“My Dear Brother,—I heartily thank you for your kind letter; and, by you, I desire to give my best thanks to the dear companions in tribulation whom you meet, and who so kindly remember me. If I should be spared to minister to you again, my desire is to do it with more humility, zeal, diligence, and love. I hope to see you before the summer is ended, if it please God to give me strength for the journey. I am, in some respects, better than when I came here, and was enabled to bury a corpse last Sunday to oblige the minister of the parish; but, whether occasioned by that little exertion or something else, bad symptoms have returned since. Be that as it may, all is well; for He, who does all things well, rules and over-rules all.

“I have stood the heats we have had these two days better than I expected. I desire you will help me to bless the Author of all good for this and every other blessing of this life; but above all for the lively hope of the next, and for Christ, our common hope, peace, joy, wisdom, righteousness, salvation, and all. Don’t let me want the reviving cordial of hearing that you stand together firm in the faith. Look much at Jesus. Be much in private prayer. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together in little companies, as well as in public. Walk in the sight of death and eternity, and ever pray for your affectionate, but unworthy minister,

“J. Fletcher.”[[407]]

“P.S.—Let none of your little companies want. If any do, you are welcome to my house. Take any part of the furniture there, and make use of it for their relief. And this shall be your full title for so doing,

“Witness my hand, John Fletcher.”[[408]]

At this time, the Rev. Henry Venn was preaching in the chapel of the Countess of Huntingdon at Bath; and Fletcher attended his ministry. Her ladyship wrote:—

“Dear Mr. Venn has been preaching most successfully at Bath to overflowing congregations. Captain Scott and Mr. Fletcher have been there, and heard him preach in the chapel. The latter is far gone in a consumptive disorder, but is alive to God, and ripening fast for glory. We have exchanged several letters lately. As a last resource, he is to accompany Mr. Ireland to the south of France.”[[409]]

When Mr. Venn had completed his services at Bath, he removed to the house of Mr. Ireland, at Brislington, where Fletcher was an honoured guest. Speaking of this visit, after Fletcher’s death, to a brother clergyman, Venn remarked:—

“Sir, Mr. Fletcher was a luminary—a luminary did I say? He was a sun! I have known all the great men for these fifty years, but I have known none like him. I was intimately acquainted with him, and was under the same roof with him once for six weeks; during which time I never heard him say a single word which was not proper to be spoken, and which had not a tendency to minister grace to the hearers. One time, meeting him when he was very ill, I said, ‘I am sorry to find you so ill.’ Mr. Fletcher answered, with the greatest sweetness, ‘Sorry, Sir, why are you sorry? It is the chastisement of our heavenly Father, and I rejoice in it. I love the rod of my God, and rejoice therein as an expression of His love towards me.’ Never,” continued Mr. Venn, “did I hear Mr. Fletcher speak ill of any one. He would pray for those who walked disorderly, but he would not publish their faults.”[[410]]

In a letter to the Rev. J. Stillingfleet, Mr. Venn remarked:—