An hour later he came back. The light of a settled purpose was in his face. All he said was:
“I have decided to go to Newark. We will talk it over to-morrow morning.”
He slept soundly that night, for the first time in a week. So did not I!
XXXVI
MIGRATION NORTHWARD—ACCLIMATION—ALBERT EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, IN NEW YORK—POLITICAL PORTENTS
One who had known my husband well for fifty years, wrote of him soon after his translation: “More than any other man I ever knew, he had a genius for friendship.”
This testimony is amply supported by the fact that he kept, to his journey’s end, the friends whose loving confidence he gained during the five years of his Charlotte pastorate. Those who loved him in his youth loved him to the end—or so many of them as remained to see the beautiful close of his long day.
We left our Parsonage home and the parish, which was our first love, laden with proofs of the deep affection inspired by devoted service in behalf of a united constituency, and the rare personal gifts of the man who suffered, in the parting, a wrench as sharp as that which made the separation a grief to each member of the flock he was leaving. It was a just tribute to his integrity of purpose and conscientiousness that the purity of his motives in deciding upon the step were never questioned. Leading men in the church said openly that they could not have hoped to keep him, after his talents and his ability to fill worthily a wider field were recognized in the world outlying this section of the Great Vineyard. They had foreseen that the parting must come, and that before long. He was a growing man, and the sphere they offered was narrow.
It was in no spirit of Christian philosophy that I dismantled the nest among the oaks, and packed my Lares and Penates with a fair show of cheerfulness. Inly, I was in high revolt for a full week after the die was cast. The final acceptance of the inevitable, and the steadfast setting of my face Northward, ensued upon the persuasion that the one and only thing for a sensible, God-fearing woman to do was to make the very best of what no human power could avert.