Proverbs 12:4 A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that makes ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.… A remarkable instance of helpfulness in a wife is presented in the case of Huber, the Geneva naturalist. Huber was blind from his seventeenth year, and yet he found means to study and master a branch of natural history demanding the closest observation and the keenest eyesight. It was through the eyes of his wife that his mind worked as if they had been his own. She encouraged her husband's studies as a means of alleviating his privation, which at length he came to forget; and his life was as prolonged and happy as is usual with most naturalists. He even declared that he should be miserable were he to regain his eyesight. "I should not know," he said, "to what extent a person in my situation could be beloved; besides, to me my wife is always young, fresh, and pretty, which is no light matter." Huber's great work on "Bees" is still regarded as a masterpiece, embodying a vast amount of original observation on their habits and natural history. Indeed, his descriptions read rather like the work of a singularly keen-sighted man than of one who had been entirely blind for twenty-five years at the time at which he wrote them. The married life of Faraday furnishes another example. In his wife he found, at the same time, a true help-mate and soul-mate. She supported, cheered, and strengthened him on his way through life, giving him "the clear contentment of a heart at ease." In his diary he speaks of his marriage as "a source of honour and happiness far exceeding all the rest." After twenty-eight years' experience, he spoke of it as "an event which, more than any other, had contributed to his earthly happiness and healthy state of mind The union (he said) has in no wise changed, except only in the depth and strength of its character." And for six-and-forty years did the union continue unbroken; the love of the old man remaining as fresh, as earnest, as heart-whole, as in the days of his impetuous youth. Parallel Verses KJV: A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones.WEB: A worthy woman is the crown of her husband, but a disgraceful wife is as rottenness in his bones. |
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