“After my conversation with Mr. Fletcher, I was rather easier; but this decrease of my terrors was of short duration. I allowed that the promises he would have me apply to myself belonged to the generality of sinners, but I thought they were not intended for me. I, therefore, wrote again to Mr. Fletcher, telling him that, however others might take comfort from the Scripture promises, I feared none of them belonged to me. I told him also, that I found my heart to be exceeding hard and wicked; and that, as all my duties proceeded from a dread of punishment, and not from the principles of faith and love, and were withal so very defective, I thought it was impossible God should ever accept them. In answer to this, the kind and sympathising Mr. Fletcher immediately wrote me a sweet and comfortable letter, telling me that the perusal of the account I had given him had caused him to shed tears of joy, because he saw the Lord had convinced me of the insufficiency of all my own doings to justify me before God, and of the necessity of a saving faith in the blood of Jesus. He also sent me ‘The Life and Death of Mr. Thomas Halyburton,’ which book I read with greatest eagerness.” After this, Sir Richard Hill proceeds to relate how he found peace with God on February 18, 1758; then how he relapsed into doubts and fears, and lost all his comfort; and then how he wrote to Fletcher in April, 1759, and said:— “My soul is again bowed down under the sense of the wrath of God. The broken law, with all its thunderings and lightnings, again stares me in the face. My hope seems to be giving up the ghost, and I see nothing before me but blackness and darkness for ever.” Of course Fletcher replied to this letter. Before long, Sir Richard regained his lost faith and peace, and ever afterwards went on his way rejoicing.[43] Footnote 43: Sidney’s “Life of Sir Richard Hill,” pp. 21–32. Thus, to an important extent, was Fletcher used in the conversion of the distinguished man, who, a few years later, became one of his sturdiest opponents in the great Calvinian controversy. In the middle of June, 1759, Mr. Hill, M.P., and his family left London for Shropshire, and, of course, Fletcher went with them. Up to the time of his departure, Fletcher continued to preach in Wesley’s London chapels; but, in writing to Charles Wesley, under the date of June 1, he remarks, with his characteristic humbleness: “I am here _umbra pro corpore_. I preach as your substitute; come, and fill worthily an office of which I am unworthy.”[44] Footnote 44: Letters, 1791, p. 86.