Memoir of Mary L. Ware, Wife of Henry Ware, Jr. Part 20

"My dear E----: ... The old saying, that 'children will be children,' might be improved by the subst.i.tution of 'should'

for 'will.' I mean in the sense, that their natural characters, which are as different as their faces, _ought_ to be educated gradually; not requiring of one child any thing because another child does it, to whom the thing may be perfectly easy, or more than we can in justice require of them at their age, in consideration of their peculiar circ.u.mstances. We are to judge and discipline a child simply in reference to its own individual character and circ.u.mstances, and deal with it with the single view to the improvement of its individual character, rather than to our own comfort or even its external improvement. Now, of course, the application of this principle, in detail, involves a great deal of thought, observation, and self-denial; but if we really desire to do good, and this opportunity of doing it is in our path, can we engage in a work of more extensive good, when we consider how these children's characters are to influence a still larger circle, and how great is our responsibility to future generations as well as the present, that we do all we can to prepare the way for their best instruction?... But to come down to our own case. We all take too much notice of mere _disagreeables_. The evil of doing this is obvious; if the child is dealt with in the same way for making a noise, or for carelessness, that it is for a moral delinquency, it soon learns to confound moral distinctions; and if it is fretted by being perpetually talked to about small things, it is easily worked up to a state of irritation which leads almost insensibly, and certainly without any design, to the commission of some moral misdemeanor. I think we may often see this with all children, and it is very clear, in such a case, that their sin is as much our fault as theirs. We should watch our own state very carefully, and see how far our desire to cheek them grows out of our own peculiar state at the time, and how far that influences our view of the offence. We all know that what at some times we feel to be a great annoyance, is of no consequence to us at others; and for the same reason, in a different physical state, it is sometimes easier for them to control themselves than at others."

"Dear E----: ... I think it is good for young people to have some variety in life. I suffered much from the want of it; and I trust that you have too much good sense and right feeling to be unreasonable in your wishes, or in any measure unfitted for the duties and enjoyments of home by the indulgence. I know it has formerly been a great trial of your patience to pa.s.s from the irresponsible position of a visitor, to the occupations and responsibilities of home. But I trust, as you grow older and look at life more and more with a clear appreciation of its use and end, you will take more and more delight in the consciousness of living for some useful object; and, despite unpleasant accompaniments, find, in using all your powers for the good of others, a pleasure beyond any to be derived from a mere indulgence of taste. We cannot, and we had certainly better not, if we could, choose our own lot in life; we know not in that matter what is best for us. It is happily under the guidance of a more perfect wisdom than we can attain, and we may rest in faith that our position in life is unquestionably the best one for us, or it would not have been appointed.

Therefore, dear E., remember that He who appointed all 'knows what is in man,' and in wisdom and love adapts our trials to our wants; and the very fact that such and such things are particularly hard to bear, is a proof that we need to cultivate just those virtues which would make it easy to us to bear them."

"Most people think it as well that the young should 'fight their own battles,' as they term it, and find their own way out of their childish troubles. But I believe many a character is seriously injured by the want of _aid_ in its petty difficulties, at that period when the right principles of action are most easily taught; they are as necessary to the right adjustment of small matters as of great.... I do not think as much as I once did of the loss of constant intercourse in the daily routine of life, in cultivating family affection.

I believe family attachments are sometimes increased by occasional separation. But I do think a great deal of the loss, to a girl, of all domestic education, for the whole of that period when domestic occupations can best be learned. Of all objects in life there is none more distasteful to me than a _merely_ literary woman; no amount of learning is a fair balance, in my mind, for the feminine graces of a true woman's character. It is not merely that she looks better, clean and tidy, or that a careful use of the needle is a preventive of waste in the use of means,--although these are considerations worth weighing. But there are internal graces connected with these external habits; and there is no higher object for a woman's life than the cultivation of those powers which make the comfort of a well-ordered household."[5]

[Footnote 5: A strong a.s.sertion; but it is evident that Mrs. Ware's idea of a "well-ordered household" comprised all that the Scriptures mean by the direction, "Set thine house in order."]

"_December 31, 1843._ The last day of this most eventful year!

Dear Annie, how many precious, solemn thoughts does the very writing its date suggest! In all the future years of our lives, be they many or few, no one, it now seems, can bring to us so great, so affecting a change in outward things, as this year which is just pa.s.sing away. It is not only that the outward circ.u.mstances of our lives are to take a new course, because he has left us who was to us the leading and controlling spirit in all that pertained to our life in this world, but that we shall no longer feel the perpetual action of his character in the daily detail of the education of our souls....

"Your expressions of discouragement and anxiety about yourself touch me very much. I can enter fully into all your feelings, for at your age I was not only separated from the loved circle and influences of home, for a time, but I lost for ever my chief earthly dependence for aid and happiness in my mother's death. Thus, being left to myself, I was led to a self-inspection and care of my own character, which do not usually come for many years after. I know all the trials that beset one's path at your age, for I have had deep experience of them; and I can say with confidence to you, that they may all be overcome by a resolute will, united to a true spirit of _humility_. Not, perhaps, in one year or two; but I do know that, by the persevering use of the means which G.o.d has placed within our reach, in reliance upon and earnest seeking of the aid which he will give, we shall make progress in the Christian life, the only life which can give us any satisfaction.... Seek the _truth_ in your own character, and see it in others. Fix for yourself a high standard of excellence, and never 'tire nor stop to rest,' until you have put yourself in the way to attain it. Stop not then; there is no stopping in this world (or in another, I believe).... Look your great difficulties full in the face; seek not to gloss them over, or find excuses for them. You have them as the means of excellence, by giving you something to do, a mode of applying Christian principle. Use them as such, and faint not....

"One thing I would suggest. You have been in the habit from earliest childhood, and I trust are still, of praying before you close your eyes to sleep. I am not sure that you have always done the same when you first awake in the morning. I know that much good may be derived from thus commencing the day with some private devotional exercise. The time given to it must of course depend upon circ.u.mstances; yet there cannot but be, under any arrangement, opportunity for at least the offering of a pet.i.tion for light and strength, to meet the duties and temptations of the day on which you are entering, and a thought and resolution in regard to some particular fault to which you know you may be p.r.o.ne. I cannot but believe, that, when the day is so commenced, there is less danger of yielding to temptation than if no such act were performed."

One is perplexed to understand how Mrs. Ware, who neglected no duty, found time to write so much; for the letters here published are a small part of all she wrote, and scarcely any do we publish entire. The explanation is, that they were written after every thing else was done, at night, and very late in the night. It shows the strength of her frame, that she could follow this habit through life, till near the end.

We suppose it to have been very rare that she was not up and at work beyond midnight. So was it particularly during the winter after Mr.

Ware's death; when her great solace and chief occupation were found in reading and arranging the immense ma.s.s of his ma.n.u.scripts and unfinished works. She says in December: "The sense of the uncertainty of life, which is always awakened by the circ.u.mstance of death, made me anxious to do a great deal with respect to Mr. Ware's papers, which no one could do as well as I; the day was too full of movement to allow an opportunity of doing this before evening, and I found myself night after night poring over ma.n.u.scripts until twelve, one, and two o'clock, for weeks together." This is not mentioned as an example to be followed; nor is there reason to think that it is ever done with entire impunity. But the work to which she thus gave herself, through that lone winter, was one of pure and high gratification. "It was a touching employment, not melancholy. This living life over again, when all its sands have been 'diamond-sparks,' not dazzling, but reflecting the bright hues of heaven, cannot be melancholy; it is but a type of future blessedness."

But not for her own pleasure alone was this done. She had yielded to the earnest desire of all the friends of her husband, that a Memoir should be written, and many of his letters and private papers given to the public. Not, however, without long deliberation and great reluctance did she give her consent; for, as we have said in the beginning of this work, it cost a hard struggle, and even "agony," to open to the public eye that "sacred inner life" which seemed her own, and only hers. But here, as everywhere, she soon conquered all selfish feeling, and, taking the largest view of usefulness and duty, afforded every facility for a faithful exhibition of such a character. To her son she says: "I know that, if the picture of what he was is to be a true one, it must have all those beautiful lights and shadows thrown into it which come from the light of the soul; and I hope to be able so to lay aside all personal consideration, as to do what ought to be done in this regard to make the work as _useful_ as it can be. I trust you will feel so too. In our horror of gossip, do not let us go to the other extreme, and be too external and cold." In all such relations, it was a great part of her principle and power of action, that she had entire faith in her husband's knowledge of her motives; with the added conviction, that, whatever had been his thoughts and wishes under the burden of the flesh and of disease, he was now looking only at the highest and broadest aspect, the spiritual and eternal issues of every act. Her communion with his mind seems to have been as habitual and actual as it is possible to conceive. Again and again does she refer to it, and expresses regret and pain when a doubt is raised, or a check given to the full, cordial a.s.surance of the "fellows.h.i.+p of the spirit." And her enjoyment of this thought was never troubled, but rather enhanced, by the thought of _another_, with whom the sharer of her affections and her existence was now reunited in heaven. Distinctly does she refer to it, in writing to one of the children of those parents who were now restored to each other. "I never experienced the sense of continued union as fully as now. It may be visionary, but I know it is beneficial. Your mother and your father are as much really present with me, to my consciousness, as if Scripture had told me so, it seems to me. In his case, it is but a continuation of perfect oneness; in hers, it has always been the sense of accountableness, which has aided it."

We attempt no concealment of our wish to exhibit fully this rare and beautiful feature of a Christian's faith and love,--less rare, we would fain believe, in the reality of its existence, than in the courage that avows it. We value it, not only for its own sake, in a connection where it is needed and may be the source of peculiar happiness, but also for the evidence it affords of the power and glory of our religion. We find a letter written on the first anniversary, after Henry Ware's death, of _her_ decease who had been the object of his earliest attachment, and whom every later change, in life and death, endeared the more. The letter was written to a child of that departed mother.

"_Framingham, February 5, 1844._

"MY DEAR JOHN:--

"I always feel, when I get your letters, as if I wanted to sit down and write to you at once, so much have I in my mind that I wish to communicate to you, and so much do I enjoy free communication with you. You may thank your stars that I do not give way to my inclination, for you would have more prosing than you would care to read. I am tempted now to depart from my usual custom of writing only once a fortnight, because I feel so much the want of some one with whom to commune upon the subject which cannot but occupy my mind upon this day. It is the first time for seventeen years that I have not had a delightful conversation with your dear father upon the event of which it is the anniversary. I loved to hear him tell me of your mother, for it helped to strengthen the feeling which I have loved to cherish, the sense of responsibility to her in my connection with her children. And her character was so fine a one, and her early experiences so much like my own, that I always felt that I gained wisdom as well as pleasure in contemplating it....

"I have often wished I could convey to your mind, without the intervention of words, what I felt to be the tenderness of the relation in which I stood to you; for my views and feelings have always been so different from what I find to be general, that it was not to be expected that you should understand them without such communication. From the very commencement of my connection with your father, I have realized the truth of my long-cherished theory, that the strength of one affection does not interfere in the least with the strength of another; we love not one brother or sister or child the less _because_ we have another to love; if there is any difference in the degree, it arises from other causes than number; and I know not why it should not be the same in all relations, where the soul is large enough to take so wide a range. I would thank G.o.d for this special blessing in addition, I might almost say above all others, for without it all others would have had a bitter ingredient. It has been one of the purest sources of happiness, that we could dwell together upon the memory of her who had gone, and feel an equal anxiety and interest in fulfilling her wishes towards _her_ and _our_ children.

"With the love of your Mother."

One other letter we give from Framingham, addressed to the same son, in relation to the first experiences and discouragements of the ministry.

Its plain good sense may be of use to some other beginners,--confirmed as it is by the fact disclosed in it, that some of the strongest minds and most successful ministers have suffered in the same way.

"_Framingham, March 15, 1844._

"MY DEAR JOHN:--

"... I turn now to that for which I most wished to write,--your present anxieties in your professional duties. I cannot indeed, as you say, help you, as _he_ could have done, but O how fully can I sympathize with you! It is to my mind only the reiteration of what I have so often heard from him; even after the ten years' experience which he had had when I first was partaker of his joys and sorrows, he suffered at times as you do now; and the details he has given me of his trials when he was first settled would equal, if not exceed, yours. You may depend upon it, dear John, yours is a common experience of all young ministers who have feeling and sensibility enough to be really good ministers; and you must not be discouraged by thinking your difficulties grow out of peculiar disabilities. I remember hearing a paris.h.i.+oner of Mr. Buckminster say, that he felt so much his incapacity to administer comfort to the sick and afflicted, that it was distressing to see him in a sick-room. I wish you could talk freely with some ministers about it. I have no doubt you would find it more or less so with all, according to their natural temperament. As I have said again and again, it is well to keep one's conscience and sensibilities tender; it is well to realize one's deficiencies to the extent of making us humble and energetic to improve, but not to make us despond or be discouraged; for; 'faint heart never won' the prize of goodness, any more than of the less spiritual objects. I know what it is to feel that more is expected of one than _can_ be accomplished; and it is, I grant, of all things the most distressing. But we must shut our eyes to all such considerations, and go on, looking only to the standard we have in our own minds, striving with all diligence to reach that, and be satisfied with striving, if it be but real, hearty endeavor.... I remember there were some pa.s.sages in Taylor's 'Holy Living,' which used to be a great help to me in your state of mind. I have not the book by me, and cannot quote the words. Fenelon, too, has much comfort for one thus tried.... We forget, in our familiarity with what seem 'commonplaces,' that they really contain the great, fundamental principles from which all strength, all consolation, is to be derived; and of course, when the vision is quickened by present need, they all seem to be worth more than at any other time.

And as to the other point, it is not you that speak,--you are only the medium by which the truths which _G.o.d_ spake are conveyed to the outward ear; you are only His instrument, and, while you are to seek to supply yourself with a full portion from the fountain of all truth, you are to be satisfied to present it as His, not your own; sympathizing as a fellow-Christian, not dictating as a leader and guide. I see no other way in which a young, inexperienced minister can have any comfort in that department of his duties. Many reasons come to me which may account for the greater difficulty in cases of sickness, than in bereavement.

"Truly your Mother."

While looking for a place of permanent residence for herself and family, with an opportunity of doing something for their support, Mrs. Ware received an earnest invitation from a gentleman in Milton, to go there and take the instruction of three little children, in connection with her own, for two or three hours a day. On many accounts, she was inclined to accept this offer at once. But she looked well at all sides of it, and especially at its moral aspect and probable influence upon character. One is struck with her plain and practical, yet comprehensive and exalted view of the question, where so many would have looked only at the immediate and tangible advantage. "There are many things to be weighed before so great a step is taken. Expense is of course a great item, but not the greatest. The influences upon my children must be the first, usefulness the second, and the possibility of living without debt a _sine qua non_ anywhere. Now I am not a very romantic person, and am not disposed to live under any less refining influences than I can help.

But my children are destined to work for their living, and I wish to have them as happy in doing so as right principles and a healthy tone of mind can make them." The result of full reflection was favorable to the plan; and the wisdom of her decision, while it affected all her remaining days, became more and more manifest to the end. From that moment she had a new object, demanding and creating new energies. "I already see how I shall be a great gainer by this plan, in the strength of the stimulus it will offer to mental effort. In fact, I begin to realize that I am more exhausted mentally than I am physically, by the anxieties of the past, and absolutely need the application of salutary mental medicines, as my body would of physical, if it had suffered in proportion."

Thus another change was to be made,--and the last, in a life of change.

It cost an effort. "This first going forth alone, to bear new responsibilities, to make a new experiment, unaided by _his_ strength, una.s.sisted by his wisdom,--this is indeed to realize the loss of his companions.h.i.+p as I have not done before. But that blessed faith! that faith in Him who is 'the strength of the lonely,'--I have a trust that it will be sufficient for me, although I cannot now see how."

A few lines to one of her children, as the last record on that sacred spot, closes the life at Framingham.

"_March 26, 1844._ I think you will like to have a few words written from this room, consecrated as it is to us, by having been the last earthly home of dear father's spirit. This is the last time I shall sit in this spot; and I feel as if all the memories of the past were concentrated in this moment of time.

How much do they tell of the peaceful and holy life which was here closed; how much recall of that triumphant struggle with the weakness of humanity! Dear child, may we never lose the influence of those last days pa.s.sed in this place; may it strengthen, encourage, quicken us to all diligence in our Christian warfare; knowing that, if we strive as he did, we too may enter into that rest which we doubt not he has attained.

_This is a holy hour_,--this leaving the things that are behind, and stepping forward into a new, untried scene of life's discipline,--alone,--and yet not alone, for the Father is with me."

XIII.

LIFE IN MILTON.

"Life in Milton is a very different thing to me, if you are here or elsewhere; but I warn you against letting me cling to your sympathy, as I may if you give me so much of it. I have such a sense of vacuum in life, that I am in danger of leaning upon any one who will let me lean upon him; and my sense of impaired powers is so constant and oppressive, that I need to be driven to action, rather than spared it, to rouse my energies. This is no false modesty; I am sure that I am not myself; I have not yet come to act freely in my new position in life; I am not 'at home,'--shall I ever be in this world?"

Thus did Mary Ware write to a friend and true sympathizer, whose residence in Milton was one of the great inducements that had drawn her to that place. She had been there but a short time, and had not yet risen from the complete exhaustion of body and mind--the effect of years of solicitude, exertion, and suffering--for which she made too little allowance. She had been more than mortal, if she had not felt the effect, especially in the inevitable reaction when the great anxiety and demand ceased. She would not allow that or any thing to plead for her; and her danger was, as we have seen, that of forgetting the designed and necessary sympathy between body and mind. She did not always forget it. Her balanced mind led her to suspect the true cause of the change that had come over her; and she confessed that what she had called "a stroke of mental paralysis" was only physical, though affecting for a time all the powers. Still she was inclined, through its own unconscious influence, to give it a different name. "I doubt not you will smile at my quick sensibility to every thing which is likely to injure myself; and I am deeply convinced that I am growing more and more selfish."

Selfish in moral sensibility! May we not be instructed by this, as by the other aspects of her eventful life? There is good sense in the pleasantry of her words to Emma not long before, in regard to power. "I sometimes wonder whether you and I are doing ourselves or our const.i.tuents justice,--whether we do not attempt too much, to do any thing as it had best be done,--whether we secure sufficient repose of mind to keep our judgments clear, our thoughts bright, and the supply of mental food what it ought to be to enable us to have the best influence of which we are capable."

The first letter which we find dated at Milton discloses much both of the inward and the outward state.

"_Milton, June 11, 1844._

"DEAR N----:

"You have no doubt expected long ago to hear from me. You had a right to do so, and must have wondered at my silence, as I could not but know how much you must wish to hear of our new life. But I have purposely forborne to write; I could not have addressed myself to you, without uttering all that was pa.s.sing in my mind and heart; and so perfectly chaotic has been the state of my feelings, that I was sure it was best to wait until time and experience had arranged and quieted them, before I trusted myself to the slightest expression. It was as if the fountains of the great deep of my soul were broken up, and the waters were overwhelming every power and faculty. I thought I had antic.i.p.ated the whole amount of suffering which my isolation was to bring to me, and vainly imagined that I was prepared to meet it with a firm mind; but nothing but experience can picture the agonizing sense of desolation, which entering upon a new life, unaided by the sympathy that has been so long the light of life, brings to me. Nothing in life can come near it, unless it be the homesickness of a little child, when for the first time it finds itself in new scenes without its mother's presence. At Framingham I was but living out the plan of life which we had formed together; the sense of a.s.sociation was not for a moment lost, and it was comparatively easy to realize the continued presence of the spirit. But on leaving that home, I seemed for the first time to be cast upon the world alone, and every moment's experience in Boston and elsewhere only increased this feeling, until it reached its height in the necessity of forming here a new plan of existence, under circ.u.mstances of great responsibility,--alone.

I used to think I felt all of loneliness that could be felt, in that little chamber in Pearl Street, and that humble cottage in Osmotherly; but that was nothing to this. I had then never known what perfect sympathy was; I could not understand as I now do its loss. I have been a puzzle to myself; but I still am sure that I would not change, one iota, the decree of Heaven....

"We came hither the last week in April, and find everything pleasant, and every body kind. As far as I can yet see, I think I antic.i.p.ated very truly the pros and cons of the case, not excepting my own incapacity for the employment. One would laugh at the idea of a woman of forty-five doubting her capacity to teach children their letters; but the intellectual is the least part of the concern to my view, and I still think I have no tact for the education of children. The little I can do for my own is through the connection which nature has established, not a power of my own acquisition. I have determined to try the experiment for a year, and the result only can decide the question of the expediency of pursuing it another year. I must consider the good of my own children first, of course.... My time is entirely filled, from early rising to very late sitting. The only time I can take for writing is at night when all are in bed, and I ought to be; for the constant bustle of children wearies my head much.

"Yours, as ever, lovingly.

"M.L.W."

So far from mental infirmity or loss, the mind of Mrs. Ware was never, we should say, more active or energetic than at this time, as soon as she was wholly rested. It is obvious, indeed, that the growth of the mind had kept pace in her, as in many, with the growth of the affections and higher aspirations. In such a character and life, mental and spiritual are nearly synonymous. The spiritual had been always in exercise, sharply disciplined and expanded. And thus chiefly, thus only, we may almost say, had she advanced mentally. For she was not a student.

No period of her life had permitted her to be an extensive or habitual reader. Persons, and not books, events and experiences, were her study.

She lost no opportunity of direct instruction, but she made it subservient, or rather concomitant, with other engagements and positive duty. And no better mental discipline, perhaps, could she have had, in connection with the communion she enjoyed with the best minds, and the lessons of her lot. We see the effect, and the progress, continually.