“As she then stepped into the room, caused me to ask her if it were so. She answered in the affirmative; on the back of which I replied: ‘Do you think you could accept of such an object as me?’ She made no answer, but retired from the room.”
When about going away, he remarked that he was going a circuit of a year and a half in the South.
“If during that time,” he said to her, “you live and remain single, and find no one that you like better than you do me, and would be willing to give me up twelve months out of thirteen, or three years out of four, to travel, and that in foreign lands, and never say, ‘Do not go to your appointment,’—for if you should stand in my way I should pray God to remove you, which I believe he would answer, and if I find no one that I like better than I do you—perhaps something farther may be said on the subject.”
An ardent popping of the question, surely! But she waited, and they were married, and were happy. He was a very devoted husband, subsidiary to his appointments. He was away preaching when both their children were born, and on one occasion left his wife among strangers in England, ill, so that her death was hourly expected, and their infant child also being ill and dying in another place, for a chance to preach. Neither parent attended the child’s funeral. Peggy never murmured. She was as consecrated to his work as he—perhaps more unselfishly so. Minister’s wives often are, I have heard.
Applying to Lorenzo Dow a purely intellectual analysis, I should say he was a man born with a morbidly nervous temperament, which only ceaseless activity could satisfy. Rest was physical and mental poison to him. This helps explain his extraordinary energy. Egotism took the form of conceit for haranguing and influencing masses of people, and of believing himself competent to fill a world-wide field. Consciousness of his own weakness and supersensitiveness led him to shrink from the restraint and criticisms and evade the duties of church affiliation. He wanted the notoriety and gratification of ministerial life, without its responsibilities; he could not take the responsibility of becoming the founder of a sect.
In short, as I read Lorenzo Dow, he had a mania for haranguing people, and he gratified it in the easiest and most popular way then open to an uncultured, lawless, irresponsible nature, with strong natural tendencies toward religious exercises. If Dow had been born seventy-five years later, he would have made a first-rate demagogue and communist, but it is doubtful if he could have got any one to hear him preach in these days. He served the time and purpose well, and reached hundreds whom perhaps no one else could have influenced.
His eccentric behavior was due partly to lack of education and culture, and partly to physical causes, viz.: A morbid, nervous organization, which could only keep keyed up by excitement. His seeming violence and extravagance were probably assumed at first to cover diffidence and sensitiveness, and afterward became habits of pulpit address. He was affectionate, honest, sincere and brave.
