Having given sketches of Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher at some length, we now
proceed to notice the religious aspect of Madeley at that period. In
order to do this more fully we notice, first, that Mr. Fletcher during
the three years which elapsed between his ordination and presentation to
the living at Madeley, in 1760, occasionally visited the parish and
officiated for Mr. Chambers, the then vicar, as his curate. He was
therefore acquainted with the nature of the charge he was about to
undertake, and with the character of the people among whom he was about
to labour, a tolerable estimate of which may be gleaned from the
description given by one of Mr. Fletcher’s biographers, the Rev. J.
Benson, who says:—
“Celebrated for the extensive works carried on within its limits,
Madeley was remarkable for little else than the ignorance and
profaneness of its inhabitants, among whom respect to man was as
rarely to be observed, as piety towards God. In this benighted place
the Sabbath was openly profaned, and the most holy things
contemptuously trampled under foot; even the restraints of decency
were violently broken through, and the external form of religion held
up as a subject of ridicule. This general description of the
inhabitants of Madeley, must not, however, be indiscriminately
applied to every individual among them: exceptions there were to this
prevailing character, but they were comparatively few indeed. Such
was the place where Mr. Fletcher was called to stand forth, as a
preacher of righteousness, and in which he appeared, for the space of
five-and-twenty years as a burning and shining light.”