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
institutions of the Gospel are worth having, they are worth supporting.
If young men are expected to engage in a service that becomes every year
more perplexed and exacting, they must be able to see a fair prospect of
such remuneration and sympathy as will at least set them free from
worldly anxiety. We believe that in no one way can the ministry be more
strengthened and elevated, than by a consideration and provision, not
extravagant, not large, not perhaps proportioned to the labor and reward
of other callings, but _sure_; and sufficient, while it imposes the
necessity of all the exertion, prudence, simplicity, and sacrifice that
should be expected and be seen in the service of CHRIST, to save from
all depression, and the necessity of other pursuits.
Is this a digression? No; for it entered into the daily thought, and
affected the life, not only of Henry Ware, but equally of her whose life
was his, and whose spirit was always striving to allay his fears, and
nurse his powers and resources. Reluctantly did she consent to his
taking upon himself new burdens and extended responsibilities, as he did
in 1838, when his father resigned to him his active duties, by a liberal
arrangement made for both of them. "While this makes us very grateful,"
she writes, "it involves more anxiety about health; but we will trust."
Just at the time of these new offices and brighter hopes on the one
hand, and increased labor and danger on the other, a heavy affliction
fell upon them both, in the sudden death of a sister; the first death in
thirty years of an adult member of that family, from which six have
since gone to the spirit-land. Ought any considerations to prevent our
giving to others the Christian thoughts and high affections called forth
from Mrs. Ware by that event? They were many and comforting. Some she
thus expressed to Mrs. Allen, a surviving sister. "The more I dwell
upon what she was, of what she was capable, and how deeply she suffered
from the mere load of humanity, the more I am thankful that the season
of discipline is over, the more I rejoice at the thought of what she is
now enjoying. Can we conceive of a higher bliss than that which must be
experienced by a soul of such capacities as hers, which has struggled,
as we believe, most strenuously with temptation both within and without
while here, freed at last for ever from the burden of the flesh,
throwing off all obstacles to its progress in a purer state, _bounding_
forward to perfection? O, who would recall her here, even for the best
happiness which this world could give her? But we are yet too earthly to
part with our treasures without suffering. It is meant that we should
suffer. It is a part, a most important object, of the dispensation; the
inevitable consequence, too, of that which we esteem the best blessing
of our existence,--our capacity for the exercise of the affections. It
seems as if so great an event as I feel this to be must have great
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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