Wesley relates that Fletcher, “in his early childhood, had much of the fear of God, and great tenderness of conscience.” One day, when he was about seven years of age, his nurse, who had occasion to reprove him, said, “You are a naughty boy. Do you not know that the devil is to take away all naughty children?” The maid’s remark troubled him. He fell upon his knees and began to pray, and did not cease till he believed God had forgiven him.
His filial obedience was exemplary, but, on one occasion, he, undesignedly, offended his mother, whom he dearly loved. The good lady was speaking in too warm a manner to one of the family. Young Fletcher turned a reproving eye upon her. She was much displeased with what she conceived to be unfilial forwardness, and punished him. With a look of tender affection, he meekly replied, “When I am smitten on one cheek, and especially by a hand I love so well, I am taught to turn the other also.” The mother’s indignation was instantly turned into admiration of her boy.[[3]]
While yet a youth, he had several near escapes from an untimely death. Once, when walking upon a high wall enclosing his father’s garden, his foot slipped, and he must have been killed had he not fallen into “a large quantity of fresh-made mortar.”
At another time, when swimming by himself in deep water, a strong ribbon, which bound his hair, became loose, twisted about his leg, and tied him “as it were neck and heels.” “I strove,” said he, “with all my strength to disengage myself, but to no purpose. No person being within call, I gave myself up for lost; but when I had ceased struggling, the ribbon loosed itself.”
On another occasion, he and four other young gentlemen agreed to swim to a rocky island, five miles from the shore. Young Fletcher and one of his adventurous friends succeeded in reaching the island, but the cliff was so steep and smooth that they found it impossible to scale its heights. After swimming round the islet again and again, they concluded that their being drowned was inevitable. Immediately after, however, they discovered a place of safety; and, in due time, a boat arrived and took them home. The other three, when only half way to the island, were rescued by a boat just as they were sinking.
A still more remarkable deliverance from a watery grave was the following: Fletcher was a practised swimmer, and once plunged into a river broader than the Thames at London Bridge, and very rapid. “The water was extremely rough, and poured along like a galloping horse.” He endeavoured to swim against it, but in vain, and was hurried far from home. When almost exhausted, he looked for a resting-place, feeling he must either escape from the water or sink. With great difficulty, he approached the shore, but found it “so ragged and sharp that he saw, if he attempted to land there, he would be torn to pieces.” In his direful plight, he recommenced swimming. “At last,” says he, “despairing of life, I was cheered by the sight of a fine smooth creek, into which I was swiftly carried by a violent stream. A building stood directly across it, which I then did not know to be a powder-mill. The last thing I can remember was the striking of my breast against one of the piles whereon it stood. I then lost my senses, and knew nothing more till I rose on the other side of the mill. When I came to myself, I was in a calm, safe place, perfectly well, without any soreness or weariness at all. Nothing was amiss but the distance of my clothes, the stream having driven me five miles from the place where I left them. Many persons gladly welcomed me on shore; one gentleman in particular, who said, ‘I looked at my watch when you went under the mill, and again when you rose on the other side, and the time of your being immerged among the piles was exactly twenty minutes.’”
Fletcher passed the early part of his life at Nyon, where he began his education. With his two brothers, he was then removed to the university of Geneva, where he was distinguished equally by his superior abilities and his uncommon diligence. The two first prizes for which he stood a candidate he carried away from a number of competitors, several of whom were nearly related to the professors. He allowed himself but little time either for recreation, refreshment, or sleep. After confining himself closely to his studies all day, he would frequently consume the greater part of the night in making notes of what he had found in the course of his reading worthy of observation.
After quitting Geneva, he was sent by his father to Lentzburg, in the canton of Berne, where, besides pursuing his other studies, he acquired the German language. On his return to Nyon, he studied Hebrew, and improved his knowledge of mathematics.
From early childhood, Fletcher loved and served his Maker. He himself relates: “I think it was when I was seven years of age, that I first began to feel the love of God shed abroad in my heart, and that I resolved to give myself up to Him, and to the service of His Church, if ever I should be fit for it; but the corruption which is in the world, and that which was in my own heart, soon weakened, if not erased, those first characters which grace had written upon it.”
“From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures,” wrote St. Paul to Timothy. The same might have been said to Fletcher. His early acquaintance with inspired truth guarded him, on the one hand, from the snares of infidelity, and preserved him, on the other, from many of the vices peculiar to youth. It also qualified and emboldened him to reprove sin, and, with becoming modesty, to remonstrate with sinners. To illustrate this, his biographers relate an incident which occurred when he was only fourteen years of age. A lady and her three sons visited his sister, Madame de Botens. The sons quarrelled, and the mother uttered a hasty imprecation. Young Fletcher was shocked, and, instantly starting from his chair, began to expound and enforce the apostolic admonition, “Provoke not your children to wrath,” etc.; and then reminded his astonished auditress that her imprecation might be realized; a vaticination that soon became a fact; for, on the same day, the lady embarked upon the lake, was overtaken with a tremendous storm, and was brought to the point of perishing; and, soon after, two of her sons were drowned; and the third was crushed to death at one of the gates of Geneva.