“A few days ago, I was in company with a pious female, who, for many years, was intimately acquainted with Mr. Fletcher. She said Mr. Fletcher sometimes visited a boarding-school at Madeley. One morning he came in just as she and the other girls had sat down to breakfast. He said but little while the meal lasted, but when it was finished he spoke to each girl separately, and concluded by saying to the whole, ‘I have waited some time on you this morning, that I might see you eat your breakfast; and I hope you will visit me to-morrow morning, and see how I eat mine.’ He told them his breakfast hour was seven o’clock, and obtained a promise that they would visit him. Next morning, they went at the time appointed, and seated themselves in the kitchen. Mr. Fletcher came in, quite rejoiced to see them. On the table stood a small basin of milk and sops of bread. Mr. Fletcher took the basin across the kitchen, and sat down on an old bench. He then took out his watch, laid it before him, and said, ‘My dear girls, yesterday morning I waited on you a full hour, while you were at breakfast. I shall take as much time this morning in eating my breakfast as I usually do, if not rather more. Look at my watch!’ and he immediately began to eat, and continued in conversation with them. When he had finished, he asked them how long he had been at breakfast. They said, ‘Just a minute and a half, Sir.’ ‘Now, my dear girls,’ said he, ‘we have fifty-eight minutes of the hour left;’ and he then began to sing,—
‘Our[‘Our] life is a dream!
Our time as a stream
Glides swiftly away,
And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.’
After this, he gave them a lecture on the value of time, and the worth of the soul. They then all knelt down in prayer, after which he dismissed them with impressions on the mind the narrator never ceased to remember.”
At Wesley’s yearly Conference of 1765, Alexander Mather was appointed to “Salop” circuit, with William Minethorpe as his colleague. Mr. Mather was now in the thirty-third year of his age. During the last eight years, he had been an itinerant preacher, and had passed through strange and painful vicissitudes. In 1760 his circuit had been “Staffordshire;” in which circuit he had “built a preaching-house at Darlaston, and hired a large building at Birmingham.” He had extended his labours as far as Shrewsbury, Coventry, Stroud, and Painswick; and, by Wesley’s directions, had visited the “Societies” in Wales. At Birmingham, Mather and the poor Methodists had been repeatedly in danger of being murdered by persecuting crowds; and at Wolverhampton the mob had pulled down the newly-built meeting-house; and had threatened to do the same at Dudley, Darlaston, and Wednesbury. He had also preached at several places in Shropshire, and now, in 1765, the county was made a Methodist circuit, in which he was appointed to act as Wesley’s “Assistant.” Fletcher had already formed two or three Societies, which, without being so designated, were, ipso facto, Methodist Societies. He warmly welcomed Mather, and was more than willing to be a Methodist co-worker. Hence the following letter addressed to the brave itinerant:—
“My Dear Brother,—I thank you for your last favour. If I answered not your former letter it was because I was in expectation of seeing you—not from the least disregard. I am glad you enjoy peace at Wellington; and I hope you will do so at the Trench when you go there. My reasons for stopping there were not to seize upon the spot first, but to fulfil a promise I made to the people, of visiting them. I desire you will call there as often as you have opportunity. An occasional exhortation from you or your companion,[[113]] at the Bank,[[114]] Dale,[[115]] etc., will be esteemed a favour; and I hope that my going, as Providence directs, to any of your places (leaving to you the management of the Societies), will be deemed no encroachment. In short, we need not make two parties; I know but one heaven below, and that is Jesus’s love. Let us both go and abide in it; and when we have gathered as many as we can to go with us, too many will still stay behind.
“I find there are in the ministry, as in the common experience of Christians, times which may be compared to winter. No great stir is made in the world of grace beside that of storms and offences, and the growth of the trees of the Lord are not showy; but when the tender buds of brotherly and redeeming love begin to fill, spring is at hand. The Lord give us harvest after seed time! Let us wait for fruit, as the husbandman; and remember, that he who believes does not make haste. The love of Christ be with us all. Pray for
“J. Fletcher.”[[116]]