Long before the question of woman’s mission came to be debated, there were useful and pious women who quite came up to the standard modern champions of the sex have raised. History brings before us the names of many whose thoughts and doings had a vital influence upon the society in the midst of which they moved. The fidelity, zeal, and usefulness of some appear as a silver-thread woven into the past, showing that there is no sex in piety or in intellect. When the down trodden vine of Christianity had to be raised, tended, and made to entwine around the sceptre of the Cæsars, there were “fellow-helpers” of the apostles, “honourable women, not a few,” who distinguished themselves. So in the days of the Wesleys and Fletcher, there were women who greatly aided in the work of christian revival. Mrs. Fletcher was one of these. She was born at Forest House, once the residence of the Earl of Norwich, on the 1st September, 1739. The Cedars, another fine old mansion in Leytonstone, built by Charles II., was her property. She was therefore a Lady by birth and fortune; and she chose to be useful in her day and generation. She was the subject of early religious impressions, which gave tone and character to her life. The first use she made of her wealth and influence upon coining into possession of her property was to convert the spacious building she inherited into an Orphanage, and her income was devoted to the support of this and similar institutions. She held religious meetings, and exhorted among the Wesleyans, of which body she became a member. She heard frequently of Mr. Fletcher, and Mr. Fletcher of her, through the Wesleys; and a presentiment seems to have been felt by each that they were designed for each other. Twenty-six years however elapsed before proposals were made or an intimacy sprung up. They were married on the 12th of November, 1781, at Batley church, near Cross Hall, at that time the residence of Miss Bosanquet, and in January, 1782 she says in one of her letters:—