Fletcher of Madeley Part 11

"Pray on, and help to a peaceful end, my beloved friends,

"Your faithful Brother,

"C. W.

"TO MR. J. F.

"'Spared to keep the people,' says my dear friend? _Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ The longer our time, the greater our danger of failing. I have always feared for myself that I should live a little too long. Now I fear it for my brethren also.

"Be not too sanguine for the American Methodists. _First_, know their _real_ condition. You justly fear that _our_ Methodists should get into the prelatical spirit. I fear the fanatical spirit also. I cannot explain this in writing.

"You think I know nothing about the peace; I think you know nothing about it. Yet I wish your poem a good sale.[14]

"Happy would Sally be to die like her G.o.d-sister. I am not without hope that she will live to be a Christian. She presents her duty. We all join in love. I _need_ no invitation to Madeley. While I had strength I wanted opportunity. Now I have neither."

For two or three years longer this question, 'What was to become of the Methodists after Wesley's death,' continued to exercise his brother Charles. Perhaps some anxiety would have been spared him had he acted more upon the advice he gave to Fletcher: "The less you think about it the better, for we penetrate, we prophesy, in vain. You must stand still, and see the design, the salvation of G.o.d." To this he seems finally to have come, for in one of his last letters to his brother he says: "Keep your authority while you live; and, after your death, _detur digniori_, or rather, _dignioribus_. You cannot settle the succession; you cannot divine how G.o.d will settle it." Meanwhile, so far as Fletcher was concerned, he had little to learn, even from his dearest friend and counsellor, as to waiting for the Lord. No man was ever less inclined to "penetrate or prophesy." Whether he lived, he lived unto the Lord; whether he died, he died unto the Lord; living or dying, he was the Lord's. No room was left for anxiety about the future.

The summer of 1785 was an unhealthy one at Madeley. There was a good deal of fever about, "a bad, putrid fever," and Fletcher and his wife were much engaged among the sick. Two persons died within a few yards of the vicarage. Mrs. Fletcher visited them in their illness, and took the fever. "Now," she says, "I had a fresh instance of the tender care and love of my blessed partner; sickness was made pleasant by his kind attention." During this illness many thoughts pa.s.sed through her mind for which she could scarcely account. Something seemed to tell her that she must yet drink deeper of the cup. She adds, "My dear husband and I are led to offer ourselves to do and suffer all the will of G.o.d." The time was fast approaching when this submission to the will of G.o.d was to have its crowning test.

On Thursday, August 4th, Fletcher was busy amongst his flock from three in the afternoon till nine at night. On returning home he said, "I have taken cold." During the two following days he went about much as usual, though with some difficulty. On Sat.u.r.day night he was very feverish, and his wife begged him not to go to church in the morning, but to let one of the Methodist preachers who was staying with them preach in the churchyard; but he replied that it was the will of the Lord that he should go. The morning came, and he began the service at the usual hour. While reading the prayers he almost fainted. His wife pressed through the crowd, and entreated him to leave the reading-desk and come home. In his gentle manner he bade her let him go on. The windows were opened, and he seemed a little refreshed as he proceeded with the service. When prayers were ended he ascended the pulpit, and gave out his text, "How excellent is Thy lovingkindness, O G.o.d! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings." After the sermon he went up the aisle to the communion table, saying, "I am going to throw myself under the wings of the cherubim, before the mercy-seat." The congregation was large, and the service lasted till nearly two o'clock. He was often obliged to stop for want of power to speak. The people were deeply affected; nearly all were in tears.

As soon as the service was over he was hurried away to bed, and immediately fainted. During the three following days he was restless in body, but in mind alternately calm, and filled with holy joy. Again and again he would say, "G.o.d is love, G.o.d is love." His symptoms were still thought to be not unfavourable. On Thursday, the 11th, his speech began to fail, but when he could say nothing else to be understood, he would repeat "G.o.d is love." The next day his faithful wife felt a sword pierce through her soul as she found his body covered with spots. She knelt by his bed, with her hand in his, and entreated the Lord to be with them both. On the afternoon of Sat.u.r.day he stretched out his hand to each of the friends who stood around him. His wife said to him: "My dear, I ask not for myself, but for the sake of others; if Jesus is very present with thee, lift thy right hand." He did so. She added, "If the prospect of glory opens before thee, repeat the sign." He raised his hand again; and, in half a minute, a second time.

The end was fast drawing near. It was Sunday evening, and the church was filled with a weeping congregation offering up their prayers for their dying pastor. At the conclusion of the service the people lingered about the vicarage, and seemed unable to go to their homes.

Many of them were admitted to the house, and allowed to pa.s.s by the open door of his room, where they could see him, propped up with pillows in his bed. His countenance continued unaltered, but his weakness perceptibly increased. He sank into a kind of sleep, and at half-past ten o'clock on Sunday night, August 14th, 1785, Fletcher of Madeley breathed his last, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

Three days afterwards he was buried in Madeley churchyard amid the tears and lamentations of his people.

The inscription on his tombstone was written by his widow. A longer and more detailed epitaph, from the pen of Richard Watson, in City Road Chapel, sets forth his character and labours. Fletcher of Madeley will continue to be remembered for what he did, but still more for what he was. "The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "The English Church in the Eighteenth Century." By C. J.

Abbey and J. H. Overton. Vol. ii., p. 113.]

[Footnote 2: MOZLEY: "Theory of Development," p. 141.]

[Footnote 3: GLEDSTONE: "Life of Whitefield," p. 304.]

[Footnote 4: An expression in one of Fletcher's letters to Charles Wesley, written in 1759, is noteworthy in connexion with the ecclesiastical development of Methodism. He speaks of "the Methodist Church." Is not this the earliest instance of the use of this term?]

[Footnote 5: I am indebted to the Rev. George Mather for the opportunity of examining the doc.u.ments relating to Fletcher's ordination, license, induction, &c. They are as follows:

1. Deacon's orders, March 6th, 1757, Bishop of Hereford.

2. Priest's orders, March 13th, 1757, Bishop of Bangor.

3. License to the curacy of Madeley, March 14th, 1757, Bishop of Hereford.

4. Presentation to vicarage of Madeley, October 4th, 1760.

5. Inst.i.tution to vicarage of Madeley, October 7th, 1760.

6. Mandate for induction, October 7th, 1760.

7. Certificate of Fletcher's conforming to the Liturgy, October 7th, 1760.

8. Certificate of subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles, October 7th, 1760.

9. Certificate, signed by two parishioners, stating that on Lord's day, October 26th, 1760, John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, had read prayers, and declared his unfeigned a.s.sent and consent, &c., dated December 1st, 1760.

These doc.u.ments are all in good condition, and the signatures perfectly fresh and clear.]

[Footnote 6: Published in a sermon preached on the occasion of the death of Fletcher's widow in 1816, by the Rev. John Hodson, who had the incident from "a pious woman who for many years was intimately acquainted with Mr. Fletcher." Quoted from Tyerman's "Life of Fletcher."]

[Footnote 7: The characteristic of Fletcher's letters which we consider their greatest blemish is the frequent spiritualizing of common facts and incidents. We will ill.u.s.trate our meaning. His friend Mr. Ireland had sent him a hamper of wine, and some cloth to be made into a suit of clothes. In acknowledging the present, he says: "Your broadcloth can lap me round two or three times; but the mantle of Divine love, the precious fine robe of Jesus's righteousness, can cover your soul a thousand times. The cloth, fine and good as it is, will not keep out a hard shower; but that garment of salvation will keep out even a shower of brimstone and fire. Your cloth will wear out; but that fine linen, the righteousness of saints, will appear with a finer l.u.s.tre the more it is worn. The moth may fret your present, or the tailor may spoil it in cutting it; but the present which Jesus has made you is out of reach of the spoiler, and ready for present wear." These comparisons are pursued considerably further, and then the other part of Mr. Ireland's present has its turn. "As I shall take a little of your wine for my stomach's sake, take you a good deal of the wine of the kingdom for your soul's sake. Every promise of the gospel is a bottle, a cask that has a spring within, and can never be exhausted. Draw the cork of unbelief, and drink abundantly. Be not afraid of intoxication; and if an inflammation follows, it will only be that of Divine love."

On another, but similar, occasion he writes to his good friend, "I want the living water rather than cider, and righteousness more than clothes."

These are not the extremest instances that Fletcher's letters afford of his habit of "spiritualising." It is plain that no suspicion of anything incongruous in his comparisons ever crossed his mind. Happy the man of whom it can be said that the only quality in which he is deficient is a sense of humour!

Wesley's remark upon this characteristic of Fletcher's style is: "This facility of raising useful observations from the most trifling incidents was one of those peculiarities in him which cannot be proposed to our imitation.... What was becoming and graceful in Mr.

Fletcher would be disgustful almost in any other."]

[Footnote 8: In Archdeacon Pratt's "Eclectic Notes," pp. 185-189, there is an interesting discussion of one of the questions referred to above, viz. the advantages and disadvantages of religious societies. Mr. Venn is quoted as saying, "Dr. Woodward's societies were the first we read of. They might have existed to this day, had not Mr. Wesley's arisen."]

[Footnote 9: More than half a century afterwards, when all the parties to this controversy had pa.s.sed away, and time had given opportunity for a calm estimate of the whole matter, Mr. Watson, at once the most competent and the most reverential of Wesley's biographers, expressed himself as follows, concerning the "Minutes" of 1770: "That there were pa.s.sages calculated to awaken suspicion, and that they gave the appearance of inconsistency to Mr. Wesley's opinions, and indicated a tendency to run to one extreme in order to avoid another--an error which Mr. Wesley more generally avoided than most men,--cannot be denied....

"Mr. Wesley acknowledged that the 'minutes' were 'not sufficiently guarded.' This must be felt by all; they were out of his usual manner of expressing himself, and he had said the same truths often, in a clearer, and safer, and even stronger manner. He certainly did not mean to alter his previous opinions, or formally to adopt other terms in which to express them, and therefore to employ new modes of speaking, though for a temporary purpose, was not without danger, although they were capable of an innocent explanation."]

[Footnote 10: "Wesley's Designated Successor," pp. 177-179.]

[Footnote 11: Referring to the death of Whitefield in 1770.]

[Footnote 12: "Wesley's Designated Successor," p. 487.]

[Footnote 13: Rev. W. Tranter, _Methodist Magazine_, 1837, p. 903.]

[Footnote 14: Fletcher had written a poem in French on the peace which, in January, 1783, had been concluded with America, France, and Spain.

At the time of Charles Wesley's letter, an English version of it, by the Rev. J. Gilpin, was in the press. It appeared shortly after Fletcher's death.]