THE TERN HALL TUTOR.
For three years after his ordination Fletcher received no church
appointment. He remained as tutor at Tern Hall, and preached wherever
he could find an opening, either in French or in English.
Amongst ordinary church-goers his decided utterances made him far from
popular, but the warm hearts of the Methodist people bade him hearty
welcome, and these he learned to love truly and well. They introduced
him to "many honourable women," several of whom became his friends and
correspondents; none of them, however, impressed him as did Mary
Bosanquet.
In writing to her brother nearly twenty-five years later he said of
this meeting: "It was soon after my ordination that I saw Miss Mary
Bosanquet. I had resolved not to marry, but the sweetness of her
temper and her devotedness to God made me think that if ever I broke
through my resolution it would be to cast my lot with one like her."
One may judge of the quiet but strong influence Fletcher exerted in
his neighbourhood by an incident which happened during that autumn. To
Tern Hall one night came a messenger from Salop, asking urgently for
"the tutor." The letter he delivered bore no name, but it begged Mr.
Fletcher to hasten at once to a certain inn, where he might find a
soul who wanted God. Without a question the tutor set out on his five-
mile walk, not knowing whether beggar or duke demanded his help. He
found the eldest son of a baronet, whom God's Spirit had rendered so
strangely wretched on account of sin that he could neither eat nor
sleep. Doctors had done their best to remove this remarkable malady,
but the one remedy lay in the touch of the hand of the Great
Physician, and, almost in despair, his soul cried, "Oh, that I knew
where I might find Him!"
The visit of that October night resulted in correspondence which was
blessed to Sir Richard Hill's conversion, although the young man
became in later years one of Fletcher's most active opponents in a
doctrinal controversy.
This time of waiting for God to show his future sphere of work was
much blessed to Fletcher in spiritually preparing him for it. Through
an incident in which he was much misunderstood by many, he learned the
all-important lesson to a preacher, that a sermon full of the most
vigorous ideas is as nothing if not inspired by the living Spirit.
His own account of the matter is brief but instructive:--
"Just as I was going to resume my daily course of business I was
called to preach in a church at Salop, and was obliged to compose a
sermon in the moments I should have spent in prayer. Hurry and the
want of a single eye drew a veil between the prize and my soul. In the
meantime Sunday came, and God rejected my impure service and abhorred
the labour of my polluted soul; and while others imputed my not
preaching to the fear of the minister who had invited me to his
pulpit, and to the threatenings of a mob, I saw the wisdom and
holiness of God, and rejoiced in that providence which does all
without the assistance of hurrying Uzzah."
During the holidays Fletcher would betake himself to London, giving
all his time to service in connection with a chapel in Seven Dials.
The sermon he did not preach bore fruit in his own heart, and to his
beloved friend, Charles Wesley, he wrote: "May God water the poor seed
I have sown, and give it fruitfulness, _though it be only in one
soul!_ But I have seen so much weakness in my heart, both as a
minister and a Christian, that I know not which is most to be pitied--
the man, the believer, or the preacher. Could I at last be
_truly_ humbled and _continue so always_, I should esteem
myself happy in making this discovery. I preach _merely_ to keep
the chapel open until God shall send a workman _after His own
heart_."
During the famous earthquake of nine years before a little Welsh girl
named Mary Price was then attending a London school. The children were
frightened nearly out of their wits by the upheaval, the crash of
broken glass, the long subterranean rumbling, and, in common with many
London residents, in that hour little Mary promised to serve God. For
nine years she strove and prayed, but found no way by which she could
come near to Him. Persuaded by a friend who knew her inward sorrow,
she sought out the despised Methodist meeting-house in Seven Dials,
and there heard Fletcher preaching for his "one soul." Light flashed
through all her being as she listened, and that morning Mary Price saw
the "Way" to unerring "Truth" and everlasting "Life," entering later
on into lifelong communion with Him whom her spirit had so earnestly
sought.
For fifty-nine years Mary was a shining light in the kingdom of grace.