The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss Part 29

This is about a tenth part of what I might say.

_To Miss E. A. Warner, New York, April 25, 1870._

I wish I could describe to you my last interview with Mrs. B. She had altered so in two weeks in which I had not seen her, that I should not have known her. She spoke with difficulty, but by getting close to her mouth I could hear all she said. She went back to the first time she met me, told me her heart then knitted itself to mine, and how she had loved me ever since, etc., etc. I then asked her if she had any parting counsel to give me: "No, not a word.".... Some one came in and wet her lips, gave her a sprig of citronatis, and pa.s.sed out. I crushed it and let her smell the bruised leaves, saying, "You are just like these crushed leaves." She smiled, and replied, "Well, I haven't had one pain too many, not one. But the agony has been dreadful. I won't talk about that; I just want to see your sunny face." I asked if she was rejoicing in the hope of meeting lost friends and the saints in heaven. She said, with an expressive look, "Oh, no, I haven't got so far as _that_. I have only got as far as Christ." "For all that," I said, "you'll see my father and mother there." "Why, so I shall," with another bright smile.

But her lips were growing white with pain, and I came away.

Did I tell you it was our silver wedding-day on the 16th? We had a very happy day, and if I could see you I should like to tell you all about it. But it is too long a story to tell in writing. I don't see but I've had everything this life can give, and have a curious feeling as if I had got to a stopping-place. I heard yesterday that two of M.'s teachers had said they looked at her with perfect awe on account of her goodness.

I really never knew her to do anything wrong.

_To a young Friend New York, May 1, 1870._

I could write forever on the subject of Christian charity, but I must say that in the case you refer to, I think you accuse yourself unduly.

We are not to part company with our common sense because we want to clasp hands with the Love that thinketh no evil, and we can not help seeing that there are few, if any, on earth without beams in their eyes and foibles and sins in their lives. The fact that your friend repented and confessed his sin, ent.i.tled him to your forgiving love, but not to the ignoring of the fact that he was guilty.... Temptations come sometimes in swarms, like bees, and running away does no good, and fighting only exasperates them. The only help must come from Him who understands and can control the whole swarm.

You ask for my prayers, and I ask for yours. I long ago formed the habit of praying at night individually, if possible, for all who had come to me through the day, or whom I had visited; but you contrive to get a much larger share than that. I love to think of your future holiness and usefulness as even in the very least linked to my prayers. Oh, I ought to know how to pray a great deal better than I do, for forty years ago, save one, I this day publicly dedicated myself to Christ. I write to you because I like to do so, recognising no difference between writing and talking. When no better work comes to me, I am glad to give the little pleasure I can, in notes and letters. He who knows how poor we are, how little we have to give, does not disdain even a note like this, since it is written in love to Him and to one of His own dear ones.

_May 23d._--Your last letter was like a fragrant breath of country air, redolent of flowers, and all that makes rural scenes so sweet. But better still, it was fragrant with love to Him who is the bond between us, in whose name and for whose sake we are friends. I wish I loved Him better and were more like Him; perhaps that is about as far as we get in this world, for no matter how far we advance, we are never satisfied; there is always something ahead; I doubt if any one ever said, even in a whisper and to himself, "Now I love my Saviour as much as a human soul can."

You speak of my having given you "counsels." Have I had the presumption to do that? Two-thirds of the time I feel as if I wanted somebody to counsel me; the only thing I really know that you do not, is what it is to be beaten with persistent, ceaseless stripes, year after year, year after year, with scarcely breathing time between. I don't know whether this is most an argument against me, or for G.o.d; on the whole it is most for Him, who was so good and kind as never to spare me for my writhing and groaning. Truly as I value this discipline, I want you to give yourself to Him so unreservedly that you will not need such sharp treatment. I am not going to keep writing and getting you in debt. All I ask is if you ever feel a little under the weather and want a specially loving or cheering word, to give me the chance to speak or write it.

A chapter might be written about Mrs. Prentiss' love for little children, the enthusiasm with which she studied all their artless ways, her delight in their beauty, and the reverence with which she regarded the mystery of their infant being. Her faith in their real, complete humanity, their susceptibility to spiritual influences, and, when called from earth, their blessed immortality in and through Christ, was very vivid; and it was untroubled by any of those distressing doubts, or misgivings, that are engendered by the materialistic spirit and science of the age. Contempt for them shocked her as an offence against the Holy Child Jesus, their King and Saviour. Her very look and manner as she took a young infant, especially a sick or dying infant, in her arms and gave it a loving kiss, seemed to say:

Sweet baby, little as thou art, Thou art a human whole; Thou hast a little human heart, Thou hast a deathless soul. [6]

The following letter to a Christian mother, dated May 13th, will show her feeling on this subject:

This morning we attended the funeral of a little baby, eight months old.

My husband, in his remarks, said that though born and ever continuing to be a sufferer, it was never saddened by this fellowship with Christ; and that he believed it was a partaker of His holiness, and glad through His indwelling, even though unconscious of it. During the last days of its life, after each paroxysm of coughing, it would look first at its mother, then at its father, for sympathy, and then look upward with a face radiant beyond description. I can't tell you how it touched me to think that I had in that baby a little Christian _sister_--not merely redeemed, but sanctified from its birth--and I know it will touch and strengthen you to hear of it. I felt a reverence for that tiny, lifeless form, that I can not put into words. And, indeed, why should it be harder for G.o.d to enter into the soul of an infant than into our "unlikeliest" ones? ... I see more and more that if we have within us the mind of Christ, we must bear the burden of other griefs than our own; He did not merely _pity_ suffering humanity; He _bore_ our griefs, and in all our afflictions He was afflicted.

_To Mrs. Condict, June 6, 1870._

If you can get hold of the April number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, read an article in it called "Psychology in the Life, Work and Teachings of Jesus." I think it very striking and very true. Praying for Dr. ---- this morning, I had such a peaceful feeling that he was safe. Do you feel so about him? I had a very different experience about another man who has been to see me since I began this letter, and who said I was the first _happy_ person he ever met. May G.o.d lay that to his heart!...

Rummaging among dusty things in the attic this forenoon with great repugnance, I found such a beautiful letter from my husband, written for my solace in Switzerland when he was in Paris (he wrote me every day, sometimes twice a day, during the two months of our enforced separation) that even the drudgery of getting my hands soiled and my back broken was sweetened. That's the way G.o.d keeps on spoiling us; one good thing after another till we are ashamed. Well, let us step onward, hand in hand. I wonder which of us will outrun the other and step in first? I am so glad I'm willing to live.

In the course of this spring _The Percys_ was published. The story first came out as a serial in the New York Observer. It was translated into French under the t.i.tle _La Famille Percy_. In 1876 a German version appeared under the t.i.tle _Die Familie Percy_. It was also republished in London. [7]

III.

Lines on going to Dorset. A Cloud over her. Faber's Life. Loving Friends for one's own sake and loving them for Christ's sake. The Bible and the Christian Life. Dorset Society and Occupations. Counsels to a young Friend in Trouble. "Don't stop praying for your Life!" Cure for the Heart-sickness caused by a Sight of human Imperfections. Fenelon's Teaching about Humiliation and being patient with Ourselves.

The following lines, found among her papers after her death, show in what spirit she went to Dorset:

Once more I change my home, once more begin Life in this rural stillness and repose; But I have brought with me my heart of sin, And sin nor quiet nor cessation knows.

Ah, when I make the final, blessed change, I shall leave that behind, shall throw aside Earth's soiled and soiling garments, and shall range Through purer regions like a youthful bride.

Thrice welcome be that day! Do thou, meanwhile, My soul, sit ready, unenc.u.mbered wait; The Master bides thy coming, and His smile Shall bid thee welcome at the golden gate.

DORSET, June 15, 1870.

_To Mrs. Condict, Dorset, June 18, 1870._

I would love to have you here with me in this dear little den of mine and see the mountains from my window. My husband has gone back to town, and my only society is that of the children, so you would be most welcome if you should come in either smiling or sighing. I have had a cloud over me of late. Do you know about Mr. Prentiss' appointment by General a.s.sembly to a professorship at Chicago? His going would involve not only our tearing ourselves out of the heart of our beloved church, but of my losing you and Miss K., and of our all losing this dear little home. Of course, he does not want to go, and I am shocked at the thought of his leaving the ministry; but, on the other hand, there is a right and a wrong to the question, and we ought to want to do whatever G.o.d chooses. The thought of giving up this home makes me know better how to sympathise with you if you have to part with yours. I do think it is good for us to be emptied from vessel to vessel, and there is something awful in the thought of having our own way with leanness in the soul. I am greatly pained in reading Faber's Life and Letters, at the shocking way in which he speaks of Mary, calling her his mamma, and praying to her and to Joseph, and n.o.body knows who not. It seems almost incredible that this is the man who wrote those beautiful strengthening hymns. It sets one to praying "Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe." ... I should have forgotten the lines of mine you quote if you had not copied them.

G.o.d give to you and to me a thousandfold more of the spirit they breathe, and make us wholly, wholly His own! My repugnance to go to Chicago makes me feel that perhaps that is just the wrench I need. Well, good-bye; at the longest we have not long to stay in this sphere of discipline and correction.

_To Mr. G. S. P., Dorset, July 13, 1870._

I had just come home from a delicious little tramp through our own woods when your letter came, and now, if you knew what was good for you, you would drop in and take tea and spend the evening with us. I should like you to see our house and our mountains, and our cup that runs over till we are ashamed. Had I not known you wouldn't come I should have given you a chance, especially as my husband was gone and I was rather lonely; though to be sure he always writes me every day. On the way up here I was glad of time to think out certain things I had been waiting for leisure to attend to. One had some connection with you, as well as one or two other friends. I had long felt that there was a real, though subtle, difference between human--and, shall I say divine?--affection, but did not see just what it was. Turning it over in my mind that day, it suddenly came to me as this. Human friendship may be entirely selfish, giving only to receive in return, or may be partially so--yet still selfish. But the love that grows out of the love of Christ, and that delights in His image wherever it is seen, claims no response; loves because it is its very nature to do so, because it can not help it, and this without regard to what its object gives. I dare not pretend that I have fully reached this state, but I have entered this land, and know that it is one to be desired as a home, an abiding place. I have thought painfully of the narrow quarters and the hot nights endured by so many in New York, during this unusually warm weather--especially of Mrs. G. with three restless children in bed with her and her poor lonely heart. I can not but believe that Christ has real purposes of mercy to her soul. I feel interested in Mr. H.'s summer work in a hard field. In place of aversion to young men, I am beginning to realise how true work for Christ one may do by praying persistently for them, especially those consecrated to the ministry of His gospel. I do hope Christ will have the whole of you, and that you will have the whole of Him. When you write, let me know how you like my beloved Fenelon. Still, you may not like him. Some Christians never get to feeding on these mystical writers, and get on without them.

_To Mrs. Condict, Dorset, July 18, 1870._

I was greatly struck with these words yesterday: "As for G.o.d His way is perfect"; think of reading the Bible through four times in one year, and n.o.body knows how many times since, and never resting on these words.

Somehow they charmed me. And these words have been ringing in my ears,

"Earth looks so little and so low,"

while conscious that when I can get ferns and flowers, it does not look so "little" or so "low," as it does when I can't. My cook, who is a Romanist, has been prevented from going to her own church seven miles off, by the weather, ever since we came here, and last Sunday said she meant to go to ours. Mr. P. preached on G.o.d's character as our Physician, and she was delighted. I think it was hearing one of his little letters to the children that made her realise, that he was a Christian man whom she might safely hear; at any rate, I feel greatly pleased and comforted that she could appreciate such a subject. I fear you are suffering from the weather; we never knew anything like it here.

We do not suffer, but wake up every morning _bathed_ in a breeze that refreshes for the day; I mean we do not suffer while we keep still. I am astonished at G.o.d's goodness in giving us this place; not His goodness itself, but towards _us_. If Mrs. Brinsmade [8] left much of such material as the extract you sent me, I wonder Dr. B. did not write her memoir. The more I read of what Christ said about faith, the more impressed I am. Just now I am on the last chapters in the gospel of John, and feel as if I had never read them before. They are just wonderful. We have to read the Bible to understand the Christian life, and we must penetrate far into that life in order to understand the Bible. How beautifully the one interprets the other! I want you to let me know, without telling her that I asked you, if Miss K. could make me a visit if it were not for the expense?

_To Miss E. A. Warner, Dorset, July 20, 1870._

Did you ever use a fountain pen? I have had one given me, and like it so much that I sent for one for my husband, and one for Mr. Pratt. When one wants to write in one's lap, or out of doors, it is delightful. Mrs.

Field came over from East Dorset on Sunday to have her baby baptized.

They had him there in the church through the whole morning service, and he was as quiet as any of us. The next day Mrs. F. came down and spent the morning with me, sweeter, more thoughtful than ever, if changed at all. Dr. and Mrs. Humphrey, of Philadelphia, are pa.s.sing the summer here at the tavern, and we spend most of our evenings there, or they come here. Mrs. H. is a very superior woman, and though I was determined not to like her, because I have so many people on hand already, I found I could not help it. She is as furious about mosses and lichens and all such things as I am, and the other day took home a _bushel-basket_ of them. She is an earnest Christian, and has pa.s.sed through deep waters; I ought to have reversed the order of those clauses. Excuse this rather hasty letter; I feared you might fancy your book lost. If you are alive, let me know it, also if you are dead.

_To a young Friend, Dorset, Aug. 8, 1870._

I dare not answer your letter, just received, in my own strength, but must pray over it long. It is a great thing to learn how far our doubts and despondencies are the direct result of physical causes, and another great thing is, when we can not trace any such connexion, to bear patiently and quietly what G.o.d _permits_, if He does not authorise. I have no more doubt that you love Him, and that He loves you, than that I love Him and that He loves me. You have been daily in my prayers.

Temptations and conflict are inseparable from the Christian life; no strange thing has happened to you. Let me comfort you with the a.s.surance that you will be taught more and more by G.o.d's Spirit how to resist; and that true strength and holy manhood will spring up from this painful soil. Try to take heart; there is more than one foot-print on the sands of time to prove that "some forlorn and shipwrecked brother" has traversed them before you, and come off conqueror through the Beloved.

_Don't stop praying for your life._ Be as cold and emotionless as you please; G.o.d will accept your naked faith, when it has no glow or warmth in it; and in His own time the loving, glad heart will come back to you.

I deeply feel for and with you, and have no doubt that a week among these mountains would do more towards uniting you to Christ than a mile of letters would. You can't complain of any folly to which I could not plead guilty. I have put my Saviour's patience to every possible test, and how I love Him when I think what He will put up with.

You ask if I "ever feel that religion is a sham"? No, never. I _know_ it is a reality. If you ask if I am ever staggered by the inconsistencies of professing Christians, I say yes, I am often made heartsick by them; but heartsickness always makes me run to Christ, and one good look at Him pacifies me. This is in fact my panacea for every ill; and as to my own sinfulness, that would certainly overwhelm me if I spent much time in looking at it. But it is a monster whose face I do not love to see; I turn from its hideousness to the beauty of His face who sins not, and the sight of "yon lovely Man" ravishes me. But at your age I did this only by fits and starts, and suffered as you do. So I know how to feel for you, and what to ask for you. G.o.d purposely sickens us of man and of self, that we may learn to "look long at Jesus."

And this brings me to what you say about Fenelon's going too far, when he says we may judge of the depth of our humility by our delight in humiliation, etc. No, he does not go a bit too far. Paul says, "I will _glory_ in my infirmities"--"I take _pleasure_ in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecution, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong." I think this a great attainment; but that His disciples may reach it, though only through a humbling, painful process. Then as to G.o.d's glory. We say, "Man's chief end is to glorify G.o.d and enjoy Him forever." Now, can we enjoy Him till we do glorify Him? Can we enjoy Him while living for ourselves, while indulging in sin, while prayerless and cold and dead? Does not G.o.d directly seek our highest happiness when He strips us of vainglory and self-love, embitters the poisonous draught of mere human felicity, and makes us fall down before Him lost in the sense of His beauty and desirableness? The connexion between glorifying and enjoying Him is, to my mind, perfect--one following as the _necessary sequence_ of the other; and facts bear me out in this. He who has let self go and lives only for the honor of G.o.d, is the free, the happy man. He is no longer a slave, but has the liberty of the sons of G.o.d; for "him who honors me, I will honor." Satan has befogged you on this point. He dreads to see you ripen into a saintly, devoted, useful man. He hopes to overwhelm and ruin you. But he will not prevail. You have solemnly given yourself to the Lord; you have chosen the work of winning and feeding souls as your life-work, and you can not, must not go back. These conflicts are the lot of those who are training to be the Lord's true yoke-fellows.

Christ's sweetest consolations lie behind crosses, and He reserves His best things for those who have the courage to press forward, fighting for them. I entreat you to turn your eyes away from self, from man, and look to Christ. Let me a.s.sure you, as a fellow-traveller, that I have been on the road and know it well, and that by and by there won't be such a dust on it. You will meet with hindrances and trials, but will fight quietly through, and no human ear hear the din of battle, no human eye perceive fainting or halting or fall. May G.o.d bless you, and become to you an ever-present, joyful reality! Indeed He will; only wait patiently.

In glancing over this, I see that I have here and there repeated myself.

Do excuse it. I believe it is owing to the way the flies hara.s.s and distract me.

_August 17th._--I feel truly grateful to G.o.d if I have been of any comfort to you. I know only too well the shock of seeing professors of even sinless perfection guilty of what I consider sinful sin, and my whole soul was so staggered that for some days I could not pray, but could only say, "O G.o.d, if there be any G.o.d, come to my rescue." ... But G.o.d loves better than He knows us, and foresaw every infidelity before He called us to Himself. Nothing in us takes Him, therefore, by surprise. Fenelon teaches what no other writer does--to be "patient with ourselves," and I think as you penetrate into the Christian life, you will agree with him on every point as I do.

_August 19th._--I have had a couple of rather sickish days since writing the above, but am all right again now. Hot weather does not agree with me. I used to reproach myself for religious stupidity when not well, but see now that G.o.d Is my kind Father--not my hard taskmaster, expecting me to be full of life and zeal when physically exhausted. It takes long to learn such lessons. One has to penetrate deeply into the heart of Christ to begin to know its tenderness and sympathy and forbearance.

You can't imagine how Miss K. has luxuriated in her visit, nor how good she thinks we all are. She holds views to which I can not quite respond, but I do not condemn or reject them. She is a modest, praying, devoted woman; not disposed to obtrude, much less to urge her opinions; full of Christian charity and forbearance; and I am truly thankful that she prays for me and mine; in fact, she loves to pray so, that when she gets hold of a new case, she acts as one does who has found a treasure.

I wish you were looking out with me on the beautiful array of mountains to be seen from every window of our house and breathing this delicious air.