Tell me Thou art mine, O Saviour Grant me an assurance clear, Banish all my dark misgivings, Still my doubting, calm my fear. Besides his Welsh hymns, published in the first and in the second and larger editions of his _Hallelujah_, and in two or three other collections, William Williams wrote and published two books of English hymns,[39] the _Hosanna_ (1759) and the _Gloria_ (1772). He fills so large a space in the hymnology and religious history of Wales that he will necessarily reappear in other pages of this chapter. [Footnote 39: Possibly they were written in Welsh, and translated into English by his friend and neighbor, Peter Williams.] From the days of the early religious awakenings under the 16th century preachers, and after the ecclesiastical dynasty of Rome had been replaced by that of the Church of England, there were periods when the independent conscience of a few pious Welshmen rose against religious formalism, and the credal constraints of "established" teaching--and suffered for it. Burning heretics at the stake had ceased to be a church practice before the 1740's, but Howell Harris, Daniel Rowlands, and the rest of the "Methodist Fathers," with their followers, were not only ostracised by society and haled before magistrates to be fined for preaching, and sometimes imprisoned, but they were chased and beaten by mobs, ducked in ponds and rivers, and pelted with mud and garbage when they tried to speak or sing. But they kept on talking and singing. Harris (who had joined the army in 1760) owned a commission, and once he saved himself from the fury of a mob while preaching--with cloak over his ordinary dress--by lifting his cape and showing the star on his breast. No one dared molest an officer of His Britannic Majesty. But all were not able to use St. Paul's expedient in critical moments.[40] [Footnote 40: Acts 22:25.] William Williams often found immunity in his hymns, for like Luther--and like Charles Wesley among the Cornwall sea-robbers--he caught up the popular glees and ballad-refrains of the street and market and his wife sang their music to his words. It is true many of these old Welsh airs were minors, like "Elvy" and "Babel" (a significant name in English) and would not be classed as "glees" in any other country--always excepting Scotland--but they had the _swing_, and their mode and style were catchy to a Welsh multitude. In fact many of these uncopyrighted bits of musical vernacular were appropriated by the hymnbook makers, and christened with such titles as "Pembroke," "Arabia," "Brymgfryd," "Cwyfan," "Thydian," and the two mentioned above.