you and Mrs. Perronet, to ask your blessing, and to answer any question you might have asked me concerning my dear friend, your son. I shall write to him, please God, as soon as I shall be in Shropshire. I offered to go and fetch him at the end of the year, if he chose to spend another winter in Switzerland: but he said, he made no doubt he should have good company to come before, if God permitted.

I hope you will give me your blessing, and grant me a share in your prayers, which I should have been glad to sit under; but in these bodies we can be but in one place; and I comfort myself with these words of St. Paul: soon "we shall be ever with the Lord," and with all his people. In that sweet hope I remain, Rev. and dear sir, your affectionate son and servant in Christ, J. FLETCHER.

I desire to be remembered in Christian love to Mrs. Perronet and Miss Briggs.

In Mr. Benson's excellent Life of Mr. Fletcher, it is said: "Mr. Perronet had expected to gather strength as the spring advanced and the weather became milder. In this, however, the Lord saw meet, in a great measure, to disappoint his expectations. Spring, and even summer, bringing warm weather, came; but still he continued in a similar and even increasing state of weakness. On the 15th of May, he writes: -As to my health, it is not yet restored to me. It has pleased God to break down my strength in my journey, and to continue me in that weak condition to this time, notwithstanding all the efforts of my friends and physicians, and my own endeavours, in using a little very gentle exercise from time to time as I was able. Whenever I go out, every one stops to stare at me, and many express their astonishment at the sight of such a spectre; so greatly am I reduced and altered.' On the 12th of June following he seemed to himself to be rather gaining a little ground, but, says he, the continual, sudden, and severe changes in the weather here, tear me almost to pieces, and seem to throw me back as fast as I recover.' Soon after this, he removed to a pleasant village, called Gimel, between Lausanne and Geneva where Miss Perronet's sister was settled. There he rode out, drunk asses' milk, and breathed the purest air. Mrs. Perronet is there,' says Mr. Fletcher to his father, with her two daughters. So that if his illness should prove more grievous, he will not want for good attendance and the most tender nursing. Support him, dear sir, with your fatherly exhortations. They are balm to his blood and marrow to his bones.'

"As the reader will undoubtedly wish to know the sequel of the story of this benevolent man, I shall here insert an extract from another of his letters. Being returned to Lausanne, Oct. 23, he wrote from thence to his father as follows:

HONOURED AND DEAR SIR,-I wrote some time ago by a private hand but that is not always either the safest or the most expeditious method of conveying intelligence. My letter, however, contained little more than an account of my return from the mountains, where I seemed to have gained very little in point of health and strength. I mentioned, likewise, my earnest wishes to return to England, in case it should please

FAMILIAR LETTERS.

God to assist me in the means. sure effected: for I have quite unexpectedly met with a very worthy This, I humbly trust, is in good mea. gentleman, (a Swiss, whom I formerly knew in England,) who sets out for London within about a week or fortnight. We shall travel in a chaise, and he is so kind as to promise to suit his mode of travelling to my weakness, which indeed is very great. We may possibly be on the road when this letter reaches you, and I doubt not but my friends will assist me with their prayers. The season for travelling is late, it is true, especially for one in my weak state but I choose this rather than venture to stay another winter in this terrible climate. Beside, I consider it as a providential call to return; and I have taken your advice, to put what remains to be done in my affairs into trusty and good hands. I am, honoured and dear sir, your dutiful son, W. PERRONET.

"He soon after left Switzerland, and with great pain and difficulty reached Douay, in French Flanders, where he was taken worse and died in peace, Dec. 2, 1781. A little time after, Mr. Fletcher wrote as follows to his father :

CXXVIII. To the Rev. Vincent Perronel.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,-While I condole with you about the death of my dear friend and your dear son, I congratulate you about the resigna. tion and Christian fortitude with which you, Abraham-like, lay him upon the altar of our heavenly Father's providential, good, and acceptable will. We shall one day see why he made your sons go before you, and my kind physician before me. can find by your kind letter, a strong concern about him fell upon me About the time he died, so far as I by day and by night, insomuch that I could not help waking my wife* to join me in praying for him, and at once that concern ceased, nor have I since had any such spiritual feeling; whence I concluded that the conflict I supposed my friend to be in, was ended. But how surprised was I to find it was by death! Well, whether Paul or Apollos, or life or death, all things are ours through Jesus, who knows how to bring good out of evil, and how to blow us into the harbour by a cross wind, and even by a dreadful storm.

If, my dear friend, your son has not quite completed his affairs in Switzerland, and an agent is necessary there for that purpose, I offer you the care and help of my brother who was our counsellor, and who, I am sure will do what lies in him to oblige the father of him whom he had the pleasure of having some time under his roof, as a sick monument of Christian meekness and resignation. I am but poorly, though I serve yet my Church without a curate, Mr. Bailey being wanted at Kingswood. But what are we? Poor mortals, dying in the midst of a world of dying or dead men. Christ, the resurrection and the life, to whom be glory for ever. But in the midst of death, we are in prays Rev. and dear sir, your affectionate son and servant in the Gospel,

J. FLETCHER."

So

* He was then married.

A DIALOGUE

BETWEEN

A MINISTER AND ONE OF HIS PARISHIONERS,

ON

MAN'S DEPRAVITY AND DANGER

IN HIS NATURAL STATE.

BY THE REV. JOHN FLETCHER,

VICAR OF MADELEY.

PREFACE TO THE DIALOGUE.

I HAVE found among my papers a manuscript of the late Rev. Mr. Fletcher, entitled, "A Dialogue between a Minister and one of his Parishioners, on Man's Fallen and Lost Estate." It consists of three parts, which are completed and have been transcribed, in a fair and legible character, in his own hand writing. It was intended, it seems, to be followed by four more, of which I know and can learn nothing. Indeed, I cannot now recollect how I became possessed of these: but suppose that they had been put into my hands by himself, or into the hands of some friend who transmitted them to me to look over. For I find on the title page the following request and declaration, written also with his own hand, and in different parts of the work sundry of my corrections and alterations, evidently made long ago :--

"Any lover of truth, who will have patience to read these sheets, is desired to write on the white side his observations, and to mark, if he thinks it worth his while,

"1. Bad or weak arguments.

"2. Bad English, tedious turns, vain repetitions.

"3. What is useless to the subject, or too prolix.

"4. Conclusive arguments forgotten.

"N. B. Beside these three parts, there are four more on the same subject.

"The fourth part contains an answer to the plea of the self-righteous moralist and formalist.

"The fifth, an appeal to his conscience and experience.

"The sixth, the testimony of the Church for the doctrine.

"The seventh, some objections answered, with some directions and encouragements given.

"The grand objection that the author hath to the whole, is the length, μεγα βιβλιον, μέγα κακον ; (A great book is a great evil. For want of skill and judgment, he knew not how to lop off luxuriant branches properly, and requests the help of Jesus' friends, if they judge that by dint of amputations and emendations, this work might become worth reading."

I would observe farther, that this dialogue was manifestly composed by Mr. Fletcher, before he wrote or published his "Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense," on the same subject: and that it is probable, after he had conceived the design of that larger work, he laid