Fletcher of Madeley | Page 9

invited her to a fire, and a sumptuous supper of bread, rank salt butter, and water, God had so comforted her and assured her of His favour and presence that she was filled with thankfulness and peace; the empty room and sparse, candle- lit meal seemed to her part of "a little heaven."
No beds could be put up at so late an hour; blinds and curtains were not in evidence. Mary Bosanquet lay that night upon the bare floor, and the pure, clear moonlight shone coldly upon her as she lay, but the fire of Divine love burned warm within her heart; she communed with her God in utter content.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TERN HALL TUTOR.

For three years after his ordination Fletcher received no church appointment. He remained as tutor at Tern Hall, and preached wherever he could find an opening, either in French or in English.
Amongst ordinary church-goers his decided utterances made him far from popular, but the warm hearts of the Methodist people bade him hearty welcome, and these he learned to love truly and well. They introduced him to "many honourable women," several of whom became his friends and correspondents; none of them, however, impressed him as did Mary Bosanquet.
In writing to her brother nearly twenty-five years later he said of this meeting: "It was soon after my ordination that I saw Miss Mary Bosanquet. I had resolved not to marry, but the sweetness of her temper and her devotedness to God made me think that if ever I broke through my resolution it would be to cast my lot with one like her."
One may judge of the quiet but strong influence Fletcher exerted in his neighbourhood by an incident which happened during that autumn. To Tern Hall one night came a messenger from Salop, asking urgently for "the tutor." The letter he delivered bore no name, but it begged Mr. Fletcher to hasten at once to a certain inn, where he might find a soul who wanted God. Without a question the tutor set out on his five- mile walk, not knowing whether beggar or duke demanded his help. He found the eldest son of a baronet, whom God's Spirit had rendered so strangely wretched on account of sin that he could neither eat nor sleep. Doctors had done their best to remove this remarkable malady, but the one remedy lay in the touch of the hand of the Great Physician, and, almost in despair, his soul cried, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!"
The visit of that October night resulted in correspondence which was blessed to Sir Richard Hill's conversion, although the young man became in later years one of Fletcher's most active opponents in a doctrinal controversy.
This time of waiting for God to show his future sphere of work was much blessed to Fletcher in spiritually preparing him for it. Through an incident in which he was much misunderstood by many, he learned the all-important lesson to a preacher, that a sermon full of the most vigorous ideas is as nothing if not inspired by the living Spirit.
His own account of the matter is brief but instructive:--
"Just as I was going to resume my daily course of business I was called to preach in a church at Salop, and was obliged to compose a sermon in the moments I should have spent in prayer. Hurry and the want of a single eye drew a veil between the prize and my soul. In the meantime Sunday came, and God rejected my impure service and abhorred the labour of my polluted soul; and while others imputed my not preaching to the fear of the minister who had invited me to his pulpit, and to the threatenings of a mob, I saw the wisdom and holiness of God, and rejoiced in that providence which does all without the assistance of hurrying Uzzah."
During the holidays Fletcher would betake himself to London, giving all his time to service in connection with a chapel in Seven Dials. The sermon he did not preach bore fruit in his own heart, and to his beloved friend, Charles Wesley, he wrote: "May God water the poor seed I have sown, and give it fruitfulness, though it be only in one soul! But I have 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."
During the famous earthquake of nine years before a little Welsh girl named Mary Price was then attending a London school.