These discourses were delivered with a solemnity, earnestness, and simple eloquence peculiarly his own, and were accompanied by gesture and tone of voice that made them intensely striking. No one who heard these addresses could ever forget them.
At the close of the first ten years of work in Tunbridge Wells came the great sorrow of his life.
Mrs. Hoare had been his truest help in the family and the parish, bringing up her ten children with wise and loving care, ruling her household and holding open house for every guest, and yet holding mothers’ meetings and visiting the sick and dying of the large parish of Holy Trinity (which then included the whole town). No one ever saw her in a hurry, none who wanted advice were turned away, and not a single duty seemed ever forgotten. In 1862 alarming symptoms appeared. Medical advice was taken; treatment and rest were tried, but in vain; the disease rapidly progressed, and after a cure was pronounced to be beyond medical skill, Mrs. Hoare resumed such of her parish work as was still within the compass of her strength, with the remark that, since rest was useless and her time was now short, she must work so long as power lasted! The loss of such a wife was indeed a deep sorrow, and the entries in his journal testify to the grief that wrung the husband’s heart.
On July 27th, 1863, she passed away, her last words calmly uttered—“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
The journal ends with her last message to her children: “I shall look for you at heaven’s gate.”
A few months afterwards Mr. Hoare wrote a touching and beautiful sketch of his beloved wife entitled “Sacred Memorials”; it was not published, but had a large circulation, finding its way even beyond this country.
The one great consolation in this overwhelming sorrow was, however, able to uphold him. The same truths which had strengthened her for an active life sustained her in suffering, and gave her unruffled peace to the end. The peace, the presence, and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ gave power to the faint and made him strong in the Lord. For twenty-four years they had worked side by side, and in the thirty-one years that remained he sometimes gently spoke of her as present though unseen, and joining in prayer for his work.
Towards the close of the year, when sending a line of welcome to his eldest daughter on her return home, he closes with these words, which have a pathetic power when read in the light of the recent bereavement:—
“T. W., November 27th, 1863.
“If there is so much pleasure in meeting those dear to us after these short separations, what will be the joy of the great reunion at the coming of the Lord!”