As the months advanced, Mrs. Ware was more and more occupied and active, evidently feeling that her time was short. And yet we see none of that anxiety about the future which such a conviction is apt to create, in reference either to the present world or another. As regarded another world, and her approach to it, we doubt if she ever felt the slightest dread or unwillingness to go. Not from any sense of fitness or self-sufficiency, but with the deepest humility there mingled the firmest trust; and a trust that refused to separate the exercise of justice from mercy, in God. She could trust the one as much as the other, and she could not distrust either; but, assured that a perfectly righteous and omniscient Being would do exactly that which was needful for her purification and perfection, she rested there,--and left all else. We say this of the peculiarity of her faith, if it be peculiar, from personal knowledge of her mind on this point, and from her own explicit declarations at a later day. And we refer to them at this time, to say that the same convictions sustained and tranquillized her in regard to the future of this life for those whom she was to leave behind. From the earliest moment of the expectation or apprehension of death, a mother's mind must turn strongly and fix intently on her children. And to most mothers this is the great struggle. Who can wonder? Who will reprove, even if the struggle be bitter, and the vision dim? HE will not, who has given a parent's affections, and likened to them his own. Many a mother, who could leave the world without a pang for herself, will suffer and fear for her children. It is only the highest faith that prevents all this suffering and fear. Such, we think, was Mary Ware's. Not in commendation do we say it,--we know not that it deserves that,--but as the simple fact, that while she was always doubtful of her power to guard and train her children in the best way, she never feared to leave them with God, in reference either to things temporal or spiritual. Even when she could see no sufficient provision for their temporal comfort, she seemed unable to believe that she was essential to that comfort, or that her life would be better for them than her death. She _knew_ that that would be best which God appointed. Does not this belong to the highest faith? No one could induce her to make any request, or express even a wish, as to future arrangements, the outward condition or fortune of any child. Many wishes, many prayers, did she offer for the inward condition and the spiritual preparation for both worlds,--but only the spiritual. "I could write a sheet," she says to a mother who was herself anxious,--"I could write a sheet upon the text your letter gives me, with regard to the preparation of our children for life. But I can only say, Why should we feel anxious for them when we are gone? Do we not see that the finest characters are those which are formed by the necessity of acting for themselves?" And