"I have spent this evening in our old church at the North End, for the first time upon this occasion since I lived in Sheafe Street, when Henry preached; and as I look back upon the experience I have had since that time, it seems to me I have little hope of ever being what I ought to be, when all this has had so little effect.
"_January 9._ Yesterday, heard Dr. Channing preach and administer the communion, the latter of which is more to me than even his best sermons, so great is the power of association.... I find I almost lose sight of some of my best _pleasures_, when I have been for any length of time free from great _trial_. In truth, all this nomenclature is wrong. Ease and prosperity make our greatest trial; we are never more blessed than when we are said to be in affliction. It is remarkable, that not one year has passed since I began this custom of recording to you these mercies, that there has not been some striking one on the list. What is to come this year? God knows; and in this I can rest satisfied. Henry's eyes are useless, and mine still in requisition; of course I do nothing else, except at odd moments, when he is away or asleep.
Mr. Ware's severe illness at this period seems to have been a crisis; for the two following years, both with him and her, were probably the best of all they passed at Cambridge, in their freedom from sickness, their ability to work, and the amount of their work. We connect them in this respect, for it is not easy to separate their spheres and agencies, even in regard to his professional labors. Of course, we mean to imply nothing as to any special mental aid, for no woman ever made less pretension, or less attempt, at any thing more than could be done by every sensible and interested mind. But so completely did she enter into all his engagements, so constantly did she watch the degree of his strength and the effect of his exertions, and so often was she called to assist him directly, as reader or writer, from the failure of his eyes and his frequent debility, that her coöperation was not wholly a figure of speech. Then, too, her heart was as much enlisted in the welfare and success of his pupils in the Theological School, as it had been in his Boston parish. All that she had a right to know, she did know; all that a woman and friend could do for those pupils, in sympathy, counsel, encouragement, or personal aid, she invariably did. A son, then a member of the School, says of her: "As a Professor's wife, I do not think father's heart was more in the School than was hers. I suspect she knew every thing about it, and was his constant assistant and counsellor. How much directly she had to do with the young men, I cannot say. They were encouraged to be at the house, came to tea constantly by invitation, and in all sicknesses she cared for them; especially M---- and B----, who were brought to the house, and C----, and also an undergraduate, sick. She did what she could for the destitute among them; and I remember her getting shirts made, &c., &c. I remember, too, the delicate way in which I was sent, on a cold New Year's evening, with a large bundle to an undergraduate who was friendless and penniless." There are others, and many, who could tell much more; and whose recollections of her delicate sympathy, generous aid, and unpretending goodness, will hardly suffer them to speak of her, but with silent tears. They felt her _moral_ power; and all the more, because she seemed utterly unconscious of it. "Never have I been with her," writes one, who says he had but a common acquaintance, "no matter how short the time or slight the occasion, without the feeling of greater elevation of soul. I never knew one of whom this were truer. Virtue came out of her." And he only adds, of one connected with him, "Even now the thought of Mrs. Ware moves her more than the presence of any living friend."