This
cruel procedure affects my heart while penning these lines.
In his 23d year Elias was married, by the Friends' ceremony, to Jemima
Seaman. His wife was an only child; the parents were well off for
common people, and at their request the son-in-law mov'd home with
them and carried on the farm--which at their decease became his own,
and he liv'd there all his remaining life. Of this matrimonial part of
his career, (it continued, and with unusual happiness, for 58 years,)
he says, giving the account of his marriage:
On this important occasion, we felt the clear and consoling evidence
of divine truth, and it remain'd with us as a seal upon our spirits,
strengthening us mutually to bear, with becoming fortitude, the
vicissitudes and trials which fell to our lot, and of which we h
a large share in passing through this probationary state. My wife,
although not of a very strong constitution, liv'd to be the mother
of eleven children, four sons and seven daughters. Our second
daughter, a very lovely, promising child, died when young, with the
small-pox, and the youngest was not living at its birth. The rest
all arriv'd to years of discretion, and afforded us considerable
comfort, as they prov'd to be in a good degree dutiful children. All
our sons, however, were of weak constitutions, and were not able to
take care of themselves, being so enfeebl'd as not to be able to
walk after the ninth or tenth year of their age. The two eldest died
in the fifteenth year of their age, the third in his seventeenth
year, and the youngest was nearly nineteen when he died.
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