The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss Part 6

I long to make progress every day, each minute seems precious, and I constantly tremble lest I should lose one in returning, instead of pressing forward with all my strength. No, not _my_ strength, for I have none, but with all which the Lord gives me. How can I thank you enough that you pray for me!

_Sept. 18th._--I am all the time so nervous that life would be insupportable if I had not the comfort of comforts to rejoice in. I often think mother would not trust me to carry the dishes to the closet, if she knew how strong an effort I have to make to avoid das.h.i.+ng them all to pieces. When I am at the head of the stairs I can hardly help throwing myself down, and I believe it a greater degree of just such a state as this which induces the suicide to put an end to his existence.

It was never so bad with me before. Do you know anything of such a feeling as this? To-night, for instance, my head began to feel all at once as if it were enlarging till at last it seemed to fill the room, and I thought it large enough to carry away the house. Then every object of which I thought enlarged in proportion. When this goes off the sense of the contraction is equally singular. My head felt about the size of a pin's head; our church and everybody in it appeared about the bigness of a cup, etc. These strange sensations terminate invariably with one still more singular and particularly pleasant. I can not describe it--it is a sense of smoothness and a little of dizziness. If you never had such feelings this will be all nonsense to you, but if you have and can explain them to me, why I shall be indeed thankful. I have been subject to them ever since I can remember. I never met with a physician yet who seemed to know what is the matter with me, or to care a fig whether I got well or not. All they do is to roll up their eyes and shake their heads and say, "Oh!" ... As to the wedding, we had a regular fuss, so that I hardly knew whether I was in the body or out of it. The Professor was here only two days. He is very eminently holy, his friends say, and from what I saw of him, I should think it true. This was the point which interested sister in him. As soon as the wedding was over my spirits departed and fled. It is true enough that "marriage involves one union, but _many separations_."

_Oct. 17th._--We had a most precious sermon this afternoon from the Baptist minister on the words, "Christ is all and in all." I longed to have you hear the Saviour thus dwelt upon. I did not know how full the Apostles were of His praise--how constantly they dwelt upon Him, till it was spread before me thus in one delightful view. Oh, may He become our all--our beginning and our ending--our first and our last! I do love to hear Him thus honored and adored. Let us, dear cousin, look at our Saviour more. Let us never allow aught to come between our hearts and our G.o.d. Speak to me as to your own soul, urging me onward, and if you do not see the fruits of your faithfulness here, may you see when sowing is turned to reaping.

_Oct. 24th._--I must call upon you to rejoice with me that I have to-day got back my old Sunday-school cla.s.s. I wondered at their being so earnest about having me again, yet I trust that G.o.d has given me this hold upon their affections for some good purpose.... I do not know exactly how to discriminate between the suggestions of Satan and those of my own heart, but for a week past, even while my inclinations and my will were set upon Christ, something followed me in my down-sittings and my uprisings, urging me to hate the Lord Jesus; asking if His strict requirements were not too strait to be endured; and it has grieved me deeply that such a thought could find its way into my mind. "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not" is my last refuge. How graciously did Jesus provide a separate consolation for each difficulty which He foresaw could meet His disciples on their way.

_Nov. 8th._--Mother has been sick. The doctor feared inflammation of the brain; but she is better now. I have had my first experience as a nurse, and Dr. Mighels says I am a good one.

Whenever I think of G.o.d's wonderful, _wonderful_ goodness to me and of my own sinfulness, I want to find a place low at the foot of the cross where I may cover my face in the dust, and yet go on praising Him. You do not know how all things have been made new to me within less than two years. Still, I struggle fiercely every hour of my life. For instance, my desire to be much beloved by those dear to me, is a source of constant grief. Some weeks ago, a person, who probably did not know this, told me that I was remarkably lovable and that everybody said so.

I was so foolish, so wicked, as to be more pleased by this than I dare to tell--but enough so to give me after-hours of bitter sorrow.

Sometimes it seems to me that I grow prouder every day, and I wanted to ask mother if she did not think so; but I thought perhaps G.o.d is showing me my pride as I had never seen it that I may wage war against this, His enemy and mine. I do not believe anybody else has such an evil nature as I. But let us never rest till we are satisfied with being counted as nothing, that our Saviour may be all in all. It seems no small portion of the joy I long for in heaven, to be thus self-forgetful in love to Christ. How strange that we do not now supremely love Him. How I do long to live with those who praise Him. I long to have every Christian with whom I meet speak of Him with love and exalt Him. [1]

_Nov. 12th._--I have been very unwell and low-spirited. The cause of this, folks seem to agree, was over-exertion during mother's sickness.

To tell the truth, I was so anxious about her that I did not try to save my strength at all, and excitement kept me up, so that I was not conscious of any special fatigue till all was over and the reaction came, when I just went into a dead-and-alive state and had the "blues"

outrageously. It seemed as if I could do nothing but fold my hands and cry.

Sister is coming home this winter. I would like you to see this letter of hers. She is as nearly a perfectionist now as your father is. She begs me to read the New Testament and to pray for a knowledge of the truth. And so I have for a year and a half, and this is what I learn thereby: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked"--at least such I find mine to be. To be sure, that I am not perfect is no proof that I may not become so; however, I feel most sympathy with those who, like Martyn, Brainerd, and my father, had to _fight_ their way through. Yet her remarks threw my mind into great confusion at first and I knew not what to do; thereupon I went at once with my difficulties to the Lord and tried to _seek the truth_, whatever it might be, from Him. It seems to me that I am safe while in His hands, and that if those things are essential, He will not withhold them from me. Truly, if there is a royal road to holiness, and if in one moment of time sin may be crushed and forever slain, I of all others should know it; for at present the way is thronged with difficulties. [2] It seems to me that I am made of wants"--I need everything. At the same time, how great is the goodness of G.o.d to me! I long to have my heart so filled with the one single image of my Redeemer, that it shall ever flow in spontaneous adoration. Such a Saviour! I am pained to the very depths of my soul because I love Him so little.... If I am only purified and made entirely the Lord's, let Him take His own course and make the refining process ever so painful.

"When the sh.o.r.e is won at last, Who will count the billows past?"

_Dec. 16th._--Do you remember what father said about losing his will when near the close of his life? That remark has always made the subject of a _lost will_ interesting to me. There is another place where he wishes he had known this blessedness twenty years before. [3]

_Dec. 18th._--"I am very, very happy; and yet it is hardly a happiness which I can describe. You know what it is to rejoice in the sweet consciousness that there is a Saviour--a near and a present Saviour; and thus am I now rejoicing; grateful to Him for His holy nature, for His power over me, for His dealings with me, for a thousand things which I can only try to express to Him. Oh, how excellent above all treasures does He now appear! One minute of nearness to the Lord Jesus contains more of delight than years spent in intercourse with any earthly friend.

I could not but own to-night that G.o.d can make me happy without a right hand or a right eye. Lord, make me Thine, and I will cheerfully give Thee all.

_Dec. 22d._--"As to my Italian and Ta.s.so, I am ashamed to tell you how slow I have been. Between company and housework and sewing I have my hands about full, and precious little time for reading and study. Still, I feel that I live a life of too much ease. I should love to spend the rest of my existence in the actual service of the Lord, without a question as to its ease and comfort. Reading Brainerd this afternoon made me long for his loose hold on earthly things. I do not know how to attain to such a spirit. Is it by prayer alone and the consequent sense of the worth of Divine things that this deadness to the world is to be gained--or, by giving up, casting away the treasures which withdraw the heart or have a tendency to withdraw it from G.o.d? This is quite an interesting question to me now, and I should really like it settled. The thought of living apart from G.o.d is more dreadful than any affliction I can think of.

Here are some pa.s.sages from two leaves of her journal which escaped the flames. They touch upon another side of her life at this period.

_December 1, 184l._--"I went to the sewing-circle this afternoon and had such a stupid time! Enough gossip and nonsense was talked to make one sick, and I'm sure it wasn't the fault of my head that my hair didn't stand on end. Now my mother is a very sensible mother, but when she urges me into company and exhorts me to be more social, she runs the risk of having me become as silly as the rest of 'em. She fears I may be harmed by reading, studying and staying with her, but heaven forbid I should find things in books worse than things out of them. I can't think the girls are the silly creatures they make themselves appear. They want an aim in life, some worthy _object;_ give them that, and the good and excellent which, I am sure, lies hidden in their nature, will develop itself at once. When the young men rushed in and the girls began looking unutterable things, I rushed out and came home. I can't and won't talk nonsense and flirt with those boys! Oh, what is it I do want? Somebody who feels as I feel and thinks as I think; but where shall I find the somebody?

_7th._--"Frolicked with G., rushed up stairs with a gla.s.s-lamp in my hand, went full tilt against the door, smashed the lamp, got the oil on my dress, on two carpets, besides spattering the wall. First consequence, a horrible smell of lamp-oil; Second, great quakings, shakings, and wonderings what my ma would say when she came home; Third, ablutions, groanings, ironings; Fourth, a story for the Companion long enough to pay for that 'ere old lamp. Letting alone that, I've been a very good girl to-day; studied, made a call, went to see H. R. with books, cakes, apples, and what's more, my precious tongue wherewith I discoursed to her.

_14th._--"Busy all day. Carried a basket full of "wittles" to old Ma'am Burns, heard an original account of the deluge from the poor woman, wished I was as near heaven as she seems to be, studied, sewed, taught T. and E., tried to be a good girl and didn't have the blues once.

_20th._--"Spent most of the afternoon with Lucy, who is sick. She held my hand in hers and kissed it over and over, and expressed so much love and grat.i.tude and interest in the Sunday-school that I felt ashamed.

_24th_--Helped mother bake all the morning, studied in the afternoon, got into a frolic, and went out after dark with G. to shovel snow, and then paddled down to L----'s with a Christmas-pudding, whereby I got a real backache, legache, neckache, and all-overache, which is just good enough for me. I was in the funniest state of mind this afternoon! I guess anybody, who had seen me, would have thought so!

_25th, Sat.u.r.day._--Got up early and ran down to Sally Johnson's with a big pudding, consequence whereof a horrible pain in my side. I don't care, though. I do love to carry puddings to good old grannies.

_Jan. 1, 1842._--Began the New Year by going to see Lucy, fainting, tumbling down flat on the floor and scaring everybody half out of their wits. I don't think people ought to like me, on the whole, but when they do, aint I glad? I wonder if perfectly honest-hearted people want to be loved better than they deserve, as in one sense I, with yet a pretty honest heart, do? I wonder how other folks think, feel inside? Wish I knew!

Most of the year 1842 was pa.s.sed at home in household duties, in study, and in trying to do good. Never had she been busier, or more helpful to her mother; and never more interested in the things of G.o.d. It was a year of genuine spiritual growth and also of sharp discipline. The true ideal of the Christian life revealed itself to her more and more distinctly, while at the same time she had opportunity both to learn and to practise some of its hardest lessons. A few extracts from letters to her cousin will give an inkling of its character.

_March 19, 1842._--Sometimes I have thought my desire to live for my Saviour and to labor for Him had increased. It certainly seems wonderful to me now that I could ever have wished to die, as I used to do, _when I had done nothing for G.o.d_. The way of life which appears most attractive, is that spent in persevering and unwearying toil for Him.

There was a warmth and a fervency to my religious feelings the first year after my true hope which I do not find now and often sigh for; but I think my mind is more seriously determined for G.o.d than it was then, and that my principles are more fixed. Still I am less than the least of all.... I have read not quite five cantos of Ta.s.so. You will think me rather indolent, but I have had a great deal to do, which has hindered study and reading.

_May 3d_--The Christian life was never dearer to me than it is now, but it throngs with daily increasing difficulties. You, who have become a believer in perfection, may say that this conflict is not essential, and indeed I have been so weary, of late, of struggling that I am almost ready to fly to the doctrine myself. I have certainly been made more willing to seek knowledge on this point from the Holy Spirit.

_Sept. 30th_--You speak of indulging unusually, of late, in your natural vivacity and finding it prejudicial. Here is a point on which I am completely bewildered. I find that if for a month or two I steadily set myself to the unwearied pursuit of spirituality of mind and entire weanedness from the world, a sad reaction _will_ follow. My efforts slightly relax, I indulge in mirthful or worldly (in the sense of not religious) conversation, delight in it, and find my health and spirits better for it. But then my spiritual appet.i.tes at once become less keen, and from conversation I go to reading, from reading to writing, and then comes the question: Am I not going back?--and I turn from all to follow hard after the Lord. Is this a part of our poor humanity, above which we can not rise? This is a hard world to live in; and it will prove a trying one to me or I shall love it dearly. I have had temptations during the last six months on points where I thought I stood so safely that there was no danger of a fall. Perhaps it is good for us to be allowed to go to certain lengths, that we may see what wonderful supplies of grace our Lord gives us every hour of our lives.

_October 1st_--I have had two or three singular hours of excitement since I left writing to you last evening. If you were here I should be glad to read you a late pa.s.sage in my history which has come to its crisis and is over with--thanks to Him, who so wonderfully guides me by His counsel. If I ever saw the hand of G.o.d distinctly held forth for my help, I have seen it here, coming in the right time, in the right way, _all_ right.

II.

Returns to Richmond. Trials there. Letters. Illness. School Experiences.

"To the Year 1843." Glimpses of her daily Life. Why her Scholars love her so. Homesick. A Black Wedding. What a Wife should be. "A Presentiment." Notes from her Diary.

In November of this year, at the urgent solicitation of Mr. Persico, Miss Payson returned to Richmond, and again became a teacher in his school. But everything was now changed, and that for the worse. Mr.

Persico, no longer under the influence of his wife, who had fallen a prey to cruel disease, lost heart, fell heavily in debt, and became at length hopelessly insolvent. Later, he is said to have been lost at sea on his way to Italy. The whole period of Miss Payson's second residence in Richmond was one of sharp trial and disappointment. But it brought out in a very vivid manner her disinterestedness and the generous warmth of her sympathies. At the peril of her health she remained far into the summer of 1843, faithfully performing her duties, although, as she well knew, it was doubtful if she would receive any compensation for her services. As a matter of fact, only a pittance of her salary was ever paid. Of this second residence in Richmond no other record is needed than a few extracts from letters written to a beloved friend who was pa.s.sing the winter at the South, and whose name has already been mentioned.

A sentence in the first of these letters deserves to be noted as affording a key to one side of her character, namely: "the depressing sense of inferiority which was born with me." All her earlier years were shadowed by this morbid feeling; nor was she ever quite free from its influence. It was, probably, at once a cause and an effect of the sensitive shyness that clung to her to the last. Perhaps, too, it grew in part out of her irrepressible craving for love, coupled with utter incredulity about herself possessing the qualities which rendered her so lovable. "It is one of the faults of my character," she wrote, "to fancy that n.o.body cares for me."

When, dear Anna, I had taken my last look at the last familiar face in Portland (I fancy you know whose face it was) I became quite as melancholy as I ever desire to be, even on the principle that "by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." I dare say you never had a chance to feel, and therefore will not be able to understand, the depressing sense of inferiority which was born with me, which grew with my growth and strengthened with my strength, and which, though somewhat repressed of late years, gets the mastery very frequently and makes me believe myself the most unlovable of beings. It was with this feeling that I left home and journeyed hither, wondering why I was made, and if anybody on earth will ever be a bit the happier for it, and whether I shall ever learn where to put myself in the scale of being. This is not humility, please take notice--for humility is contented, I think, with such things as it hath.

_To Miss Anna S. Prentiss. Richmond, Nov. 26, 1842_

When I reached Richmond last night, tired and dusty and stupefied, I felt a good deal like crawling away into some cranny and staying there the rest of my life; but this morning, when I had remembered mother's existence and yours and that of some one or two others, I felt more disposed to write than anything else. Your note was a great comfort to me during two and a half hours at Portsmouth, and while on my journey.

I thought pages to you in reply. How I should love to have you here in Richmond, even if I could only see you once a month, or _know_ only that you were here and never see you! With many most kind friends about me, I still shall feel very keenly the separation from you. There is n.o.body here to whom I can speak confidingly, and my hidden spirit will have to sit with folded wings for eight months to come. To whom shall I talk about you, pray? On the way hither I fell in love with a little girl who also fell in love with me, and as I sat with her over our lonely fire at Philadelphia and in Was.h.i.+ngton, I could not help speaking of you now and then, till at last she suddenly looked up and asked me if you hadn't a brother, which question effectually shut my mouth. In a religious point of view I am sadly off here. There is a different atmosphere in the house from what there used to be, and I look forward with some anxiety to the future.

The "little girl" referred to received soon after a letter from Miss Payson. In enclosing it to a friend, more than thirty-seven years later, she wrote: "I cried bitterly when she left us for Richmond. She was out and out good and true. When my father was taking leave of us, the last night in Was.h.i.+ngton, she proposed that as we had enjoyed so much together, we should not separate without a prayer of thanks and blessing-seeking, a proposal to which my father most heartily responded." Here is an extract from the letter:

When I look over my school-room I am frequently reminded of you, for my thirty-six pupils are, most of them, about your age. I have some very lovable girls under my wing. I should be too happy if there were no "unruly members" among these good and gentle ones; but in the little world where I shall spend the greater part of the next eight months, as well as in the great and busy one, which as yet neither you or I know much about, I fancy there are mixtures of "the just and the unjust," of "the evil and the good." We have a very pleasant family this year. The youngest (for I omit the black baby in the kitchen) we call Lily. She is my pet and plaything, and is quite as affectionate as you are. Then comes a damsel named Beatrice, who has taken me upon _trust_ just as you did. You may be thankful that your parents are not like hers, for she is to be educated _for the world_; music, French and Italian crowd almost everything else out of place, and as for religious influences, she is under them here for the first time. How thankful I feel when I see such cases as this, that G.o.d gave me pious parents, who taught me from my very birth, that His fear is the _beginning_ of wisdom! My room-mate we call Kate. She is pious, intelligent, and very warm-hearted, and I love her dearly. She is an orphan--Mrs. Persico's daughter ...

I am rather affectionate by nature, if not in practice, and though I know that nearness to the Friend, whom I hope I have chosen, could make me happy in any circ.u.mstances, I do not pretend to be above the desire for earthly friends, provided He sees fit to give them to me. I believe my father used to say that we could not love them too much, if we only gave Him the first place in our hearts. Let us earnestly seek to make Him our all in all. It is delightful, in the midst of adversities and trials, to be able to say "There is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee," but it requires more grace, I think, to be able to use such language when the world is bright about us. You have known little of sorrow as yet, but if you have given your whole, undivided heart to G.o.d, you will not need affliction, or to have your life made so desolate that "weariness must toss you to His breast." There is a bright side to religion, and I love to see Christians walking in the suns.h.i.+ne. I trust you have found this out for yourself, and that your hope in Christ makes you happy in the life that now is, as well as gives you promise of blessedness in that which is to come.

Before she had been long in Richmond she was seized with an illness which caused her many painful, wearisome days and nights. Referring to this illness, in a letter to Miss Prentiss, she writes:

It is dull music being sick away from one's mother, but I have a knack at submitting myself to my fate; so my spirit was a contented one, and I was not for a moment unhappy, except for the trouble which I gave those who had to nurse me. I thought of you, at least two-thirds of the time.

As my little pet, Lily L., said to me last night, when she had very nearly squeezed the breath out of my body, "I love you a great deal harder than I hug you"; so I say to you--I love you harder than I tell, or can tell you. A happy New-Year to you, dear Anna. How much and how little in those few old words! Consider yourself kissed and good-night.

The "New Year" was destined to be a very eventful one alike to her friend and to herself. She seemed to have a presentiment of it, at least in her own case, as some lines written on a blank leaf of her almanac for that year attest:

With mingling hope and trust and fear I bid thee welcome, untried year; The paths before me pause to view; Which shall I shun and which pursue?

I read my fate with serious eye; I see dear hopes and treasures fly, Behold thee on thy opening wing Now grief, now joy, now sorrow bring.

G.o.d grant me grace my course to run With one blest prayer--_His_ will be done.

A little journal kept by her during the following months gives bright glimpses of her daily life. The entries are very brief, but they show that while devoted to the school, she also spent a good deal of time among her books, kept up a lively correspondence with absent friends, and contributed her full share to the entertainment of the household by "holding soirees" in her room, "reading to the girls," writing stories for them, and helping to "play goose" and other games.

_To Miss Anna S. Prentiss, Richmond, Feb. 22, 1843._

Thanks to the Father of his Country for choosing to be born in Virginia!

for it gives us a holiday, and I can write to you, dearest of Annas. You don't know how delighted I was to get your long-watched-for letter.