Then fell the most saintly man of his time--a real translation--the seraphic Fletcher, shouting, "God is love! O, for a gust of praise to go to the ends of the earth!" Mr. Wesley says of him: "For many years I despaired of finding an inhabitant of Great Britain that could stand in any degree of comparison with Gregory Lopez or Mons. de Renty. But let any impartial person judge if Mr. Fletcher was at all inferior to them. Did he not experience deep communion with God, and as high a measure of inward holiness as was experienced by either one or the other of those burning and shining lights? And it is certain his outward light shone before men with full as bright a luster as theirs. I was intimately acquainted with him for thirty years. I conversed with him morning, noon, and night, without the least reserve, during a journey of many hundred miles, and in all that time I never heard him speak an improper word or saw him do an improper action. To conclude, within fourscore years I have known many excellent men, holy in heart and life, but one equal to him I have not known; one so uniformly and deeply devoted to God, so unblamable a man in every respect I have not found either in Europe or America. Nor do I expect to find another such on this side eternity." [Illustration: THE ROOM IN WHICH WESLEY DIED.] Next came the sad tidings of the death of his brother Charles, but little, if at all, inferior to Whitefield as a preacher, and whose sacred lyrics will live so long as human hearts are melted and charmed by the power of song. Just before the silver cord was loosed he requested his wife to write--it was his last: "In age and feebleness extreme, Who shall a sinful worm redeem? Jesus, my only hope thou art, Strength of my failing flesh and heart: O could I catch one smile from thee, And drop into eternity!" At the very moment that Charles was bidding adieu to earth John was at Shropshire, and the congregation was engaged in singing: "Come, let us join our friends above That have obtained the prize, And on the eagle wings of love To joys celestial rise. Let all the saints terrestrial sing, With those to glory gone; For all the servants of our King, In earth and heaven, are one. "One family we dwell in him, One church above, beneath, Though now divided by the stream, The narrow stream, of death. One army of the living God, To his command we bow; Part of his host have crossed the flood, And part are crossing now." Thus friend after friend departed, but Wesley pressed forward with a zeal which knew no abatement until eighty and seven years had passed over him.