"Your husband," he
answers, "is dear to me for that he is a man indued with some
good gifts, but more dear for that he is your husband.
Charity moveth me to thirst his illumination, both for his
comfort and for the trouble which you sustain by his
coldness, which justly may be called infidelity." He wishes
her, however, not to hope too much; he can promise that his
prayers will be earnest, but not that they will be effectual;
it is possible that this is to be her "cross" in life; that
"her head, appointed by God for her comfort, should be her
enemy." And if this be so, well, there is nothing for it;
"with patience she must abide God's merciful deliverance,"
taking heed only that she does not "obey manifest iniquity
for the pleasure of any mortal man." (4) I conceive this
epistle would have given a very modified sort of pleasure to
the Clerk-Register, had it chanced to fall into his hands.
Compare its tenor - the dry resignation not without a hope of
merciful deliverance therein recommended - with these words
from another letter, written but the year before to two
married women of London: "Call first for grace by Jesus, and
thereafter communicate with your faithful husbands, and then
shall God, I doubt not, conduct your footsteps, and direct
your counsels to His glory." (5) Here the husbands are put
in a very high place; we can recognise here the same hand
that has written for our instruction how the man is set above
the woman, even as God above the angels.
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