The pastor's wife Author:James Sherman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. HER MARRIAGE AND RESIDENCE AT READING. With a lovely person, a cultivated mind, an amiable temper, fascinating manners, and fervent piety, it ... more »is wonderful that Martha remained single till her 29th year. It will readily be supposed this was not because her heart and hand had been unsolicited. Numbers had sought that privilege of herself and of her father, but something had always occurred to prevent the acceptance of any offer, or the winning of so susceptible and tender a heart. How can her now mourning widower sufficiently admire and adore the kindness of that Providence which led his steps as a stranger to her habitation, and made him, who had fewer pretensions than many who had previously sought her favor, the man of her preference and of her confidence. If a "prudent wife is from the Lord," surely he must see the divine hand most remarkably in this precious gift; for in his deliberate judgment, and making all abatement for affectionate remembrance, and the superior estimation in which relatives and friends who are removed from us by death are held, there could scarcely be in this sinful world a being nearer perfection. And he believes that he stands not alone in this judgment; but that it is the sober conviction of all who knew her most intimately, and who at particular seasons have spontaneously borne similar testimony. She must have known, in accepting a widowerwith three children, and commencing life as a wife and a mother, that she burthened herself with responsible cares and duties, from which she had the opportunity, had she so determined, of being free; but the sphere of usefulness in a large, united and flourishing congregation, situated in a lovely country town, and among a people where vital religion abounded, no doubt had great influence on her...« less