In his reply Fletcher says: "Should Providence call you first, I shall do my best, by the Lord's assistance, to help your brother to gather the wreck, and keep together those who are not absolutely bent to throw away the Methodist doctrine and discipline.... "In the meantime you sometimes need an assistant to serve tables, and occasionally to fill up a gap. Providence visibly appointed _me_ to that office many years ago. And though it no less evidently called me hither, yet have I not been without doubt, especially for some years past, whether it would not be expedient that I should resume my office as your deacon; not with any view of presiding over the Methodists after you, but to ease you in your old age, and to be in the way of recovery, and perhaps doing more good.... "Nevertheless, I would not leave this place, without a fuller persuasion that the time is quite come." Nothing further appears to have been said on the subject, and before long the increasing feebleness of Fletcher's health put the matter beyond discussion. Two and a half years later Wesley was taken seriously ill while travelling in Ireland. His friends in London were hourly expecting to hear of his death. Charles Wesley, full of distress, wrote to Fletcher, apparently requesting him to come to London. This Fletcher gently but decidedly declined to do: "Should your brother fail on earth, you are called, not only to bear up under the loss of so near a relative, but, for the sake of your common children in the Lord, you should endeavour to fill up the gap according to your strength. The Methodists will not expect from you your brother's labours; but they have, I think, a right to expect that you will preside over them while God spares you in the land of the living.... And if at any time you should want my mite of assistance, I hope I shall throw it into the treasury with the simplicity and readiness of the poor widow." But Wesley recovered, and the call for Fletcher's services never came. Wesley's opinion however remained unaltered, that it would have been better in every way for Fletcher to have joined him in itinerating. Years afterwards, when Fletcher was dead, he wrote: