“John Fletcher.”[[402]]
With this letter, Fletcher sent the following certificate:—
“To the Right Reverend Father in God, James Lord Bishop of Hereford.
“These are to certify to your lordship that I, John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, in the county of Salop and your lordship’s diocese of Hereford, do hereby nominate and appoint Alexander Benjamin Greaves, late Curate of Glossop, in Derbyshire, to perform the office of a Curate in my church of Madeley aforesaid; and do promise to allow him the yearly sum of £42 for his maintenance in the same; and to continue him to officiate in my said church until he shall be otherwise provided of some ecclesiastical preferment, unless, by fault by him committed, he shall be lawfully removed from the same. And I hereby solemnly declare that I do not fraudulently give this certificate to entitle the said Alexander Benjamin Greaves to receive Holy Orders, but with a real intention to employ him in my said church, according to what is before expressed.
“Witness my hand this twenty-second day of March, in the year of our Lord 1777,
“John Fletcher.”[[403]]
The Perronet family at Shoreham dearly loved poor Fletcher. He had been their guest, and they had seen his spirit. Damaris Perronet was occasionally one of his correspondents; and William Perronet was now his loving medical attendant. The saintly Charles Perronet had died in the month of August, 1776, but was most tenderly remembered by all who knew him. To Miss Perronet, Fletcher now wrote as follows:—
“Newington, April 21, 1777.
“My Dear Friend,—A thousand thanks to you for your kind, comfortable lines. The prospect of going to see Jesus and His glorified members, and among them your dear departed brother, my now everliving friend, is enough to make me quietly and joyfully submit to leave all my Shoreham friends, and all the excellent ones of the earth. But why do I talk of leaving any of Christ’s members by going to be more intimately united to the Head?
“‘We all are one who Him receive,