Up to the present, in the day-time he had taught his scholars, and at night had held meetings. Now he had both days and nights at his disposal, and preached to crowded congregations thirty or forty times every week. The magistrates threatened him more furiously than ever; and the clergy preached against him, and branded him as a deceiver; but, in several counties, a general reformation was witnessed. Public diversions became unfashionable, and religion became the common talk. Places of worship were everywhere thronged, and, in many places, Societies were set up. The Rev. Griffith Jones began his charity schools. The Rev. Daniel Rowlands and some other young clergymen began to preach in the same extemporary manner as Harris did. The work grew, and so also did the persecution. In Montgomeryshire, "a knight, a clergyman, two justices, a constable, and a mob," came while Harris was preaching, and charged him with a breach of the Conventicle Act. The preacher told the magistrates that he was a Conformist, and therefore not subject to the penalties of the Act in question. At Machynlleth he was surrounded by a mob, "threatening, swearing, and flinging stones," the leaders of the gang being a clergyman and a lawyer. He writes:-- "By the trials through which I often passed, I was at length so accustomed to them that I was daily in expectation of them. I became more acquainted with the world and myself, and could attest the truth of that expression which at first seems harsh, 'Man is a mixture of beast and devil.'" It is a remarkable fact, that, up to this date, Howell Harris had never seen either Whitefield or the Wesleys. Whitefield, on his return from Georgia, heard that the young evangelist, without episcopal ordination or any sort of ecclesiastical authority whatever, was preaching in the towns and villages of Wales thirty or forty times every week; and, notwithstanding the opposition and the violence of clergymen, magistrates, and mobs, had already been the means of accomplishing a marvellous reformation. The results were quite sufficient to constrain Whitefield to recognize the Welsh itinerant as a fellow-labourer in the same great work. Hence, only a few days after his arrival in England, Whitefield wrote to Howell Harris as follows:-- "LONDON, _December 20, 1738_.