aded for
her husband's release so long as she could do so with honour; but when
she saw that all was in vain, she collected her courage, and strove by
her example to strengthen the resolution of her dear lord. 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!"
[2016]

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 [20not 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.

Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, was far advanced in life
before he met the excellent woman who eventually became his wife. He was
too laboriously occupied in his vocation of minister to have any time to
spare for courtship; and his marriage was, as in the case of Calvin, as
much a matter of convenience as of love. Miss Charlton, the lady of his
choice, was the owner of property in her own right; but lest it should
be thought that Baxter married her for "covetousness," he requested,
first, that she should give over to her relatives the principal part of
her fortune, and that "he should have nothing that before her marriage
was hers;" secondly, that she should so arrange her affairs "as that
he might be entangled in no lawsuits;" and, thirdly, "that she should
expect none of the time that his minist