“We are, in truth, so far from being enemies to the Church, rather bigots to it. I dare not, like Mr. Venn, leave the parish church where I am, to go to an Independent meeting. I dare not advise others to go thither, rather than to church. I advise all, over whom I have any influence, steadily to keep to the Church. Meantime, I advise them to see, that the kingdom of God is within them; that their hearts be full of love to God and man; and to look upon all, of whatever opinion, who are like minded, as their ‘brother, and sister, and mother.’ O sir! what art of men or devils is this, which makes you so studiously stand aloof from those who are thus minded? I cannot but say to you, as I did to Mr. Walker, ‘The Methodists do not want you; but you want them.’ You want the life, the spirit, the power, which they have; not of themselves, but by the free grace of God; else how could it be, that so good a man, and so good a preacher, should have so little fruit of his labour, his unwearied labour, for so many years? Have your parishioners the life of religion in their souls? Have they so much as the form of it? Are the people of Wintringham, in general, any better than those of Winterton, or Horton? Alas! sir, what is it that hinders your reaping the fruit of so much pains and so many prayers? “Is it not possible this may be the very thing, your setting yourself against those whom God owns, by the continual conviction and conversion of sinners? I fear, as long as you in anywise oppose these, your rod will not blossom, neither will you see the desire of your soul, in the prosperity of the souls committed to your charge. “I am, dear sir, your affectionate brother, “JOHN WESLEY.”[28] In his journey southwards, Wesley visited, for the second time, his friend Fletcher, at Madeley,--a man, in many respects, the opposite of Mr. Adam of Wintringham, and especially in his feelings towards the Methodists. So far from shunning them, or being ashamed of them, he, as far as possible, identified himself with them; and, at the very last conference before he died, entreated Wesley to make Madeley a circuit town, and to put John Fletcher down as a supernumerary preacher there. He made his kitchen a Methodist chapel, in which Wesley’s itinerants and his own curate regularly preached; while his study was the place in which were penned the ablest defences of Wesley’s doctrines that were ever committed to the public press.