“Then let not thy heart, though distressed, complain; A hold on thy portion firm maintain. Thou didst choose the best portion, again I say; Resign it not till thy dying day!” But the age of preachers in Wales, to which the following pages will more immediately refer, commences with those two great men, who were indeed the Whitfield, and the Wesley of Wales—Howell Harris of Trevecca, and Daniel Rowlands of Llangeitho. It is remarkable that these two men, born to be such inestimable, and priceless blessings to their country, were born within a year of each other—Harris at Trevecca, in 1714, Rowlands at Pantybeidy, in Cardiganshire, in 1713. As to Harris, he is spoken of as the most successful preacher that ever ascended a pulpit, or platform in Wales; and yet nothing is more certain, than that he neither aimed to preach, nor will his sermons, so far as any knowledge can be obtained of them, stand the test of any kind of criticism. This only is certain, their unquestioned, and greatly pre-eminent usefulness. He did not deliver composed sermons, but unpremeditated addresses, on sin, and its tremendous consequences; on death, and the judgment, and the world to come. It is said, “His words fell like balls of fire, on the careless, and impenitent multitudes.” Himself destined for a clergyman of the Church of England, an Oxford man, and with a fair promise of success in the Church—since before he left Oxford, he had a benefice offered him—he repeatedly applied, in vain, for ordination. Throughout his life, he continued ardently attached to the services of the Church of England. It was, unhappily, from that Church, in Wales, he encountered his most vehement opposition, and cruel persecution. He, however, roused the whole country,—within the Church of England, and without,—from its state of apathy, and impiety; while we quite agree with his biographer, who says: “Any attempt to account philosophically for the remarkable effects which everywhere attended the preaching of Howell Harris, would be nothing better than an irreverent trifling with a solemn subject. All that can be said, with propriety, is, that he was an extraordinary instrument, raised by Providence, at an extraordinary time, to accomplish an extraordinary work.”