Living the Radiant Life: A Personal NarrativeJames, George Wharton
Religion
Living the Radiant Life: A Personal Narrative
James, George Wharton
Conduct of life
Here is another case. We are honored and blessed with the friendship of
the widow of an Episcopal clergyman. For over twenty-five years she and
her husband lived in marital oneness, and seven boys and girls crowned
their happiness. She awoke one morning to find him dead by her side. The
shock was crushing and few would have blamed her had she been
incapacitated for a while by its sudden awfulness. But in an instant she
leaped to meet her burdens and responsibilities. Religion was real to
her. Her husband was with God. He was safe. It was her duty now to be
both father and mother to her children. A struggle then began which is
as pathetic as it is heroic. I have watched every battle and known the
courage, the patience, the fidelity, the failures, the successes. A
house, partially built with funds contributed by friends, was eventually
lost to the mortgagees. The oldest daughter, after years of brave and
cheerful struggle with poverty and ill-health, passed away. A few years
later, within a week of each other, two of the noble sons, one about
twenty-seven years of age, the other nineteen, the former the most
Christ-like youth I have ever known, also died. Then the third daughter,
happily married, died after giving birth to her third child, and, in a
short time, owing to some strange perversion which it is hard to
understand, the son-in-law took it into his head to refuse the
grandmother the privilege of seeing the children. The one remaining son,
who had studied with honors at the California State University, went
East to complete his special studies at Yale, suddenly collapsed
mentally, and was cared for for a long time in an Eastern hospital.
Think of the tragedies and sorrows thus crowded into one life in the
short space of twenty years! Yet during the whole of this time, though I
have been as close to the family as though I were an uncle or older
brother; though all their affairs have been regularly and fully unfolded
to me, there have been absolutely no wailings, no repinings, no
complaints, and only the few tears that it is a relief to let flow when
loving hearts sympathize. Instead, this brave woman, her heart fortified
by an abiding faith in and love for God, has been "abundant in good
works." She is the "right hand support of her clergyman," and every poor
and needy person in the parish has experienced her practical interest,
help, and loving sympathy. Though unable personally to contribute of
material things, she has interested those who could, and has thus made
her sympathy practical and genuine. Her home for many years was the
rallying ground for homeless young men--mainly, of course, belonging to
her own church--who have been immeasurably blessed by her motherly
sympathy, loving counsel, and helpful advice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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