existing. The Quakers maintained that war was wrong while Britain
passed through war fever after war fever--the Seven Years' War and
the wars against Napoleon. Howel Harris' voice might have been a
voice crying in the wilderness, if it had not been for the spiritual
life of the existing congregations, conformist and dissenting.
Modern ideas in Wales have been profoundly affected by the Quakers,
and especially in districts from which, as a sect, they have long
passed away.

The voice of Howel Harris called all these to a new life; and it is
about that new life, in the variety given it by all the different
actors in it, that I want you to think now. It made preaching
necessary, for one thing; and it was followed by a century of great
pulpit oratory. It profoundly affected literature. It gave Wales,
to begin with, a hymn literature that no country in the world has
surpassed. The contrast between the Reformation and the Revival is
very striking--one gave the people a Church government established by
law and a literature of translations, the other gave it institutions
of its own making and original living thought. The Revival gave
literature in every branch a new strength and greater wealth.

It created a demand for education. Griffith Jones of Llanddowror
established a system of circulating schools, the teachers moving from
place to place as a room was offered them--sometimes a church and
sometimes a barn. Charles of Bala established a system of Sunday
Schools, and the whole nation gradually joined it. The Press became
active, newspapers appeared. It became quite clear that a new life
throbbed in the land.