On the seventh day of June, a month after Fletcher’s return to Madeley, was the fourteenth anniversary of Miss Bosanquet’s troubled sojourn in Yorkshire “On that day,” she relates, “I took a particular view of my whole situation, and saw difficulties as mountains rise around me Faith was hard put to it. The promises seemed to stand sure, and I thought the season was come; yet the waters were deeper than ever.”
During this time, however, their correspondence had been renewed, and to Fletcher the thought of Mary Bosanquet was bringing more than ordinary comfort and joy.
Finding his health so greatly improved, he thought he might venture upon a still closer friendship, and the very day after Miss Bosanquet’s “mountains” and “deeper waters” seemed to hem her in, a new door opened for her in a proposal of marriage, which assured her of the regard Fletcher had secretly treasured for her for twenty-five long years.
In August Mr. Fletcher travelled to Yorkshire to attend Wesley’s conference at Leeds, and Mary Bosanquet’s diary contains this brief record:—
“We corresponded with openness and freedom till August 1st, when he came to Cross Hall and abode there a month; preaching in different places with much power, and having opened our hearts to each other, both on temporals and spirituals, we believed it to be the order of God we should become one, when He should make our way plain.”
That Fletcher could love, and that ardently, will be seen from a letter written a few weeks later to the woman of his choice:—
“O Polly! generous, faithful Polly! Dost thou indeed permit me to write to thy friends, and to ask the invaluable gift of thy hand? That hand, that is half mine shall be wholly mine...Polly! I read thy letter, and wondered at the expression in it—’If you think me worth writing for.’ Ah, my holy, my loving, my lovely, my precious friend, I think thee worth writing for with my vital blood; I am only sorry that I had not thee beside me to write with thy wisdom...
“‘Difficulties!’ If thou hast any I shall gladly share them with thee, and think myself well repaid with the pleasure of praying and praising with thee and for thee. Therefore, do not talk of struggling through alone. I charge thee, by thy faithfulness, let me be alone as little time as thou canst...
“I thank thee for that believing sentence—’But all shall be right.’ The worst thy friends can do is to keep thy money, which I look upon as dung and dross in comparison of thee Ah, Polly! with the treasure of thy friendship, and the unsearchable riches of Christ, how rich thinkest thou I am? Count—cast up—but thou wilt never make out the amazing sum....
“I embrace thee in spirit, and more than mix my soul with thine.” (From “Wesley’s Designated Successor.”)