“The enclosed” communication bore the same date as this letter to William Wase, of Broseley, and was addressed “To the Brethren in and about Madeley;” i.e., the Methodists:—
“My Dear Companions in Tribulation,—Peace and mercy, faith, hope, and love be multiplied to you all from the Father of mercies through the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Spirit of grace! I thank you for your kind remembrance of me in your prayers. I am yet spared to pray for you. O that I had more power with God! I would bring down heaven into all your hearts. Strive together in love for the living faith, the glorious hope, the sanctifying love once delivered to the saints. Look to Jesus. Move on; run yourselves in the heavenly race, and let each sweetly draw his brother along, till the whole company appears before the redeeming God in Sion.
“I hope God will, in His mercy, spare me to see you in the flesh; and if I cannot labour for you, I shall gladly suffer with you. If you will put health into my flesh, joy into my heart, and life into my whole frame, be of one heart and of one soul. Count nothing your own but your sin and shame; and bury that dreadful property in the grave of our Saviour. Let all you are and have be His who bought you. Dig hard in the Gospel mines for hidden treasure. Blow hard the furnace of prayer with the bellows of faith until you are melted into love, and the dross of sin is purged out of every heart. Get together into Jesus, the heavenly ark, and sweetly sail into the ocean of eternity; so shall you be true miners, furnacemen, and bargemen. Farewell, in Jesus! Tell Mrs. Cound I shall greatly rejoice if she remembers Lot’s wife.”[[455]]
Six weeks after the date of this letter to the Madeley Methodists, Wesley visited them, and wrote:—
“1779. March 25, Thursday. I preached in the new house which Mr. Fletcher has built in Madeley Wood. The people here exactly resemble those at Kingswood, only they are more simple and teachable. But, for want of discipline, the immense pains which he has taken with them has not done them the good which might have been expected. I preached at Shrewsbury in the evening, and next day, about noon, in the assembly-room at Broseley. It was well we were in the shade, for the sun shone as hot as it usually does at midsummer. We walked from thence to Coalbrook Dale, and took a view of the bridge which is shortly to be thrown over the Severn. It is one arch, a hundred feet long, fifty-two high, and eighteen wide; all of cast-iron, weighing many hundred tons. I doubt whether the Colossus at Rhodes weighed much more.”[[456]]
Fletcher’s health was still feeble, but he longed to be back to his parishioners and to the Methodists surrounding Madeley. Hence the following to the Vicar of Shoreham:—
“1779, March 29. I am still weak in body, but able to ride out and exhort some children. Well, the time shall come when, in a better state, we shall be able to glorify our heavenly Father. In the meantime, let us do it either in the stocks of weakness or in the fires of tribulation; and on our death-bed may we sing, with hearts overflowing with humble love, ‘The Resurrection and the Life, the Friend and Saviour of sinners, loved me and gave Himself for me; and I am going to see Him and to thank Him, face to face, for His matchless love!’
“I hope the prospect respecting the inheritance of your fathers in this country clears up a little, and I trust the matter will be decided without a lawsuit. As soon as the affair is brought to some conclusion, we design to set out for England. The will of the Lord be done in all things!”[[457]]
This was written in the week before Easter. The Puritanical Calvinists of Switzerland of course denounced the observance of holy days, and hence, at Nyon, there was no service on Good Friday, April 2; but Fletcher and William Perronet, who all their life had been accustomed to commemorate the death of the incarnate Son of God, crossed the lake into Savoy, to hear a celebrated Capuchin.
“He made,” says Mr. Perronet, “a very good discourse, and he and his brethren invited us to dine with them. This we declined; but, after dinner, we paid our respects to them, when Mr. Fletcher spent two or three hours with them in serious and friendly conversation.”[[458]]