This letter is inserted in the “Life and Times of Wesley,” where it was published for the _first_ time. It is reproduced here, because Fletcher’s life would not be complete without it.—L. T. Lady Huntingdon did not write to Wesley, but he wrote a long and faithful letter to her, dated June 19, 1771, in which he insisted that the doctrines he preached now were the same as he had preached for above thirty years.[227] Shirley did not “call in his circular letter.” It would have been more to the honour of himself and his friends had he done so; for, when Wesley’s Conference assembled on August 6, the response to it was ridiculous. Of all “the serious clergy and laity throughout the land,” only Shirley himself, and the Rev. Cradock Glascott, and the Rev. Mr. Owen, ministers officiating in the Countess of Huntingdon’s chapels, together with Messrs. Lloyd, Ireland, and Winter, and two students (!) from Trevecca College attended. After what had taken place, Wesley, without arrogance, might have disdained these insignificant self-elected deputies; but he graciously allowed them to enter his Conference. First of all, Wesley prayed; then Shirley asked if the letters[228] of himself and the Countess of Huntingdon had been read to the Conference; and, being answered in the negative, he asked leave to read them himself, which was granted. A long conversation followed, and then Shirley produced a written declaration which he wished the Conference to sign. Wesley examined it, and made some alterations, which Shirley says were “not very material;” and then Wesley and fifty-three of his itinerant preachers appended to it their signatures. The declaration was as follows:— “Whereas the doctrinal points in the Minutes of a Conference, held in London, August 7, 1770, have been understood to favour justification by works; now the Rev. John Wesley and others assembled in Conference, do declare that we had no such meaning, and that we abhor the doctrine of Justification by Works as a most perilous and abominable doctrine: and, as the said Minutes are not sufficiently guarded in the way they are expressed, we hereby solemnly declare, in the sight of God, that we have no trust or confidence but in the alone merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, for Justification or Salvation, either in life, death, or the day of judgment: and, though no one is a real Christian believer, (and consequently cannot be saved) who doth not good works, where there is time and opportunity, yet our works have no part in meriting or purchasing our salvation from first to last, either in whole or in part.” Footnote 227: “Life and Times of Wesley,” vol. iii., p. 93. Footnote 228: