Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-06-26
HIS WIFE.

The wide hall was sombre with MIN
isterial broadcloth, but here and there
bit of gray ribbon betokened the
presence of a woman or a business
suit suggested member of the laity
The stir and whispered conversation
which usually precede a business
meeting were noticeably absent. The
| gathering had met for that tenderest
and most pathetic incident of Meth
odist Conference week, the annual
memorial meeting, when one after
| another of the assembled ministers
pays tribute to the memory of those
who have passed to their reward dur
ing the year. Death had claimed four
members of the Conference this year,
and four of the brethren who had
known them best gave, each in turn,
the brief history of their lives. Then
one of the presiding elders arose and
began to speak.
''It is my privilege" he said, ''to
offer word of loving tribute to the
memory of Mary Watson Blake, wife
of our brother, John Wesley Blake.''
At the first mention of the name, a
little stoop- shouldered man near the
centre of the house bowed his head
lower and lower until the forehead
rested on his hand. The simple story
which the presiding elder had begun
to tell was in large measure the
story of the little mans own life. How
the past came back to him as he lis
tened!
He thought of his first meeting with
Mary Watson, while he was still a
student in the seminary; of her prom
Use to be his wife, made on the day Of
his ordination. ALI his life he had
wondered how it was that she had
been content to accept the little he
had to offer-the hard lot of minis
ter's life.
And it had been hard lot. Uncom-
plainingly she had gone with him from
village to village with never any per-
manent abidingplace; always cour-
teous and tactful, even with the most
uncongenial and stiff necked parish
toner's; living constantly in the bright
light of public scrutiny and criticism;
annually making his pitifully small
salary perform miracles; keeping open
house for visiting clergymen and
evangelists; dispensing cheerful
hospitality to every itinerant canvas
ser for religious books-these, he
thought with heavy heart, were the
things which had made up the life of
Mary Watson Blake.
The little preacher was honest with
himself. He knew that he had never
been more than feeble rush light in
the church, and that his appointments
poor as they had been, would have
been p oorer still but for her who had
been SO faithful helper and had SO
ably supplemented his preaching with
her personality.
'EAnd this is all,'' he thought bitter
ly. 'sTen minutes of eulogy for life
time of such service. Oh if they only
knew what she was and what she
did!"
: The voice of the presiding elder
died away and another voice broke IN
upon the stiffness. A man was speak
ing when some of those present re-
cognized as the owner of the WOODEN
mills at Belden.
s'Ten years ago. he said, ga new
pastor came with his wife to the
church in our town. had lost my
own wife three years before that, and
since her death my son had fallen in
to bad company, and sunk lower and
lower, until his very name had be-
come disgrace to me and a reproach
to the town. In some way, I cannot
tell you how, this new minister's wife
gained hold upon him. She lifted
him out of his degradation, out of
himself, and put the heart of man
into him again. 1t due, under God,
to Mary Watson Blake that I can say
to you all today, This, my son, was
dead and is alive again.
In the hush which followed, the
gathering began to dispense, but be-
fore the little bent figure of the
preacher had reached the door, two
other figures, elbowing their way
through the crowd, met him. They
we're both men in the prime of life,
and as they passed out with their old
friend. each had something to saw of