“A few days ago, I was violently tempted to quit Madeley. The spirit of Jonah had so seized upon my heart that I had the insolence to murmur against the Lord; but the storm is now happily calmed, at least for a season. Alas! what stubbornness there is in the will of man; and with what strength does it combat the will of God under the mask of piety, when it can no longer do so with the uncovered, shameless face of vice! ‘If a man bridleth not his tongue,’ all his outward ‘religion is vain.’ May we not add to this, if a man bridleth not his will, which is the language of his desires, his inward religion is vain also? The Lord does not, however, leave me altogether; and I have often a secret hope that He will one day touch my heart and lips with a live coal from the altar; and that then His word shall consume the stubble, and break to pieces the stone.
“The question, which you mean to repeat at the end of the winter, is, I hope, whether you shall be welcome at Madeley? My answer is, you shall be welcome; for I have already lost almost all my reputation, and the little that remains does not deserve a competition with the pleasure I shall have in seeing you.”[[71]]
Notwithstanding his dejection, and the opposition he had to encounter, Fletcher continued to labour with unflagging diligence. To his Friday night lecture he now added the catechising of children on Sunday afternoons, but relieved himself of the toil of preparing a second Sunday sermon, by reading the sermons of other men. He also began to see a prospect of commencing services at Madeley Wood and at Coalbrook Dale. Hence, in another letter to Charles Wesley he wrote as follows:—
“Madeley, April 27, 1761.
“When I first came to Madeley, I was greatly mortified and discouraged by the smallness of my congregations; and I thought if some of our friends in London had seen my little company they would have triumphed in their own wisdom. But now, thank God, things are altered in that respect. Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of seeing some in the churchyard who could not get into the church.
“I began a few Sundays ago to preach in the afternoon, after catechising the children; but I do not preach my own sermons. Twice I read a sermon of Archbishop Usher’s; and last Sunday one of the Homilies, taking the liberty of making some observations on such passages as confirmed what I had advanced in the morning; and, by this means, I stopped the mouths of many adversaries.
“I have frequently had a desire to exhort in Madeley Wood and Coalbrook Dale, two villages of my parish; but I have not dared to run before I saw an open door. It now, I think, begins to open. Two small Societies of about twenty persons have formed of themselves in those places, although the devil seems determined to overturn all. A young person, the daughter of one of my rich parishioners, has been thrown into despair, so that everybody thought her insane, and, indeed, I thought so too. Judge how our adversaries rejoiced; and, for my part, I was tempted to forsake my ministry, and take to my heels; I never suffered such affliction. Last Saturday, I humbled myself before the Lord on her account, by fasting and prayer; and I hope the Lord heard my prayer. Yesterday, she found herself well enough to come to church.
“You will do well to engage your colliers at Kingswood to pray for their poor brethren at Madeley. May those at Madeley, one day, equal them in faith, as they now do in that wickedness, for which they (the Kingswood colliers) were famous before you went among them.
“Mr. Hill has written me a very obliging letter, to engage me to accompany the elder of my pupils to Switzerland; and if I had any other country than the place where I am, I should, perhaps, have been tempted to go. At present, however, I have no temptation that way, and I have declined the offer as politely as I could.”[[72]]
The case of the young woman just mentioned was to Fletcher a great trial. In a letter written to Lady Huntingdon[[73]] on the same day as the foregoing letter to Charles Wesley, he states, that, previous to this, reports had been spread that he drove the people mad, and he had borne such scandals “patiently enough,” but this “glaring instance,” which seemed to confirm the rumours circulated against him, had thrown him into “agonies of soul.” To a great extent, Fletcher had yet to learn a lesson which the Wesleys and Whitefield had long ago been taught: “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you” (1 Peter iv. 14).