In other ways, however, besides his writings, he rendered great assistance to his friend. It was just after the time when Wesley wrote his important letter that an incident occurred which is worth relating.
Samuel Bradburn, a soldier’s son, was born at Gibraltar in 1751. At twelve years of age he was brought to England; at nineteen became a Methodist; and at twenty-one began to preach. During his residence at Gibraltar, he was sent to school at a penny a week; but, on the terms being raised to three-halfpence, his mother took him away, finding it inconvenient to be at such an expense for her son’s education. This was all the schooling that he had; but he was taught to read at home, and before he was eight years old had committed the histories of Joseph and Samson to memory. On coming to England, his parents settled at Chester, and he himself was apprenticed to a shoemaker. In the week preceding Easter, in 1773, he set off to Madeley to have an interview with Fletcher, whose “Checks” he had been reading. On approaching the vicarage, he saw a man working in the garden, who, addressing the young shoemaker, said, “You see, my brother, a fulfilment of the curse, ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.’” Bradburn, stating who he was, said he had not been at Madeley before, and wished to be introduced to Mr. Fletcher. “I am John Fletcher,” replied the amateur gardener. Bradburn, for the moment, was embarrassed; but on saying that he had come to consult the vicar of Madeley respecting his being called to engage in the Christian ministry, Fletcher, with his characteristic generosity, led him into his house, and requested him to become his guest. The invitation was gratefully accepted, and during his stay the young shoemaker was treated with paternal kindness. Bradburn, like his host, was an early riser, and every morning was employed in finding the texts of Scripture which Fletcher wished to use in the “Check” he was then writing, and in listening to Fletcher’s exposition of them. When two or three hours had thus been spent, the students went into the garden of the vicarage and had a spell at any kind of work that needed attention. After this followed the plain gruel breakfast and domestic devotion. Then several more hours were employed in the vicar’s study; after which the master and the pupil set out to visit the parishioners. Every night in the week young Bradburn preached in colliers’ cottages, or in the Methodist meeting-house, Fletcher standing by his side, and generally supplementing the sermon with additional remarks, delivered with delicate tenderness, and always concluded by a prayer. To the end of life, Bradburn thankfully acknowledged that he greatly owed his subsequent eminence to this Madeley visit. When he was leaving, the kind-hearted vicar said, “My little David, go! and if you preach forty years, and save only a single soul, don’t think your time and labour have been lost.” Bradburn always spoke of his early friend as “Saint Fletcher;” and often said, that when he looked at the vicar of Madeley he was almost ready to think the Lord Jesus Christ stood before him in the person of His servant; and in hours of depression, when he found it difficult to pray, he was wont to sigh and cry, “God of Mr. Fletcher, bless me!”[[283]]
The Methodist reader need not be told that Fletcher’s humble pupil rose to great eminence. Unquestionably he was the greatest pulpit orator that Wesley ever had. Dr. Adam Clarke, who knew him well, once said to a young preacher, who wished his opinion concerning Bradburn, “I have never heard his equal; I can furnish you with no adequate idea of his powers as an orator; we have not a man among us that will support anything like a comparison with him. Another Bradburn must be created, and you must hear him for yourself, before you can receive a satisfactory answer to your inquiry.”
In 1817, all the sermons that Bradburn had published, whether separately or in the Methodist Magazine, were collected, and published in a 12 mo. volume of 332 pages; but, as Dr. Abel Stevens well observes, “The eloquence of Bradburn, like that of Whitefield, could not be printed.”
John Fletcher rendered no small service to John Wesley and the Methodists by his brief training of the young shoemaker in 1773.
While writing his “Checks,” Fletcher seems to have been obliged to curtail his correspondence with his friends. At all events, his published letters belonging to this period are few in number. The following were written in 1773. The first was addressed to his friend Mr. Vaughan, the officer of Excise at Atcham, with whom he became acquainted while he had the charge of the sons of Mr. Hill:—
“Madeley, February 11, 1773.
“My Very Dear Friend,—At the beginning of the week I received your kind letter, and your kind present at the end of it. For both I heartily thank you. Nevertheless, I could wish it were your last present, for I find it more blessed to give than to receive; and in point of the good things of this life my body does not want much, and I can do with what is more common, and cheaper, than the rarities you ply me with.
“Your bounty upon bounty reminds me of the repeated mercies of our God. They follow one another as wave does wave at sea; and all to waft us to the pleasing shore of confidence and gratitude, where we can not only cast anchor near, but calmly stand on the Rock of Ages, and defy the rage of tempests. But you complain, you are not there; billows of temptation drive you from the haven where you would be, and you cry out still, ‘Oh wretched man! who shall deliver me?’
“Here I would ask, Are you willing, really willing, to be delivered? Is your sin, is the prevalence of temptation, a burden too heavy for you to bear? If it is, if your complaint is not a kind of religious compliment, be of good cheer—only believe. Look up! for your redemption draweth near. He is near that delivers, that justifies, that sanctifies you. Cast your soul upon Him. An act of faith will help you to a lift; but one act of faith will not do. Faith must be our life; I mean in conjunction with its grand object. You cannot live by one breath; you must breathe on, and draw the electric, vital fire into your lungs together with the air. So you must believe, and draw the Divine power, the fire of Jesu’s love, together with the truth of the Gospel, which is the blessed element in which believers live.