stead of the
self-dependent self-governed being you have known me," she writes to a
friend, "I have learned to look to another for guidance and
happiness." She is "as happy as mortal can be." Indeed it was almost
too much for earth. "It has made me," she says, "more willing to leave
the world and enjoy the happiness of heaven than I ever thought I
should be. Strange that a thing from which of all others, I should
have expected the very opposite effect, should have done this."

The year following the marriage of these saintly lovers,--one can call
them nothing less,--was one of exceeding happiness and of immense
activity to both. It is not said, but we can see that each must have
been a tonic to the other. Considerate persons felt a scruple about
taking any of the time of their pastor's wife. "Mrs. Ware," said one,
"at home and abroad, is the busiest woman of my acquaintance," and
others felt that way. Before the year ended, Mrs. Ware had a boy baby
of her own to increase her occupations and her happiness. It lived a
few bright years, long enough to become a very attractive child and to
give a severe wrench to her heart when it left her. This experience
seems to have a certain fitness in a life in which every joy was to
bring sorrow and every sorrow, by sheer will, was to be turned to joy.

Of Mr. Ware, it is said that this first year "was one of the most
active and also, to all human appearance, one of the most successful
of his ministry." He put more work into his sermons, gave increased
attention to the details of his parish, delivered a course of
lectures, and undertook other enterprises, some of which are
specified; and, during a temporary absence of Mrs. Ware, wrote her
that he had hoped he had turned over a new leaf, "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."

But man is mortal, and there is a limit to human endurance. Mr. Ware
could not lash himself into greater activity; but he was in good
condition to be ill. In a journey from Northampton, he was prostrated
by inflammation of the lungs, with hemorrhages, and after several
weeks, Mrs. Ware, herself far from well, went to him and finally
brought him home. This was the beginning of what became a very regular
annual experience. I met a lady who was brought up on the Memoirs of
Mary L. Ware, and who briefly put what had impressed her most, in this
way: