petually being filled, by sectarians of every description, with accounts of the behaviour and triumphant hopes of the dying, all resembling each other; but the circumstances of Mr. Fletcher's death were as peculiar as those of his life. He had taken cold, and à considerable degree of fever had been induced; but no persuasion could prevail upon him to stay from church on the Sunday, nor even to permit that any part of the service should be performed for him. It was the will of the Lord, he said, that he should go; and he assured his wife and his friends that God would strengthen him to go through the duties of the day. Before he had proceeded far in the service, he grew pale, and faltered in his speech, and could scarcely keep himself from fainting. The congregation were greatly affected and alarmed; and Mrs. Fletcher pressing through the crowd, earnestly entreated him not to persevere in what was so evidently beyond his strength. He recovered, however, when the windows were opened, exerted himself against the mortal illness which he felt, went through the service, and preached with remarkable earnestness, and with not less effect, for his parishioners plainly saw that the hand of death was upon him. After the sermon, he walked to the communion-table, saying, "I am going to throw myself under the wings of the Cherubim, before the Mercy-seat !"—" Here," (it is his widow who describes this last extraordinary effort of enthusiastic devotion)" the same distressing scene was renewed, with additional solemnity. The people were deeply affected while they beheld him offering up the last languid remains of a life that had been lavishly spent in their service. Groans and tears were on every side. In going through this last part of his duty, he was exhausted again and again; but his spiritual vigour triumphed over his bodily weakness. After several times sinking on the sacramental table, he still resumed his sacred work, and cheerfully distributed, with his dying hand, the lovememorials of his dying Lord. In the course of this concluding office, which he performed by means of the most astonishing exertions, he gave out several

verses of hymns, and delivered many affectionate exhortations to his people, calling upon them, at intervals, to celebrate the mercy of God in short songs of adoration and praise. And now, having struggled through a service of near four hours' continuance, he was supported, with blessings in his mouth, from the altar to his chamber, where he lay for some time in a swoon, and from whence he never walked into the world again." Mr. Fletcher's nearest and dearest friends sympathised entirely with him in his devotional feelings, and therefore they seem never to have entertained a thought that this tragedy may have exasperated his disease, and proved the direct occasion of his death. "I besought the Lord," Mrs. Fletcher, "if it were his good pleasure, to spare him to me a little longer. But my prayer seemed to have no wings; and I could not help mingling continually therewith, Lord, give me perfect resignation!"

says

On the Sunday following he died, and that day also was distinguished by circumstances not less remarkable. A supplicatory hymn for his recovery was sung in the church; and one who was present says, it is impossible to convey an idea of the burst of sorrow that accompanied it. "The whole village," says his friend Mr. Gilpin, "wore an air of consternation and sadness. Hasty messengers were passing to and fro, with anxious enquiries and confused reports; and the members of every family sate together in silence that day, awaiting, with trembling expectation, the issue of every hour." After the evening service, several of the poor, who came from a distance, and who were usually entertained under his roof, lingered about the house, and expressed an earnest wish that they might see their expiring pastor. Their desire was granted. The door of his chamber was set open; directly opposite to which, he was sitting upright in his bed, with the curtains undrawn," unaltered in his usual venerable appearance;" and they passed along the gallery one by one, pausing, as they passed by the door, to look upon him for the last time. A few hours after this extra

ordinary scene he breathed his last, without a struggle or a groan, in perfect peace, and in the fulness of faith and of hope. Such was the death of Jean Guillaume de la Flechere, or as he may more properly be designated, in this his adopted country, Fletcher of Madeley, a man of whom Methodism may well be proud as the most able of its defenders; and whom the Church of England may hold in honourable remembrance, as one of the most pious and excellent of her sons. "I was intimately acquainted with him," says Mr. Wesley, "for above thirty years. I conversed with him morning, noon, and night, without the least reserve, during a journey of many hundred miles; and in all that time I never heard him speak one improper word, nor saw him do an improper action. Many exemplary men have I known, holy in heart and life, within fourscore years; but one equal to him I have not known: one so inwardly and outwardly devoted to God, so unblameable a character in every respect, I have not found, either in Europe or America. Nor do I expect to find another such on this side of eternity."

Wesley thought, that if Mr. Fletcher's friends had not dissuaded him from continuing that course of itinerancy which he began in his company, it would have made him a strong man. And that, after his health was restored by his native air, and confirmed by his wife's constant care, if he had used this health in travelling all over the kingdom five or six, or seven months every year, (for which never was man more eminently qualified, no, not Mr. Whitefield himself) he would have done more good than any other man in England. I cannot doubt," he adds, "but this would have been the more excellent way. It had been Mr. Wesley's hope, at one time, that after his death, Mr. Fletcher would succeed to the supremacy of the spiritual dominion which he had established. Mr. Fletcher was qualified for the succession by his thorough disregard of worldly advantages, his perfect piety, his devotedness to the people among whom he ministered, his affable manner, and his popular and persuasive oratory,-qualifications

in which he was not inferior to Wesley himself. But he had neither the ambition, nor the flexibility of Mr. Wesley; he would not have known how to rule, nor how to yield as he did: holiness with him was all in all. Wesley had the temper and talents of a statesman: in the Romish Church he would have been the general, if not the founder, of an order; or might have held a distinguished place in history, as a cardinal or a pope. Fletcher, in any communion,

would have been a saint.

Mr. Wesley still continued to be the same marvellous old man. No one who saw him, even casually, in his old age, can have forgotten his venerable appearance. His face was remarkably fine; his complexion fresh to the last week of his life; his eye quick, and keen, and active. When you met him in the street of a crowded city, he attracted notice, not only by his band and cassock, and his long hair, white and bright as silver, but by his pace and manner, both indicating that all his minutes were numbered, and that not one was to be lost. "Though I am always in haste," he says of himself, " I am never in a hurry; because I never undertake any more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of spirit. It is true, I travel four or five thousand miles in a year; but I generally travel alone in my carriage, and, consequently, am as retired ten hours a day as if I were in a wilderness. On other days, I never spend less than three hours (frequently ten or twelve) in the day, alone. So there are few persons who spend so many hours secluded from all company." Thus it was that he found time to read much, and write voluminously. After his eightieth year, he went twice to Holland, a country in which Methodism, as Quakerism had done before it, met with a certain degree of success. Upon completing his eighty-second year, he says, "is any thing too hard for God? It is now eleven years since I have felt any such thing as weariness. Many times I speak till my voice fails, and I can speak no longer. Frequently I walk till my strength fails, and I can walk no further; yet, even then, I feel no sensation of weariness, but am perfect

ly easy from head to foot. I dare not impute this to natural causes. It is the will of God." A year afterwards he says, "I am a wonder to myself! I am never tired (such is the goodness of God), either with writing, preaching, or travelling. One natural cause, undoubtedly, is, my continual exercise, and change of air. How the latter contributes to health I know not; but certainly it does." In his eighty-fourth year, he first began to feel decay; and, upon commencing his eighty-fifth, he observes, "I am not so agile as I was in times past; I do not run or walk so fast as I did. My sight is a little decayed. My left eye is grown dim, and hardly serves me to read. I have daily some pain in the ball of my right eye, as also in my right temple (occasioned by a blow received some months since,) and in my right shoulder and arm, which I impute partly to a sprain, and partly to the rheumatism. I find, likewise, some decay in my memory with regard to names and things lately past; but not at all with regard to what I have read or heard twenty, forty, or sixty years ago. Neither do I find any decay in my hearing, smell, taste, or appetite, (though I want but a third part of the food I did once,) nor do I feel any such thing as weariness, either in travelling or preaching. And I am not conscious of any decay in writing sermons, which I do as readily, and, I believe, as correctly as ever." He acknowledged, therefore, that he had cause to praise God for bodily, as well as spiritual blessings;. and that he had suffered little, as yet, by "the rush of numerous years."

Other persons perceived his growing weakness, before he was thus aware of it himself; the most marked symptom was that of a frequent disposition to sleep during the day. He had always been able to lie down and sleep almost at will, like a mere animal, or a man in little better than an animal state,a consequence, probably, of the incessant activity of his life: this he himself rightly accounted one of the causes of his excellent health, and it was, doubtless, a consequence of it also: but the involuntary slumbers which came upon him in the latter years of his