From the time of his conversion to the close of his life Fletcher was a Methodist. The exact date when he joined the society cannot be determined, but in the year 1756 he was a member of a class in London, of which a Mr. Richard Edwards was the leader. His "class ticket," bearing the name "John Fletcher," and the date "Feb., 1757," lies before us as we write.
CHAPTER IV.
SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE.
It was in the beginning of the year 1755, when Fletcher was in the twenty-sixth year of his age, that he passed through the great change described in the last chapter. For nearly five years he continued to live in Mr. Hill's family, dividing his time, as before, between Shropshire and London. Towards the close of that period, however, new duties and engagements were opening out before him, and in 1760, when his pupils entered the University of Cambridge, Fletcher's tutorship was at an end.
His residence at Tern Hall was in many respects a happy one for Fletcher. His duties were comparatively light, and his situation was favourable to that life of meditation, prayer, study, and self-discipline to which he was so powerfully drawn. On Sundays he attended the parish church of Atcham, a village near Shrewsbury. When the service was over he usually walked home alone by the Severn side. After a while these walks were shared by a pious man named Vaughan, then in Mr. Hill's service, who, in after years, gave the following account of them to Mr. Wesley:
"It was our ordinary custom, when the church service was over, to retire into the most lonely fields or meadows, where we frequently either kneeled down or prostrated ourselves on the ground. At those happy seasons I was a witness of such pleadings and wrestlings with God, such exercises of faith and love, as I have not known in any one ever since. The consolations which we then received from God induced us to appoint two or three nights in a week, when we duly met, after his pupils were asleep. We met also constantly on Sunday between four and five in the morning. Sometimes I stepped into his study on other days. I rarely saw any book before him, besides the Bible and the 'Christian Pattern.'"
Another, who knew him at that time, says that when there was company to dinner at Mr. Hill's, Fletcher would often get himself excused from being present, and retire into the garden, to dine on a piece of bread and a little fruit. There are many testimonies to his lifelong abstemiousness, but at this period it reached a point of asceticism, concerning which Wesley has recorded his judgment: "None can doubt if these austerities were well intended; but it seems they were not well judged. It is probable they gave the first wound to an excellent constitution, and laid the foundation of many infirmities, which nothing but death could cure." Again, referring to his manner of life at Madeley, several years after, Wesley says: "He did not allow himself such food as was necessary to sustain nature. He seldom took any regular meals except he had company; otherwise, twice or thrice in four-and-twenty hours he ate some bread and cheese, or fruit. Instead of this he sometimes took a draught of milk, and then wrote on again."