"These seasons generally terminated in this. Being convinced that to be 'filled with the Holy Ghost' was a better qualification for the ministry of the Gospel than any classical learning...after speaking awhile in the schoolroom, he used frequently to say, 'As many of you as are athirst for the fulness of the Spirit, follow me into my room.' On this, many of us instantly followed him, and there continued till noon, _for two or three hours_, praying for one another till we could bear to kneel no longer.... I have sometimes seen him...so filled with the love of God that he cried out, 'O my God, withhold Thy hand, or the vessel will burst!' But he afterwards told me he was afraid he had grieved the Spirit of God, and that he ought to have prayed that the Lord would have enlarged the vessel, or have suffered it to break, that the soul might have had no further bar to its enjoyment of the Supreme Good." Few headmasters have had the opportunity to speak of the President of their college as the headmaster of Trevecca was led to do of Fletcher. CHAPTER XVIII. A PEN OF POWER. Early in the new year of 1771 the happy relations of Fletcher and Wesley with the Countess of Huntingdon were shattered by unfortunate differences in theology, Mr. Fletcher, held by certain utterances of Wesley against Calvinistic doctrine, finding himself, as a result, obliged to resign his Presidency of Trevecca College. Circumstances, regretted most of all by himself, drew Fletcher into a long Calvinian controversy, and to the publication of his famous "Checks to Antinomianism," and remarkable and closely-reasoned vindication of the doctrines by which he held, abounding in the plainest of plain speech. The Calvinian controversy was long and bitter, being succeeded by a Unitarian controversy, which became equally prominent. Both disturbances were productive of much discussion, of many pamphlets, of "Vindications," and "Answers," and "Circulars," and "Letters." Into this word-war Fletcher was drawn much against his own preference, but when once the fight had been entered upon, it was almost impossible for him to extricate himself until it was fought out. "What a world!" he wrote to Benson; "methinks I dream when I reflect that I have written on controversy; the last subject I thought I should have meddled with. I expect to be smartly taken in hand and soundly drubbed for it. Lord, prepare me for it, and for everything that may make me cease from man, and, above all, from your unworthy servant." Enemies there were, not a few, who rejoiced at an opportunity of hurling abuse at a good man--some of the sharp and stinging things they said amounted to actual slander. To know how keen was the fight, how bitter and provoking the attacks made, one must read the correspondence and pamphlets then issued; but in the midst of it all Wesley was able to write of his friend:--