Such a fellow-pilgrim Count Zinzendorf seems to have found in his
countess, of whom he thus writes:
"Twenty-five years' experience has shown me that just the help-meet
whom I have is the only one that could suit my vocation. Who else
could have so carried through my family affairs? Who lived so
spotlessly before the world? Who so wisely aided me in my rejection of
a dry morality? Who so clearly set aside the Pharisaism which, as
years passed, threatened to creep in among us? Who so deeply discerned
as to the spirits of delusion which sought to bewilder us? Who would
have governed my whole economy so wisely, richly and hospitably, when
circumstances commanded? Who have taken indifferently the part of
servant or mistress, without, on the one side, affecting an especial
spirituality; on the other, being sullied by any worldly pride? Who,
in a community where all ranks are eager to be on a level, would, from
wise and real causes, have known how to maintain inward and outward
distinctions? Who, without a murmur, have seen her husband encounter
such dangers by land and sea? Who undertaken with him, and
_sustained_, such astonishing pilgrimages? Who, amid such
difficulties, would have always held up her head and supported me? Who
found such vast sums of money, and acquitted them on her own credit?
And, finally, who, of all human beings, could so well understand and
interpret to others my inner and outer being as this one, of such
nobleness in her way of thinking, such great intellectual capacity,
and so free from the theological perplexities that enveloped me!"
Let any one peruse, with all intentness, the lineaments of this
portrait, and see if the husband had not reason, with this air of
solemn rapture and conviction, to challenge comparison? We are
reminded of the majestic cadence of the line whose feet stop in the
just proportion of Humanity,
"Daughter of God and Mati, accomplished Eve!"
An observer [Footnote: Spangenberg] adds this testimony:
"We may, in many marriages, regard it as the best arrangement, if the
man has so much advantage over his wife, that she can, without much
thought of her own, be led and directed by him as by a father.
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