quently, and was received as an angel of God. It is not possible for me to describe the veneration in which we all held him. Like Elijah, in the schools of the prophets, he was revered, he was loved, he was almost adored, and that not only by every student, but by every member of the family. And indeed he was worthy.’ When the Calvinistic controversy broke out in 1771 he resigned his office, because he sympathised with Wesley and not with Lady Huntingdon on the points in dispute; but he maintained, in relation to the college, the same truly Christian spirit which he had shown throughout the whole of that unhappy controversy. ‘Take care, my dear sir,’ he wrote to Mr. Benson, who was dismissed from the head-mastership because, like Fletcher, he took the Arminian side, ‘not to make matters worse than they are; and cast the mantle of forgiving love over the circumstances that might injure the cause of God, so far as it is put into the hands of that eminent lady [Lady Huntingdon] who hath so well deserved of the church of Christ. Rather suffer in silence, than make a noise to cause the Philistines to triumph.’
By his incessant work in his parish, his frequent journeys in all weathers to Trevecca, his self-denying abstinence, and his literary labours, he injured his health, which was not naturally strong, and to recruit it he paid a long visit at the house of Charles Greenwood, who lived at Stoke Newington. But he could not find there the rest and retirement which he needed; for ‘he was continually visited by high and low, and by persons of various denominations, one of whom being asked when he went away what he thought of Mr. Fletcher, said: “I went to see a man that had one foot in the grave; but I found a man that had one foot in heaven!”’ During his enforced absences from Madeley he frequently wrote pastoral letters to his parishioners, which breathe the spirit of the most ardent piety; and always took care to provide a ‘locum tenens’ who would carry on his work on his own lines. Partly to see his relations, and partly in the hope of recovering his health, he made another journey to Switzerland, and stayed for some time at Nyon, his birthplace, where he lodged in the same house with William Perronet, son of that vicar of Shoreham whom Charles Wesley called the archbishop of methodism. He returned to England with his health greatly improved in 1781, and in the same year married Mary Bosanquet, a lady of a kindred spirit with his own. With her he settled quietly down at Madeley, and spent the remainder of his life in active parochial work. He showed a particular interest in the children of the parish, teaching them himself every day, and warmly took up the new scheme of Sunday schools, establishing a large one at Madeley. In all his labours he was cordially helped by Mrs. Fletcher. The laying the foundation of the Sunday schools at Madeley was his last public work. After about a week's illness he died at Madeley on 14 Aug. 1785, leaving behind a reputation of saintliness such as few have ever attained. John Wesley, in a funeral sermon on the suggestive text, ‘Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace,’ said that he had never met so holy a man, and never expected to do so on this side of eternity; and the testimony of others is equally explicit.
Fletcher was a voluminous and very much admired writer. His best-known work is his ‘Checks to Antinomianism,’ which was called forth by the disputes between the Arminians (so called) and Calvinists in 1771. It was written in defence of the minutes of the Wesleyan conference of 1770, which aroused the hostility of Lady Huntingdon and her friends, and had special reference to a ‘circular printed letter,’ under the name of the Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, inviting all ‘real protestants’ to meet and protest against the obnoxious minutes. John Wesley ‘knows not which to admire most [in the ‘Checks’], the purity of the language (such as scarce any foreigner wrote before), the strength and clearness of the argument, or the mildness and sweetness of the spirit that breathes throughout the whole.’ Much of this praise is thoroughly deserved; and there is another feature in the work which Mr. Wesley has not noticed. The ‘Checks’ show that the writer had a great sense of humour, and a vein of delicate satire, which, if he had not been restrained by that spirit of Christian charity to which Mr. Wesley refers, would have made him a most dangerous antagonist to meddle with. But, unfortunately, the ‘Checks to Antinomianism’ are so inextricably mixed up with the most feeble, bitter, and unprofitable controversy of the eighteenth century, that justice has scarcely been done to their intellectual merits. His other works are: 1. ‘An Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense; or a Rational Demonstration of Man's Corrupt and Lost Estate,’ which was addressed ‘to the principal inhabitants [that is, the gentry] of the parish of Madeley,’ and was published in 1772, though written a year earlier. 2. ‘An Essay on Truth; or a Rational Vindication of the Doctrine of Salvation by Faith,’ which he dedicated to Lady Huntingdon and published in 1773. 3. ‘Scripture Scales
