The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[170] keeping with his character. ‘She consented,’ he says, ‘to three conditions of our marriage. 1st. That I should have nothing that before our marriage was hers; that I, who wanted no earthly supplies, might not seem to marry her from selfishness. 2d. That she would so alter her affairs that I might be entangled in no lawsuits. 3d. That she should expect none of my time which my ministerial work should require.’

As was natural, the wits of the Court had their jokes upon this singular marriage; and many of his best friends regretted it, when they called to mind what he had written in favor of ministerial celibacy, at a time when, as he says, ‘he thought to live and die a bachelor.’ But Baxter had no reason to regret the inconsistency of his precept and example. How much of the happiness of the next twenty years of his life resulted from his union with a kind and affectionate woman he has himself testified, in his simple and touching Breviate of the Life of the late Mrs. Baxter. Her affections were so ardent that her husband confesses his fear that he was unable to make an adequate return, and that she must have been disappointed in him in consequence. He extols her pleasant conversation, her active benevolence, her disposition to aid him in all his labors, and her noble forgetfulness of self, in ministering to his comfort in sickness and imprisonment. ‘She was the meetest helper I could have had in the world,’ is his language. ‘If I spoke harshly or sharply, it offended her. If I carried it (as I am apt) with too much negligence of ceremony or humble compliment ’