Welsh Journals

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HOWELL HARRIS, CITIZEN AND PATKIOT.1 By THE REV. M. H. JONES, B.A., TREVECKA COLLEGE. I. I WILL briefly preface my paper by making four statements that will, I hope, help to direct the mind at once to the features which make the study of the life and work of Howell Harris so full of interest. (a) The first is that Howell Harris was one of the Originators and Leaders of the eighteenth century Awakening of Wales. Mr. Owen M. Edwards in his magazine, called Wales,2 began to write from the Trevecka MSS. the story of Howell Harris's life, and in his intro- duction he makes the following statement — The begin- ning of the Modern Awakening of Wales-an awakening that has so mightily influenced the religion, the morality, the industries, and the politics of the country-is to be sought for in the strange life of Howell Harris; and a perusal of his Diary would show to what a great extent he was the creator of Modern Wales." In beginning with such a statement it is not my desire to ask anyone to accept it at the outset in an unquestioned and unmodified form, but I quote it merely to indicate that the life and work of the Reformer from Trevecka forms a subject worthy of the consideration of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, which has done, and is doing, so much to foster the spirit of Welsh 1 Read before the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion at 20, Hanover Square, on April 15, 1909. Chairman, W. E. Davies, Esq. 2 Wales, No. 1, vol. i, May 1894, p. 28.