In following Fletcher through the earlier years of his ministry at Madeley the thought will present itself to most persons that a good wife would have been an incalculable blessing to him. In a letter to Mr. Perronet, written in November, 1765, he says, "I live alone in my house, having neither wife, child, nor servant." Surely this is a somewhat forlorn view of the Vicar of Madeley, which not all his gentle cheerfulness can effectually brighten. A wife's ministering would have been as good for his health and comfort as her sympathy and counsel would have been helpful in the peculiar difficulties of his pastorate. George Herbert, in his "Country Parson," though he shows a sufficient leaning towards the celibacy of the clergy, yet qualifies his verdict: "The country parson, considering that virginity is a higher state than matrimony, and that the ministry requires the best and highest thing, is rather unmarried than married. But yet, ... as the temper of his parish may be, where he may have occasion to converse with women, and that amongst suspicious men, and other like circumstances considered, he is rather married than unmarried." Fletcher was never suspected of levity or indiscretion. It was hardly within the power, either of the foolish or the malicious, to fasten scandal upon one so transparently pure in spirit and demeanour. But, as it has been seen, the religious fears and fancies, and morbid or fanatical conditions of certain women caused him much trouble, and almost made him despair of his work. In these matters the aid of such a wife as Fletcher would have married--as many years afterwards he did marry--would have been invaluable. It is the more to be regretted that he did not marry, as it appears that his heart was already drawn towards Miss Bosanquet, his future wife. But her fortune he regarded as an almost insuperable obstacle. Juvenal's sarcasm, _Veniunt a dote sagittæ_, recurred to him, and he shrank from the notion of becoming the suitor of a wealthy woman. Charles Wesley thought it would be better for him to marry; but he repelled the suggestion, and wrote him several "reasons against matrimony," which, to say the truth, are a very laboured piece of writing, and are never likely to convince any human being whose mind is not already made up. CHAPTER VII. _CONTROVERSY AND CORRESPONDENCE._