Another testimony referring to this time, though written many years later, is that of a Mrs. Crosby, well-known amongst the first Methodists: "I heard this heavenly-minded servant of the Lord preach his first sermon in West Street chapel. I think his text was, 'Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' His spirit appeared in his whole attitude and action. He could not well find words in the English language to express himself, but he supplied that defect by offering up prayers, tears, and sighs." Of all those with whom Fletcher was now brought into close and happy relations, Charles Wesley seems to have most completely won his heart. Towards the elder Wesley he showed affectionate reverence, and a loyalty that had its trials, and gave its proofs in many ways. He undoubtedly looked upon him as the chief of living men. Of Thomas Walsh, whose life, Southey says, "might almost convince a Catholic that saints are to be found in other communions, as well as in the Church of Rome,"--of Walsh, Fletcher, impressed with his deep, stern, mystic sanctity, wrote, "I wish I could attend him everywhere, as Elisha attended Elijah." But it was in Charles Wesley that he found his dearest and most intimate friend, to whom for years he turned for solace, for counsel, and for confidential intercourse. We have seen the terms in which Lady Huntingdon speaks of Fletcher after her first interview with him. On his part, Fletcher was profoundly impressed with the countess's manifold excellences, and wrote to Charles Wesley that he had "passed three hours with a modern prodigy--_a humble and pious countess_." Lady Huntingdon has perhaps suffered in the modern estimate of her character and work from the overstrained and even fulsome language concerning her which it was the custom of many of her friends and followers to employ. Appreciation of her ladyship's rank so mingled with esteem for her piety as to produce an unhappy effect upon the phraseology of her admirers. The countess's biographer continues, in a later age, a style which, barely endurable when a century old, is intolerable when repeated and renewed. He speaks of "the elegant and pious persons to whom Mr. Fletcher was invited to preach and administer the sacrament"! But we must not allow the effusive language of her contemporaries, or the fine writing of her biographer, to conceal from us the true worth of a very able and most devoted Christian woman. If that language seem to us occasionally wanting in manliness, in proper self-respect, and in Christian simplicity, it bears witness to the ascendency exercised by a remarkable character over all but the very strongest of those who came under its influence; and if it was dangerous to be the subject of so much eulogy, it should be remembered that Lady Huntingdon never shrank from running counter to the prejudices of the class to which she belonged, and endured, for the sake of Christ and His cause, ridicule