Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/21

 were by no means indifferent to her. She thought the spirit of controversy should be held in subjection to that, which moveth to love and to good works.

She disclaimed that bigotry which desires to extinguish every light which its own hand has not kindled. She looked upon the varying sects of Christians, as travellers pursuing different roads to the same eternal city.

This liberality of sentiment was deserving of more praise, forty years since than in our times, when superior illumination bears with stronger influence upon the mists of prejudice. Educated in the metropolis of the state, the daughter of its first magistrate, born of a family of high respectability, introduced by marriage into the aristocracy of N, conscious that her excellencies were so appreciated by those around her, that she was considered almost as a being of an higher order, it would not have been wonderful if some haughtiness had marked her exterior, at a period when those distinctions signified more than they do at present. But that self-complacency, which is the spontaneous growth of the unrenovated heart, was early checked by a religion which taught her "not to glory save in the cross of Christ." Afflictions also humbled the hopes which might have unwisely aspired, or laboured to lay too deep a foundation on the earth. She had borne the yoke in her youth. The early death of her parents was strong discipline for a tender spirtspirit [sic]. Her husband was endued by nature with every excellence to awaken her attachment and confidence. His mind, enlarged