een
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.

It was the time when Whitefield and the Wesleys were sweeping the
kingdom with their conquering eloquence, and Howell Harris (their
fellow-student at Oxford) had sided with the conservative wing of the
Gospel Reformation workers, and become a "Whitfield Methodist." The
Welsh Methodists, _ad exemplum_, marched with this Calvinistic
branch--as they do today. Each division had its Christian bard. Charles
Wesley could put regenerating power into sweet, poetic hymns, and
William Williams' lyrical preaching made the Bible a travelling pulpit.
The great "Beibl Peter Williams" with its commentaries in Welsh, since
so long rev