“To what a _monstrous_ idea had you well-nigh given birth. What! the labours of _my_ ministry under you deserve a salary! I, who have done nothing but dishonour God hitherto, and am not in a condition to do anything else for the future! If, then, I am permitted to stand in the courts of the Lord’s house, is it not for me to make an acknowledgment, rather than to receive one? If I ever receive anything of the Methodist Church, it shall be only as an indigent mendicant receives alms, without which he would perish. Such were some of the thoughts which passed through my mind with regard to the proposal you made to me in London; and I doubt whether my own vanity, or your goodness, will be able to efface the impressions they have left. “I have great need of your advice relative to the letters which I receive from my relations, who unite in their invitations to me to return to my own country. One says, to settle my affairs there; another, to preach there; a third, to assist him to die. They press me to declare whether I renounce my family, and the demands I have upon it. My mother, in the strongest terms, commands me at least to go and see her. What answer shall I make? If she thought _as you do_, I should write to her, ‘_Ubi Christiani, ibi patria_;’ ‘my mother, my brethren, my sisters, are those who do the will of my heavenly Father;’ but she is not in a state of mind to digest such an answer. I have no inclination to yield to their desires, which appear to me merely _natural_, for I should lose precious time and incur expense. My presence is not _absolutely_ necessary to my concerns; and it is more probable that my relations will pervert me to vanity and interest, than that I shall convert them to genuine Christianity. Lastly, I should have no opportunity to exercise my ministry. Our Swiss ministers, who preach only once a week, would not look upon me with a more favourable eye than the ministers here, and would only cause me either to be laid in prison or to be immediately banished from the country. “Permit me to thank you for the sentence from Kempis, with which you close your letter, by returning you another. ‘You run no risk in considering yourself as the wickedest of men, but you are in _danger_ if you prefer yourself to any one.’”[49] Footnote 49: Letters, 1791, p. 91. A fortnight later, Fletcher wrote again to Charles Wesley as follows:— “TERN, _September 29, 1759_.