"My mercy," he himself says, "was to light upon a wife whose father and mother were accounted godly.

This woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might be [20not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both], yet she had for her part, 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died." And by reading these and other good books; helped by the kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually reclaimed from his evil ways, and led gently into the paths of peace.
Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, was far advanced in life before he met the excellent woman who eventually became his wife.

He was too laboriously occupied in his vocation of minister to have any time to spare for courtship; and his marriage was, as in the case of Calvin, as much a matter of convenience as of love.

Miss Charlton, the lady of his choice, was the owner of property in her own right; but lest it should be thought that Baxter married her for "covetousness," he requested, first, that she should give over to her relatives the principal part of her fortune, and that "he should have nothing that before her marriage was hers;" secondly, that she should so arrange her affairs "as that he might be entangled in no lawsuits;" and, thirdly, "that she should expect none of the time that his ministerial work might require." These several conditions the bride having complied with, the marriage took place, and proved a happy one.

"We lived," said Baxter, "in inviolated love and mutual complacency, sensible of the benefit of mutual help, nearly nineteen years." Yet the life of Baxter was one of great trials and troubles, arising from the unsettled state of the times in which he lived.