“I never saw Mr. Fletcher’s equal. On him great grace was bestowed. What deadness to the world! What spiritual mindedness! What zeal for souls! What communion with God! What intercourse with heaven! What humility at the feet of Jesus! What moderation towards all men! What love for the poor! In short, he possessed the mind which was in Christ Jesus.”
“The Rev. Henry Venn, after reading Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher,” wrote as follows to Lady Mary Fitzgerald:—
“Yelling, March 3, 1787. Mr. Fletcher’s humility was so unfeigned and so deep, that when I thanked him for two sermons he had one day preached to my people at Huddersfield, he answered as no man ever did to me. With eyes and hands uplifted, he exclaimed, ‘Pardon, pardon, pardon, O my God!’ The words went to my very soul. Great grace was upon this blessed servant of Christ.
“Love to man and bowels of mercies displayed in him a noble imitation of his Incarnate God. He indeed thought a day lost, and could find no rest in his soul, unless he was doing good to the bodies and souls of men.
“Love to the Lord.—How did it govern and flourish in dear Mr. Fletcher! His admirable consort tells us, he scarcely was awake in the night a moment without lifting up his soul to God in holy aspirations.
“I have seen Mr. Fletcher, for six weeks together, under a hectic fever, sometimes spitting blood, when night after night he could rest very little—well pleased to suffer—never complaining, never but cheerful. Once, when I asked him how he did, ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘how light is the chastisement I suffer! How heavy the strokes I deserve! I love the rod of my heavenly Father!’ Like his Saviour, he could continue in prayer, in the wood, all night long; and, like Him, lie prostrate on the ground, pleading for grace to fulfil his ministry.”[[644]]
Between Fletcher and Joseph Benson there was a most intimate and confidential friendship. Benson, in a letter to Wesley, wrote:—
“As to drawing the character of that great and good man, Mr. Fletcher, it is what I will not attempt. I have been looking over many of his letters, and observe in them all, what I have a thousand times observed in his conversation and behaviour, the plainest marks of every Christian grace and virtue.
“Perhaps, if he followed his Master more closely in one thing than another, it was in humility. He was constantly upon his guard lest any expression should drop, either from his lips or pen, which tended to make anyone think well of him; either on account of his family, or learning, or parts, or usefulness. He took as much pains to conceal his excellences, as others do to show theirs.
“He was a man of a serious spirit, one that stood at the utmost distance from levity of every kind. Though he was constantly cheerful, as rejoicing in hope of his heavenly inheritance, yet he had too deep a sense of his own wants, and the wants of the Church of God, as also of the sins and miseries of mankind, to be at any time light or trifling.