Bowes that her last letter had found him
closeted with three, and he and the three women were all in
tears. (2) Out of all, however, he had chosen two. "GOD," he
writes to them, "BROUGHT US IN SUCH FAMILIAR ACQUAINTANCE,
THAT YOUR HEARTS WERE INCENSED AND KINDLED WITH A SPECIAL
CARE OVER ME, AS A MOTHER USETH TO BE OVER HER NATURAL CHILD;
and my heart was opened and compelled in your presence to be
more plain than ever I was to any." (3) And out of the two
even he had chosen one, Mrs. Anne Locke, wife to Mr. Harry
Locke, merchant, nigh to Bow Kirk, Cheapside, in London, as
the address runs. If one may venture to judge upon such
imperfect evidence, this was the woman he loved best. I have
a difficulty in quite forming to myself an idea of her
character. She may have been one of the three tearful
visitors before alluded to; she may even have been that one
of them who was so profoundly moved by some passages of Mrs.
Bowes's letter, which the Reformer opened, and read aloud to
them before they went. "O would to God," cried this
impressionable matron, "would to God that I might speak with
that person, for I perceive there are more tempted than I."
(4) This may have been Mrs. Locke, as I say; but even if it
were, we must not conclude from this one fact that she was
such another as Mrs. Bowes. All the evidence tends the other
way.
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