helping a pastor in Wisconsin, it was thirty-six degrees below zero the
day I left, and I had another engagement in Maine for the next week. I
_was_ very little at home, and my children did need a mother. I had not
thought whether I needed a wife or not; I was too much taken up with the
Lord's work to think about it. But that day I asked the Lord to find me a
wife. After praying about it three days it came to me that a certain
young lady was the one the Lord had chosen. Like Peter, I drew back and
said, 'Not so, Lord.' My first wife was a continual spiritual help to me;
she was the Lord's own messenger every day; but this lady, although a
church member, was not particularly spiritually minded. Several years
before she had been my pupil in Hebrew and Greek. I admired her
intellectual gifts, but if a brother in the ministry had asked me if she
would be a helpful wife to him, I should have hesitated about replying
in the affirmative. And, yet here it was, the Lord had chosen her for me.
I said, 'Not so, Lord,' until he assured me that her heart was in his
hand and he could fit her to become my wife and a mother to my children.
After waiting until I knew I was obeying the mind of my Master, I asked
her to marry me. She accepted, as far as her own heart and will were
concerned, but refused, because her father, a rich and worldly-minded
man, was not willing for her to marry an itinerant preacher.

"I had not had a charge for three years then. I was so continually called
to help other pastors that I had no time for a charge of my own. So it
kept on for months and months; her father was not willing, and she would
not marry me without his consent. My sister often said to me, 'I don't
see how you can want to marry a woman that isn't willing to have you,'
but I kept my own counsel. I knew the matter was in safe hands. I was not
at all troubled; I kept about my Master's business and he kept about
mine. Therefore, when she wrote to say that suddenly and unexpectedly her
father had withdrawn all opposition, I was not in the least surprised.