In the spirit of harmony join!
Join all the glad choirs,
Hearts, voices, and lyres,
And the burden is mercy divine!”[[364]]
Why these long quotations? Simply to show that real Christian Perfection is, according to the “private thoughts” of Fletcher, one of the holiest of the old Methodists, a something that “lies between” the “driving Methodism and still mysticism” embodied in the two remarkable hymns just cited.
Soon after the date of the last letter (May 11, 1776) Fletcher’s health so entirely failed, that he was compelled to leave his parish and repair to the hot wells at Bristol. His friend, Charles Wesley, on June 30, embodied the feelings of his full heart in the following touching hymn:—
“Jesus, Thy feeble servant see!
Sick is the man beloved by Thee:
Thy name to magnify,
To spread Thy Gospel-truths again,