The Dearest Hold

I came across an interesting quote in Joshua Kendall’s book The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus. It is a biography of Peter Mark Roget, the man behind the creation of the famous thesaurus that bears his name. In 1824 Roget married Mary Hobson (who, like her husband, was of Huguenot stock) and, by all accounts, they had a very happy marriage. Sadly, the marriage lasted only nine years before Mary died of cancer. After her death, Roget found a letter she had written to him a few years earlier when she had been pregnant with their daughter and when she thought the pregnancy might cost her life. These words were of great comfort to Roget as he grieved for his wife. They are sweetly biblical and earnestly heartfelt.

These few lines then will be seen by you alone. They are to repeat to you, my precious, how dearly I love you, and to thank you for the sweet tenderness and kindness which have made the last year of my life so very, very happy. Do not, love, think of me in sorrow, for God will let us be happy again where we need not fear to be separated any more. If I leave you a sweet infant, it will comfort you and you will cherish it for my sake. But more than all, you will be comforted by that firm confidence in the goodness and Mercy of our Heavenly Parent, which we have so often talked of together as the dearest hold of our consoling religion. … And God will keep you and bless you till he wills that we may meet again.

From The Man Who Made Lists [2] by Joshua Kendall.

(Parenthetically, while it seems that Mary very likely was a true believer, Roget gave little evidence, especially later in life, of a heartfelt profession of faith in Christ)