Howell Harris Buried (1775)
Harris frequently went on preaching tours again all over Wales and in Bristol, Bath and London. In 1768 Lady Huntingdon built a training school for her preachers just a few hundred yards from his home in Trefeca. Members of the Family helped to build it and staff it. Harris himself exercised a measure of spiritual oversight over the students. In 1770 his wife, George Whitefield and Howel Davies all died. He had two daughters; one died in childhood and the other married a Catholic. From now on he was often in great pain. From the beginning of 1771 he does not seem to have left the immediate vicinity of Trefeca. In August 1772 John Wesley saw him for the last time and wrote, “we found our hearts knit together as at the beginning.” Howel Harris died on July 21st
1773 and was buried at Talgarth church. Twenty thousand attended his funeral and as his body was being interred; one clergyman after another was unable to read the Burial Service due to their emotions. Harris was a remarkable man. Through his energy the Word of God spread throughout the whole of Wales. Undoubtedly the revival would not have spread the way it did had he not travelled so much, and had his organisational skills not put in place a structure in which the Methodist movement could consolidate and grow. In the societies his creative genius found scope and fulfillment. However, he was a man of contradictions; a man of love and yet critical; humble and yet proud. His pride and obstinacy made it impossible for his colleagues to work with him and yet those qualities helped him be an indefatigable evangelist despite persecution and dangers. Few did as much for the spiritual life of Wales as Howel Harris.
Additional Information
Howell Harris was buried in the graveyard and then later the church was extended and his grave ended up near the altar, inside te very church that rejected him. The same happened to Daniel Rowland