Faithful and fearless utterances such as these made him famous, but not popular: inconsistent professors resented them deeply; open sinners raged at the unsparing denunciations which they could not fail to appropriate, yet out of the latter class came some of Fletcher’s best and most encouraging converts.
Much of his success in getting men to listen to unpalatable truths lay in his gentleness of manner and rare humility of mind, but “gentlest of human beings” as he has been described, he had the courage of a lion in fight, and for his Master’s sake he knew no palliation of unrighteousness, even though his truth-telling made the bitterest of enemies.
By nature Fletcher was not a meek man; he had “a fiery passionate spirit,” says one of his biographers, “insomuch that he has frequently thrown himself on the floor, and lain there most of the night bathed in tears, imploring victory over his own temper And he did obtain the victory, in a very eminent degree For twenty years and upwards before his death no one ever saw him out of temper, or heard him utter a rash expression on any provocation whatever... I never saw him in any temper in which I myself would not have wished to be found at death.”
A friend who lived for some time in his house writes thus:—
“His enemies wrested his words, misrepresented his actions, and cast out his name as evil; but whether he was insulted in his person or injured in his property; whether he was attacked with open abuse or pursued with secret calumny, he walked amid the most violent assaults of his enemies, as a man invulnerable, and while his firmness discovered that he was unhurt, his forbearance testified that he was unoffended.”
To a man with talents trained as were his, with a power of expression which could melt into uncommon eloquence when he chose, with learning to illuminate, judgment to balance his effects, and extreme quickness of perception to adapt illustration and appeal to any audience, Fletcher might have made for himself a mighty name Instead of this, “his design was to convert and not to captivate his hearers; to secure their eternal interests, and not to obtain their momentary applause... He spake as in the presence of God, and taught as one having Divine authority There was an energy in his preaching that was irresistible His subjects, his language, his gestures, the tone of his voice, and the turn of his countenance, all conspired to fix the attention and affect the heart Without aiming at sublimity, he was truly sublime, and uncommonly eloquent without affecting the orator.”
CHAPTER XII.
Scanty Encouragements.
Fletcher’s encouragements at Madeley were at first sufficiently scanty to have disheartened many an earnest man.