there can be no enthusiasm without a little
intolerance. So men call each other fanatics and bigots and
hypocrites, because they have not taken the trouble to realise that
there is much variety in human character and in the workings of the
human mind. Perhaps it is also worth remembering that an institution
is not placed at the mercy of a reformer, but gradually changed.
The eighteenth century was a century of indifference in religion in
Wales, the nineteenth century was a century of enthusiasm. The
Church at the beginning of the eighteenth century, at any rate as far
as the higher clergy were concerned, was apathetic to religion, and
alive only to selfish interests. The Whig bishops were appointed for
political reasons; they hated the Tory principles of the Welsh
squires, and they neglected and despised the Welsh people they had
never tried to understand. In England, the Defoes and the Swifts of
literature were encouraged and utilised by the political parties; in
Wales, where clergymen were the only writers, the Whig bishops
distrusted them, and silenced them where they could, because they
wrote Welsh. The Church did not show more misapplication of revenue
than the State, perhaps; but, while the people could not leave the
State as a protest against corruption, they could leave the Church.
And, during the middle of the eighteenth century, a great national
awakening began.
The trumpet blast of the awakening was Howel Harris. He was a
Breconshire peasant, of strong passion which became sanctified by a
life-long struggle, of devouring ambition which he nearly succeeded
in taming to a life of intense service to God. Many bitter things
have been said about him, but nothing more bitter than he has said
about himself in the volumes of prayers and recriminations he wrote
to torture his own soul, and to goad himself into harder work. The
fame of his eloquence filled the land, and districts expected his
appearance anxiously, as in old times they expected Owen Glendower.
Howel Harris was, however, no political agitator. He had an
imperious will, and he wished to rule his brethren; he was aggressive
and military in spirit; God to him was the Lord of Hosts; he preached
the gospel of peace in the uniform of an officer of the militia, and
he sent many of his converts to fight abroad in the battles of the
century. He had a love of organisation; he established at Trevecca
what was partly a religious community, and partly a co-operative
manufacturing company. But, wherever he stood to proclaim the wrath
of God, no shower of stones or condemnation of minister or justice
could make those who heard him forget him, or believe that what he
said was wrong.
If I were writing for antiquarians, and not for those who read
history in order to see why things are now as they are, I would write
details—important and instructive—about the Church of the
eighteenth century, and about the congregations of Dissenters which
the seventeenth century handed over to the eighteenth to persecute
and despise. The Independents and Baptists sturdily maintained their
principles of religious liberty, but they found the century a stiff-
necked one, and their congregations were content with merely
existing. The Quakers maintained that war was wrong while Britain
passed through war fever after war fever—the Seven Years' War and
the wars against Napoleon. Howel Harris' voice might have been a
voice crying in the wilderness, if it had not been for the spiritual
life of the existing congregations, conformist and dissenting.
Modern ideas in Wales have been profoundly affected by the Quakers,
and especially in districts from which, as a sect, they have long
passed away.
The voice of Howel Harris called all these to a new life; and it is
about that new life, in the variety given it by all the different
actors in it, that I want you to think now. It made preaching
necessary, for one thing; and it was followed by a century of great
pulpit oratory. It profoundly affected literature. It gave Wales,
to begin with, a hymn literature that no country in the world has
surpassed. The contrast between the Reformation and the Revival is
very striking—one gave the people a Church government established by
law and a literature of translations, the other gave it institutions
of its own making and original living thought. The Revival gave
literature in every branch a new strength and greater wealth.
It created a demand for education. Griffith Jones of Llanddowror
established a system of circulating schools, the teachers moving from
place to place as a room was offered them—sometimes a church and
sometimes a barn. Charles of Bala established a system of Sunday
Schools, and the whole nation gradually joined it. The Press became
active, newspapers appeared. It became quite clear that a new life
throbbed in the land.
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