“Richard Taylor.
“Thomas Garforth.”[[555]]
Fletcher’s marriage was, in all respects, a happy one. He was thankful for his wife, and proud of her. Hence the following letter to “The Hon. Mrs. C——:”
“Cross Hall, Yorkshire, December 26, 1781.
“My Very Dear Friend,—Your favour of the 4th instant did not reach me until a considerable time after date, through my being still absent from Madeley; a clergyman of this neighbourhood having made an exchange with me, to facilitate my settling some temporal affairs in this county.
“The kind part you take in my happiness demands my warmest thanks; and I beg you will accept them, multiplied by those which my dear partner presents to you. Yes, my dear friend, I am married in my old age, and have a new opportunity of considering a great mystery, in the most perfect type of our Lord’s mystical union with His Church. I have now a new call to pray for a fulness of Christ’s holy, gentle, meek, loving Spirit, that I may love my wife, as He loved His spouse, the Church. But the emblem is greatly deficient: the Lamb is worthy of His spouse, and more than worthy; whereas I must acknowledge myself unworthy of the yoke-fellow, whom heaven has reserved for me. She is a person after my own heart; and, I make no doubt, we shall increase the number of the happy marriages in the Church militant.
“Indeed, they are not so many, but it may be worth a Christian’s while to add one more to the number. God declared it was not good that man, a social being, should live alone, and, therefore, He gave him a help-meet for him. For the same reason, our Lord sent forth His disciples two and two. Had I searched the three kingdoms, I could not have found one brother willing to share gratis my weal, woe, and labours, and complaisant enough to unite his fortunes to mine; but God has found me a partner, a sister, a wife, to use St. Paul’s language, who is not afraid to face with me the colliers and bargemen of my parish, until death part us.
“Buried together in our country village, we shall help one another to trim our lamps, and wait for the coming of the heavenly Bridegroom.”[[556]]
Before leaving this memorable year, 1781, it must be added that, twenty days after Fletcher’s marriage, his beloved friend and travelling companion, William Perronet, died, on his way to England, at Douay. Three months before this event took place, Fletcher remarked, in a letter to William Perronet’s venerable father:—
“Madeley, September 4, 1781. I have been for some weeks in Yorkshire, chiefly at the house of an old friend of mine, Miss Bosanquet, whose happy family put me in mind of yours. At my return home, I have found a letter from my brother, who informs me that my dear friend, your son, continues very weak. He is now at Gimel, a fine village between Lausanne and Geneva, where Miss Perronet’s sister is settled. There he rides, and drinks ass’s milk, and breathes the purest air. Mrs. Perronet is there with her two daughters, so that if the illness of my dear friend should grow more grievous, he will not want for good attendance and the most tender nursing.”[[557]]