Chapter XII: The Trial of Faith (1)

1871-1872.

I.

Two Years of Suffering. Its Nature and Causes. Spiritual Conflicts. Ill-health. Faith a Gift to be won by Prayer. Death-bed of Dr. Skinner. Visit to Philadelphia. "Daily Food." How to read the Bible so as to love it more. Letters of Sympathy and Counsel. "Prayer for Holiness brings Suffering." Perils of human Friendship.

If in the life of Mrs. Prentiss the year 1870 was marked with a white stone as one of great happiness, the two following years were marked by unusual and very acute suffering. Perhaps something of this was, sooner or later, to have been looked for in the experience of one whose organization, both physical and mental, was so intensely sensitive. Tragical elements are latent in every human life, especially in the life of woman. And the finer qualities of her nature, her vast capacity of loving and of self-sacrifice, her peculiar cares and trials, as well as outward events, are always tending to bring these elements into action. What scenes surpassing fable, scenes both bright and sad, belong to the secret history of many a quiet woman's heart! Then our modern civilization, while placing woman higher in some respects than she ever stood before, at the same time makes her pay a heavy price for her advantages. In the very process of enlarging her sphere and opportunities, whether intellectual or practical, and of educating her for their duties, does it not also expose her to moral shocks and troubles and lacerations of feeling almost peculiar to our times? Nor is religion wholly exempt from the spirit that rules the age or the hour. There is a close, though often very subtle, connexion between the two; just as there is between the working of nature and grace in the individual soul.

The phase of her history upon which Mrs. Prentiss was now entering can not be fully understood without considering it in this light. The melancholy that was deep-rooted in her temperament, and her tender, all-absorbing sympathies, made her very quick to feel whatever of pain or sorrow pervaded the social atmosphere about her. The thought of what others were suffering would intrude even upon her rural retreat among the mountains, and render her jealous of her own rest and joy. And then, in all her later years, the mystery of existence weighed upon her heart more and more heavily. In a nature so deep and so finely strung, great happiness and great sorrow are divided by a very thin partition.

But spiritual trials and conflict gave its keenest edge to the suffering of these years. Such trials and conflict indeed were not wanting in the earliest stages of her religious life, nor had they been wanting all along its course; but they came now with a power and in a manner almost wholly new; and, while not essentially different from those which have afflicted God's children in all ages, they are yet traceable, in no small degree, to special causes and circumstances in her own case. Early in 1870 she had fallen in with a book entitled "God's Furnace," and a few months later had made the acquaintance of its author--a remarkable woman, of great strength of character, of deep religious experience, and full of zeal for God. Her book was introduced to the Christian public by a distinguished Presbyterian clergyman, and was highly recommended by other eminent divines. By means of this work, as well as by correspondence and an occasional visit, she exerted for a time a good deal of influence over Mrs. Prentiss. At first this influence seemed to be stimulating and healthful, but it was not so in the end. The points of sympathy and the points of difference between them will come out so plainly in Mrs. Prentiss' letters that they need not be indicated here. It would not be easy to imagine two women more utterly dissimilar, except in love to God, devotion to their Saviour, and delight in prayer. These formed the tie between them. Miss ----'s last days were sadly clouded by mental trouble and disease.

A little book called "Holiness through Faith," published about this time, was another disturbing influence in Mrs. Prentiss' religious life. This work and others of a similar character presented a somewhat novel theory of sanctification--a theory zealously taught, and which excited considerable attention in certain circles of the Christian community. It was, in brief, this: As we are justified by faith without the deeds of the law, even so are we sanctified by faith; in other words, as we obtain forgiveness and acceptance with God by a simple act of trust in Christ, so by simple trust in Christ we may attain personal holiness; it is as easy for divine grace to save us at once from the power, as from the guilt, of sin.

For more than thirty years Mrs. Prentiss had made the Christian life a matter of earnest thought and study. The subject of personal holiness in particular had occupied her attention. Whatever promised to shed new light upon it she eagerly read. Her own convictions, however, were positive and decided; and, although at first inclined to accept the doctrine of "Holiness through Faith," further reflection satisfied her that, as taught by its special advocates, it was contrary to Scripture and experience, and was fraught with mischief. Certain unhappy tendencies and results of the doctrine, both at home and abroad, as shown in some of its teachers and disciples, also forced her to this conclusion. Folly of some sort is indeed one of the fatal rocks upon which all overstrained theories of sanctification are almost certain to be wrecked; and in excitable, crude natures, the evil is apt to take the form either of mental extravagance, perhaps derangement, or of silly, if not still worse, conduct. But, while deeply impressed with the mischief of these Perfectionist theories, Mrs. Prentiss felt the heartiest sympathy with all earnest seekers after holiness, and was grieved by what seemed to her harsh or unjust criticisms upon them.

What were her own matured views on the subject will appear in the sequel. It is enough to say here that "Holiness through Faith" and other works, in advocacy of the same or similar doctrines, meeting her as they did when under a severe mental strain, and touching her at a most sensitive point--for holiness was a passion of her whole soul--had for a time a more or less bewildering effect. She kept pondering the questions they raised, until the native hue of her piety--hitherto so resolute and cheerful--became "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

The inward conflict which has been referred to she described sometimes, in the language of the old divines, as the want of God's "sensible presence," or of "conscious" nearness to and communion with Christ; sometimes, as a state of "spiritual deprivation or aridity"; and then again, as a work of the Evil One. She laid much stress upon this last point. Her belief in the existence of Satan and his influence over human souls was as vivid as that of Luther; she did not hesitate to accuse him of being the fomenter and, in a sense, the author of her distress; the warnings of the Bible against his "wiles" she accepted as in full force still; and she could offer with all her heart, and with no doubt as to the literal meaning of its closing words, the petition of the old Litany: "That it may please Thee to strengthen such as do stand, and to comfort and help the weak-hearted, and to raise up those who fall, and finally to _beat down Satan under our feet_."

The coming trouble seems to have cast its shadow across her path even before the close of 1870. Early in 1871 it was upon her in power. Her letters contain very interesting and pathetic allusions to this experience. But they do not explain it. Nor is it easy to explain. In the absence of certain inciting causes from without, it would never, perhaps, have assumed a serious form. But these sharp spiritual trials are generally complicated with external causes, or occasions; ill-health, morbid constitutional tendencies, loss of sleep, wearing cares and responsibilities, sudden calamities, worldly loss or disappointment, and the like. It is in the midst of such conditions that pious souls are most apt to be assailed by gloom and despondency. And yet distressing inward struggles and depression arise sometimes in the midst of outward prosperity and even of unusual religious enjoyment. In truth, among all the phenomena of the Christian life none are more obscure or harder to seize than those connected with spiritual conflict and temptation. They belong largely to that _terra incognita_, the dark back-ground of human consciousness, where are the primal forces of the soul and the mustering-place of good and evil. A certain mystery enshrouds all profound religious emotion; whether of the peace of God that passeth all understanding, or of the anguish that comes of spiritual desertion. Those who are in the midst of the battle, or bear its scars, will instantly recognise an experience like their own; to all others it must needs remain inexplicable. Even in the natural life our deepest joys and sorrows are mostly inarticulate; the great poets come nearest to giving them utterance; but how much the reality always surpasses the descriptions of the poet's pen, even though it be the pen of a Shakespeare, or a Goethe!

Mrs. Prentiss never afterward referred to this "fiery trial" without strong emotion. It terrified her to think of anyone she loved as exposed to it; and--not to speak of other classes--she seemed to regard those as specially exposed to it, who had just passed, or were passing, through an unusually rich and happy religious experience. One of her last letters, addressed to a dear Christian friend, related to this very point. Here are a few sentences from it:

I want to give you EMPHATIC warning that you were never in such danger in your life. This is the language of bitter, bitter experience and is not mine alone. Leighton says the great Pirate lets the empty ships go by and robs the full ones. [1] ... I do hope you will go on your way rejoicing, unto the perfect day. Hold on to Christ with your teeth [2] if your hands get crippled; He, alone, is stronger than Satan; He, alone, knows _all_ "sore temptations" mean.

This, certainly, is strong language and will sound very strange and extravagant in many ears; and yet is it really stronger language than that often used by inspired prophets and apostles? or than that of Augustine, Bernard, Luther, Hooker, Fenelon, Bunyan, and of many saintly women, whose names adorn the annals of piety? Strong as it is, it will find an echo in hearts that have been assailed by the "fiery darts of the adversary," and have learned to cry unto God out of the depths of mental anguish and gloom; while others still in the midst of the conflict, will, perhaps, be helped and comforted to read of the manner in which Mrs. Prentiss passed through it. Nothing in the story of her religious life is more striking and beautiful. Her faith never failed; she glorified God in the midst of it all; she thanked her Lord and Master for "taking her in hand," and begged Him not to spare her for her crying, if so be she might thus learn to love Him more and grow more like Him! And, what is especially noteworthy, her own suffering, instead of paralysing, as severe suffering sometimes does, active sympathy with the sorrows and trials of others, had just the contrary effect. "How soon," she wrote to a friend, "our dear Lord presses our experiences into His own service! How many lessons He teaches us in order to make us 'sons' (or daughters) 'of consolation!'" To another friend she wrote:

I did not perceive any selfishness in you during our interview, and you need not be afraid that I am so taken up with my own affairs as to feel no sympathy with you in yours. What are we made for, if not to bear each other's burdens? And this ought to be the effect of trial upon us; to make us, in the very midst of it, unusually interested in the interests of others. This is the softening, sanctifying tendency of tribulation, and he who lacks it needs harder blows.

At no period of her life was she more helpful to afflicted and tempted souls. In visits to sick-rooms and dying beds, and in letters to friends in trouble, her heart "like the noble tree that is wounded itself when it gives the balm," poured itself forth in the most tender, soothing ministrations. It seemed at times fairly surcharged with love. Meanwhile she kept her pain to herself; only a few intimate friends, whose prayers she solicited, knew what a struggle was going on in her soul; to all others she appeared very much as in her happiest days. "It is a little curious," she wrote to a young friend, "that suffering as I really am, nobody sees it. 'Always bright!' people say to me to my amazement.... I can add nothing but love, of which I am so full that I keep giving off in thunder and lightning."

The preceding account would be incomplete without adding that the state of her health during this period, combined with a severe pressure of varied and perplexing cares, served to deepen the distress caused by her spiritual trials. Whatever view may be taken of the origin and nature of such trials, it is certain that physical depression and the mental strain that comes of anxious, care-worn thoughts, if not their source, yet tend always greatly to intensify them. In the present case the trials would, perhaps, not have existed without the cares and the ill-health; while the latter, even in the entire absence of the former, would have occasioned severe suffering.

_To Mrs. Frederick Field, New York, Jan. 8, 1871._

'If I need make any apology for writing you so often, it must be this--I can not help it. Having dwelt long in an obscure, oftentimes dark valley, and then passed out into a bright plane of life, I am full of tender yearnings over other souls, and would gladly spend my whole time and strength for them. I long, especially, to see your feet established on an immovable Rock. It seems to me that God is preparing you for great usefulness by the fiery trial of your faith. "They learn in suffering what they teach in song." Oh how true this is! Who is so fitted to sing praises to Christ as he who has learned Him in hours of bereavement, disappointment and despair?

What you want is to let your intellect go overboard, if need be, and to take what God gives just as a little child takes it, without money and without price. Faith is His, unbelief ours. No process of reasoning can soothe a mother's empty, aching heart, or bring Christ into it to fill up all that great waste room. But faith can. And faith is His gift; a gift to be won by prayer--prayer persistent, patient, determined; prayer that will take no denial; prayer that if it goes away one day unsatisfied, keeps on saying, "Well, there's to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow; God may wait to be gracious, and I can wait to receive, but receive I must and will." This is what the Bible means when it says, "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force." It does not say the eager, the impatient take it by force, but the violent--they who declare, "I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me." This is all heart, not head work. Do I know what I am talking about? Yes, I do. But my intellect is of no use to me when my heart is breaking. I must get down on my knees and own that I am less than nothing, seek _God_, not joy; _consent_ to suffer, not cry for relief. And how transcendently good He is when He brings me down to that low place and there shows me that that self-renouncing, self-despairing spot is just the one where He will stoop to meet me!

My dear friend, don't let this great tragedy of sorrow fail to do _everything_ for you. It is a dreadful thing to lose children; but a _lost sorrow_ is the most fearful experience life can bring, I feel this so strongly that I could go on writing all day. It has been said that the intent of sorrow is to "toss us on to God's promises." Alas, these waves too often toss us away out to sea, where neither sun or stars appear for many days. I pray, earnestly, that it may not be so with you.

Among Mrs. Prentiss' most beloved and honored friends in New York was the Rev. Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, the first pastor of the Mercer street church, and then, for nearly a quarter of a century, Professor in the Union Theological Seminary. His attachment to her, as also that of his family, was very strong. Dr. Skinner had been among the leaders of the so-called New School branch of the Presbyterian Church. He was a preacher of great spiritual power, an able, large-hearted theologian, and a man of most attractive personal and social qualities. He was artless as a little child, full of enthusiasm for the best things, and a pattern of saintly goodness. It used to be said that every stone and rafter in the Church of the Covenant had felt the touch of his prayers. This venerable servant of God entered into his rest on the 1st of February, 1871, in the 80th year of his age. In a letter to her cousin, Rev. George S. Payson, Mrs. Prentiss thus refers to his last hours:

You will hear at dear Dr. Skinner's funeral to-morrow his dying testimony, and I want you to know that it was whispered in my enraptured ear, that I was privileged to spend the whole of Tuesday and all he lived of Wednesday, at his side, and that mine were the hands that closed his eyes and composed his features in death. What blissful moments were mine, as I saw his sainted soul fly home; how near heaven seemed and still seems!

_To Miss E. S. Gilman, New York, Feb. 7, 1871._

I am glad to hear that you have such an interesting class, and yet more glad that you see how much Christian culture they need. I am astonished every day by confessions made to me by young people as to their woful state before God, and do hope that all this is to prepare me to write something for them. I began a series of articles in the Association Monthly, called "Twilight Talks," which may perhaps prove to be in a degree what you want, but still there is much land untraversed. Meanwhile I want to encourage you in your work, by letting you feel my deep sympathy with you in it, and to assure you that nothing will be so blessed to your scholars as personal holiness in yourself. We _must_ practise what we preach, and give ourselves wholly to Christ if we want to persuade others to do it. I am saying feebly what I feel very deeply and constantly. You will rejoice with me that I had the rare privilege of being with dear Dr. Skinner during his last hours. If you have a copy of Watts and Select hymns, read the 106th hymn of the 2d book, beginning at the 2d verse, "Lord, when I quit this earthly stage," and fancy, if you can, the awe and the delight with which I heard him repeat those nine verses, as expressive of his dying love to Christ. I feel that God is always too good to me, but to have Him make me witness of that inspiring scene, humbles me greatly. In how many ways He seeks us, now smiling, now caressing, now reproving, now thwarting, and _always_ doing the very best thing for us that infinite love and goodness can! Let us love Him better and better every day, and count no work for Him too small and unnoticed to be wrought thankfully whenever He gives the opportunity. I hope I am learning to honor the day of small things.

_To Mrs. Humphrey, New York, March 14, 1871._

So you have at last broken the ice and made out, after almost a year, to write that promised letter! Well, it was worth waiting for, and welcome when it came, and awakened in me an enthusiasm about seeing the dear creature, of which I hardly thought my old heart was capable (that statement is an affectation; my heart isn't old, and never will be). Our plan now is, if all prospers, to go to Philadelphia on Friday afternoon, spend the night with you, Saturday with Mrs. Kirkbride, and Sunday and part of Monday with you. I hope you mean to let us have a quiet little time with you, unbeknown to strangers, whom I dread and shrink from....

_March 28th._--What a queer way we womenkind have of confiding in each other with perfectly reckless disregard of consequences! It is a mercy that men are, for the most part, more prudent, though not half so delightful!... Well, I'm ever so glad I've seen you in your home, only I found you more frail (in the way of health) than I found you fair. We hear that your husband preached "splendidly," as of course we knew he would, and the next exchange I shall be there to hear as well as to see.

Coming out of the cars yesterday, I picked up a "Daily Food," dropped, I suppose, by its owner, "Sarah ----," of Philadelphia, given her by "Miss H. in 1853." It has travelled all over Europe, and is therefore no doubt precious to her who thus made it her friend. Now how shall I get it to her? Can you learn her address, or shall I write to her at a venture, without one? I know how I felt--when I once lost mine; it was given me in 1835, and has gone with me ever since whenever I have journeyed (as I was so happy as to find it again). [3] I think if I have the pleasure of restoring it to its owner, she will feel glad that it did not fall into profane hands. I thought it right to look through it, in order to get some clue, if possible, to its destination; I fancy it was the silent comforter of a wife who went abroad with her husband for his health, and came home a widow; God bless her, whoever she is, for she evidently believes in and loves Him. What sort of a world can it be to those who don't? [4] Remember me affectionately to yourself and your dear ones, and now we've got a-going, let's go ahead.

_April 1st._--What a pity it is that one can't have a separate language with which to address each beloved one! It seems so mean to use the same words to two or three or four people one loves so differently! Now about my visit to you. One reason why I did not stay longer was your looking worn out. When I am feeling so dragged, visitors are a great wear and tear to me. But I am afraid my selfishness would have got the upperhand of me if that were the whole story. I can't put into words the perfect horror I have of being made into a somebody; it fairly hurts me, and if I had stayed a week with you and the host of people you had about you, I should have shriveled up into the size of a pea. I can't deny having streaks of conceit, but I _know_ enough about myself to make my rational moments bid me keep in the background, and it excruciates me to be set up on a pinnacle. So don't blame me if I fled in terror, and that I am looking forward to your visit, when I hope to have delightful pow-wows with you all by ourselves.

I am glad that little book can be returned, and I will mail it to you. I _couldn't_ send it without a loving word; it seemed to fall so providentially into my hands and knock so at the door of my heart. In what strange ways people get introduced to each other, and how subtle are the influences that excite a bond of sympathy!... What do you do with girls who fall madly and desperately in love with you? Do you laugh at them, or scold them, or love them, or what? I used to do just such crazy things, and am not sure I never do them now. Did you ever live in a queerer world than this is?

_To Miss E.S. Gilman, New York, April 29, 1871._

The subject of your letter is one that greatly interests me, and I should be glad to get more light upon it myself. As far as I know, those who live apart from the world, communing with God and working for Him chiefly in prayer, have least temptation to wandering and distracted thoughts, and are more devout and spiritual than those of us who live more in the world. But it stands to reason that we _can't_ all live so. The outside work must go on, and somebody must do it. But of course we have the hardest time, since while _in_ the world we must not be of it. I have come, of late, to think that both classes are needed, the contemplative and the active, and God does certainly take the latter aside now and then as you suggest, by sickness and in other ways, to set them thinking. Holiness is not a mere abstraction; it is praying and loving and being consecrate, but it is also the doing kind deeds, speaking friendly words, being in a crowd when we thirst to be alone, and so on and so on. The study of Christ's life on earth reveals Him to us as incessantly busy, yet taking _special_ seasons for prayer. It seems to me that we should imitate Him in this respect, and when we find ourselves particularly pressed by outward cares and duties, break short off and withdraw from them till a spiritual tone returns. For we can do nothing well unless we do it consciously for Christ, and this consciousness sometimes gets jostled out of us when we undertake to do too much. The more perfectly He is formed in us the more light we shall get on every path of duty, the less likely to go astray from the happy medium of not all contemplation, not all activity. And to have Him thus to dwell in us we are led to pray by His own last prayer for us on earth, when He asked for the "_I in them_." Let us pray for each other that this may be our blessed lot. Nothing will fit us for life but this. In ourselves we do nothing but err and sin. In Him we are complete.

* * * * *

II.

Her Husband called to Chicago. Lines on going to Dorset. Letters to young Friends, on the Christian Life. Narrow Escape from Death. Feeling on returning to Town. Her "Praying Circle." The Chicago Fire. The true Art of Living. God our only safe Teacher. An easily-besetting Sin. Counsels to young Friends. Letters.

Mrs. Prentiss' letters relating to her husband's call to Chicago require perhaps an explanatory word. She had some very pleasant associations with Chicago. It was the home of a brother and sister-in-law, to whom she was deeply attached, and of other dear relatives. There Stepping Heavenward had first appeared, and many unknown friends--grateful for the good it had done them--were eager to form her acquaintance and bid her welcome to the great city of the Interior. And yet the thought of removing there filled her with the utmost distress. Had her husband's call been to some distant post in the field of Foreign Missions, her language on the subject could hardly have been stronger. But this language in reality expresses simply the depth of her devotion to her church and her friends in New York, her morbid shyness and shrinking from the presence of strangers, and, especially, her vivid sense of physical inability to make the change without risking the loss of what health and power of sleep still remained to her. Misgiving on this last point caused her husband to hesitate long before accepting the call, and to feel in after years that his decision to accept it, although conscientiously made, had been a grave mistake.

_To Mrs. Condict, New York, June 3, 1871._

I knew that you would rather hear from me than through the papers, the fact that Mr. Prentiss has been once more unanimously elected by the General Assembly to the Chicago Professorship. He has come home greatly perplexed as to his duty, and prepared to do it, at any reasonable cost, if he can only find out what it is. We built our Dorset house not as a mere luxury, but with the hope that the easy summer there would so build up our health as to increase and prolong our usefulness; but going to Chicago would deprive us of that, besides cutting us off from all our friends. But we want to know no will but God's in this question, and I am sure you and Miss K. will join us in the prayer that we may not so much as _suggest_ to Him what path He will lead us into. The experience of the past winter would impress upon me the fact that _place and position_ have next to nothing to do with happiness; that we can be wretched in a palace, radiant in a dungeon. Mr. P. said yesterday that it broke his heart to hear me talk of giving up Dorset; but perhaps this heartbreaking is exactly what we need to remind us of what for many years we never had a chance to forget, that we are pilgrims and strangers on the earth. Two lines of my own keep running in my head:

Oh foolish heart, oh faithless heart, oh heart on ruin bent, Build not with too much care thy nest, thou art in banishment.

I have seen the time when the sense of being a pilgrim and a stranger was very sweet; and God can sweeten whatever He does to us. So though perplexed we are not in despair, and if we feel that we are this summer living in a tent that may soon blow down, it is just what you are doing, and in this point we shall have fellowship. I am sure it is good for us to have God take up the rod, even if He lays it down again without inflicting a blow. I know we are going to pray till light comes. I feel very differently about it from what I did last summer. The mental conflicts of the past winter have created a good deal of indifference to everything. Without conscious union and nearness to my Saviour I can't be happy anywhere; for years He has been the meaning of everything, and when He only _seems_ gone (I know it is only seeming) I don't much care where I am. I am just trying to be patient till He makes Satan let go of me. Excuse this selfish letter, and write me one just as bad!

On the 7th of June she went to Dorset with her husband and the younger children. The following lines, found among her papers, will show in what temper of mind she went. It is worth noting that they were written on Monday, and express a week-day, not merely a passing Sabbath feeling:

Once more at home, once more at home--
For what, dear Lord, I pray?
To seek enjoyment, please myself,
Make life a summer's day?

I shrink, I shudder at the thought;
For what is home to me,
When sin and self enchain my heart,
And keep it far from Thee?

There is but one abiding joy,
Nor place that joy can give;
It is Thy presence that makes home,
That makes it "life to live."

That presence I invoke; naught else
I venture to entreat;
I long to see Thee, hear Thy voice,
To sit at Thy dear feet.

_To a young Friend, Dorset, June 12, 1871._

I trust it is an omen of good that the first letters I have received since coming here this summer, have been full of the themes I love best. I was much struck with the sentence you quote, "They can not go back," etc., [5] and believe it is true of you. Being absorbed in divine things will not make you selfish; you will be astonished to find how loving you will gradually grow toward everybody, how interested in their interests, how happy in their happiness. And if you want work for Christ (and the more you love Him the more you will _long_ for it), that work will come to you in all sorts of ways. I do not believe much in duty-work; I think that work that tells is the spontaneous expression of the love within. Perhaps you have not been sick enough yourself to be skilful in a sick-room; perhaps your time for that sort of work hasn't come. I meant to get you a little book called "The Life of Faith"; in fact, I went down town on purpose to get it, and passed the Episcopal Sunday-school Union inadvertently. I think that little book teaches how _every_thing we do may be done for Christ, and I know by what little experience I have had of it, that it is a blessed, thrice blessed way to live. A great deal is meant by the "cup of cold water," and few of us women have great deeds to perform, and we must unite ourselves to Him by little ones. The life of constant self-discipline God requires is a happy one; you and I, and others like us, find a wild, absorbing joy in loving and being loved; but sweet, abiding peace is the fruit of steady check on affections that _must_ be tamed and kept under. Is this consistent with what I have just said about growing more loving as we grow more Christlike? Yes, it is; for _that_ love is absolutely unselfish, it gives much and asks nothing, and there is nothing restless about it.... I have been very hard at work ever since I came here, with my darling M. as my constant, joyous comrade. We have been busy with our flower-beds, sowing and transplanting, and half the china closet has tumbled out of doors to serve as protection from the sun. Mr. Prentiss says we do the work of three days in one, which is true, for we certainly have performed great feats. The night we got here we found the house lighted up, and the dining-table covered with good things. People seem glad to see us back. I don't know which of my Dorset titles would strike you as most appropriate; one man calls me a "branch," another "a child of nature," and another "Mr. Prentiss' woman," with the consoling reflection that I sha'n't rust out.

_To Mrs. Smith, Dorset, August 6, 1871._

I don't know when I have written so few letters as I have this summer. My right hand has forgot its cunning under the paralysis, under which my heart has suffered, and which is now beginning to affect my health quite unfavorably. It seems as if body and soul, joints and marrow, were rudely separating. Poor George is half-distracted with the weight of the questions concerning Chicago, and I think almost anything would be better than this crucifying suspense. But I try not to make a fuss. Mrs. D---- can tell you that I have said to her many times, during the last few years, that, according to the ordinary run of life, things would not long remain with us as they were; they were too good to last.

I have read and re-read "Spiritual Dislodgments," and remember it well. I certainly wish for such dislodgments in me and mine, if we need them. George has got hold of a book of A.'s, which delights him, Letters of William Von Humboldt. [6] I suppose you recommended it to her. You _must_ make your plans to come here this summer; I don't seem fully to have a thing till you've seen it.

_To Mrs. Humphrey, Dorset, Aug. 8, 1871._

It took you a good while to answer my last letter, and I have been equally lazy about writing since yours strayed this way. Letter-writing has always been a resource and a pastime to me; a refuge in head-achy and rainy days, and a tiny way to give pleasure or do good, when other paths were hedged up. But this summer I have left almost everybody in the lurch, partly from being more or less unwell and out of spirits, partly because the Chicago question, remaining unsettled, has been such a damper that I hadn't much heart to speak either of it or of anything else. We are perplexed beyond measure what to do; the thought of losing _my minister_ and having him turn into a professor, agonizes me; on the other hand, who knows but he needs the rest that change of labor and the five months' vacation would give him? _His_ chief worry is the effect the attending funerals all the time has already had on my health. One day I part with and bury (in imagination!) now this friend, now that, and this mournful work does not sharpen one's appetite or invigorate one's frame. I don't know how we've stood the conflict; and it seems rather selfish to allude to my part of it; but women live more in their friendships than men do, and the thought of tearing up all our roots is more painful to me than to my husband, and he will not lose what I must lose in addition, and as I have said before, my minister, which is the hardest part of it.

I want you to know what straits we are in, in the hope that you and yours will be stirred up to pray that we may make no mistake, but go or stay as the Lord would have us. We have found our little home a nice refuge for us in the storm; Mr. P. says he should have gone distracted in a boarding-house. I do not envy you the Conway crowd. But I fancy it is a good region for collecting mosses and like treasures. I think the prettiest thing in our house is a flattish bracket, fastened to the wall and filled with flowers; it looks like a graceful, meandering letter S and is one of the idols I bow down to.... I have "Holiness through Faith"; the first time I read it at Mr. R----'s request, I said I believed every word of it, but this summer, reading it in a different mood, it puzzles me. The idea is plausible; if God tells us to be holy, as He certainly does, is it not for Him to provide the way for our being so, and is it likely He needs our whole lives before He can accomplish His own design? I talked with Mr. Prentiss about it, and at first he rejected the thought of holiness through faith, but last night we got upon the subject again and he was interested in some sentences I read to him and said he must examine the book. When are you coming to spend that week in Dorset? Love to each and all.

_To a young Friend, Kauinfels, Sept. 9, 1871._

I have had many letters to write to-day, for to-day our fate is sealed, and we are to go. But I must say a few words to you before going to bed, for I want to tell you how very glad I am that you have been enabled to take a step [7] which will, I am sure, lead the way to other steps, increase your holiness, your usefulness, and your happiness. May God bless you in this attempt to honor Him, and open out before you new fields wherein to glorify and please Him. This has not been a sorrowful day to me. I hope I am offering to a "patient God a patient heart." I do not want to make the worst of the sacrifice He requires, or to fancy I am only to be happy on my own conditions. He has been most of the time for years "the spring of all my joys, the life of my delights." Where He is, I want to be; where He bids me go, I want to go, and to go in courage and faith. Anything is better than too strong cleaving to this world. As I was situated in New York, I lacked not a single earthly blessing. I had a delightful home, freedom from care, and a circle of friends whom I loved with all my heart, and who loved me in a way to satisfy even my rapacity. Only one thing was wanting to my perfect felicity--a heart absolutely holy; and was I likely to get that when my earthly cup was so full? At any rate I am content. Now and then, as the reality of this coming separation overwhelms me, I feel a spasm of pain at my heart (I don't suppose we are expected to cease to be human beings or to lose our sensibilities), but if my Lord and Master will go with me, and keeps on making me more and more like Himself, I can be happy anywhere and under any conditions, or be made content not to be happy. All this is of little consequence in itself, but perhaps it may make me more of a blessing to others, which, next to personal holiness, is the only thing to be sought very earnestly. As to my relation to you, He who brought you under my wing for a season has something better for you in store. _That's His way._ And wherever I am, if it is His will and His Spirit dictates the prayer, I shall pray for you, and that is the best service one soul can render another.

About this time she and her husband had an almost miraculous escape from instant death. They had been calling upon friends in East Dorset and were returning home. Not far from that village is a very dangerous railroad crossing; and, as the sight or sound of cars so affrighted Coco as to render him uncontrollable, special pains had been taken not to arrive at the spot while a train was due. But just as they reached it, an "irregular" train, whose approach was masked behind high bushes, came rushing along unannounced, and had they been only a few seconds later, would have crushed them to atoms. So severe was the shock and so vivid the sense of a Providential escape, that scarcely a word was spoken during the drive home. The next morning she gave her husband a very interesting account of the thoughts that, like lightning, flashed upon her mind while feeling herself in the jaws of death. They related exclusively to her children--how they would receive the news, and what would become of them. [8]

Late in September she returned to town, still oppressed by the thought of going to Chicago. In a letter to Mrs. Condict, dated October 2d, she writes:

We got home on Friday night, and very early on Saturday were settled down into the old routine. But how different everything is! At church tearful, clouded faces; at home, warmhearted friends looking upon us as for the last time. It is all right. I would not venture to change it if I could; but it is hard. At times it seems as if my heart would literally break to pieces, but we are mercifully kept from realising our sorrows all the time. The waves dash in and almost overwhelm, but then they sweep back and are stayed by an almighty, kind hand.... It is like tearing off a limb to leave our dear prayer-meeting. Next to my closet, it has been to me the sweetest spot on earth. I never expect to find such another.

To another friend she writes a day or two later:

My heart fairly _collapses_ at times, at the thought of tearing myself away from those whom Christian ties have made dearer to me than my kindred after the flesh. And then comes the precious privilege and relief of telling my yet dearer and better Friend all about it, and the sweet peace begotten of yielding my will to His. I want to be of all the use and comfort to you and to the other dear ones He will let me be during these few months. Do pray for me that I may so live Christ as to bear others along with me on a resistless tide. Those lines you copied for me are a great comfort:

"Rather walking with Him by faith,
Than walking alone in the light."

Of the little praying circle, alluded to in her letter to Mrs. C., one of its members writes:

It was unique even among meetings of its own class. Held in an upper chamber, never largely attended and sometimes only by the "two or three," it was almost unknown except to the few, who regarded it as among their chiefest religious privileges. All the other members would gladly have had Mrs. Prentiss assume its entire leadership; but she assumed nothing and was no doubt quite unconscious as to how large an extent she was the life and soul of the meeting. In the familiar conversation of the hour nothing fell from her lips but such simple words as, coming from a glowing heart, strengthened and deepened the spiritual life of all who heard them. She had, in a degree I never knew equalled, the gift of leading the devotions of others. But there was not the slightest approach to performance in her prayers; she abhorred the very thought of it. Those who knelt with her can never forget the pure devotion which breathed itself forth in simple exquisite language; but it was something beyond the power of description.

Another member of the circle writes:

Her prayers were so simple, so earnest, so childlike. We all felt we were in the very presence of our loving Father. One thing especially always impressed me during that sacred hour--it was her _quietness of manner_. She was very cordial and affectionate in her greetings with each one, as we assembled, and then a holy awe, a solemn hush, came over her spirit and she seemed like one who saw the Lord! O how we all miss her! There is never a meeting but we keep her in remembrance and talk together lovingly about her.

_To a Friend, Oct. 21, 1871._

Mr. Prentiss sent in his resignation last evening, and the church refused unanimously to let him go. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow" penetrated the walls of the parsonage, as they sang it when the decision was made, and so we knew our fate before a whole parlorful rushed in to shake hands, kiss, and congratulate. You would have been delighted had you been here. Prof. Smith, who took strong ground in favor of his going, takes just as strong ground in favor of his staying. I feel that all this is the result of prayer. I never got any light on the Chicago question when I prayed about it; never could _see_ that it was our duty to go; but I yielded my judgment and my will, because my husband thought that he must go. I think our very reluctance to it made us shrink from evading it; we were so afraid of opposing God's will. Now the matter is taken out of our hands and we have only to resume our work here. God grant that this baptism of fire may purge and purify us and prepare us to be a great blessing to the church. It is a most awe-inspiring providence, God's burning us out of Chicago, and we feel like putting our shoes from off our feet and adoring Him in silence.... Pray that the lessons we have been learning through so many trying months may help us to be helping hands to those who may pass through similar straits. One of my brothers was burnt out, and his own and his wife's letters drew tears even down to the kitchen. For two days and a night they lost their baby, five months old, in addition to all the other horrors. But they found refuge with a dear cousin, who has filled his house to overflowing. I may have spoken of this cousin to you: he has a foundling home on Müller's trust system.

Before taking leave of the call to Chicago a word should be added to what she says concerning it in her letters. The prospect of her husband's accepting the call rendered the summer a very trying one; but it was far from being all gloom. She had a marvellous power of extracting amusement out of the most untoward situation. In 1843 she wrote from Richmond, referring to Mr. Persico's troubles: "I never spent such melancholy weeks in my life; in the midst of it, however, I made fun for the rest, as I believe I should do in a dungeon." It was so in the present case. She relieved the weariness of many an anxious hour by "making fun for the rest." As an illustration, one evening at Dorset, while sitting at the parlor-table with her children and a young friend who was visiting her, she seized a pencil and wrote for their entertainment a ludicrous version of the Chicago affair in two parts. The paper which was preserved by her young friend, illustrates also another trait which she thus describes at the close of a frolicsome letter to Miss E. A. Warner: "It is one of the peculiar peculiarities of this woman that she usually carries on, when she wants to hide her feelins." Part I. begins thus:

Where are the Prentisses? Gone to Chicago,
Gone bag and baggage, the whole crew and cargo.
Well, they _would_ go, now let's talk 'em over,
And see what compensation we can discover.

They are all "talked over" and then in Part II. the scene changes to Chicago itself:

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Here's the tribe of Prentisses just agoing by;
Dr. Prentiss he,
Mrs. Prentiss she,
And a lot of young ones that all begin with P.
Well, let us view them with our eyes,
And then begin to criticise.
And first the doctor, what of him?

The doctor having been fully discussed, the criticism proceeds:

Now for his wife; well, who would guess
She had set up as authoress!
Why, she looks just like all of us,
Instead of being in a muss
Like other literary folks.
They say she likes her little jokes,
As well as those who've less to say
Of stepping on the heavenward way.

Mrs. P. having been disposed of:

Next comes Miss P.; how she will make
The hearts of all the students quake!
She'll wind them round her fingers' ends,
And find in them one hundred friends.
They'll sit on benches in a row
And watch her come, and watch her go;
But they'll be safe, the precious rogues,
Since she don't care for theologues.

The other children next pass in review and the whole closes with the remark:

Time, and Time only, will make clear
Why the poor geese came cackling here.

_To a young Friend, New York, Nov., 1871._