The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss Part 36

Mrs. Prentiss' letters relating to her husband's call to Chicago require perhaps an explanatory word. She had some very pleasant a.s.sociations 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 a.s.sembly to the Chicago Professors.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 fellows.h.i.+p. I am sure it is good for us to have G.o.d 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 t.i.tles 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 appet.i.te 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 friends.h.i.+ps 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 cla.s.s. 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 a.s.sume its entire leaders.h.i.+p; but she a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sembled, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d's will. Now the matter is taken out of our hands and we have only to resume our work here. G.o.d 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, G.o.d'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 pa.s.s 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 Muller'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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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, ill.u.s.trates 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 auth.o.r.ess!

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.