"May God Almighty mercifully take care of our happiness here and hereafter. May we ever continue constant to each other, and mindful of our mutual promises of attachment and truth. In due time, if it be the will of Providence, may we become more nearly connected with each other, and together may we lead a long, happy, and innocent life, without any diminution of affection till we die. May there never be any jealousy, distrust, coldness, or dissatisfaction between us, nor occasion for any,--nothing but kindness, forbearance, mutual confidence, and attention to each other's happiness. And that we may be less unworthy of so great a blessing, may we be assisted to cultivate all the benign and charitable affections and offices, not only toward each other, but toward our neighbors, the human race, and all the creatures of God. And in all things wherein we have done ill, may we properly repent our error, and may God forgive us, and dispose us to do better. When at last we are called to render back the life we have received, may our deaths be peaceful, and may God take us to his bosom. All which may He grant for the sake of the Messiah." If ever a prayer was granted, it seems to have been so in this instance, for in every detail it was fulfilled in the lives which followed. So rarely beautiful a marriage has seldom been seen, as the one which was entered into in this solemn and lofty manner, by this young and high-minded couple. The days of their pilgrimage were many, but they grew more and more beautiful until the final parting; and when the separation at last came, in the fulness of time, the old poet mourned, with a grief which could not be comforted, for the companion of his youth, the delight of his mature years, and the idol of his old age. Forty-five years they lived together, and after her death he wrote to his brother:-- "We have been married more than forty-five years, and all my plans, even to the least important, were laid with some reference to her judgment or her pleasure. I always knew it would be the greatest calamity of my life to lose her, but not till the blow fell did I know how heavy it would be, and what a solitude the earth would seem without her." To another brother he said:-- "Her life seemed to me to close prematurely, so useful was she, and so much occupied in doing good; and yet she was in her seventieth year. It is now more than forty-five years since we were married,--a long time, as the world goes, for husband and wife to live together. Bitter as the separation is, I give thanks that she has been spared to me so long, and that for nearly a half-century I have had the benefit of her counsel and her example." In a brief memoir of their intercourse, prepared for the eyes of his daughters alone, he said:--