CHAPTER V.

_ENTERS THE MINISTRY._

From this brief glance at Fletcher's habits of devotion we return to the history of his life. He was not destined to be a religious recluse, cultivating in quiet places "a fugitive and cloistered virtue." His thirst for communion with God was equalled by his passion for winning souls. If the one drove him to retirement, the other thrust him into society. He longed for others to possess the salvation that he had found. On such a matter he could not be silent, and he became a preacher almost before he knew it. Both in personal intercourse and in addressing assemblies, his foreign accent and a certain winning simplicity of manner proved very attractive; but the hours spent alone with God and his own soul were the secret of a power to appeal and persuade that was well-nigh irresistible.

Naturally it was taken for granted that his proper vocation was the ministry. He was pressed by one and another, and particularly by Mr. Hill, to enter holy orders; but his mind was not yet made up. His former shrinking from an office for which he felt himself unfit was not wholly removed. He thought it might be better to serve God in a private and less responsible way of life; and yet, from time to time, the work of the ministry attracted and exercised his thoughts in a manner that might be taken to indicate God's will.

In his perplexity he sought counsel from Wesley. It is not known when, or under what circumstances, he had become personally known to him, but the letter in which he asks his advice is probably the first he ever wrote to Wesley, and the tone of it suggests that personal acquaintance, if it had begun, was as yet very slight.

"TERN, _Nov. 24th, 1756._

REV. SIR,--

"As I look upon you as my spiritual guide, and cannot doubt of your patience to hear, and your experience to answer, a serious question proposed by any of your people, I freely lay my case before you."

[After giving an account of his early history, and more recent experience, he tells Wesley that he had been offered a title to orders, and asks,--]

"Now, sir, the question which I beg you to decide is, whether I must and can make use of that title to get into orders. For, with respect to the living, were it vacant, I have no mind to it, because I think I could preach with more fruit in my own country and in my own tongue.

"I am in suspense. On one side my heart tells me I must try, and it tells me so whenever I feel any degree of the love of God and man; but on the other, when I examine whether I am fit for it, I so plainly see my want of gifts, and especially of that _soul_ of all the labours of a minister of the gospel, _love_, _continual_, _universal_, _flaming love_, that my confidence disappears, I accuse myself of pride to dare to entertain the desire of supporting the ark of the Lord. As I am in both these frames successively, I must own, sir, I do not see plainly which of the two ways before me I can take with safety, and I shall be glad to be ruled by you.... I know how precious is your time; I desire no long answer; _persist_ or _forbear_ will satisfy and influence, sir,

Your unworthy servant,

J. FLETCHER."

No reply to this letter has been preserved, but there can be no doubt as to the nature of Wesley's advice. He recommended Fletcher's being ordained; he probably dissuaded him from returning to Switzerland, and he discouraged the notion of his settling in a parish. He greatly desired to see Fletcher in the itinerant work in which he himself was engaged, the more so as his brother Charles was now withdrawing from it.

On Sunday, March 6th, 1757, Fletcher received deacon's orders from the Bishop of Hereford, and on the following Sunday he was ordained priest by the Bishop of Bangor, at the request of the Bishop of Hereford. The day after receiving priest's orders he was licensed "to perform the office of curate in the parish church of Madeley, in the county of Salop," and "a yearly salary of twenty-five pounds, to be paid quarterly, for serving the same," was assigned to him.

This license to the curacy must not be confounded with his appointment, more than three years afterwards, to the vicarage of Madeley. Fletcher has no history as curate of Madeley. The appointment was in fact a nominal one, for it is tolerably certain that he exercised no spiritual function whatever in Madeley for at least two years after his ordination. The title to orders was probably given to him by the Rev. Rowland Chambre, then Vicar of Madeley, at Mr. Hill's request, with the understanding that the curacy should be only nominal. The position of chaplain and tutor in Mr. Hill's family, though not furnishing a legal title to orders, would be considered equivalent to a cure of souls. The fact that he was ordained deacon and priest on two consecutive Sundays, the customary interval of a year being dispensed with, may be ascribed either to the influence of Mr. Hill, or of Wesley himself; or it may be taken as proof that his character was admittedly high, and that in his examination or interviews with the bishop, he had shown himself exceptionally well qualified, both intellectually and morally.

His connexion with Mr. Hill's family drew to its close. It did not afford him the sphere for Christian work that he desired, ind involved him in occasional embarrassments and difficulties. Mr. Hill was uniformly kind, but he feared that the scandal of Methodism attaching to his tutor would injure him at the next election. The neighbouring clergy for the most part fought shy of Fletcher, so that he had few opportunities of preaching in their churches. But the one compensation for these restrictions was found in the devout retirement he loved so well. He writes to Wesley: "The will of God be done: I am in His hands; and if He does not call me to so much public duty, I have the more time for study, prayer, and praise." He seems to have been conscious that it was a time of discipline and preparation with him, and until the indications of God's will were plain, he would not seek release from a position where the providence of God had placed him.

Meanwhile, as his tutorship became less and less satisfactory as a vocation, his connexion with the Methodists opened up to him new labours and new friendships. Immediately upon his ordination Fletcher was drawn into the full stream of the Revival, and brought into active association with its leaders. His very first ministerial act, on the day that he was ordained priest, was to assist Wesley in the administration of the Lord's supper at Snowsfields chapel; and from that time he frequently read prayers and preached in the Methodist chapels in London. He made the acquaintance of Charles Wesley and Whitefield, of the Countess of Huntingdon, of Berridge, Vicar of Everton, of Thomas Walsh, and of some of the devout women who were not least among the glories of early Methodism, including Mary Bosanquet, who, many years afterwards, became his wife. By these and others Fletcher was received with no common welcome. Wesley himself wrote in his "Journal," "When my bodily strength failed, and none in England were able and willing to assist me, He sent me help from the mountains of Switzerland, and a helpmeet for me in every respect; where could I find such another?" A little later the Countess of Huntingdon wrote to a friend: "I have seen Mr. Fletcher, and was both pleased and refreshed by the interview. He was accompanied by Mr. Wesley, who had frequently mentioned him in terms of high commendation, as had Mr. Whitefield, Mr. Charles Wesley, and others, so that I was anxious to become acquainted with one so devoted, and who appears to glory in nothing, save in the Cross of our Divine Lord and Master."

Another testimony referring to this time, though written many years later, is that of a Mrs. Crosby, well-known amongst the first Methodists: "I heard this heavenly-minded servant of the Lord preach his first sermon in West Street chapel. I think his text was, 'Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' His spirit appeared in his whole attitude and action. He could not well find words in the English language to express himself, but he supplied that defect by offering up prayers, tears, and sighs."

Of all those with whom Fletcher was now brought into close and happy relations, Charles Wesley seems to have most completely won his heart. Towards the elder Wesley he showed affectionate reverence, and a loyalty that had its trials, and gave its proofs in many ways. He undoubtedly looked upon him as the chief of living men. Of Thomas Walsh, whose life, Southey says, "might almost convince a Catholic that saints are to be found in other communions, as well as in the Church of Rome,"--of Walsh, Fletcher, impressed with his deep, stern, mystic sanctity, wrote, "I wish I could attend him everywhere, as Elisha attended Elijah." But it was in Charles Wesley that he found his dearest and most intimate friend, to whom for years he turned for solace, for counsel, and for confidential intercourse.

We have seen the terms in which Lady Huntingdon speaks of Fletcher after her first interview with him. On his part, Fletcher was profoundly impressed with the countess's manifold excellences, and wrote to Charles Wesley that he had "passed three hours with a modern prodigy--_a humble and pious countess_." Lady Huntingdon has perhaps suffered in the modern estimate of her character and work from the overstrained and even fulsome language concerning her which it was the custom of many of her friends and followers to employ. Appreciation of her ladyship's rank so mingled with esteem for her piety as to produce an unhappy effect upon the phraseology of her admirers. The countess's biographer continues, in a later age, a style which, barely endurable when a century old, is intolerable when repeated and renewed. He speaks of "the elegant and pious persons to whom Mr. Fletcher was invited to preach and administer the sacrament"! But we must not allow the effusive language of her contemporaries, or the fine writing of her biographer, to conceal from us the true worth of a very able and most devoted Christian woman. If that language seem to us occasionally wanting in manliness, in proper self-respect, and in Christian simplicity, it bears witness to the ascendency exercised by a remarkable character over all but the very strongest of those who came under its influence; and if it was dangerous to be the subject of so much eulogy, it should be remembered that Lady Huntingdon never shrank from running counter to the prejudices of the class to which she belonged, and endured, for the sake of Christ and His cause, ridicule from those of her own order, which most people would find harder to bear than actual persecution.

Fletcher was added to the number of Lady Huntingdon's chaplains. It is almost unnecessary to say that this was not an "appointment" in the strict sense of the word, but that he preached from time to time to the fashionable congregations that assembled at Lady Huntingdon's house at Chelsea. These assemblies have often been described. They included the most distinguished men and women of the day. Chesterfield, Bolingbroke, Horace Walpole and others, bear witness to the fashion which prevailed. To listen to Whitefield in Lady Huntingdon's drawing-room became a recognised diversion for society, and the most cynical and worldly were found side by side with the serious and devout. Undoubtedly some "who came to scoff remained to pray." Amongst the women of rank who heard the gospel in this way several were converted, and became earnest and faithful witnesses for Christ; but the hindrances to deep and lasting results were very great, and we are inclined to think that this particular phase of the Evangelical Revival was by no means among its most fruitful or important developments. The ignorance and brutality of the crowds to whom Wesley and Whitefield preached, presented no such resistance to the gospel as the vanity and finished worldliness of the drawing-room congregations. An instance will suffice. A lady who had been invited by Lady Huntingdon replied in the following terms: "I thank your ladyship for the information concerning the Methodist preachers. Their doctrines are most repulsive, and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetually endeavouring to level all ranks and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with high rank and good breeding."[3]

There is no record of the impression made by Fletcher upon these fashionable congregations. Meanwhile he was engaged in a work probably more congenial to him, viz. preaching to the French prisoners, a number of whom were settled at Tunbridge. After a few months this came to an end; he was forbidden by the Bishop of London to continue his ministrations. There was something "irregular" in them, it would appear. Wesley wrote afterwards, "If I had known this at the time, King George should have known it; and I believe he would have given the bishop little thanks."

The following extracts from his letters belong to this period:

TO THE REV. CHARLES WESLEY.

"_Mar. 22nd, 1759._

"Since your departure I have lived more than ever like a hermit. It seems to me that I am an unprofitable weight upon the earth. I want to hide myself from all. I tremble when the Lord favours me with a sight of myself. I tremble to think of preaching only to dishonour God. To-morrow I preach at West Street, with all the feelings of Jonah. Oh! would to God I might be attended with success! If the Lord shall in any degree sustain my weakness, I shall consider myself as indebted to your prayers.

"A proposal has lately been made to me to accompany Mr. Nathanael Gilbert to the West Indies. I have weighed the matter; but, on the one hand, I feel that I have neither zeal nor grace nor talents to expose myself to the temptations and labours of a mission to the West Indies; and, on the other, I believe that if God call me thither the time is not yet come.... Pray let me know what you think of this business; if you condemn me to put the sea between us, the command would be a hard one, but I might possibly prevail on myself to give you that proof of the deference I pay to your judicious advice. Give me some account of Mrs. Wesley, and of the godfather she designs for your little Charles; and, that she may not labour under a deception, tell her how greatly I want wisdom, and add that I have no more grace than wisdom. If, after all, she will not reject so unworthy a sponsor, remember that I have taken you for a father and adviser, and that the charge will in the end devolve upon you. Adieu!"

TO THE SAME.

"_April, 1759._

"I have lately seen so much weakness in my heart, both as a minister and a Christian, that I know not which is most to be pitied, the man, the believer, or the preacher. Could I at last be truly humbled, and continue so always, I should esteem myself happy in making this discovery. I preach merely to keep the chapel open until God shall send a workman after His own heart. _Nos numeri sumus_--this is almost all I can say of myself."

TO THE SAME.

_"Nov. 15th, 1759._

"The countess proposed to me something of what you hinted to me in your garden, namely, to celebrate the Communion sometimes at her house in a morning, and to preach when occasion offered; in such a manner however as not to restrain my liberty, nor to prevent my assisting you, or preaching to the French refugees; and that only till Providence should clearly point out the path in which I should go. Charity, politeness, and reason accompanied her offer, and I confess, in spite of the resolution which I had almost absolutely formed, to fly the houses of the great, without even the exception of the countess's, I found myself so greatly changed that I should have accepted on the spot a proposal which I should have declined from any other mouth; but my engagement with you withheld me, and, thanking the countess, I told her, when I had reflected on her obliging offer, I would do myself the honour of waiting upon her again.

"Nevertheless, two difficulties stand in my way. Will it be consistent with that poverty of spirit which I seek? Can I accept an office for which I have such small talents? And shall I not dishonour the cause of God by stammering out the mysteries of the gospel in a place where the most approved ministers of the Lord have preached with so much power and so much success? I suspect that my own vanity gives more weight to this second objection than it deserves to have: what think you? You are an indulgent father to me, and the name of son suits me better than that of brother."[4]