"Nevertheless, two difficulties stand in my way. Will it be consistent with that poverty of spirit which I seek? Can I accept an office for which I have such small talents? And shall I not dishonour the cause of God by stammering out the mysteries of the gospel in a place where the most approved ministers of the Lord have preached with so much power and so much success? I suspect that my own vanity gives more weight to this second objection than it deserves to have: what think you? You are an indulgent father to me, and the name of son suits me better than that of brother."[4]
_FIRST YEARS AT MADELEY.--DIFFICULTIES AND DISCOURAGEMENTS._
Fletcher had now completed his thirty-first year, and had been three years and a half in orders. Ten years had elapsed since his coming to England, and he had no thought of returning to Switzerland. The anglicised form of his name was significant of the change that had taken place in his sentiments and sympathies. In these he had become an Englishman, although--and it is necessary to mark the distinction--his _temperament_ was never naturalised, but remained that of a foreigner to the last. The yearning for his native land, which is supposed to characterise the Swiss, was wholly wanting in him. Spiritual affections and aspirations seemed to leave little room for love of country, and, for a time at least, to dissolve the ties of family and home. On this subject Charles Wesley, as we gather from a letter of Fletcher's, administered a mild reproof, to which he replies, with the utmost simplicity, that he had often thought "that the particular fault of the Swiss is to be without natural affection." It should be added that later years showed that he had no need to seek shelter under any such doubtful generalization, or charge himself with so grievous a moral deficiency.
Meanwhile, his position needed defining to himself, and to others. He was not adequately or satisfactorily employed. His labours in connexion with the Wesleys and Lady Huntingdon, broken off and resumed from time to time, according as he lived in London or in Shropshire, were but preparatory to some more definite and continuous vocation. What that should be he knew not. It was however soon to be determined.