And when his last hour had nearly come, and
his wife and children waited to receive his parting embrace,
she, brave to the end, that she might not add to his distress,
concealed the agony of her grief under a seeming composure;
and they parted, after a tender adieu, in silence. After
she had gone, Lord William said, "Now the bitterness of
death is passed!" (16)
We have spoken of the influence of a wife upon a man's character.
There are few men strong enough to resist the influence of a lower
character in a wife. If she do not sustain and elevate what is
highest in his nature, she will speedily reduce him to her own
level. Thus a wife may be the making or the unmaking of the best
of men. An illustration of this power is furnished in the life of
Bunyan. The profligate tinker had the good fortune to marry, in
early life, a worthy young woman of good parentage. "My mercy,"
he himself says, "was to light upon a wife whose father and mother
were accounted godly. This woman and I, though we came together
as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as a
dish or a spoon betwixt us both), yet she had for her part, 'The
Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which
her father had left her when he died." And by reading these and
other good books; helped by the kindly influence of his wife,
Bunyan was gradually reclaimed from his evil ways, and led gently
into the paths of peace.
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