If You Love That Lady, Don't Marry Her: The Courtship Letters of Sally McDowell and John Miller, 1854-1856

"Could you love me so much that if the whole world turned against us, & we were obliged to live alone, given up by society you could live entirely in me? Could I ever become all the world to you?" —John Miller to Sally McDowell, February 21, 1855

"At last I come to tell you that I am yours. And I pray God to bless us not only in each other but to each other, and to grant us His favor and protection in the important step we are about to take.

If even to this ho…