Fletcher was religious in everything, and all his faculties were sanctified. He could not even acknowledge the kindness of his friend without introducing religion; but, to do this gracefully, he exercises, not his manly understanding, but his sportive fancy. “Fancy,” said fanciful Thomas Fuller, “can adorn whatever it touches, can invest naked fact and dry reasoning with unlooked-for beauty, make flowerets bloom even on the brow of a precipice, and, when nothing better can be had, can turn the very substance of the rock itself into moss and lichens.” Few men have possessed a finer fancy than Fletcher did; but his was rarely used except for religious purposes. He might have been an accomplished allegorist; but he preferred to be a scriptural reasoner. His creed was founded, not upon fancies, but upon facts. Hence, in the same month that he wrote the foregoing letter to Mr. Ireland, he wrote as follows to Miss Hatton:— “MADELEY, _July 17, 1766_. “Let your faith be _rational_ as well as affectionate. God is good. He does not want us to take His word without proof. What expectations of the Messiah from the beginning of the world! What amazing miracles and wonders were wrought in favour of that people and family, from which He was to come! What prophecies fulfilled, that we might rationally believe! What displays of the Godhead in that heavenly man, Christ Jesus! _In Him dwelt_, of a truth, _the fulness of the Godhead bodily_. You see the power of God in His miracles; the goodness of God in His character; the justice and mercy of God in His death; the truth, and faithfulness, and glory of God in His resurrection, in the coming of His Spirit, and in the preaching of His everlasting Gospel. O, my friend, we may believe _rationally_. We may, with calm attention, view the emptiness of all other religions, and the fulness of assurance that ours affords.”[129] Footnote 129: Letters, 1791, p. 180. Soon after the date of this letter, Fletcher proceeded to London, to Brighton, and to Oathall, where he had sweet intercourse with the Countess of Huntingdon, Romaine, Venn, Sir Charles Hotham, and with a gentleman and lady from his own country, who were visiting the Countess, and Mr. and Mrs. Powys of Berwick, in Shropshire, Mr. Powys being a gentleman of high connections and of large fortune, and who had, about this period, become conspicuous, in conjunction with Sir Richard Hill and Mr. Lee, of Cotery, for zeal in the cause of God and truth.[130] Footnote 130: “Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 375. While staying with Lady Huntingdon at Oathall, Fletcher wrote another pastoral letter, which could not have been more faithful, but might, perhaps with advantage, have been more gentle. “OATHALL, SUSSEX, _September 23, 1766_.