" Peter
and his bride knew that a hard life was in store for them, but they felt
strong in the love they bore each other. They were simple backwoods
folk, and their wants were few. "When I started as a traveling
preacher," he said fifty-three years afterward, "a single preacher was
allowed to receive eighty dollars per annum if his circuit would give it
to him; but single preachers in those days seldom received over thirty
or forty dollars, and often much less; and had it not been for a few
presents made us by the benevolent friends of the church, and a few
dollars we made as marriage fees, we must have suffered much more than
we did. But the Lord provided, and, strange as it may appear to the
present generation, we got along without starving or going naked." There
is something awe-inspiring in the simple trust in God which this good
man displayed in every stage of his life. Once satisfied that he was in
the path of duty, he never allowed the future to trouble him. He
provided for it as far as he could, and left the rest to the Master
whose work he was doing. Poverty and hardship had no terrors for this
brave young couple, and it was very far from their thoughts to wait
until a better day to marry.
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