Читать книгу Fletcher of Madeley - Frederic W. Macdonald - Страница 7

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It was in the beginning of the year 1755, when Fletcher was in the twenty-sixth year of his age, that he passed through the great change described in the last chapter. For nearly five years he continued to live in Mr. Hill's family, dividing his time, as before, between Shropshire and London. Towards the close of that period, however, new duties and engagements were opening out before him, and in 1760, when his pupils entered the University of Cambridge, Fletcher's tutorship was at an end.

His residence at Tern Hall was in many respects a happy one for Fletcher. His duties were comparatively light, and his situation was favourable to that life of meditation, prayer, study, and self-discipline to which he was so powerfully drawn. On Sundays he attended the parish church of Atcham, a village near Shrewsbury. When the service was over he usually walked home alone by the Severn side. After a while these walks were shared by a pious man named Vaughan, then in Mr. Hill's service, who, in after years, gave the following account of them to Mr. Wesley: