Innumerable examples could be given of the things which Harris endured at the hands of his opponents; and it must be confessed that his own aggressiveness, and the unseasonable moment selected by him for delivering his message, make one feel that his sufferings were, at times, almost deserved. On one occasion a Justice of the Peace, one Marmaduke Gwynn by name, came to hear him, armed with a copy of the Riot Act, but was so impressed with what he heard that he invited him to be a guest at his house. Sometimes his success was complete. "Yesterday," he writes, "was a glorious day: I was at a great feast, and chose to oppose the devil on his own ground; and we discoursed within a few yards of a public house, where diversion was to be. I never tasted more power. I believe some were cut through; many wept, and one fainted; others felt a great trembling, and all were filled with awe." His enemies did not hesitate to issue false reports about him. "Last night and to-day," he says, "I met with no opposition; many are deterred from coming to hear by a report passing for truth, that I really correspond {205} with the King of Spain, and that £40 are offered for taking me." At Llanbrynmair he finds the people living "like brutes, knowing nothing"; yet so convincing was the message which he delivered, that he left behind him there the nucleus of one of the first and strongest Methodist congregations. On the road from Cemmaes he was roughly hustled and beaten, and followed by a gang of men who cried, "Down with the Roundheads." A woman threw mud at him, calling him a "damned devil"; and he was hounded out of the parish with dogs. At Machynlleth he was beset by an infuriated rabble, headed by an attorney's clerk with mouth "so full of the language of hell as if his name had been legion"; and with him a gentleman and a clergyman whose language was, apparently, in no wise different from that of the clerk! Some years later this same clerk relented; but the parson, to the end of his days, never ceased to allude to the new preachers, in his sermons, as "those wicked Methodists." At Crickhowell Harris was so roughly handled that he was obliged to seek refuge in a friend's house, his clothes torn, his face covered with blood, his head cut in thirteen places, and his body bruised. South Wales seems to {206} have been decidedly more wicked than the North, and Glamorgan worst of all. An attempt to shoot Harris was made at Swansea and Llandilo; and at Carmarthen a man drew a sword, with the intention of killing him. But the North was bad enough. At Bala (so soon afterwards to become the Oxford of Welsh Nonconformity) he had a very unpleasant time on his second visit to the place. The Vicar raised a great club which he was carrying, and threatened to strike him with it. Not content with that, the reverend man caused a barrel of beer to be placed in the open street, where all comers might freely drink, in order that their