“Mr. Edward Stillingfleet[[151]] is presented, by Mr. Hill, to the living of Shawbury, eight miles from Shrewsbury, and twenty from here. I thank the Lord for this fellow-helper.
“I am, your ladyship’s unworthy servant,
“J. Fletcher.”[[152]]
The reader may learn two facts from Fletcher’s letter. First, what were the books in divinity he most loved and prized. It is to be feared that such books are no longer popular. In the case of many theological students, they have given place to the flimsy and even sceptical productions of a later period. The more the pity. No wonder that so many pulpits are spiritless, and that so many pews are starved.
Secondly: It is also evident that Fletcher had already formed a sort of circuit of preaching places, otherwise a youth like Easterbrook could hardly have found the opportunity to preach every evening in the week, and four times on Sunday. It is now impossible to ascertain what the places were; but Wesley’s testimony may here be appropriately introduced.
“From the beginning, Mr. Fletcher did not confine his labours to his own parish. For many years, he regularly preached at places, eight, ten, or sixteen miles off, returning the same night, though he seldom got home before one or two in the morning. At a little Society which he had gathered about six miles from Madeley, he preached two or three times a week, beginning at five in the morning.”[[153]]
Of course, all this was ecclesiastically irregular, and a repetition of it would not be permitted now; but, fortunately for the people who “sat in darkness,” it was, except in a few instances, only a peccadillo a hundred years ago, at which bishops, priests, and deacons found it a convenience to themselves to wink.
It was at this time that Wesley wrote to Fletcher his unusually long and well-known letter on conversation. The following are brief extracts from it:—
“Birmingham, March 20, 1768.
“Dear Sir,—Mr. Easterbrook told me yesterday that you are sick of the conversation even of them who profess religion,—that you find it quite unprofitable, if not hurtful, to converse with them three or four hours together, and are sometimes almost determined to shut yourself up, as the less evil of the two.