The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss Part 26

How fearful it must be to kick thus against the p.r.i.c.ks, already sharp enough! I believe fully with you that there is no happiness on earth, as there is none in heaven, to be compared with that of losing all things to possess Christ. I look back to two points in my life as standing out from all the rest of it as seasons of peculiar joy, and they are the points where I was crushed under the weight of sorrow. How wonderful this is, how incomprehensible to those who have not learned Christ!

Do write me oftener; you are very dear to me, and your letters always welcome. I love you for magnifying the Lord in the midst of your distress; you could not get so into my heart in any other way.

_To Mrs. Smith, Dorset, August 8, 1869._

Half of your chickens are safely here, well and bright, and settled I hope, for the summer. A., and M., who seems as joyous as a lark, are like Siamese twins, with the advantage of untying at night and sleeping in different beds. I have not been well, and did not go to church to-day; but Prof. Robinson of Rochester, N. Y., preached a very superior sermon, George says. They have gone to our woods together. We took tea a few nights ago at the Pratts, being invited to meet him and Mrs. R. They asked many questions about you and your husband. We find the Pratts charming neighbors in their way, modest, kind, and good. They take the Advance, read Katy, and like it.

_Aug. 21st_--As we have only had sixteen in our family of late, I have not had much to do. Yesterday we made up a party to the quarry and had just got seated, twenty-nine in all, to eat a very nice dinner, when it began to rain in floods. Each grabbed his plate, if he could, and rushed to a blacksmith's shop not far off; twenty or thirty workmen rushed there too, and there we were, cooped up in the dirt, to finish our meal as we best could. It soon stopped pouring and we had a delightful drive home. Mr. B. F. B., with two of his boys, was with us. He is charmed with our house and its views. Katy has made her last appearance in the Advance, but I keep getting letters about her from all quarters, and the editors say they have had hundreds. [4] H. has caught up with Hal and they are exactly of a height, and I feel as if I had a dear little pair of twins. Last Sunday evening the three boys laid their heads in my lap together, all alike content.

IV.

Return to Town. Domestic Changes. Letters. "My Heart sides with G.o.d in everything." Visiting among the Poor. "Conflict isn't Sin." Publication of _Stepping Heavenward_. Her Misgivings about it. How it was received.

Reminiscences by Miss Eliza A. Warner. Letters. The Rev. Wheelock Craig.

Early in October she returned to town and began to make ready for the departure of her eldest daughter to Europe, where she was to pa.s.s the next year with the family of Prof. Smith. The younger children had thus far been taught by their sister, and her leaving home was fraught with no little trial both to them and to the mother.

_To Mrs. Smith, New York, October 12._

I can fully sympathise with the sad toss you are in about staying abroad another year, but we feel that there is no doubt you have decided wisely and well. But the bare mention of your settling down at Vevay has driven us all wild. What hallucination could you have been laboring under?

Why, your husband would go off the handle in a week! To be sure it is beautiful for situation as Mount Zion itself, but one can't live on beauty; one must have life and action, and stimulus; in other words, human beings. They're all horrid (except you), but we can't do without 'em. What I went through at lonely Genevrier!

"Oh Solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face!"

We took it for granted that you would settle in some German city, near old friends; it is true, they mayn't be all you want, but anything is better than nothing, and you would stagnate and moulder all away at Vevay. What is there there? Why, a lake and some mountains, and you can't spend a year staring at them. Well, I dare say light will be let in upon you. I hope A. will behave herself; you must rule it over her with a rod of iron (as if you could!), and make her stand round. Her going plunges us into a new world of care and anxiety and tribulation; we have thrust our children out into, or on to, the great ocean, and are about ready to sink with them. If I could sit down and cry, it would do me lots of good, but I can't. Then how am I to spare my twin-boy, and my A. and my M.? Who is to keep me well snubbed? Who is to tell me what to wear? Who is to keep Darby and Joan from settling down into two fearful old pokes?

Your husband suggests that "if I have a husband, etc." I have had one with a vengeance. He has worked like seventeen mad dogs all summer, and I have hardly laid eyes on him. When I have, it has been to fight with him; he would come in with a hoe or a rake or a spade in his hand, and find me with a broom, a shovel, or a pair of tongs in mine, and without a word we would pitch in and have an encounter. Of all the aggravating creatures, hasn't he been aggravating! Sometimes I thought he had run raving distracted, and sometimes I dare say, he thought I had gone melancholy mad. He persists to this day that the work did him good, and that he enjoyed his summer. Well, maybe he did; I suppose he knows.

How glad I am for you that you are to have the children go to you. It seems to be exactly the right thing. I hope to get a copy of Katy to send by the girls, but can't think of anything else. As A. is to be where you are, you will probably be kept well posted in the doings of our family. I do hope she will not be a great addition to your cares, but have some misgivings as to the effect so long absence from home may have upon her. What a world this is for shiftings and siftings!

_To G. S. P. October, 1869._

I always thought George McDonald a little audacious, though I like him in the main. There is a fallacy in this cavil, you may depend. Some years ago, when I was a little befogged by plausible talk, Dr. Skinner came to our house, got into one of his best moods, and preached a regular sermon on the glory of G.o.d, that set me all right again. I am not skilled in argument, but my heart sides with G.o.d in everything, and my conception of His character is such a beautiful one that I feel that He can not err. I do not like the expression, "He's aye thinking about his own glory" (I quote from memory); it belittles the real fact, and almost puts the Supreme Being on a level with us poor mortals. The more time we spend upon our knees, in real communion with G.o.d, the better we shall comprehend His wonderful nature, and how impossible it is to submit that nature to the rules by which we judge human beings. Every turn in life brings me back to this--_more prayer_.... I shall go with much pleasure to see Mrs. G. and may G.o.d give me some good word to say to her. I almost envy you your sphere of usefulness, but unless I give up mine, can not get fully into it. I want you to know that next to being with my Saviour, I love to be with His sufferers; so that you can be sure to remember me, when you have any on your heart.... P. S. I have hunted up Mrs. G. and had such an interesting talk with her that she has hardly been out of my mind since. It is a very unusual case, and the fact that her husband is a Jew, and loves her with such real romance, is an obstacle in her way to Christ. When you can get a little spare time I wish you would run in and let us talk her case over. I'm ever so glad that I'm growing old every day, and so becoming better fitted to be the dear and loving friend to young people I want to be.

I wish we both loved our Saviour better, and could do more for Him. The days in which I do nothing specifically for Him seem such meagre, such lost days. You seemed to think, the last time I saw you, that you were not so near Him as you were last year. I think we can't always know our own state. It does not follow that a season of severe conflict is a sign of estrangement from G.o.d. Perhaps we are never dearer to Him than when we hate ourselves most, and fancy ourselves intolerable in His sight.

_Conflict isn't sin._

_To Miss E. A. Warner, New York, October 11, 1869._

I hear with great concern that Miss Lyman's health is so much worse, that she is about to leave Va.s.sar. Is this true? I can not say I should be very sorry if I should hear she was going to be called up higher. It seems such a blessed thing to finish up one's work when the Master says we may, and going to be with Him. I can fully sympathise with the feeling that made Mrs. Graham say, as she closed her daughter's eyes, "I wish you joy, my darling!" But I should want to see her before she went; that would be next best to seeing her after she got back. If you meet with a dear little book called "The Melody of the 23d Psalm," do read it; it is by Miss Anna Warner, and shows great knowledge of, and love for, the Bible. In a few weeks I shall be able to send you a copy of Stepping Heavenward.

We have been home rather more than a week and the house is all upside down, outwardly and inwardly. For A. sails for Europe on the 21st with M. and Hal Smith, to be gone a year, and this involves sending the other children to school, and various trying changes of the sort. Tossing my long sheltered lambs into the world has cost me inexpressible pain; only a mother can understand how much and why; and they, on their part, go into it shrinking and quivering in every nerve. To their father, as well as to me, this has been a time of sore trial, and we are doing our best to keep each other up amid the discouragements and temptations that confront us. For each new phase of life brings more or less of both.

_Stepping Heavenward_ was published toward the end of October, having appeared already as a serial in the Chicago Advance. The first number of the serial was printed February 4, 1869. The work was planned and the larger part of it composed during the winter and spring of 1867-8.

Referring more especially to this part of it, she once said to a friend: "Every word of that book was a prayer, and seemed to come of itself.

I never knew how it was written, for my heart and hands were full of something else." By "something else" she had in mind the care of little Francis. The ensuing summer the ma.n.u.script was taken with her to Dorset, carefully revised and finished before her return to the city. In revising it she had the advantage of suggestions made by her friends, Miss Warner and Miss Lyman, both of them Christian ladies of the best culture and of rare good sense.

Notwithstanding the favor with which the work had been received as issued in The Advance, Mrs. Prentiss had great misgiving about its success--a misgiving that had haunted her while engaged in writing it.

But all doubt on the subject was soon dispelled:

The response to "Stepping Heavenward" was instant and general. Others of her books were enjoyed, praised, laughed over, but this one was taken by tired hands into secret places, pored over by eyes dim with tears, and its lessons prayed out at many a Jabbok. It was one of those books which sorrowing, Mary-like women read to each other, and which lured many a bustling Martha from the fretting of her care-c.u.mbered life to ponder the new lesson of rest in toil. It was one of those books of which people kept a lending copy, that they might enjoy the uninterrupted companionship of their own. The circulation of the book was very large.

Not to speak of the thousands which were sold here, it went through numerous editions in England. From England it pa.s.sed into Australia. It fell into the family of an afflicted Swiss pastor, and the comfort which it brought to that stricken household led to its translation into French by one of the pastor's daughters. It pa.s.sed through I know not how many editions in French. [5] In Germany it came into the hands of an invalid lady who begged the privilege of translating it. The first word of a favorite German hymn,

"Heavenward doth our journey tend; We are strangers here on earth,"

furnished the t.i.tle for the German translation--"Himmelan." It appeared just after the French war, and went as a comforter into scores of the homes which war had desolated, and frequent testimony came back to her of the deep interest excited by the book, and of the affectionate grat.i.tude called out toward the author. She seemed to have inspired her translator, whose letters to her breathe the warmest affection and the most enthusiastic admiration. It would be easy to fill up the time that remains with grateful testimonies to the work of this book. From among a mult.i.tude I select only one: A manufacturer in a New England town, a stranger, wrote to her expressing his high appreciation of the book, and saying that he had four thousand persons in his employ, and a circulating library of six thousand volumes for their use, in which were two copies of "Stepping Heavenward." He adds, "I hear in every direction of the good it is doing, and a wealthy friend has written to me saying that she means to put a copy into the hand of every bride of her acquaintance." [6]

Several chapters might be filled with letters received by Mrs. Prentiss, expressing the grat.i.tude of the writers for the spiritual help and comfort _Stepping Heavenward_ had given them. These letters came from all parts of this country, from Europe, and even from the ends of the earth; and they were written by persons belonging to every cla.s.s in society. Among them was one, written on coa.r.s.e brown grocery paper, from a poor crippled boy in the interior of Pennsylvania, which she especially prized. It led to a friendly correspondence that continued for several years. The book was read with equal delight by persons not only of all cla.s.ses, but of all creeds also; by Calvinists, Arminians, High Churchmen, Evangelicals, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics. [7] It was, however, wholly unnoticed by most of the organs of literary opinion in this country; although abroad it attracted at once the attention of men and women well known in the world of letters, and was praised by them in the highest terms. [8]

Miss Eliza A. Warner, in the following Reminiscences, gives some interesting incidents in reference to _Stepping Heavenward_.

That summer in Dorset--the summer of 1868--is one full of bright and pleasant memories which it is delightful to recall. I had heard much of Mrs. Prentiss from mutual friends, and been exceedingly interested in her books, so that when I found we were to be fellow-boarders for the summer I was greatly pleased; yet I felt a little shy at meeting one of whose superiority in many lines I had heard so much.

How well I remember that bright morning in July on which we first met on our way to the breakfast-table! I can hear now the frank, cheery voice with which she greeted me, and see her large dark eyes, so full of animation and kindly interest, which a moment after sparkled with fun as she recalled an old joke familiar to my friends, and, it seemed, to her also. I was put at my ease at once, and from that moment onward felt the wonderful fascination of a manner so peculiarly her own; it was a frank, whole-souled, sincere manner, with a certain indescribable piquancy and sprightliness blending with the earnestness which made her very individual and very charming.

For the next two months we were a good deal together. I think it was a very happy summer to her. You were building the house in Dorset for a summer home, and the planning for this and watching its progress was a pleasant occupation. And she was such an enthusiastic lover of nature that the out-of-door life she led was a constant enjoyment. She would spend hours rambling in the woods, collecting ferns, mosses, trailing vines, and every lovely bit of blossom and greenery that met her eye--and nothing pretty escaped it--and there was always an added freshness and brightness in her face when she came home laden with these treasures, and eager to exhibit them. "Oh, you don't go crazy over such things as I do," she would say as she held them up for our admiration.

She filled her room with these woodland beauties, and pressed quant.i.ties of them to carry to her city home.

In that beautiful valley among the Green Mountains, some of whose near summits rise to the height of three thousand feet, her enthusiasm for fine scenery had full scope. She would watch with delight the sunset glow as it spread and deepened along those mountain peaks, suffusing them with a glory which we likened to that of the New Jerusalem; and as we sat and watched this glory slowly fade, tint by tint, into the gray twilight, her talk would be of heaven and holiness and Christ.

Whatever she felt, she felt intensely, and she threw her whole heart and soul into all she said or did; this was one great secret of the power of her personal presence; she felt so keenly herself, she made others feel.

Those summer days were long and bright and beautiful, but none too long for her. She was one of the most industrious persons I have ever known, and her writing, reading and sewing, and the care of her children, over the formation of whose characters she watched closely and wisely, occupied every moment of her time, except when she was out of doors, trying by exercise in the open air to secure a good night's sleep; not an easy thing for her to do in those days.

Early in August we were joined by Miss Hannah Lyman, of Va.s.sar College, a mutual friend and a most delightful addition to our little party.

We knew Mrs. Prentiss spent a part of every day in writing, but she said nothing of the nature of her work. Do you remember coming into the parlor one morning, where Miss Lyman and I were sitting by ourselves, and telling us that she was writing a story, but had become so discouraged she threatened to throw it aside as not worth finishing?

"I like it myself," you added, "it really seems to me one of the best things she has ever written, and I am trying to get her to read it to you and see what you think of it."

Of course, both Miss Lyman and myself were eager to hear it, and promised to tell her frankly how we liked it. The next morning she came to our room with a little green box in her hand, saying, with her merry laugh, "Now you've got to do penance for your sins, you two wicked women!" and, sitting down by the window, while we took our sewing, she began to read us in ma.n.u.script the work which was destined to touch and strengthen so many hearts--"which," to use the words of another, "has become a part of the soul-history of many thousands of Christian women--young and old--at home and abroad."

It was a rare treat to listen to it, with comments from her interspersed; some of them droll and witty, others full of profound religious feeling. Now and then, as we queried if something was not improbable or unnatural, she would give us bits of history from her own experience or that of her friends, going to show that stranger things had occurred in real life. I need not say we insisted on its being finished, feeling sure it would do great good; though I must confess that I do not think either of us, much as we enjoyed it, was fully aware of its great merits.

I was much impressed by her singleness of purpose; her one great desire so evidently being that her writings should help others to know and to love Christ and His truth, that she thought little or nothing of her own reputation.

She went on with her work, occasionally reading to us what she had added. In those days she always spoke of it as her "Katy book," no other t.i.tle having been given to it. But one morning she came to the breakfast-table with her face all lighted up. "I've got a name for my book," she exclaimed; "it came to me while I was lying awake last night.

You know Wordsworth's Stepping Westward? I am going to call it Stepping Heavenward--don't you like it? I do." We all felt it was exactly the right name, and she added, "I think I will put in Wordsworth's poem as a preface."

Of the heart-communings on sacred things that made that summer so memorable to me I can not speak; and yet, more than anything else, these gave a distinctive character to our intercourse. Her faith and love were so ardent and persuading, so much a part of herself, that no one could be with her without recognising their power over her life. She was interested in everything about her, without a particle of cant, full of playful humor and bright fancies; but the love of Christ was the absorbing interest of her life--almost a pa.s.sion, it might be called, so fervent and rapturous was her devotion to Him, so great her longing for communion with Him and for a more complete conformity to His perfect will.

As I have said, all her emotions were intense and her religious affections had the same warmth and glow. Believing in Christ was to her not so much a duty as the deepest joy of her life, heightening all other joys, and she was not satisfied until her friends shared with her in this experience. She believed it to be attainable by all, founded on a complete submitting of the human to the Divine will in all things, great and small.

Truly of her it might be said, if of any human being, "_she hath loved much_."

_To Mrs. Smith, New York, Nov. 16, 1869._

Your arrangements at Heidelberg seem to me to be as delightful as anything can be in a world where nothing is ideal. Be sure to let A.

bear her full share of the expense, and be a mother to her if you can.