Memoir of Mary L. Ware, Wife of Henry Ware, Jr.Hall, Edward B. (Edward Brooks)
Religion
Memoir of Mary L. Ware, Wife of Henry Ware, Jr.
Hall, Edward B. (Edward Brooks)
Unitarians -- United States -- Biography; Ware, Mary L. (Mary Lovell), 1798-1849
Few minds have kept themselves, through life, more free both from levity
and bigotry. At the time of which we speak, she seems to have thought
only of her own unworthiness, her need of religion, and the greatness of
the privilege offered her. A long note which she wrote to one of the
teachers with whom she was living, and to whom she confided all her
feelings, will explain the whole. It bears no date, but must have been
written in the autumn of 1814, when she was about sixteen.
"_Saturday Morning._
"Will you, my dear Miss C., pardon my addressing you in this
way, when under the same roof; but as I could not speak on the
subject I have now most at heart, in the presence of any one, I
did not think it right to engross exclusively so much of your
valuable time as would be necessary to say all I wish to. I
could not feel satisfied with my own conclusions, until I had
appealed to you, and I hope this will excuse the liberty I
take. Though still young, I have tasted the bitter cup of
affliction and disappointment, and have found thus early that
all worldly enjoyments are incapable of promoting happiness, or
even of securing present gratifications; and in every
deprivation have felt the healing balm of religion to be the
only source of consolation to the wounded spirit and afflicted
mind. But I may, indeed, say with sincerity, 'It is good for me
that I have been afflicted,' for it led me to reflect on the
end for which I was created, to examine my own heart, and, by
comparing it with the Christian standard, to prove its weakness
and awake to a sense of my danger. A very little reflection
convinced me I had been leading a very different life from that
which was requisite to form the character of a true Christian,
and that I must exercise my utmost powers to redeem the time
which I had lost, and which could never be recalled. Though I
cannot think the observance of any religious ceremonies
sufficient to secure future happiness, unless the motive for
their performance is founded on faith in the word of God, as
revealed to us by his Son, yet they seem to me necessary, not
only in a moral, but religious point of view, to the attainment
of that degree of perfection which we are taught it is in the
power of every one to attain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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