CHAPTER XII.

Scanty Encouragements.



Fletcher's encouragements at Madeley were at first sufficiently scanty
to have disheartened many an earnest man.

Two Marys were amongst his earliest converts. Mary Matthews, of
Madeley Wood, went to hear him with the mind of the Pharisee, but she
left his presence with the heart of the publican. Having obtained the
pardon of her sins, she opened her little house for preaching, and
stood firm, although threatened by some of the villagers with a drum-
led mob, and eventually haled before the magistrates and fined £20 for
the offence of turning her cottage into a conventicle.

Mary Barnard, a lame old women of ninety, counted no pain or distance
too great to prevent her from making her toilsome journey to the
church where she "first saw the light," and, uneducated as she was,
her definite testimony to the power of the cleansing Blood often
cheered the preacher who had blessed her.

Fletcher's methods were unique for the times in which he lived. There
was no hiding from him. Those who tried to escape his influence by
avoiding his preachings were pursued into their various haunts and