“Give me leave, Rev. Sir,” says he, “to propose to you a thing that many will look upon as a great paradox, but has yet sufficient ground in Scripture to raise the expectation of every Christian who sincerely looks for the coming of our Lord; I mean the great probability that, in the midst of this grand revolution, our Lord Jesus will suddenly come down from heaven, and go Himself conquering and to conquer; for what but the greatest prejudice can induce Christians to think that the coming of our Lord, spoken of in so plain terms by three evangelists, is His last coming before the universal judgment and the end of the world?”[[11]]
There cannot be a doubt that, at this period of his life, Fletcher was what is commonly called a Millenarian. Whether his views were right or wrong, the reader must determine for himself.
When resident at Tern Hall, Fletcher attended the parish church at Atcham, a small village about five miles from Shrewsbury. Here the Rev. Mr. Cartwright was the officiating minister,[[12]] and was accustomed to catechise in public the children of his parishioners. On one occasion, he invited the adults who needed instruction to appear in the ranks of the catechumens, and told them that to do so would be no disgrace to them. All, however, except Fletcher, either thought that to stand among the young people would disgrace them, or that further instruction in their case was not needed. The accomplished young scholar from Switzerland, the tutor of the two sons of their county member, had a lower opinion of his excellences than the village peasants had of theirs; for, leaving his seat with an air of unaffected modesty, he took his place among the children, and became a catechumen of the village pastor.[[13]]
At Atcham, Fletcher became acquainted with Mr. Vaughan, an excise officer, who gave to Wesley the following account of his deeply-revered friend:—
“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.”
“Our interviews for singing and conversation were seldom concluded without prayer, in which we were frequently joined by her who is now my wife (then a servant in the family), and by a poor widow in the village, who had known the power of God unto salvation, and who died some years ago, praising God with her latest breath. These were the only persons in the village whom he chose for his familiar friends; but he sometimes walked to Shrewsbury, to see Mrs. Glynne or Mr. Appleton. He also visited the poor in the neighbourhood who were sick; and, when no other person could be procured, performed even the meanest offices for them.”
Besides the godly friends mentioned in this interesting statement, Fletcher had another acquaintance at Atcham, whom he visited to be instructed in singing. This gentleman supplied Wesley with what follows:—
“I remember but little of that man of God, Mr. Fletcher, it being above nine-and-twenty years since I last saw him; but this I well remember, his conversation with me was always sweet and savoury. He was too wise to suffer any of his precious moments to be trifled away. When company dined at Mr. Hill’s, he frequently retired into the garden, and contentedly dined on a piece of bread and a few bunches of currants. Indeed, in his whole manner of living he was a pattern of abstemiousness. Meantime, how great was his sweetness of temper and heavenly-mindedness! I never saw it equalled in any one. How often, when I parted with him at Tern Hall, have his eyes and hands been lifted up to heaven, to implore a blessing upon me, with fervour and devoutness unequalled by any I ever witnessed. I firmly believe he has not left in this land, or perhaps in any other, one luminary like himself.”[[14]]
These glimpses of Fletcher, at this early period of his life, are too valuable and important to be omitted.
It is impossible to determine the exact date when he joined the Methodist Society in London, but there can be no doubt that it was as early as the year 1756, and probably a year or two earlier. Hence the following extract from a letter addressed to Mr. Richard Edwards, the leader of the London class in which Fletcher had been enrolled a member:—