In the year 1759, when England was threatened with a French invasion, Mr. Harris became a captain in the Brecknockshire militia, and into whatever place in England the regiment was ordered, he uniformly began to preach, and was the means of introducing the gospel into many ignorant and depraved districts. Thus an unusual act and an undesirable office were overruled to doing much good. When the regiment was disbanded, he again regularly entered on his ministerial duties with all his former zeal and activity. In a word, he may justly be regarded the evangelist of Wales.
As an illustration of the spirit of the energetic ministers of Christ in those days, we quote a fact or two from the life of Rowland Hill; the more readily as Howel Harris is the principal subject. In 1774, four years after the death of Whitefield, Mr. Hill travelled through Wales, preaching three or four times every day; many conversions took place, which greatly sustained him under an attack of illness; and led to the remark in his "Journal," "My body quite weak, but my soul was refreshed." "A like example," says Sidney, one of the biographers of Hill, "had been previously before his eyes in the case of Howel Harris, one of Mr. Whitefield's energetic followers, who was a man of extraordinary powers of body and mind. Harris used to relate of himself, that being once on a journey through Wales, he was subjected to great temptation to desert his Master's cause, when he said, 'Satan, I'll match thee for this;' and 'so I did,' he used to add; 'for I had not ridden many miles before I came to a revel, where there was a show of mountebanks, which I entered, and just as they were commencing, I jumped into the midst of them and cried out, 'Let us pray,' which so thunderstruck them that they listened to me quietly, while I preached to them a most tremendous sermon, that frightened many of them home.' Mr. Hill greatly delighted in this anecdote, and often said that amidst somewhat similar scenes, he had been enabled successfully to attack the kingdom of Satan."
CHAPTER VIII.
FIRST AND SECOND VISITS TO SCOTLAND—LABORS IN ENGLAND AND WALES.
1740-1744.
We have seen the spirit in which Mr. Whitefield returned to London, and the cool manner in which he was too generally received. It is painful to say that this coldness was not confined to enemies of the truth; it appeared in some degree in eminent dissenting ministers, as Watts and Bradbury, Barker, and even, to some extent, Doddridge. A plan had a few years before been agitated to restore the dissenters to the church, usually called the Comprehension scheme, and assuredly, under the circumstances, friendship with Whitefield was by no means favorable to such a plan being accomplished, though it was at this period greatly desired by many of both parties. Still, however, good was done; Whitefield preached, and God was glorified. More union between Christians in advancing the cause of Christ would have been exceedingly desirable, but even the want of this was not permitted to stay the progress of this man of God.
One of the most popular and useful ministers employed by Whitefield and his friends at this time was John Cennick, the author of two well-known hymns, beginning,
"Jesus, thy blood and righteousness;"
"Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone."