“If you choose to venture into Shropshire, you may take the Shrewsbury coach at the Swan, in Lad Lane, somewhere in the city, and in two days and a half you will be at Shiffnal, eighteen miles short of Shrewsbury, and three from Madeley. If you send me word when you are to set out, I will send my mare to meet you at the Red Lion, in Shiffnal, the day that the coach passes through the town. “That the Lord may direct and prosper you in all things is the wish of, Sir, your affectionate servant in Christ, “J. FLETCHER.”[112] Footnote 112: _Wesleyan Methodist Magazine_, 1825, p. 744. As a farther illustration of Fletcher’s simplicity of living, and of his habitual piety, an incident may be introduced, belonging to _about_ this period, and published in a sermon preached on the occasion of the death of Fletcher’s widow, in 1816, by the Rev. John Hodson. Mr. Hodson says:— “A few days ago, I was in company with a pious female, who, for many years, was intimately acquainted with Mr. Fletcher. She said Mr. Fletcher sometimes visited a boarding-school at Madeley. One morning he came in just as she and the other girls had sat down to breakfast. He said but little while the meal lasted, but when it was finished he spoke to each girl separately, and concluded by saying to the whole, ‘I have waited some time on you this morning, that I might see you eat your breakfast; and I hope you will visit me to-morrow morning, and see how I eat mine.’ He told them his breakfast hour was seven o’clock, and obtained a promise that they would visit him. Next morning, they went at the time appointed, and seated themselves in the kitchen. Mr. Fletcher came in, quite rejoiced to see them. On the table stood a small basin of milk and sops of bread. Mr. Fletcher took the basin across the kitchen, and sat down on an old bench. He then took out his watch, laid it before him, and said, ‘My dear girls, yesterday morning I waited on you a full hour, while you were at breakfast. I shall take as much time this morning in eating my breakfast as I usually do, if not rather more. Look at my watch!’ and he immediately began to eat, and continued in conversation with them. When he had finished, he asked them how long he had been at breakfast. They said, ‘Just a minute and a half, Sir.’ ‘Now, my dear girls,’ said he, ‘we have fifty-eight minutes of the hour left;’ and he then began to sing,— ‘Our life is a dream! Our time as a stream Glides swiftly away, And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.’ After this, he gave them a lecture on the value of time, and the worth of the soul. They then all knelt down in prayer, after which he dismissed them with impressions on the mind the narrator never ceased to remember.”