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(1729-1750.)

John Fletcher was a Swiss by birth and education. His name was properly Jean Guillaume de la Fléchère. The origin of the anglicized form that he afterwards adopted is thus explained by himself: "Soon after I came to England my English friends, complaining of the length of my Swiss name, began to contract it by dropping the French syllables of it. So they called me Fletcher, and by that name I have been known among the English ever since." He came of an old and respectable family, not without distinguished connexions. His father had, in early life, held a commission in the French army, but, retiring from the service in order to marry, had returned to his native country, where he became a colonel in the militia, and Assesseur Baillival, or assistant judge, of Nyon. Here he resided in a fine old house in the outskirts of the town, not rich, but possessing a modest fortune and considerable local influence; and here John Fletcher, the youngest of eight children, was born on September 12th, 1729.

Nyon is an old town dating from Roman times. It is about fifteen miles from Geneva, on the northern shore of the lake, picturesquely placed at the water's edge, with the Jura Mountains rising in the distance behind, and the mountains of Savoy magnificently visible across the lake in front. The passion for Swiss scenery had not then become common and conventional. Some fifty years later Gibbon mentions it as of recent origin, counting it "a misfortune rather than a merit that the situation and beauty of the Pays de Vaud ... and the fashion of viewing the mountains and glaciers have opened us on all sides to the incursions of foreigners." Fletcher was not before his time with regard to this most modern of sentiments or susceptibilities. There is little trace of impressions made on him either by the grandeur or the loveliness of his native scenery. In a letter written when, at fifty years of age, he was revisiting Nyon, he invites a friend to come to "this delightful country, and share a pleasant apartment, and one of the finest prospects in the world in the house where I was born.... We have a fine, shady wood near the lake, where I can ride in the cool all the day, and enjoy the singing of a multitude of birds." And then he adds, "But this, though sweet, does not come up to the singing of my dear friends in England."

Fletcher received his early education at a school in Nyon, and was then sent, with his two brothers, to the Academy, now the University, of Geneva, where he spent seven years in diligent and successful study. On leaving Geneva he spent some time at Lenzburg, chiefly for the sake of learning German. In the scanty records of his youth there is a remarkable succession of perils and hairbreadth escapes. Fletcher was a bold and skilful swimmer, and on at least two occasions his adventurousness nearly cost him his life. Once he swam with a companion to a small, rocky island, about five miles from the shore of the lake. They found it so steep and smooth that they could not land, and it was not until they were completely exhausted by swimming round it that they came upon a place where they could crawl ashore, and whence they were rescued by a passing boat. The other adventure was still more perilous. He was swimming in the Rhine, and was drawn unawares into the mid-stream, where, he says, "the water was extremely rough, and poured along like a galloping horse." After a long and desperate struggle with the current, he was carried into a mill-race, and hurled among the piles on which the mill stood. A blow on the breast made him senseless, and he knew nothing more till he rose on the other side of the mill, after being among the piles for twenty minutes, to find himself five miles from the place where he had started. Another time, when he and his brother were fencing with swords blunted with a kind of button fixed upon the point, the button on his brother's weapon broke, and Fletcher received a desperate thrust in the side that had well-nigh killed him. These incidents have often been referred to as illustrations of the Providence that directed his life; but they reveal in addition elements of character that should not be overlooked. There was nothing effeminate in him. On this point a mistake may be made. It is possible to misinterpret the delicate features, with their rapt expression, the almost excessive modesty, the language fuller charged with emotion than is quite our English wont. But there was strength, not weakness, beneath these often misread indications of character. The natural man in John Fletcher was a soldier and an athlete, and these qualities of manhood remained with him to the end, though turned to higher issues and manifest in other forms than in these early years.

From childhood Fletcher had a tender conscience and a devout spirit, and was exceptionally free from fault. He says, "I think it was when I was seven years of age that I first began to feel the love of God shed abroad in my heart, and that I resolved to give myself up to Him, and to the service of His Church, if ever I should be fit for it." Years afterwards there came for him a time of spiritual conflict, of heart-searching, and deep repentance, from which he passed into the clear light of reconciliation with God through faith in Christ; but his conversion had this in common with Wesley's, that it crowned and completed the piety of his youth. In both cases conversion was a momentous, unmistakable epoch; but not by reason of any change from reckless and ungodly living. It was one of those supreme events in the history of the soul that has its foundations and beginnings long before. Its relation to the past is not, outwardly at least, one of contrast, and inwardly it is not wholly so. The continuity of the spiritual life is not broken, but rather a stage is reached where the discipline and endeavours of previous years, having served their end, pass into a larger liberty and a more abundant life. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me," is the true account, not only of sudden conversions, properly so called, but of that last act of grace which brings devout and serious youth to the full knowledge of Him whom they have long sought, and served while yet seeking.

Fletcher's student life seems to have been wholly free from the vices which, both then and now, are too generally counted venial, or even natural and reasonable, in youth. His subsequent self-upbraidings were deep enough, but they must not be misunderstood. When he says, in a letter written to his brother in his 26th year, "My infancy was vicious, and my youth still more so," the reference is not to open, actual sins, but to that ignorance of the true Christian life which, apprehended in its full significance, appears to the regenerate conscience as the one root-evil. His confessions have little in common with those of Augustine, or Bunyan, or John Newton. The most particular allusion they contain is the following: "I formed an acquaintance with some deists, at first with the design of converting them, and afterwards with the pretence of thoroughly examining their sentiments. But my heart, like that of Balaam, was not right with God. He abandoned me, and I enrolled myself in their party. A considerable change took place in my deportment. Before, I had a form of religion, and now I lost it; but as to the state of my heart, it was precisely the same. I did not remain many weeks in this state; the Good Shepherd sought after me, a wandering sheep. Again I became professedly a Christian; that is, I resumed a regular attendance at church and the communion, and offered up frequent prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. There were also in my heart some sparks of true love to God, and some germs of genuine faith; but a connexion with worldly characters, and an undue anxiety to promote my secular interests, prevented the growth of these Christian graces."

It had been Fletcher's desire as a child to become a Christian minister. This object was still kept in view during his studies at Geneva, and appears to have been approved by his family; but as he entered his twentieth year his views underwent a considerable change, the notion of entering the ministry was abandoned, and he sought a military career instead. One or two reasons may be assigned for this change. He feared he was unfit for the ministry. Though outwardly of blameless life, he felt, as the time for ordination drew near, his need of true faith in Christ and love to God, and shrank from an office for which these were the first requisites. Further, a doctrinal difficulty disclosed itself. "I was disgusted by the necessity I should be under to subscribe the doctrine of predestination"; and while thus religiously and doctrinally disturbed, the influence of certain friends combined with his own inclination to suggest that frequent resource of the more adventurous youth of Switzerland, military service in some foreign army. Fletcher's father had served the king of France, why should not he take service under the king of Portugal, who was about to send troops to Brazil? Accordingly, disregarding his father's remonstrances, but following his example, he made his way to Lisbon, raised a company of his countrymen, doubtless by the method embodied in the proverb, "Pas d'argent, pas de Suisse," and received a captain's commission in the Portuguese service. This kind of professional soldiership, for which no patriotism or devotion to a noble cause could be pleaded, did not shock the general conscience in Fletcher's day. It presented no difficulty to his own. That such a vocation is in our own day generally condemned, being barely tolerated under the most extenuating circumstances, is an illustration of progress in morals and religion,—one of many that may be set over against some discouraging aspects of the times.

Meanwhile Fletcher is waiting in Lisbon for a remittance from home which does not arrive. His parents disapprove of this Portuguese-Brazilian venture, and refuse to send him money. But his mind is made up, and with or without money he will go. An unlooked for hindrance, however, prevents. A servant waiting upon him at breakfast let fall a kettle of hot water, and so scalded his leg as to lay him helpless in bed. In the meantime the ship sailed for Brazil without him, and was never heard of again.

On his recovery he returned to Switzerland, there being no further prospect of employment in the Portuguese service. But his desire for military life was unabated. His uncle and eldest brother were in the Dutch service, and in a little while he received word that his uncle had procured a commission for him. He at once set out for Flanders, but before he could join the army the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in October, 1748, entirely altered the situation. Troops were disbanded or sent home, and the uncle on whom his hopes depended left the service, and died soon afterwards. With his death Fletcher's hopes were entirely destroyed, and he abandoned all thoughts of becoming a soldier.

The first well-marked stage of his history was now completed. He had reached manhood. He had received the best education that his age and his country afforded. In temperament he was active and ardent, in spirit serious and devout; and though he had declined from his early piety, he was entirely free from the follies and vices so easily learnt, and so readily condoned, at college and in camp. It was impossible to say how a life with such preparations would open out. That its promise was fair, and even noble, might well be judged; but that it should find at once the supply of its own deepest want, and the sphere for the employment of its powers, in a foreign country, and in connexion with a religious movement wholly unknown in Switzerland, and unsanctioned either by Church or society in England, was among the things that could not possibly be foreseen. Lives like Fletcher's, when they lie complete before us, are luminous in the linked succession of divinely directed steps; the overruling Providence is so manifest that nothing which takes place surprises us; but, followed in their natural order, the determining events are unforeseen, they come in unlikely forms and from quarters whence they could not be expected. From Swiss Moderatism Fletcher was to pass into the bosom of English Methodism. The student reared in the school of Calvin and Beza was to be the apologist of Evangelical Arminianism. He was to become, not

"Captain, or colonel, or knight-in-arms"

in Portugal, Brazil, or Flanders, but "Vicar of Madeley." But of all this he knew nothing;—how could he?

"I know that the way of man is not in himself:

It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps."

————

"Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me."