“Roquet[[374]] dead and buried! The jolly man who last summer shook his head at me as at a dying man! How frail are we! God help us to live to-day! to-morrow is the fool’s day.
“I have not, at present, the least idea that I am called to quit my post here. I see no probability of being useful in Switzerland. My call is here; I am sure of it. If I undertook the journey, it would be merely to accompany you. I dare not gratify friendship by taking such a step. I have no faith in the prescriptions of your physician; and I think if health be better for us than sickness, we may enjoy it as well here as in France or Italy. If sickness be best for us, why shun it? Everything is good when it comes from God. Nothing but a baptism of fire and the most evident openings of Providence can engage me in such a journey. If I reject your obliging offer to procure me a substitute, attribute it to my fear of taking a false step, of quitting my post without command, and of engaging in a warfare to which the Lord does not call me.”[[375]]
A fortnight later, Fletcher wrote again to Mr. Ireland:—
“Madeley, September 7, 1776. My dear friend, my health is better than when I wrote last. I have not yet preached; rather from a sense of duty to my friends, and high thoughts of the labours of Mr. Greaves (who does the work of an evangelist to better purpose than I), than to spare myself; for, if I am not mistaken, I am as able to do my work now as I was a year ago.
“A fortnight ago, I paid a visit to West Bromwich. I ran away from the kindness of my parishioners, who oppressed me with tokens of their love. To me there is nothing so extremely trying as excessive kindness. I am of the king’s mind when the people showed their love to him on his journey to Portsmouth: ‘I can bear,’ he said, ‘the hissings of a London mob, but these shouts of joy are too much for me.’ You, my dear friend, Mrs. Ireland, Mrs. Norman, and all your family, have put me to that severe trial, to which all trials caused by the hard words that have been spoken against me are nothing.
“At our age, a recovery can be but a short reprieve. Let us then give up ourselves daily to the Lord, as people who have no confidence in the flesh, and do not trust to to-morrow. I find my weakness, unprofitableness, and wretchedness daily more and more; and the more I find them, the more help I have to sink into self-abhorrence. Nor do I despair to sink so in it as to die to self and revive in my God.”[[376]]
Fletcher began to hope that he would soon be able to resume his work. To Charles Wesley he wrote as follows:—
“Madeley, September 15, 1776.
“My Very Dear Brother,—I lately consulted a pious gentleman, near Lichfield, famous for his skill in the disorders of the breast. He assured me I am in no immediate danger of a consumption of the lungs; and that my disorder is upon the nerves, in consequence of too close thinking. He permitted me to write and preach in moderation; and gave me medicines, which, I think, are of service in taking off my feverish heats. My spitting of blood is stopped, and I may yet be spared to travel with you as an invalid.
“If God adds one inch to my span I see my calling. I desire to know nothing but Christ, and Him crucified, revealed in the Spirit. I long to feel the utmost power of the Spirit’s dispensation, and I will endeavour to bear my testimony to the glory of that dispensation both with my pen and tongue. Some of our injudicious or inattentive friends will probably charge me with novelty for it; but, be that as it will, let us meekly stand for the truth as it is in Jesus, and trust the Lord for everything. I thank God I feel so dead to popular applause that, I trust, I should not be afraid to maintain a truth against all the world; and yet I dread to dissent from any child of God, and feel ready to condescend to every one. O what depths of humble love, and what heights of Gospel truth, do I sometimes see! I want to sink into the former and rise into the latter. Help me by your example, letters, and prayers.”[[377]]