The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss

by George Lewis Prentiss

IV.

Return to Town. Recollections of this Period. "Ordinary" Christians and spiritual Conflict. A tired Sunday Evening. "We may make an Idol of our Joy." Publication of Pemaquid. Kezia Millet.

She returned to town early in October and began at once to prepare for the winter's work. Her industry was a marvel. The following references to this period are from reminiscences, written by her husband after her death:

She lost not a day, scarcely an hour. The next eight months were among the busiest of her life; and in some respects, I think, they were also among the happiest. She resumed her painting with new zeal and delight. It was a never-failing resource, when other engagements were over. Hour after hour, day after day, and week after week she would sit near the western window of her sunshiny chamber, absorbed in this fascinating occupation. Rarely did I fail to find her there, on going in to kiss her good-bye, as I started for my afternoon lecture. How often the scene comes back again! Were I myself a painter I could reproduce it to the life. Her posture and expression of perfect contentment, her quick and eager movements, all are as vividly present to my mind, as if I saw and parted from her there yesterday! One morning each week was devoted to her Bible-reading; the others, when pleasant, were generally spent in going down town with M. in quest of painting materials, shopping, making calls, etc., etc.

She was much exercised in the early part of the winter by a burglary, which robbed her of a beautiful French mantel clock given her on our silver wedding-day by a dear friend; and by the loss of my watch, stolen from me in the cars on my way home from the Seminary—a beautiful watch with a chain made of her hair and that which once "crowned little heads laid low." She had ordered it of Piguet, when we were in Geneva in 1858, and given it to me in memory of our marriage. But her grief over the loss of the watch was small compared with mine, then and even since. What precious memories can become associated with such an object! One of the books which she read during the winter was "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo. She read it in the original in a copy given her by Miss Woolsey. She was quite captivated by this work, and some of its most striking scenes and incidents she repeated to me, during successive mornings, before we got up. Her power of remembering and reproducing, in all its details, and with all the varying lights and shades, any story which she had read was something almost incredible. It always seemed to me like magic. Her father possessed the same power and perhaps she inherited it from him. [20]

The following letter will show that while her mind was still exercised about the doctrines taught by writers on the "Higher Life" and "Holiness through Faith," it was in the way of a deepening conviction that these doctrines are not in harmony with the teaching of Scripture or with Christian experience. Referring to some of these writers, she says:

To a Christian Friend, Oct. 21, 1877.

I have not only no unkind feeling towards them, but have no doubt they have lived near to Christ. But this I believe to have been their state of mind for years, though perhaps not consciously: Most Christians are "ordinary." Nearly all are a set of miserable doubters. Most of them believe the Christian life a warfare. Most of them imagine it is also a state of discipline, and make much of chastening, even going so far as to thank God for His strokes of Fatherly love! Strange love, to be sure! They also fancy they can work out their own salvation.

Now we are not "ordinary" Christians. We understand God's Word perfectly; and when He says, "Work out your own salvation," He means nothing by it except this, that He will work it in you to will and to do, and you are to do nothing, but let Him thus work. And furthermore, we know His mind beyond dispute; we can not err in judgment. Therefore, if you doubt our doctrine, it is the same as doubting God, and you should fall on your knees and pray to read Scripture as we do.

As to the Christian life being a conflict, why, you "ordinary" Christians are all wrong. Satan never tempts us, though he tempted our Lord; it comes natural to us to go into Canaan with one bound; the old-fashioned saints were ridiculous in "fighting the good fight of faith." Look at the characters in the Bible, "resisting unto blood, striving against sin"; what blunderers they were to do that!… In our enlightened day nobody is "chastened"; it used to be done to every son the Father received and it was a token of His love. He knows better now. He chastens no one; or if He does, we will cover it up and ignore it; religion is all rapture, and this is not a scene of probation. Still if you insist that you have been smitten, it only shows how very "ordinary" you are, and how angry God is with you.

Now you may ask why I have taken time to write this, since you are not led away by these errors. Well, they are pleasant and very plausible writers, and it has puzzled me to learn just where they were wrong. So I have been thinking aloud, or thinking on paper, and perhaps you may find one or more persons entangled in this attractive web, and be able to help them out. How a good man and a good woman ever fell into such mischievous mistakes, I can not imagine….

As to you and me, I see nothing strange in the weaning from self God is giving us. It is natural to believe that He weans us from the breast of comfort in which we had delighted, because He has strong meat in store for us. I know I was awfully selfish about my relation to Christ, and went about for years on tip-toe, as it were, for fear of disturbing and driving Him away; but I do not know that I should dare to live so again. And how better can He show us our weakness than by making it plain that we, who thought we were so strong in prayer, are almost "dumb before Him"! My dear friend, I believe more and more in the deep things of God.

"STRENGTH is born
In the deep silence of long-suffering hearts,
Not amid joy."

Imagine soldiers getting ready for warfare, being told by their commander that they had no need to drill, and had nothing to do but drink nectar! As to being brought low, I will own that I have not been entirely left of God to my own devices and desires; if I had been, I should have gone overboard. He had such a grip of me that He couldn't let go. I saw a man apply a magnet to steel pens the other day, and that's the way I clung to God; there was no power in me to hold on, the magnetism was in Him, and so I hung on. Wasn't it so with you?

And now to change the subject again; if you have any faded ferns, vines, leaves on hand, you can paint and make them beautiful again. For a light wall, paint them with Caledonian brown, and they will have a very rich effect. I expect a patent-right for this invention.

The vivid sense of human weakness and of the sharp discipline of life, which she expresses in this letter, was deepened by hearing what a sea of trouble some of her friends had been suddenly engulphed in. Early in October she wrote to one of them:

For some time before I left Dorset, your image met me everywhere I went, and I felt sure something was happening to you, though not knowing whether you were enjoying or suffering. And since then there has been nothing I could do for you but to pray that your faith may bear this test and that you may deeply realise that—

God is the refuge of His saints,
When storms of sharp distress invade.

The longer I live the more conscious I am of human frailty, and of the constant, overwhelming need we all have of God's grace…. I can not but hope things will turn out better than they seem. But if not, there is God; nothing of this sort can take Him from you. You have longed and prayed for holiness; this fearful event may bring the blessing. May God tenderly bless and keep you, dear child.

But vivid as was her sense of human weakness and of the imperfections cleaving to the best of men, while yet in the flesh, she still held fast to the conviction, uttered so often in "Urbane and His Friends" and in her other writings, that it is the privilege of every disciple of Jesus to attain, by faith, to high degrees of Christian holiness, and that, too, without consuming a whole lifetime in the process. In a letter to a young friend she says:

Your letter shows me that I have expressed my views very inadequately in Urbane, or that you have misunderstood what I have said there…. "There is a shorter way"; a better way; God never meant us to spend a lifetime amid lumbering machinery by means of which we haul ourselves laboriously upward; the work is His, not ours, and when I said I believed in "holiness through faith," I was not thinking of the book by that title, but of utterances made by the Church ages before its author saw the light of day. We can not make ourselves holy. We are born sinners. A certain school believe that they are "kept" by the grace of God from all sin. I do not say that they are not. But I do say that I think it requires superhuman wisdom to know positively that one not only keeps all God's law, but leaves no single duty undone. Think a minute. Law proceeds from an infinite mind; can finite mind grasp it so as to know, through its own consciousness, that it comes up to this standard? On the other hand, I do believe that a way has been provided for us to be set free from an "evil conscience"; that we may live in such integrity and uprightness as to be at peace with God; not being afraid to let His pure eye range through and through us, finding humanity and weakness, but also finding something on which His eye can rest with delight—namely, His own Son. Every day I live I see that faith is my only hope, as perhaps I never saw it before…. Read over again the experience of Antiochus; he got in early life what dear Dr. —— only found on his deathbed, and so may you.

To Miss E. A. Warner, New York, Oct. 28, 1877.

I am too tired on Sunday evenings to find much profit in reading, and have been sitting idle some minutes, asking myself how I should spend the hour till bed-time, if I could pick and choose among human occupations. I decided that if I had just the right kind of a neighbor, I should like to have her come in, or if there was the right kind of a little prayer-meeting round the corner, I would go to that. Then I concluded to write to you, in answer to your letter of July 24. I write few letters during the summer, because it seems a plain duty to keep out of doors as much as I possibly can; then we have company all the time, and they require about all the social element there is in me. We feel that we owe it to Him who gives us our delightful home to share it with others, especially those who get no mountain breezes save through us; of some I must pay travelling expenses, or they can not come at all. Their enjoyment is sufficient pay. My Bible-reading takes all the time of two days not spent in outdoor exercise, as I have given up almost everything of help in preparation for it but that which is given me in answer to prayer and study of the Word. I am kept, to use a homely expression, with my nose pretty close to the grindstone; in other words, am kept low and little. But God blesses the work exactly as if I were a better woman. Sometimes I think how poor He must be to use such instruments as He does.

How is the niece you spoke of as so ill and so happy? For my part I am confounded when I see people hurt and distressed when invited home. How a loving Father must feel when His children shrink back crying, "I have so much to live for!" or, in other words, so little to die for. It frightens me sometimes to recall such cases.

And now I am going to tote my old head to bed. It is 59 years old and has to go early.

To Mrs. Fisher, Oct. 31, 1877.

With young children, and artistic work to do, the wonder is not that you have to neglect other things, but that you ever find time to attend to any one outside of house and home. I do not want you to make a care and trouble of me; I feel it a privilege to try even to copy anything from your hand, and am willing to bide my time. It is shocking to think of your summer's work being burned up; no money can compensate for such a loss—I hate to think of it. I have had your landscape framed, and it is the finest thing in the house.

Nov. 9th.—I have your apple-blossoms ready to mail with this. I found the subject very difficult, and at one time thought I should have to give it up; but your directions are so clear and to the point that I have succeeded in getting a picture we all think pretty, though wanting in the tender grace of yours.

The picture, which is a gentle blaze of beauty, has just reached me. We have had burglars in the house, and one of my songs of praise is that they did not take the little gem I got from you last summer. Glad you are a woman and not all artist.

To Mrs. Condict, Nov. 24, 1877

As to the running fern, I paint it the color of black walnut, and round placques it looks like carving. Emerald green I hate, but it is a popular color, and A. was obliged to put it into the flower pictures she painted on portfolios. I am glad you are still interested in your painting. I have just finished the second reading of Miss Smiley's book, and marked passages which I am sure you will like. I will mail my copy to you. As to joy—"the fruits of the Spirit" come naturally to those in the Spirit, and joy is one. But we may make an idol of our joy, and so have to part with it. There may come a period when God says, virtually, to the soul, "You clung to Me when I smiled upon and caressed you; let Me see how you will behave when I smile and speak comfortably no more." Fenelon says, "To be constantly in a state of enjoyment that takes away the feeling of the cross, and to live in a fervor of devotion that keeps Paradise constantly open—this is not dying upon the cross and becoming nothing." [21]

When I look at the subject at a distance, as it were, remembering that this life is mere preparation for the next, it seems likely that we shall have religious as well as other discipline; if we ascend the mount of Transfiguration it is not that we may dwell there, though it is natural to wish we could. And the fact is, no matter what professions of rapture people make, if they believe in Christ and love Him as they ought to do, what they have enjoyed will be nothing when compared with going to live with Him forever, surrounded by sanctified beings all united in adoring Him. When I think of this my courage grows apace, and I say to myself, I may never live in heaven again here below; but I certainly shall, above; and can't I be patient till then? I wonder if you know that I am going to begin a Bible-reading on the first Wednesday in December? I have a very kind letter from Mr. Peter Carter, who says Kezia would make the fortune of any book.

Kezia is one of the characters in Pemaquid; or, a Story of Old Times in New England, then recently published. She had written it with "indescribable ease and pleasure," to use her own words, mostly during the previous January. The pictures of New England life—especially its religious life—in old times are vivid and faithful; and the character of Kezia Millet for originality, quiet humor, and truth to nature, surpasses any other in her writings, with the exception, perhaps, of Aunt Avery in "Fred and Maria and Me."

The following is an extract from a letter of Mr. Hallock, the publisher of "The Christian at Work," dated Aug. 25, 1877, in which he begged her to gratify its readers by telling them more about Ruth and Juliet. She accordingly added some pages to the last chapter, although not quite enough to satisfy the curiosity about Juliet:

Let me express to you my personal thanks for your most excellent serial. I feel that it has done a real good to thousands. You need to be placed in my position, receiving hundreds of letters daily from your readers, to be able to fully appreciate how intensely interested they are in the story. It does not seem to satisfy them to feel assured of Ruth's marriage, but they want to be there and see it. Juliet, too, is not with them, as with you, a mere impersonation, but a living reality, and they will never rest till they hear from her. If I was a betting man I would bet five to one that what your husband struck out, is just exactly what is wanted. What do we men know about such things, anyhow?

A lady friend, well qualified to judge, writes to her:

I have read "Pemaquid," and have laughed till I cried, then cried and laughed together. In my humble opinion it is the brightest book you have written. You know how to make a saint and how to make a sinner. As for old Kezia Millet, with her great loving heart, if she is not a model of Christian "consistency" and a natural born poet, where will you find one? She is perfectly fascinating. How do you keep your wit so ready and so bright? I suppose you'll answer, "by using it." The chapter which contains Mrs. Woodford's interview with Rev. Mr. Strong (the dear old saint) in her penitential mood, is very, very admirable.

To Mrs. George Payson, Dec. 20, 1877.

Before the year quite departs, I must tell you, my dear Margaret, how glad I am that you appreciate my dear, good bad Kezia. It is nineteen years since I read Adam Bede, but I remember Mrs. Poysen in general. Kezia is not an imitation of her; the main points of her character were written out long before Adam Bede appeared; I destroyed the book in which I trotted her out, but kept her, and once in a while tried her on my husband, but as he did not seem to see it, put her away in her green box, biding my time. As to Juliet, my good man loathes so to read about bad people that he almost made me cut out all my last mention of her. I was in an unholy frame when I did it, and with reason, for they who like Pemaquid best, say it was a mistake not to dispose of her in some way. But as to Mrs. Woodford being a model mother, I did not aim to make her a model anything. All I wanted of her was to bring out the New England pecularities as they would appear to a worldly stranger. As to all parties seeming indifferent about Juliet, you may be right; I was behind the scenes and knew they were not; but as I say, what I thought the best part of her, George made me cut out. No, I never knew any one sing exactly like Kezia, but there are such cases on record. There was "the Singing Cobbler," whose wife complained of him in court, and he defended himself so wittily in verse, that everybody sided with him, and his wife forgave his offence, whatever it might be. [22]

[1] The following is the passage referred to: "If you aspire to be a son of consolation; if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympathy; if you would pour something beyond commonplace consolation into a tempted heart; if you would pass through the intercourse of daily life with the delicate tact that never inflicts pain; if to that most acute of human ailments—mental doubt, you are ever to give effectual succor, you must be content to pay the price of the costly education. Like Him, you must suffer, being tempted."

[2] By the late Rev. William James, D.D.

[3] See appendix G, p.557.

[4] Then pastor of the Collegiate Reformed Church, Fifth avenue and Forty-eighth street, now of Brooklyn.

[5] "Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874."

[6] "Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness, held at Oxford, August 29 to September 7, 1874." P. 59.

[7] GRISELDA; A Dramatic Poem in Five Acts. Translated from the German of FRIEDERICH HALM (Baron Münch-Bellinghausen), by Mrs. E. Prentiss.

[8] How glad I was to see Griselda's fair face! She is a gem, and I am sure will prove a blessing as she moves about the world in her nobleness and purity, so exceedingly womanly and winning. The book is full of poetry, and held me spell-bound to the close. It is very musical, too, in its rich, pure English. I don't know how much of its poetic charm lies in the original or in your rendering, but as it is, it is "just lovely," as the girls say.—Letter from Miss Warner.

[9] In a letter written in 1879, just after a visit to Dorset, Dr. Hamlin thus refers to them:

"Now that I have seen again those lights and shadows of the Green Mountains, as they lie around your Dorset home, I must tell you why they awakened such deep emotions. Forty-one years ago I was married to Miss Henrietta Jackson, the youngest daughter of the venerated and beloved pastor of Dorset, and we left that lovely valley for our oriental home. I had heard from her lips a glowing description of the magic work of light and shade upon those uplands and heights that lie west of the valley, before I had seen the place. The first morning of my first visit I recognised the truth and accuracy of her description, and was forced to confess that, although I had always admired cloud-shadows, I had never seen them in such rich display and constant recurrence. There were certain days, which we called field-days, when all their resources were called out, and they seemed hurrying in swift battalions to some great contest or grand coronation scene. But at other times they rested in calm repose as though the pulse of nature had ceased to beat… In our home upon the Bosphorus we were sometimes reminded of these scenes of her native valley. When, occasionally, the Black Sea clouds floated down in broken masses, and floods of light here and there poured through the darkly shadowed landscape, lighting up fragments of hill and vale to the very summits of Alem Dagh, her soul took flight to her beloved Dorset and all other thoughts vanished."

[10] On hearing of Mrs. Prentiss' death, the "poor, homeless fellow" wrote to her husband a touching letter of sympathy. The following is an extract from it:

It was, I must acknowledge, a cherished desire of your dear departed lady that I should walk in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus, and, to obtain that grace, I must invoke God's Power that I may accomplish that great Result. Dear sir, I would like to suggest to you that I am disgusted with a wandering life; would like to see Dorset next Summer and look on the grave of my greatest friend. Nothing could give me greater Pleasure than to be under the Influence of your Christian family; now, if I had any Employment, no matter how simple, in that locality for the winter, then I would feel Happy to go next season to your country Residence and offer my services free.

[11] Meeta Sophia Schaff died July 14, 1876, in the twenty-first year of her age. She had just returned from the Centennial. She was a young lady of unusual loveliness of character, and was deeply lamented by a wide circle of friends, both young and old.

[12] A printed copy of Lines on her Golden Wedding, written by Mrs. Prentiss.

[13] The article is entitled Educated while Educating, and appeared in the Brooklyn Journal of Education for March, 1875.

[14] The Rev. C. H. Payson. See the interesting Memoir of him, entitled "All for Christ," edited by his brother George, and published by the American Tract Society.

[15] See HENRY BOYNTON SMITH; His Life and Work. Edited by his Wife. A. C. Armstrong & Son. 1880.

[16] His biographer, Mr. Moore, relates of Lord Byron that in all the plenitude of his fame, he confessed that "the depreciation of the lowest of mankind was more painful to him than the applause of the highest was pleasing."

[17] Peterchen and Gretchen. She translated it at Genevrier during the illness of her children.

[18] Dr. Gurdon Buck. He died shortly afterwards. For more than a quarter of a century be had been a faithful friend of Mrs. Prentiss, and as their family physician had made both her and her husband his debtors alike by his kindness and his skill. With a generosity so characteristic of his profession, he refused, during all these years, to receive any compensation for his services. As a surgeon he stood in the front rank; some of the operations, performed by him, attracted wide attention for then—novelty and usefulness. He published an account of them, with illustrations, which greatly interested Mrs. Prentiss. She was almost as fond of reading about remarkable eases in surgery as about remarkable criminal trials.

Dr. Buck was one of the founders and first ruling elders of the Church of the Covenant. His gratuitous labors in connection with the New York Hospital and other public institutions were very great. He was a man of solid worth, modest, upright, and devoted to his Lord and Master.

[19] "One of my brightest recollections of this season at Dorset is our last Sunday before returning to town. We went in the phaeton to Pawlet, where I preached for the Rev. Mr. Aiken. The morning was pleasant, the road lay through a lovely mountain valley, and the beauty of nature was made perfect by the sweet Sabbath stillness; and our thoughts were in unison with the scene and the day. I preached on Rest in Christ, and the service was very comforting to us both. How well I recall the same drive and a similar service early in September of 1876, when prayer was my theme! What sweet talks and sweeter fellowship we had together by the way, going and coming!"—Recollections of 1877-8.

[20] Recollections of 1876-7

[21] "Better is it sometimes to go down into the pit with him, who beholding darkness and bewailing the loss of consolation, crieth from the bottom of the lowest hell, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? than continually to walk arm in arm with angels, to sit, as it were, in Abraham's bosom, and to have no thought, no cogitation but this, 'I thank my God it is not with me as it is with other men.'"—HOOKER.

[22] A list of Mrs. Prentiss' writings, with brief notices of some of them, will be found at the end of the appendix, p. 568.