"I am driven to the Lord," he wrote to the Countess of Huntingdon, "and He comforts, encourages, and teaches me. The devil, my friends, and my heart have pushed at me to make me fall into worldly cares and creature snares . . . but I have been enabled to cry, 'Nothing but Jesus and the service of His people,' and I trust the Lord will keep me in the same mind." Fletcher lived with the utmost frugality, for some time doing without even a servant, and taking his meals at a neighbour's house. An idea of his simplicity of life may be gained from a story told by one who was at a boarding-school at Madeley which Mr. Fletcher frequently visited:-- "One morning he came in just as the girls had sat down to breakfast. He said but little while the meal lasted, but when it was finished he spoke to each girl separately, and concluded by saying to the whole, 'I have waited some time on you this morning, that I might see you eat your breakfast; and I hope you will visit me to-morrow morning to see how I eat mine.' He told them his breakfast-hour was seven o'clock, and obtained a promise that they would visit him. Next morning they went at the time appointed, and seated themselves in the kitchen. Mr. Fletcher came in quite rejoiced to see them. On the table stood a small basin of milk and sops of bread. Mr. Fletcher carried the basin across the kitchen and sat down on an old bench. He then took out his watch, laid it before him, and said, 'My dear girls, yesterday morning I waited on you a full hour while you were at breakfast; I shall take as much time this morning in eating my breakfast as I usually do, if not rather more. Look at my watch!' He immediately began to eat, and continued in conversation with them. When he had finished he asked how long he had been at breakfast. They said, 'Just a minute and a-half, sir.' 'Now, my dear girls,' said he, we have fifty-eight minutes of the hour left,' and he then began to sing-- "Our life is a dream! Our time as a stream Glides swiftly away, And the fugitive moment refuses to stay. "After this he gave them a lecture on the worth of time and the worth of the soul. They then all knelt down in prayer." CHAPTER XI. The Vicar's Sermons. The Vicar of Madeley led no idle life. He started Friday evening lectures; on Sunday afternoon he catechised the school-children, spent many hours of every day in visiting the sick and poor, and hesitated not at all to sit up whole nights with any who lacked attention. To the careless landowners and farmers whom he failed to get into his church he addressed the first of his published sermons, with a preface which urged them to _read_ his message if they would not listen to it.