Times have changed, and what was deemed in Mr Fletcher an indiscretion and even a crime, is now universally applauded. If persecution to Mr. Fletcher arose from those who by influence and position should have seconded his plans, we need scarcely feel surprised to find that, setting himself against the commoner and coarser vices of the times, he was opposed by those who thrived thereby. In a letter to Mr. Charles Wesley he says—“You cannot well imagine how much the animosity of my parishioners is heightened, and with what boldness it discovers itself against me, because I preach against drunkenness, shows, and bull-baiting. The publicans and the maltmen will not forgive me: they think that to preach against drunkenness and to cut their purse is the same thing.” It is difficult to imagine a man of education, taste, and refined feeling in the midst of elements more discordant, or so totally out of character with what he had been used to. Unvisited by those influences that from a thousand sources now combine to smooth the path of the country clergy, mining districts, like others where the physical energies of the body are developed to the utmost stretch by the nature of the employment, presented the greatest obstacles to progress; the most dogged indifference to efforts made for their advancement; and, where attempts were made to put a check upon the brutal amusements of the population, they offered the most determined resistance. At out-door or in-door services, in such semi-civilized portions of the parish, the sound of prayer, both on Sundays and week-evenings, would ascend mingled with the yells and cries and curses of drunken colliers, the barking of dogs, the roar of a bull, or some indulgence of the kind with which publicans seasoned their attractions. The Green, at Madeley Wood, was a favourite spot for such games, and narrowly upon one occasion did this zealous and pious man escape being pulled from his horse and made the victim of a party of infuriated colliers, who made the bargain to “bait the parson.” Mr. Fletcher, with a view of further promoting his mission of usefulness in 1767 visited Yorkshire, Bristol, Bath, and Wales, and subsequently his native country, Rome, &c. He returned to England in 1770; and some time after undertook the charge of a college founded by the Countess of Huntingdon, at Trevecca, in South Wales, but resigned the appointment, in consequence of his repugnance to Calvinistic views. This brought out Mr. Fletcher as a controversialist, with Toplady and others. At the breaking out of the American War Mr. Fletcher took up his pen in defence of the Government, and the right divine of kings, contending that “if once legislation was affirmed to belong to the people, as such, all government would be overturned,” and that such a scheme ought to be totally extirpated; doctrines which so pleased the King that the Lord Chancellor was commissioned to offer him preferment, which he declined.