will stand by you. Consider what you are bound to do as a clergyman, and what you do, do quickly.' It has been already stated that Charles was, if possible, even more attached to the Church than John. John, on his part, fully felt the need of his brother's help. In 1768, he wrote to him, 'I am at my wits' end with regard to two things: the Church, and Christian perfection. Unless both you and I stand in the gapin good earnest, the Methodists will drop them both. Talking will not avail, we must do, or be borne away. “Age, vir esto! nervos intende tuos." On another occasion, John rescued his brother from a dangerous tendency which he showed towards the stillness of the Moravians. He wrote to him, 'The poison is in you, fair words have stolen away your heart;' and made this characteristic entry in his journal :'The Philistines are upon thee, Samson; but the Lord is not departed from thee; He shall strengthen thee yet again, and thou shalt be avenged for the loss of thine eyes.' Thus this 'par nobile fratrum' strengthened and helped one another. There is an interesting letter from Whitefield to Charles Wesley, dated December 22, 1752, from which it appears that there was a threatened rupture between the two brothers, the cause of which we do not know.' 'I have read and pondered your kind letter with a degree of solemnity of spirit. What shall I say? Really I can scarce tell. The connection between you and your brother hath been so close and continued, and your attachment so necessary to him to keep up his interest, that I could not willingly for the world do or say anything that may separate such friends. I cannot help thinking that he is still jealous of me and my proceedings; but I thank God I am quite easy about it.' The last sentence is characteristically injudicious, if Whitefield desired, This was written before the author had read Mr. Tyerman's Life of Whitefield; indeed, before that life was published. Mr. Tyerman informs us that the dispute arose because some of the preachers informed Wesley that his brother Charles did not enforce discipline so strictly as himself, and that Charles agreed with White field 'touching perseverance, at least, if not predestination too.'-Tyerman's Life of Whitefield, ii. 288. 2 Gledstone's Life of Whitefield, p. 439, but surely Mr. Gledstone is scarcely justified in adding quite gratuitously, John Wesley was not a man with whom it was easy to be on good terms; his lofty claims must have fretted his brother and created uneasiness.' Charles Wesley was quite equal to cope with John if he had preferred any 'lofty claims' beyond those which an elder brother might as undoubtedly he did, to heal the breach; but the letter is valuable as showing that, in the opinion of Whitefield, who must have known as much about the matter as any one, the co-operation of the two brothers was essential to their joint work. Indeed, if for no other reason, Charles Wesley occupies a most important place in the history of early Methodism, as forming the connecting link between John Wesley and Whitefield. In October, 1749, he wrote, George Whitefield and my brother and I are one; a threefold cord which shall no more be broken; but he does not add, as he might have done, that he himself was the means by which the union was effected. The contrast between Whitefield and John Wesley, in character, tastes, culture, &c., was so very great that, quite apart from their doctrinal differences, there could probably never have been any real intimacy between them, had there not been some common friend who had in his character some points of contact with both. That common friend was Charles Wesley. Full of sterling common sense, highly cultured and refined, possessed of strong reasoning powers, and well read like his brother, he was impulsive, demonstrative in his feelings, and very tender-hearted like Whitefield. Whitefield never quite appreciated John Wesley,' but Charles naturally have upon a younger. But, in point of fact, there is no trace of any such rivalry between the brothers. Mr. Tyerman says, 'Whitefield dearly loved Wesley, and by his actions showed that he did.'-Life of Whitefield, ii. 587. This is true, no doubt, in a certain sense; but many passages in Whitefield's letters to Lady Huntingdon and others surely show that he did not quite appreciate his great fellowEvangelist. For example, in 1750 (the year after the reconciliation), he writes to Lady Huntingdon, 'I have offered Mr. Wesley to assist occasionally at his chapel, and I don't know but it may be accepted. O that I may learn from all I see to desire to be nothing! and to think it my highest privilege to be an assistant to all, but the head of none. I find a love of power intoxicates even God's own dear children, and makes them to mistake passion for zeal, and an overbearing spirit for an authority given them from above. For my own part, I find it much easier to obey than govern, and much safer to be trodden under foot than to have it in one's power to serve others so.' The allusion to Wesley's supposed love of power and overbearing spirit is surely obvious And in 1755. At Leeds I fear an awful separation will take place among the societies. I have written to Mr. Wesley, and done all I could to prevent it. O this self-love, this self-will. It is the very devil of devils.' It would be easy to multiply testimony to the same effect. Mr. Gledstone (p. 438, &c.) hears too hardly upon Wesley in his remarks on this want of sympathy between the two great Reformers, but he is right in his facts. he loved dearly, and so did John. As we have seen, the one solitary instance of the strong man's breaking down was on the death of his brother. And Charles Wesley was thoroughly worthy of every good man's love. His fame (except as a poet) has been somewhat overshadowed by the still greater renown of his brother, but he contributed his full share towards the success of the Evangelical Revival. If John Wesley was the great leader and organiser, Charles Wesley the great poet, and George Whitefield the great preacher of Methodism, the highest type of saintliness which it produced was unquestionably John Fletcher (17291785). Never, perhaps, since the rise of Christianity has the mind which was in Christ Jesus been more faithfully copied than it was in the Vicar of Madeley. To say that he was a good Christian is saying too little. He was more than Christian, he was Christlike. It is said that Voltaire, when challenged to produce a character as perfect as that of Jesus. Christ, at once mentioned Fletcher of Madeley; and if the comparison between the God-man and any child of Adam were in any case admissible, it would be difficult to find one with whom it could be instituted with less appearance of blasphemy than this excellent man. Fletcher was a Swiss by birth and education; and to the last he showed traces of his foreign origin. But England can claim the credit of having formed his spiritual character. Soon after his settlement in England as tutor to the sons of Mr. Hill of Terne Hall, he became attracted by the Methodist movement, which had then (1752) become a force in the country, and in 1753 he was admitted into Holy Orders. The account of his appointment to the living of Madeley presents a very unusual phenomenon in the eighteenth century. His patron, Mr. Hill, offered him the living of Dunham, 'where the population was small, the income good, and the village situated in the midst of a fine sporting country.' These were no recommendations. in the eyes of Fletcher, and he declined the living on the ground that the income was too large and the population too small. Madeley had the advantage of having only half the income and double the population of Dunham. On being asked whether he would accept Madeley if the vicar of that parish would consent to exchange it for Dunham, Fletcher gladly embraced the offer. As the Vicar of Madeley had naturally no objection to so advantageous an exchange, Fletcher was instituted to the cure of the large Shropshire village, in which he spent a quarter of a century. There is no need to record his apostolical labours in this humble sphere of duty. Madeley was a rough parish, full of colliers; but there was also a sprinkling of resident gentry. Like his friend John Wesley, Fletcher found more fruits of his work among the poor than among the gentry. But none, whether rich or poor, could resist the attractions of this saintly man. In 1772 he addressed 'An appeal to matter of fact and common sense to the Principal Inhabitants of the Parish of Madeley,' the dedication of which is so characteristic that it is worth quoting in full. 'Gentlemen,' writes the vicar, 'you are no less entitled to my private labours than the inferior class of my parishioners. As you do not choose to partake with them of my evening instructions, I take the liberty to present you with some of my morning meditations. May these well-meant efforts of my pen be more acceptable to you than those of my tongue! And may you carefully read in your closets, what you have perhaps inattentively heard in the church! I appeal to the Searcher of hearts, that I had rather impart truth than receive tithes. You kindly bestow the latter upon me; grant me the satisfaction of seeing you receive favourably the former from, gentlemen, your affectionate minister and obedient servant, J. Fletcher.' When Lady Huntingdon founded her college for the training of ministers at Trevecca, she invited Fletcher to undertake a sort of general superintendence over it. This Fletcher undertook without fee or reward-not, of course, with the intention of residing there, for he had no sympathy with the bad custom of non-residence which was only too common in his day. He was simply to visit the college as frequently as he could; 'and,' writes Dr. Benson, the first head-master, 'he was received as an angel of God.' 'It is not possible,' he adds, '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. My heart kindles while I write. Here it was that I saw, shall I say an angel in human flesh ?-I should not far exceed the truth if I said so and much more to the same effect. It was the same wherever Fletcher went; the impression he made was extraordinary; language seems to fail those who tried to describe it. 'I went,' said one who visited him in an illness (he was always delicate), 'to see a man that had one foot in the grave, but I found a man that had one foot in heaven.'1 'Sir,' said Mr. Venn to one who asked him his opinion of Fletcher, 'he was a luminary—a luminary did I say?—he was a sun! I have known all the great men for these fifty years, but none like him.' John Wesley was of the same opinion; in Fletcher he saw realised in the highest degree all that he meant by Christian Perfection.' For some time he hesitated to write a description of this 'great man,' 'judging that only an Apelles was proper to paint an Alexander; ' but at length he published his well-known sermon on the significant text, 'Mark the perfect man, &c.' (Ps. xxxvii. 37), which he concluded with this striking testimony to the unequalled character of his friend: I was intimately acquainted with him 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. To conclude: 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 unblamable a character in every respect I have not found either in Europe or America; and I scarce expect to find another such on this side of eternity.' Fletcher, on his part, was one of the few parish clergymen who to the end thoroughly appreciated John Wesley. He thought it 'shameful that no clergyman should join Wesley to keep in the Church the work God had enabled him to carry on therein;' and he was half inclined to join him as his deacon, 'not,' he adds with genuine modesty, 'with any view of presiding over the Methodists after you, but to ease you a little in your old age, and to be in the way of receiving, perhaps doing, more good.' Wesley was very anxious that Fletcher should be his successor, and proposed it to him in a 'See Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, by a member of the houses of Shirley and Hastings, vol. ii. pp. 71, 72. |