“P.S.—Direct to John Fletcher, under cover to Thomas Hill, Esq., M.P., at Tern, near Shrewsbury. “To Mrs. Ryan, “At the New Room in the Horse Fair, “Bristol.” Footnote 35: Previous to becoming Wesley’s housekeeper, Sarah Ryan, Mary Clarke, and Sarah Crosby lived together, in a small house in Christopher Alley, Moorfields. It was here that Miss Bosanquet (afterwards Fletcher’s wife) formed an acquaintance with Sarah Ryan, in 1757. (See “Life of Mrs. Fletcher,” by Henry Moore, pp. 17–20.) Thus did these earnest first Methodists watch over themselves with a godly jealousy; and thus, in addition to the Christian fellowship in their weekly class-meetings, did they tell their religious experience to each other in epistolary correspondence. To this fact, pre-eminently, Methodism is indebted for its rich biographies. Immediately after the date of the above letter, Fletcher must have set out for Bristol, for Wesley writes:— “In the following week” (the third week in October), “I met Mr. Fletcher, and the other preachers that were in the house at Bristol, and spent a considerable time in close conversation on the head of Christian Perfection. I afterwards wrote down the general propositions wherein we all agreed.”[36] Footnote 36: Wesley’s Journal. No doubt, these propositions were substantially the same as those which Wesley, two months before, had presented to his Annual Conference, and which were:— 1. That Christian Perfection does not “exclude all infirmities, ignorance, and mistake.” 2. That those who think they have attained Christian Perfection, in speaking their own experience, should “speak with great wariness, and with the deepest humility and self-abasement before God.” 3. That young preachers, especially, should “speak of Perfection in public, not too minutely or circumstantially, but rather in general and scriptural terms.” 4. That Christian Perfection “implies the loving God with all the heart, so that every evil temper is destroyed, and every thought, and word, and work springs from, and is conducted to the end by, the pure love of God and our neighbour.”[37] Footnote 37: “Minutes of Conference” (edition 1862), vol. i., p. 711. At the close of the year, Fletcher, as usual, was, with the family of Mr. Hill, in London, where he wrote the following to Charles Wesley. There can be no doubt that the “humiliation before he left Tern” was the imputations cast upon him on account of his failing to preach in the church at Salop, mentioned in the foregoing letter to Sarah Ryan. “LONDON, _December 12, 1758_.