The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss Part 30

_September 25th._--We expect now to go home on Friday next, though if I had known how early the foliage was going to turn this year, I should have planned to stay a week longer to see it in all its glory. It is looking very beautiful even now, and our eyes have a perpetual feast. We have had a charming summer, but one does not want to play all the time, and I hope G.o.d has work of some sort for me to do at home during the winter. Meanwhile, I wish I could send you a photograph of the little den where I am now writing, and the rustic adornings which make it _sui generis_, and the bit of woods to be seen from its windows, that, taking the lead of all other Dorset woods, have put on floral colors, just because they are ours and know we want them looking their best before we go away. But this wish must yield to fate, like many another; and, as I have come to the end of my paper, I will love and leave you.

IV.

_The Story Lizzie Told._ Country and City. The Law of Christian Progress. Letters to a Friend bereft of three Children. Sudden Death of another Friend. "Go on; step faster." Fenelon and his Influence upon her religious Life. Lines on her Indebtedness to him.

_The Story Lizzie Told_ was published about this time. It had already appeared in the Riverside Magazine. The occasion of the story was a pa.s.sage in a letter from London written by a friend, which described in a very graphic and touching way the yearly exhibition of the Society for the Promotion of Window Gardening among the Poor. The exhibition was held at the "Dean's close" at Westminster and the Earl of Shaftesbury gave the prizes. [9]

No one of Mrs. Prentiss's smaller works, perhaps, has been so much admired as _The Story Lizzie Told_. It was written at Dorset in the course of a single day, if not at a single sitting; and so real was the scene to her imagination that, on reading it in the evening to her husband, she had to stop again and again from the violence of her emotion. "What a little fool I am!" she would say, after a fresh burst of tears. [10]

_To Mrs. Leonard, New York, Oct. 16, 1870._

Your letter came in the midst of the wear and tear of A.'s return to us.

We were kept in suspense about her from Monday, when she was due, till, Friday when she came, and it is years since I have got so excited and wrought up. They had a dreadful pa.s.sage, but she was not sick at all.

Prof. Smith is looking better than I ever saw him, and we are all most happy in being together once more. I can truly re-echo your wish that you lived half way between us and Dorset, for then we should see you once a year at least. I miss you and long to see you. How true it is that each friend has a place of his own that no one else can fill! I do not doubt that the 13th of October was a silvery wedding-day to your dear husband. His loss has made Christ dearer to you, and so has made your union more perfect. I suppose you were never so much one as you are now.

We have had a delightful summer, not really suffering from the heat; though, of course, we felt it more or less. All our nights were cool....

I can not tell you how Mr. P. and myself enjoy our country home. It seems as if we had slipped into our proper nook. But if we are going to do any more brainwork, we must be where there is stimulus, such as we find here. What a mixed-up letter! I have almost forgotten how to write, in adorning my house and sowing my seeds and the like.

_To Mrs. Frederick Field, New York, Oct. 19th, 1870._

I deeply appreciate the Christian kindness that prompted you to write me in the midst of your sorrow. I was prepared for the sad news by a dream only last night. I fancied myself seeing your dear little boy lying very restlessly on his bed, and proposing to carry him about in my arms to relieve him. He made no objection, and I walked up and down with him a long, long time, when some one of the family took him from me. Instantly his face was illumined by a wondrous smile of delight that he was to leave the arms of a stranger to go to those familiar to him--such a smile, that when I awoke this morning I said to myself, "Eddy Field has gone to the arms of his Saviour, and gone gladly." You can imagine how your letter, an hour or two later, touched me. But you have better consolation than dreams can give; in the belief that your child will develop, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, into the perfect likeness of Christ, and in your own submission to the unerring will of G.o.d. I sometimes think that patient sufferers suffer most; they make less outcry than others, but the grief that has little vent wears sorely.

"Grace does not steel the faithful heart That it should feel no ill,"

and you have many a pang yet before you. It must be so very hard to see twin children part company, to have their paths diverge so soon. But the shadow of death will not always rest on your home; you will emerge from its obscurity into such a light as they who have never sorrowed can not know. We never know, or begin to know, the great Heart that loves us best, till we throw ourselves upon it in the hour of our despair.

Friends say and do all they can for us, but they do not know what we suffer or what we need; but Christ, who formed, has penetrated the depths of the mother's heart. He pours in the wine and the oil that no human hand possesses, and "as one whom his mother comforteth, so will He comfort you." I have lived to see that G.o.d never was so good to me as when He seemed most severe. Thus I trust and believe it will be with you and your husband. Meanwhile, while the peaceable fruits are growing and ripening, may G.o.d help you through the grievous time that must pa.s.s--a grievous time in which you have my warm sympathy. I know only too well all about it.

"I know my griefs; but then my consolations, My joys, and my immortal hopes I know"--

joys unknown to the prosperous, hopes that spring from seed long buried in the dust.

I shall read your books with great interest, I am sure, and who knows how G.o.d means to prepare you for future usefulness along the path of pain? "Every branch that beareth fruit He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit."

What an epitaph your boy's own words would be--"It is beautiful to be dead"!

_To the Same, New York, Nov 30th, 1870._

I thank you so much for your letter about your precious children. I remember them well, all three, and do not wonder that the death of your first-born, coming upon the very footsteps of sorrow, has so nearly crushed you. But what beautiful consolations G.o.d gave you by his dying bed! "All safe at G.o.d's right hand!" What more can the fondest mother's heart ask than such safety as this? I am sure that there will come to you, sooner or later, the sense of Christ's love in these repeated sorrows, that in your present bewildered, amazed state you can hardly realise. Let me tell you that I have tried His heart in a long storm--not so very different from yours--and that I know something of its depths. I will enclose you some lines that may give you a moment's light. Please not to let them go out of your hands, for no one--not even my husband--has ever seen them. I am going to send my last book to your lonely little boy. You will not feel like reading it now, but perhaps the 33d chapter, and some that follow, may not jar upon you as the earlier part would.

To go back again to the subject of Christ's love for us, of which I never tire, I want to make you feel that His sufferers are His happiest, most favored disciples. What they learn about Him---His pitifulness, His unwillingness to hurt us, His haste to bind up the very wounds He has inflicted---endear Him so, that at last they burst out into songs of thanksgiving, that His "donation of bliss" included in it such donation of pain. Perhaps I have already said to you, for I am fond of saying it,

"The love of Jesus---what it is, Only His sufferers know."

You ask if your heart will ever be lightsome again. Never again with the lightsomeness that had never known sorrow, but light even to gayety with the new and higher love born of tribulation. Just as far as a heavenly is superior even to maternal love, will be the elevation and beauty of your new joy; a joy worth all it costs. I know what sorrow means; I know it well. But I know, too, what it is to pa.s.s out of that prison-house into a peace that pa.s.ses all understanding; and thousands can say the same. So, my dear suffering sister, look on and look up; lay hold on Christ with _both your poor, empty hands_; let Him do with you what seemeth Him good; though He slay you, still trust in Him; and I dare in His name to promise you a sweeter, better life than you could have known had He left you to drink of the full, dangerous cups of unmingled prosperity. I feel such real and living sympathy with you, that I would love to spend weeks by your side, trying to bind up your broken heart.

But for the gospel of Christ, to hear of such bereavements as yours would appall, would madden one. Yet, what a halo surrounds that word "but"!

_To Miss E. A. Warner, New York, Dec 14, 1870._

I have not behaved according to my wont, and visited the sick even by way of a letter. And by this time I hope you are quite well again, and do not need ghostly counsels.... I have felt very badly about Miss Lyman's dying at Va.s.sar, but since Mrs. S.'s visit and learning how beloved she is there, have changed my mind. What does it matter, after all, from what point of time or s.p.a.ce we go home; how we shall smile, after we get there, that we ever gave it one moment's thought! You ask what I am doing; well, I am taking a vacation and not writing anything to speak of, yet just as busy as ever; not one moment in which to dawdle, though I dare say I seem to the folks here at home to be sitting round doing nothing. I must give you a picture of one day and you must photograph one of yours, as we have done before. Got up at seven and went through the usual forms; had prayers and breakfast, and started off to school with M. Came home and had a nice quiet time reading, etc.; at eleven went to my meeting, which was a tearful one, as one of our members who knelt with us only a week before, was this day to be buried out of our sight. She was at church on Sunday afternoon at four P.M., to present her baby in baptism, and at half-past two the following morning was in heaven. We all went together to the funeral after the meeting, and gathered round the coffin with the feeling that she belonged to us.

When I got home I found a despatch from Miss W., saying they should be here right away. I had let one of my women go out of town to a sick sister, so I must turn chamber-maid and make the bed, dust, clear out closet, cupboard, and bureau forthwith. This done, they arrived, which took the time till half-past seven, when I excused myself and went to an evening meeting, knowing it would be devoted to special prayer for the husband and children of her who had gone. Got home half an hour behind time and found a young man awaiting me who was converted last June, as he hopes, while reading Stepping Heavenward. I had just got seated by him when our doctor was announced; he had lost his only grandchild and had come to talk about it. He stayed till half-past nine, when I went back to my young friend, who stayed till half-past ten and gave a very interesting history which I have not time to put on paper. He writes me since, however, about his Christian life that "it gets sweeter and sweeter," and I know you will be glad for me that I have this joy.

_Sat.u.r.day Morning._--I was interrupted there, had visitors, had to go to a fair, company again, so that I had not time to eat the food I needed, went to see a poor sick girl, had more visitors, and at last, at eleven P.M., scrambled into bed. Now I am finis.h.i.+ng this, and if n.o.body hinders, am going to mail it, and then go after a block of ice-cream for that sick girl (isn't it nice, we can get it now done up in little boxes, just about as much as an invalid can eat at one time). Then I am going to see a poor afflicted soul that can't get any light on her sorrow. Here comes my dear old man to read his sermon, so good-bye.

_To a young Friend, Dec. 20, 1870._

I have been led, during the last month or two, to a new love of the Holy Spirit, or perhaps to more consciousness of the silent, blessed work He is doing in and for us? and for those whose souls lie as a heavy and yet a sweet burden upon our own. And joining with you in your prayers, seeking also for myself what I sought for you, I found myself almost startled by such a response as I can not describe. It was not joy, but a deep solemnity which enfolded me as with a garment, and if I ever pa.s.s out of it, which I never want to do, I hope it will be with a heart more than ever consecrated and set apart for Christ's service. The more I reflect and the more I pray, the more life narrows down to one point--What am I being for Christ, what am I doing for Him? Why do I tell you this? Because the voice of a fellow-traveller always stimulates his brother-pilgrim; what one finds and speaks of and rejoices over, sets the other upon determining to find too. G.o.d has been very good to you, as well as to me, but we ought to whisper to each other now and then, "Go on, step faster, step surer, lay hold on the Rock of Ages with both hands." You never need be afraid to speak such words to me. I want to be pushed on, and pulled on, and coaxed on.

The allusion to her "beloved Fenelon," in several of the preceding letters, renders this a suitable place to say a word about him and his influence upon her religious character. "Fenelon I _lean_ on," she wrote. Her delight in his writings dated back more than a quarter of a century, and continued, unabated, to the end of her days. She regarded him with a sort of personal affection and reverence. Her copy of "Spiritual Progress," composed largely of selections from his works, is crowded with pencil-marks expressive of her sympathy and approval; not even her Imitation of Christ, Sacra Privata, Pilgrim's Progress, Saints'

Everlasting Rest, or Leighton on the First Epistle of Peter, contain so many. These pencil-marks are sometimes very emphatic, underscoring or inclosing now a single word, now a phrase, anon a whole sentence or paragraph; and it requires but little skill to decipher, in these rude hieroglyphics, the secret history of her soul for a third of a century-- one side, at least, of this history. What she sought with the greatest eagerness, what she most loved and most hated, her spiritual aims, struggles, trials, joys and hopes, may here be read between the lines.

And a beautiful testimony they give to the moral depth, purity and n.o.bleness of her piety!

The story is not, indeed, complete; her religious life had other elements, not found, or only partially found, in Fenelon; elements centering directly in Christ and His gospel, and which had their inspiration in her Daily Food and her New Testament. What attracted her to Fenelon was not the doctrine of salvation as taught by him--she found it better taught in Bunyan and Leighton--it was his marvellous knowledge of the human heart, his keen insight into the proper workings of nature and grace, his deep spiritual wisdom, and the sweet mystic tone of his piety. And then the two great principles pervading his writings--that of pure love to G.o.d and that of self-crucifixion as the way to perfect love--fell in with some of her own favorite views of the Christian life. In the study of Fenelon, as of Madame Guyon, her aim was a purely practical one; it was not to establish, or verify, a theory, but to get aid and comfort in her daily course heavenward. What Fenelon was to her in this respect she has herself recorded in the following lines, found, after her death, written on a blank page of her "Spiritual Progress":

Oh wise and thoughtful words! oh counsel sweet, Guide in my wanderings, spurs unto my feet, How often you have met me on the way, And turned me from the path that led astray; Teaching that fault and folly, sin and fall, Need not the weary pilgrim's heart appall; Yea more, instructing how to s.n.a.t.c.h the sting From timid conscience, how to stretch the wing From the low plane, the level dead of sin, And mount immortal, mystic joys to win.

One hour with Jesus! How its peace outweighs The ravishment of earthly love and praise; How dearer far, emptied of self to lie Low at His feet, and catch, perchance, His eye, Alike content when He may give or take, The sweet, the bitter, welcome for His sake!

[1] John Wesley, after having pointed out what he considered the grand source of all her mistakes; namely, the being guided by inward impressions and the light of her own spirit rather than by the written Word, and also her error in teaching that G.o.d never purifies a soul but by inward and outward suffering--then adds: "And yet with all this dross how much pure gold is mixed! So did G.o.d wink at involuntary ignorance.

What a depth of religion did she enjoy! How much of the mind that was in Christ Jesus! What heights of righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost! How few such instances do we find of exalted love to G.o.d, and our neighbor; of genuine humility; of invincible meekness and unbounded resignation! So that, upon the whole, I know not whether we may not search many centuries to find another woman who was such a pattern of true holiness."

[2] See the lines MY CUP RUNNETH OVER, _Golden Hours_, p. 43.

[3] "I know of no book, the Bible excepted as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best _summa theologiae evangelicae_ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired. I read it once as a theologian--and let me a.s.sure you, there is great theological ac.u.men in the work--once with devotional feelings, and once as a poet. I could not have believed beforehand that Calvinism could be painted in such exquisitely delightful colors."--COLERIDGE.

[4] The allusion is to Thekla's song in Part I., Act iii., sc. 7 of Schiller's Wallenstein.

Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zuruck!

Ich habe genossen das irdische Gluck, _Ich habe gelebt und gelibet._

[5] The hymn referred to is Paul Gerhardt's, beginning:

Wir singen dir, Immanuel, Du Lebensfurst und Gnadenquell.

It was one of her favorite German hymns. The lines she quotes belong to the tenth stanza; "Ich kann nicht sagen Der Will ist da," are the words pencilled in the margin.

[6] Hartley Coleridge's Poems. Vol. II., p. 139.

[7] But greatly to Mrs. Prentiss' annoyance, with the t.i.tle changed to _Ever Heavenward_--as if to make it appear to be a sequel to Stepping Heavenward.

[8] Wife of the late Rev. Horatio Brinsmade, D.D., of Newark, N. J.

[9] "Polly" was particularly happy; six years old, I should say, shabby, though evidently washed up for the occasion, and very pretty and all pink with excitement. "Polly, I _knowed_ you'd get a prize," I heard a young woman, tired out with carrying her own big baby, say. And then she came upon her own geranium with three blossoms on it and marked "Second Prize," and said, "I _can't_ believe it," when they told her that that meant six s.h.i.+llings. But the plant which my companion and myself both cried over, was a little bit of a weedy marigold, the one poor little flower on it carefully fastened about with a paper ring, such as high and mighty greenhouse men sometimes put round a choice rose in bud. That was all; just this one common, very single little flower, with "Lizzie"

Something's name attached and the name of her street. All the streets were put upon the tickets and added greatly to the pathetic effect; just the poorest lanes and alleys in London. n.o.body seemed to claim the marigold. Perhaps it was the great treasure of some sick child who couldn't come to look at it. It was certain not to get a prize, but the child has found something by this time tucked down in the pot and carefully covered over by F., when no one was looking, with a pinch of earth taken from a more prosperous plant alongside.

[10] Miss W. showed me a very pleasant letter of Lady Augusta Stanley, the wife of Dean Stanley, to a Miss C., through whom she received from Miss W.'s little niece a copy of _The Story Lizzie Told_. Lady Stanley is herself, I believe, at the head of the Society which holds the annual Flower Show. She says in her letter that she had just returned from Scotland, reaching home quite late in the evening. Before retiring, however, she had read your story through. She praises it very warmly, and wonders how anybody but a "Londoner" could have written it.--_Letter to Mrs. P., dated New York, September, 1872._