MARRIAGE TO A DIFFICULT MAN: THE “UNCOMMON UNION” OF JONATHAN AND SARAH EDWARDS
Elisabeth D. Dodds
This is a delightful historical novel about the life and times of the Puritans in New England. One commentator remarked: “That it is a tempting blend of family guidance book sociological study, psychologically, and devotionally American historical biography.”
Many books are written today about how to solve the problems of modern living, and many of them give pat answers. In this book you will find vivid examples of how the Edwards Family and the Christian community faced life in the world, and yet not of the world. The ir standard was the Word of God. Of course there were no perfections but a constant striving to be pleasing to the Lord.
This book touches, in the experience of the characters, upon the many problems that face Christians in today’s world. Edwards was a faithful husband and father, devoted to his wife and concerned about his children. Sarah was a loving wife and mother. She had the care of a husband and ten children, and still the home was noted for hospitality.
Mrs. Dodds asks the question, “What did they do to help their children tum out so well?” She answers this question, “It could well be a pattern for modern parents and could help them administer a potent but patable blend of permissiveness and discipline that would result in just the kind of mature handling of problems every parent hopes his children will have.”
The Edwards also had to go through a time of unemployment because of his dismissal from the Northampton Church. The dignity with which they faced this circumstance could well fortify people in similar situations today.
How did the Edwards Family handle grief? When their daughter Esther’s husband, Aaron Burr, died, she wrote to her parents: “God has seemed sensibly near in such a supporting and comfortable manner that I think I have never experienced the like. Ernestly intreat the Lord that I may never faint under this severe stroke.”
Sarah Edwards’ response to the letter informing her of her husband’s death at Princeton, addressed to one of her daughters, was, “My very dear child, what shall I say! A holy and good God has covered us with a dark cloud. O that we may kiss the rod and lay our hands upon our mouths! The Lord has done it.”
A Latin inscription on Edwards’ grave in the Princeton Cemetery said in part, “Do you ask, traveler, what manner of man he was? The College weeps for his loss, the church weeps, but heaven rejoices in receiving him.”
This is a book well worth reading, and as someone has said as easy to read for relaxation as for information.
Reviewed by Clara Einfeld Hamstra, retired schoolteacher living in Lynden, Washington.
