The first long religious visit of Elias Hicks lasted ten weeks. At that time there were four little people in the Hicks home, from eight-year-old Martha to two-year-old Elizabeth, who died that year, while Phebe was born after the return of her father from his Philadelphia trip. Several of the other extended journeys were made while the children of the family were of an age requiring care. Of course this laid labor and responsibility on the wife and mother. These she bore without complaining and, we may be sure, with executive ability of no mean order.
It was a time when women were not expected to be either the intellectual peers or companions of their husbands, and we cannot justly apply the measurements and standards of to-day, to the women of a century ago. Men of the Elias Hicks type, meeting their fellows in public assemblies and ministering to them, traveling widely and forming many friendships, whether in the Society of Friends or out of it, are likely to be praised, if not petted, while their wives, less known, labor on unappreciated. Such a woman was Jemima Hicks. To her, and all like her, the lasting gratitude of the sons of men is due.
CHAPTER X.
Letters to his Wife.
In the long absences from home, which the religious visits of Elias Hicks involved, as a matter of course many of the domestic burdens fell heavily upon his wife. In so far as he could atone for his absence by sending epistles home he did so. In fact, for the times, he was a voluminous letter writer.
It was not a time of rapid transit. Distances now spanned in a few hours demanded days and weeks when Elias Hicks was active in the ministry. At the best, but a few letters could reach home from the traveler absent for several months.
In the main the letters which Elias sent to his beloved Jemima were of the ardent lover-like sort. It seemed impossible, however, for him to avoid the preacherly function in even his most tender and domestic missives. Exhortations to practical righteousness, and to the maintenance of what he considered the Friendly fundamentals, were plentifully mixed with his most private and personal concerns.
In going over this correspondence one wishes for more description, relating to the human side of the traveler's experiences. A man who several times traversed what was really the width of habitable America, and mostly either in a wagon or on horseback, must have seen much that was interesting, and many times humorous and even pathetic. But few of these things moved Elias Hicks, or diverted him from what he considered the purely gospel character of his mission.