Fletcher of MadeleyMacdonald, Frederic W. (Frederic William)
Religion
Fletcher of Madeley
Macdonald, Frederic W. (Frederic William)
Fletcher, John, 1729-1785
Fletcher's almsgiving was proportionate with his prayers. He was in
receipt of an income from his little property in Switzerland of about
£100 a year. He generally gave it all away. His money, his clothes, his
furniture were alike at the service of the poor and suffering. At one
time he sends back £80 to Switzerland for distribution among the poor,
saying, "As money is rather higher there than here the mite will go
further abroad than it would in my parish." At another time he
deposited £105 with a friend, but the whole was drawn for charitable
purposes in a few months, the balance, which was £24, going to complete
the preaching-house he had built at Madeley Wood. During his illness he
writes to one of the poor Methodists at Coalbrookdale: "Let none of
your little companies want. If any do, you are welcome to my house.
Take any part of the furniture there, and make use of it for their
relief. And this shall be your full title for so doing. Witness my
hand, JOHN FLETCHER."
Leaving Stoke Newington in the beginning of May, 1777, Fletcher went to
Bristol, to the hospitable home of his old friend Mr. Ireland, for
change of air, and for what benefit might be found in drinking the
waters. Here he spent several months in feeble health, but in unbroken
tranquillity and elevation of spirit. "Far gone in a consumptive
disorder, and ripening fast for glory," was the judgment of those who
saw him at this time. He had many visitors, devout persons of all
classes, to whom his conversation, his prayers, his very presence, were
means of grace. Mr. Venn, who had been on the opposite side to Fletcher
in the recent controversy, spent some weeks with him under Mr.
Ireland's roof. "Oh that I might be like him!" was his testimony in
after years. "I have known all the great men for these fifty years, but
I have known none like him.... I never heard him say a single word
which was not proper to be spoken, and which had not a tendency to
minister grace to the hearers; ... not a single unbecoming word of
himself, or of his antagonists, or of his friends. All his conversation
tended to excite to greater love and thankfulness for the benefits of
redemption; whilst his whole deportment breathed humility and love."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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