“Your letter arrived some days too late, to prevent my taking a false step respecting the papist in question. Three weeks ago, I went to Ludlow to the Bishop’s visitation, and I thought the occasion favourable for my purpose; but the churchwardens, when we were on the spot, refused to support me, and the court has paid no regard to my presentation. Thus I have gained some experience, though at my own cost. The sermon did not touch the string with which I was whipped at the last visitation; and I afterwards had the boldness to go and dine with the Bishop. “Many of my parishioners are strangely disconcerted at my bringing my gown back from Ludlow. With respect to the magistrate I mentioned to you in my last, because he acted as judge of the circuit two years ago, he now believes himself as able a lawyer as Judge Foster; but, for the present, he contents himself with threatenings. I met him the other day, and, after he had called me Jesuit, etc., and menaced me with his cane, he assured me that he would soon put down our assemblies. How ridiculous is this impotent rage! “I have attempted to form a Society, and, in spite of much opposition and many difficulties, I hope to succeed. I preach, I exhort, I pray; but, as yet, I seem to have cast the net on the wrong side of the ship. Lord Jesus, come Thyself, and furnish me with a Divine commission! “For some months past, I have laboured under an insuperable drowsiness: I could sleep day and night; and the hours which I ought to employ with Christ on the mount, I spend like Peter in the garden.”[84] Footnote 84: Letters, 1791, p. 115. Poor Fletcher’s troubles continued and increased. A month later, he wrote again to Charles Wesley, as follows:— “I have still trials of all sorts. First, spiritual ones. My heart is hard; I have not that contrition, that filial fear, that sweet, humble melting of heart before the Lord, which I consider essential to Christianity.