Wesley Corpus

Every Sunday he attended the parish church at Atcham. But when the service was ended, instead of going home in the coach, which was always ready, he usually took a solitary walk by the Severn side, and spent some time in meditation and prayer. A pious domestic of Mr. Hill's, having frequently observed him, one Sunday desired leave to walk with him, which he constantly did from that time. The account which he (Mr. Vaughan, still living in London) gives of Mr. Fletcher is as follows: “It was our ordinary custom, when the Church Service was over, to retire into the most lonely fields or meadows, where we frequently either kneeled down, or prostrated ourselves upon the ground. At those happy seasons I was a witness of such pleadings and wrestlings with God, such exercises of faith and love, as I have not known in any one ever since. The conso lations which we then received from God induced us to appoint two or three nights in a week, when we duly met after his pupils were asleep. We met also constantly on Sunday between four and five in the morning. Sometimes I stepped into his study on other days. I rarely saw any book before him besides the Bible and the ‘Christian’s Pattern.” And he was seldom in any other company, unless when necessary business required, besides that of the unworthy writer of this paper.” 3. When he was in the country, he used to visit an Officer of Excise at Atcham, to be instructed in singing. On my desiring him to give me some account of what he recol lected concerning Mr. Fletcher, he answered thus: “As to that man of God, Mr. Fletcher, it is but little that I remember of him; it being above nine-and-twenty years since the last time I saw him. But this I well remember, his conversation with me was always sweet and savoury. He was too wise to suffer any of his precious moments to be trifled away. When there was company to dine at Mr. Hill’s, he frequently retired into the garden, and contentedly dined on a piece of bread, and a few bunches of currants. Indeed, in his whole manner of living, he was a pattern of abstemious ness. Meantime, how great was his sweetness of temper and heavenly-mindedness ! I never saw it equalled in any one.