"Boston, July 22, 1827.
"Dear Nancy:—
"Your letter was given me this morning in meeting, and has just been read in one of the few quiet moments which fall to my lot, and one of the most peaceful and refreshing; and I am rejoiced to add to its pleasure, by turning to my little table and writing to you. I have indeed longed to give you a peep into my almost too delightful home; but it has been entirely beyond possibility to find an opportunity to write. How much I wish you could look in upon us, and see the whole detail of affairs from Monday morning to Saturday night, and that still more delightful season, the holy Sabbath, I need not tell you. But I fear you will never fully understand it, unless you can make yourself invisible and come among us....
"We came on in the same stage, next day, and found all in readiness, perfect readiness, for us; and made so, too, by the efforts of our friends, which added not a little to the comfort. The ladies of the parish would not let Miss B—— hire workwomen, but came and did things with their own hands. All looked more comfortable and neat and appropriate than I expected, as I had picked matters up with no small degree of carelessness. Miss B—— and Mrs. B—— were on the spot to receive us; and oh! Nancy, to enter one's own home, in which was to be known all of experience which might be hid in the future,—to come to it, too, as I did, after so long floating on a changeful sea,—and to come to it under all the interesting circumstances of grateful joy and fearful responsibilities,—it was a moment not to be described or forgotten.
"H—— told you of our Sunday. The transfer to a new place of worship was trying and affecting; but I forgot the people, and did not suffer because every eye in the house might be directed towards me. I need not add, that the excitement in church is much more than it ever was to me, though not what it will be when I am more at home there. Sunday gave me truly the rest of the soul. I arranged that it should be a quiet day. We prepared dinner on Saturday, and locked up the house; Mr. Ware in his study after breakfast, and the children with me, reading and studying. They were easily interested, and, the excitement of common days being removed, they were more as I wished, and gave me much pleasure. So it was at noon; and at night they go to their father, and I have my own hour of peaceful thought. And then in the evening we are all together, talking or reading or singing. It is realizing so exactly what I have always wished to have the day, and what I never before knew, that I enjoy it doubly. A friend, perhaps, drops in and joins our singing.
"... All classes have come to see me, even the poorest, and seem quite disposed to be pleased. I have said distinctly that I wish ours to be entirely a social intercourse, and they take me at my word. I have not told you of my own private joys, nor can I in this little space. That they are great, immensely great, you can believe; and even with the ——. August 16. Here I was interrupted more than a fortnight ago, and do not now remember what was to have been the close of the sentence. I might add, that I feel it happy for me, that, with all these blessings and pleasant circumstances, I have so much of responsibility and anxiety as will effectually prevent my head being turned by it. But I have not room for further detail. Yours ever.
"Mary."
The sense of "responsibility" just referred to might be called one of Mary's characteristics. And it had this peculiarity, if no other, that she felt it to be a blessing rather than a burden. Indeed, in cases where others would speak, as almost all do speak, of "the burden of responsibility," she used the other and brighter word. As, at this time, she said, in a note to a friend,—"My fate is a singular one in this respect,—that, whatever may be the variety of the scene, it is always filled with the extremes of blessing and responsibility; and I know not that I ever felt more fully the blessing of responsibility than now. Had I not great and almost overpowering duties and cares, my head would almost of necessity be dizzy with the bright prospect before me. As it is, I rejoice with a serious, but most grateful spirit,—a sober bliss certainly, but not the less valuable." There was one utterance of her "sober bliss" of which we have not spoken as we might, for it was habitual with her through life. We refer to her love of singing, and her use of sacred hymns in the family, which began, as we have seen, with the first Sabbath in her new home, and, as we are to see, ended only with life. One who lived with her just before her marriage tells us how much she indulged and enjoyed in this devotional, but cheerful melody, for "it seemed in her to be truly singing hymns of praise." She would sing after withdrawing for the night, at the close of the busiest and most distracting days; and sometimes, "after having actually retired, she would think of a charming tune, always selecting the most beautiful words, and joined by Miss K——, they would enjoy an hour in this way." Distinct are the echoes which linger in many hearts still, from her soft and expressive voice,—the voice of the soul!
The biographer of Henry Ware says that the year of which we are speaking, that which followed this second marriage, "was one of the most active, and also, to all human appearance, one of the most successful, of his ministry." It was marked by the efficiency of his labors, increased attention to his preaching, a growing congregation, and many proofs of favor with the community in general. He repeated, that winter, and enlarged, his Lectures on the Geography of Palestine; and, beside his Bible class and vestry service, his house was open to his parish every Tuesday evening for social intercourse and religious conversation. In this last, as in other parochial ways, Mrs. Ware was an efficient helper. Nothing could be more to her taste, or in unison with her best powers, nothing certainly could contribute more to her deepest joys, than this whole manner of life. If we may not believe that she was reserved for this very position, we may confidently say that she could have filled no other with more ease, more energy, or happier results. We attempt no enumeration of the relations and offices in which she endeavored to serve her husband's society, or the larger community. Boston is not more remarkable for its noble charities, than for the noble women who find sphere and activity enough in devising or directing so many of those charities. Mrs. Ware sought no publicity or distinction in these movements, and was less prominent, perhaps less efficient, than many others. Comparisons she seldom attempted, and never made them a rule of conduct. Her rule seems to have been, to refuse no service asked of her for which she was competent, if it interfered not with any duty to her family or parish. From the opportunities she had enjoyed and improved, when abroad, of visiting various charitable institutions, she was frequently consulted in regard to them, and she sent to England for plans and hints. She was a directress of a Charity Sewing School; and always regretted that sewing was not taught in the public schools, and made essential to a complete education with every class. In all her views and efforts there was that practical good sense, which is better than the best theories or brightest abstractions. Yet she did not despise theory and abstraction, nor suppose that either she or her own generation had learned all there was to be learned. Indeed, we use no great boldness in saying, that, without the slightest tendency to reckless innovation or foolish experiment, there never was man or woman more interested in reform, or anxious for progress, or fearless for truth, than Henry and Mary Ware.
Of Mary's ideas of the reward which the benevolent and the good should desire, an amusing illustration has been given us by one who heard the remark at the time. A motion being made in a charitable Society for a "vote of thanks for the minister's prayer," Mrs. Ware said to a lady near her, "While I was secretary of the Society for the Employment of Female Poor, I never recorded votes of thanks. I thought members should do all they could, and when that was done, they might make their courtesy to each other!"
In March, 1828, Mrs. Ware, after the labors and anxieties of the first winter, made a visit to Mrs. Hall in Northampton, where she wrote her first letter to her husband, containing expressions whose full import we cannot know, but whose intimations of self-distrust and increasing sense of responsibility many will understand.
"Northampton, March 19, 1828.
"Dear Henry:—
"No letter from you yesterday; but I did not expect one, knowing that Saturday and Sunday are busy days. I feel sure of one to-day, however, and while waiting its arrival with all the patience I can summon, I cannot please myself better than by talking a little to you; and if I am willing to believe that in this, as in many other matters, our tastes may correspond, pity my delusion, but do not destroy it,—it is the brightest dream of life to me.
"I find it is a very different thing to be lone Polly Pickard, beating about the world, conscious that it could not interfere with any one's comfort or convenience if she were out of it, and to call myself Mary Ware, with all the appendages which belong to her,—the cares and comforts, the duties and privileges, from which she cannot disconnect herself. It is almost incredible to me that a short year should have made one who was before utterly reckless of danger so careful and cautious,—I had almost said, anxious. And, oh! what a lesson it has taught me! I thought I was deeply sensible of my danger; I thought I realized fully the strength of the temptation which assailed me to rest satisfied with my earthly blessings, and to depend upon them entirely for my happiness. But this little separation has shown me the state of my mind in a truer light than I ever saw it before, and compelled me to confess, with deep sorrow, that my trial was greater than I could bear. I had borne sorrow and deprivation, loneliness and calumny, unmoved, erect, fearless,—but had sunk before the greater trial of satisfied affection. May this knowledge do me real good! And if it should please our kind Father to restore us to each other, let us strive with greater zeal to conquer this enemy. While we rejoice, as we must, in the blessings of His providence in calling us together, may we use our comforts without so abusing them as shall make them instruments of evil instead of good to our souls.
"Do not think I am nervous or inclined to croak. I am perfectly well, and while I look at these things seriously, I feel a cheerful courage to contend manfully, nothing doubting that strength will be given in aid of all right effort, and that all these trials, if rightly used, will be so many additional aids in attaining that heavenly-mindedness which alone can satisfy.
"All blessings attend you, dearest Henry. All send love. Your own
"Mary."
Expressions of self-distrust and extreme discouragement seem strangely unintelligible to many minds, when they come from those who are thought better than others, and are always striving and advancing. Yet these are the very persons to feel discouraged, because of the high mark they set for themselves. And the fact that they are thought better than others, with their keen insight of their own failings, is more apt to mortify and depress than to exalt the humble and earnest spirit. Never, perhaps, was Henry Ware doing more for others or himself than in the winter and spring of the year we are reviewing. Yet in a letter to his wife, written a few weeks after that which we just gave from her, we find the expression of a dissatisfaction with himself, even greater than hers. It was written on his birthday, and shows also his sense of the great blessing which the last year had brought him. "I never yet was satisfied with my mode of life for one year,—perhaps I may except one. But since that I have been growing worse and worse. I did think soberly, that, when I was settled down with you, I should turn over a new leaf; and I began; but, by foolish degrees, I have got back to all my accustomed carelessness and waste of powers, and am doing nothing in proportion to what I ought to do. Yet other people tell me I do a great deal, and I am stupid enough to take their judgment instead of my own.... These, dear Mary, are the morning reflections with which I open my thirty-fifth year. "Will the year be any better for them? I hope so, but I fear not; for I do not feel the weight and solemnity of these considerations as they ought to be felt."
Different, indeed, from the anticipations of either did the opening year prove. The season which had been the first of Mary's coöperation with Mr. Ware, was the last of his active service as a pastor. He had overtasked his energies, and that change was impending which affected the whole of their remaining work in life. On his return from Northampton, where he had been preaching, in the month of May, 1828, he was arrested at Ware by a violent fever, which was followed by extreme prostration, and confined him there several weeks. His wife was in Boston, and in a state of health that made travelling neither easy nor wholly safe. But she wrote so persuasively to the physician for leave to join her husband, that it could not be refused, and she was soon at his side. Under date of June 16th, she writes from Ware: "How grateful and happy I am, to be here! All the few feelings of doubt about the expediency of the jaunt, which others' fears forced upon my notice, have vanished, and my own strong convictions that it was best have become perfect certainty. With the unspeakable satisfaction of being with my husband, so unexpected to him, and scarcely hoped for by me, what can there be to dread which can be a balance for such blessings?"
As soon as Mr. Ware was well enough, they went on to Worcester, where they remained six weeks. And there, on the 13th of July, Mrs. Ware's first child was born; a son, who lived but few years, yet long enough to leave a deep impression of beauty and promise. Toward the last of August, Mr. Ware set out alone on a horseback journey for his health, riding through New Hampshire and Vermont to Montreal and Quebec, and returning in October. During the first part of this interval, his wife and infant child were at lodgings in Newton, where her next letter is dated, referring in the opening to a poetical epistle which she had received from her husband. That epistle, as published at length in the Memoir of Mr. Ware,[3] many will remember; but its tenderness, and its allusions to their common experience at this period, will furnish an excuse, if we insert a part of it, as a preface to the letter which follows.
"Dear Mary, 't is the fourteenth day
Since I was parted from your side;
And still upon my lengthening way
In solitude I ride;
But not a word has come to tell
If those I left at home are well.