five hundred miles in a year." Repeating the same question after another year had elapsed, he added to this list of natural means, "the ability, if ever I want, to sleep immediately; the never losing a night's sleep in my life; two violent fevers, and two deep consumptions; these, it is true, were rough medicines; but they were of admirable service, causing my flesh to come again as the flesh of a little child. May I add, lastly, evenness of temper: I feel and grieve; but, by the grace of God, I fret at nothing. But still, the help that is done upon earth, He doth it himself; and this He doth in answer to many prayers."

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He himself had prayed that be might not live to be useless; and the extraordinary vigour which he preserved to extreme old age, might well make him believe, that, in this instance, his heart's desire had been granted. The seventy-eighth year of his age found him, he says, "by the blessing of God," just* the same as when he entered the twenty-eighth; and, upon entering his eightieth, he blessed God that his time was not labour and sorrow, and that he found no more infirmities than when he was in the flower of manhood. But though this uncommon exemption from the burthen of age was vouchsafed him, it was not in the nature of things that he should be spared from its feelings and regrets. The days of his childhood returned upon him when he visited Epworth; and, taking a solitary walk in the churchyard of that place, he says, "I felt the truth of one generation goeth, and another cometh." See how the earth drops its inhabitants, as the tree drops its leaves!" Wherever he went, his old disciples had past away, and other generations had succeeded in their stead; and, at the houses to which he looked on with pleasure in the course of his yearly rounds, he found more and more frequently, in every succeeding year, that death had been before him. Whole families dropt off one by one, while he continued still in his green old age, full of life, and activity, and strength, and hope, and ardour. Such griefs were felt by him less keenly than by other men; because every day brought with it to him change of scene and of persons; and because, busy as he was on earth, his desires were in heaven. "I had hopes," says he, in his Journal, "of seeing a friend at Lewisham in my way: and so I did; but it was in her coffin. It is well, since she finished her course with joy. In due time I shall see her in glory." To one of his young female correspondents he says, with melancholy anticipation, "I sometimes fear lest you also, as those I tenderly love generally have been, should be snatched away. But let us live to-day!" Many of his most ardent and most amiable disciples seem to have been cut off, in the flower of their youth, by consumption-a disease too frequently connected with what is beautiful in form, and intellect, and disposition.

Mr. Fletcher, though a much younger man, was summoned to his reward before him. That excellent persont left England, under all the

"In the year 1769," he says, "I weighed a hundred and twenty-two pounds. In 1783, I weighed not a pound more or less."

In the year 1788, Mr. Wesley printed a letter written to him from France in 1770, by Mr. Fletcher, in which the following remarkable passage occurs: "A set of Free-thinkers (great admirers of Voltaire and Rousseau, Bayle, and Mirabeau) seem bent upon destroying Christianity and government. With one hand, says a lawyer, who has written against them, they shake the throne, and with the other, they throw down the altar. If we believe them, the world is the dupe of kings and priests; religion is fanaticism and superstition; subordination is slavery and tyranny; Christian morality is

symptoms of advanced consumption, to try the effect of his native air; and, in the expectation of death, addressed a pastoral letter at that time to his parishioners. "I sometimes," said he, "feel a desire of being buried where you are buried, and having my bones lie in a common earthen bed with yours. But I soon resign that wish; and, leaving that particular to Providence, exult in thinking, that neither life nor death shall ever be able (while we hang on the Crucified, as He hung on the cross) to separate us from Christ our head, nor from the love of each other his members." His recovery, which appears almost miraculous, was ascribed by himself more to eating plentifully of cherries and grapes, than to any other remedies. His friends wished him to remain among them at Nyon: "they urge my being born here," said he, " and I reply, that I was born again in England, and therefore that is, of course, the country which to me is the dearer of the two." He returned to his parish, and married Miss Bosanquet; a woman perfectly suited to him in age, temper, piety, and talents. "We are two poor invalids," said he, "who, between us, make half a labourer. She sweetly helps me to drink the dregs of life, and to carry with ease the daily cross." His account of himself, after this time, is so beautiful, that its insertion might be pardoned here, even if Mr. Fletcher were a less important personage in the history of Methodism. "I keep in my sentry-box," says he, "till Providence remove nie: my situation is quite suited to my little strength. I may do as much or as little as I please, according to my weakness; and I have an advantage, which I can have no where else in such a degree: my little field of action is just at my door, so that, if I happen to overdo myself, I have but á step from my pulpit to my bed, and from my bed to my grave. If I had a body full of vigour, and a purse full of money, I should like well enough to travel about as Mr. Wesley does; but, as Providence does not call me to it, I readily submit. The snail does best in its shell."

This good man died in 1785, and in the 56th year of his age. Volumes have been filled, and are perpetually being filled, by sectarians of every description, with accounts of the behaviour and triumphant hopes of the dying, all resembling each other; but the circumstances of Mr. Fletcher's death were as peculiar as those of his life. He had taken cold, and a considerable degree of fever had been induced; but no persuasion could prevail upon him to stay from church on the Sunday, nor even to permit that any part of the service should be performed for him. It was the will of the Lord, he said, that he should go; and he assured his wife and his friends that God would strengthen him to go through the duties of the day. Before he had proceeded far in the service, he grew pale, and faltered in his speech, and could scarcely keep himself from fainting.

absurd, unnatural, and impracticable; and Christianity is the most bloody religion that ever was. And here it is certain, that, by the example of Christians, so called, and by our continual disputes, they have a great advantage. Popery will certainly fall in France in this or the next century; and God will use those vain men to bring about a reformation here, as he used Henry VIII. to do that great work in England: so the madness of his enemies shall turn at last to his praise, and to the furtherance of his kingdom. If you ask what system these men adopt, I answer, that some build, upon deism, a morality founded upon self-preservation, self-interest, and self-honour. Others laugh at all morality, except that which violently disturbs society; and external order is the decent cover of fatalism; while materialism is their system." He invites all Christians "to do what the herds do on the Swiss mountains, when the wolves make an attack upon them: instead of goring one another, they unite, form a close battalion, and face the enemy on all sides."

The congregation were greatly affected and alarmed; and Mrs. Fletcher pressing through the crowd, earnestly entreated him not to persevere in what was so evidently beyond his strength. He recovered, however, when the windows were opened, exerted himself against the mortal illness which he felt, went through the service, and preached with remarkable earnestness, and with not less effect, for his parishioners plainly saw that the hand of death was upon him. After the sermon, he walked to the communion-table, saying, "I am going to throw myself under the wings of the Cherubim, before the Mercy-seat!"- Here," (it is his widow who describes this last extraordinary effort of enthusiastic devotion) "the same distressing scene was renewed, with additional solemnity. The people were deeply affected while they beheld him offering up the last languid remains of a life that had been lavishly spent in their service. Groans and tears were on every side. In going through this last part of his duty, he was exhausted again and again; but his spiritual vigour triumphed over his bodily weakness. After several times sinking on the sacramental table, he still resumed his sacred work, and cheerfully distributed, with his dying hand, the lovememorials of his dying Lord. In the course of this concluding office, which he performed by means of the most astonishing exertions, he gave out several verses of hymns, and delivered many affectionate exhortations to his people, calling upon them, at intervals, to celebrate the mercy of God in short songs of adoration and praise. And now, having struggled through a service of near four hours' continuance, he was supported, with blessings in his mouth, from the altar to his chamber, where he lay for some time in a swoon, and from whence he never walked into the world again." Mr. Fletcher's nearest and dearest friends sympathized entirely with him in his devotional feelings, and therefore they seem never to have entertained a thought that this tragedy may have exasperated his disease, and proved the direct occasion of his death. "I besought the Lord," says Mrs. Fletcher, "if it were his good pleasure, to spare him to me a little longer. But my prayer seemed to have no wings; and I could not help mingling continually therewith, Lord, give me perfect resignation!"

On the Sunday following he died, and that day also was distinguished by circumstances not less remarkable. A supplicatory hymn for his recovery was sung in the church; and one who was present says, it is impossible to convey an idea of the burst of sorrow that accompanied it. "The whole village," says his friend Mr. Gilpin, "wore an air of consternation and sadness. Hasty messengers were passing to and fro, with anxious inquiries and confused reports; and the members of every family sat together in silence that day, awaiting, with trembling expectation, the issue of every hour." After the evening service, several of the poor, who came from a distance, and who were usually entertained under his roof, lingered about the house, and expressed an earnest wish that they might see their expiring pastor. Their desire was granted. The door of his chamber was set open; directly opposite to which, he was sitting upright in his bed, with the curtains undrawn, "unaltered in his usual venerable appearance ;" and they passed along the gallery one by one, pausing, VOL. II.

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as they passed by the door, to look upon him for the last time. few hours after this extraordinary scene he breathed his last, without a struggle or a groan, in perfect peace, and in the fulness of faith and of hope. Such was the death of Jean Guillaume de la Flechere, or as he may more properly be designated, in this his adopted country, Fletcher of Madeley, a man of whom Methodism may well be proud as the most able of its defenders; and whom the Church of England may hold in honourable remembrance, as one of the most pious and excellent of her sous. "I was intimately acquainted with him," says Mr. Wesley, "for above thirty years. I conversed with him morning, noon, and night, without the least reserve, during a journey of many hundred miles; and in all that time I never heard him speak one improper word, nor saw him do an improper action. Many exemplary men have I known, holy in heart and life, within fourscore years; but one equal to him I have not known: one so inwardly and outwardly devoted to God, so unblameable a character in every respect, I have not found, either in Europe or America. Nor do I expect to find another such on this side of eternity."

Wesley thought, that if Mr. Fletcher's friends had not dissuaded him from continuing that course of itinerancy which he began in his company, it would have made him a strong man. And that, after his health was restored by his native air, and confirmed by his wife's constant care, if " he had used this health in travelling all over the kingdom five or six, or seven months every year, (for which never was man more eminently qualified, no, not Mr. Whitefield himself) he would have done more good than any other man in England. I cannot doubt," he adds, "but this would have been the more excellent way. It had been Mr. Wesley's hope, at one time, that after his death, Mr. Fletcher would succeed to the supremacy of the spiritual dominion which he had established. Mr. Fletcher was qualified for the succession by his thorough disregard of worldly advantages, his perfect piety, his devotedness to the people among whom he ministered, his affable manner, and his popular and persuasive oratory,-qualifications in which he was not inferior to Wesley himself. But he had neither the ambition, nor the flexibility of Mr. Wesley; he would not have known how to rule, nor how to yield as he did holiness with him was all in all. Wesley had the temper and talents of a statesman in the Romish Church he would have been the general, if not the founder, of an order or might have held a distinguished place in history, as a cardinal or a pope. Fletcher, in any communion, would have been a saint.

Mr. Wesley still continued to be the same marvellous old man. No one who saw him, even casually, in his old age, can have forgotten his venerable appearance. His face was remarkably fine; his complexion fresh to the last week of his life; his eye quick, and keen, and active. When you met him in the street of a crowded city, he attracted notice, not only by his band and cassock, and his long hair, white and bright as silver, but by his pace and manner. both indicating that all his minutes were numbered, and that not one was to be lost. "Though I am always in haste," he says of himself, "I am never in a hurry; because I never undertake any more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of spirit. It is true, I travel four or five thousand miles in a year; but I generally

travel alone in my carriage, and, consequently, am as retired ten hours a day as if I were in a wilderness. On other days, I never spend less than three hours (frequently ten or twelve) in the day, alone. So there are few persons who spend so many hours secluded from all company." Thus it was that he found time to read much, and write voluminously. After his eightieth year, he went twice to Holland, a country in which Methodism, as Quakerism had done before it, met with a certain degree of success. Upon completing his eighty-second year, he says, "is any thing too hard for God? It is now eleven years since I have felt any such thing as weariness. Many times I speak till my voice fails, and I can speak no longer. Frequently I walk till my strength fails, and I can walk no further; yet, even then, I feel no sensation of weariness, but am perfectly easy from head to foot. I dare not impute this to natural causes. It is the will of God." A year afterwards he says, "I am a wonder to myself! I am never tired (such is the goodness of God,) either with writing, preaching, or travelling. One natural cause, undoubtedly, is, my continual exercise, and change of air. How the latter. contributes to health I know not; but certainly it does." In his eighty-fourth year, he first began to feel decay; and, upon commencing his eighty-fifth, he observes, "I am not so agile as I was in times past; I do not run or walk so fast as I did. My sight is a little decayed. My left eye is grown dim, and hardly serves me to read. I have daily some pain in the ball of my right eye, as also in my right temple, (occasioned by a blow received some months since,) and in my right shoulder and arm, which I impute partly to a sprain, and partly to the rheumatism. I find, likewise, some decay in my memory with regard to names and things lately past; but not at all with regard to what I have read or heard twenty, forty, or sixty years ago. Neither do I find any decay in my hearing, smell, taste, or appetite, (though I want but a third part of the food I did once,) nor do I feel any such thing as weariness, either in travelling or preaching. And I am not conscious of any decay in writing sermons, which I do as readily, and, I believe, as correctly as ever." He acknowledged, therefore, that he had cause to praise God for bodily, as well as spiritual blessings; and that he had suffered little, as yet, by "the rush of numerous years."

Other persons perceived his growing weakness, before he was thus aware of it himself; the most marked symptom was that of a frequent disposition to sleep during the day. He had always been able to lie down and sleep almost at will, like a mere animal, or a man in little better than an animal state,- -a consequence, probably, of the incessant activity of his life: this he himself rightly accounted one of the causes of his excellent health, and it was, doubtless, a consequence of it also: but the involuntary slumbers which came upon him in the latter years of his life, were indications that the machine was wearing out, and would soon come to a stop. In 1788, he lost his brother Charles, who, during many years, had been his zealous coadjutor, and, through life, his faithful and affectionate friend. Latterly their opinions had differed. Charles saw the evil tendency of some part of the discipline, and did not hesitate to say that he abominated the band-meetings, which he had formerly approved; and, adhering faithfully himself to the church, he regretted