You ask for my prayers, and I ask for yours. I long ago formed the habit of praying at night individually, if possible, for all who had come to me through the day, or whom I had visited; but you contrive to get a much larger share than that. I love to think of your future holiness and usefulness as even in the very least linked to my prayers. Oh, I ought to know how to pray a great deal better than I do, for forty years ago, save one, I this day publicly dedicated myself to Christ. I write to you because I like to do so, recognising no difference between writing and talking. When no better work comes to me, I am glad to give the little pleasure I can, in notes and letters. He who knows how poor we are, how little we have to give, does not disdain even a note like this, since it is written in love to Him and to one of His own dear ones.
May 23d.—Your last letter was like a fragrant breath of country air, redolent of flowers, and all that makes rural scenes so sweet. But better still, it was fragrant with love to Him who is the bond between us, in whose name and for whose sake we are friends. I wish I loved Him better and were more like Him; perhaps that is about as far as we get in this world, for no matter how far we advance, we are never satisfied; there is always something ahead; I doubt if any one ever said, even in a whisper and to himself, "Now I love my Saviour as much as a human soul can."
You speak of my having given you "counsels." Have I had the presumption to do that? Two-thirds of the time I feel as if I wanted somebody to counsel me; the only thing I really know that you do not, is what it is to be beaten with persistent, ceaseless stripes, year after year, year after year, with scarcely breathing time between. I don't know whether this is most an argument against me, or for God; on the whole it is most for Him, who was so good and kind as never to spare me for my writhing and groaning. Truly as I value this discipline, I want you to give yourself to Him so unreservedly that you will not need such sharp treatment. I am not going to keep writing and getting you in debt. All I ask is if you ever feel a little under the weather and want a specially loving or cheering word, to give me the chance to speak or write it.
A chapter might be written about Mrs. Prentiss' love for little children, the enthusiasm with which she studied all their artless ways, her delight in their beauty, and the reverence with which she regarded the mystery of their infant being. Her faith in their real, complete humanity, their susceptibility to spiritual influences, and, when called from earth, their blessed immortality in and through Christ, was very vivid; and it was untroubled by any of those distressing doubts, or misgivings, that are engendered by the materialistic spirit and science of the age. Contempt for them shocked her as an offence against the Holy Child Jesus, their King and Saviour. Her very look and manner as she took a young infant, especially a sick or dying infant, in her arms and gave it a loving kiss, seemed to say:
Sweet baby, little as thou art,
Thou art a human whole;
Thou hast a little human heart,
Thou hast a deathless soul. [6]
The following letter to a Christian mother, dated May 13th, will show her feeling on this subject:
This morning we attended the funeral of a little baby, eight months old. My husband, in his remarks, said that though born and ever continuing to be a sufferer, it was never saddened by this fellowship with Christ; and that he believed it was a partaker of His holiness, and glad through His indwelling, even though unconscious of it. During the last days of its life, after each paroxysm of coughing, it would look first at its mother, then at its father, for sympathy, and then look upward with a face radiant beyond description. I can't tell you how it touched me to think that I had in that baby a little Christian sister—not merely redeemed, but sanctified from its birth—and I know it will touch and strengthen you to hear of it. I felt a reverence for that tiny, lifeless form, that I can not put into words. And, indeed, why should it be harder for God to enter into the soul of an infant than into our "unlikeliest" ones? … I see more and more that if we have within us the mind of Christ, we must bear the burden of other griefs than our own; He did not merely pity suffering humanity; He bore our griefs, and in all our afflictions He was afflicted.
To Mrs. Condict, June 6, 1870.
If you can get hold of the April number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, read an article in it called "Psychology in the Life, Work and Teachings of Jesus." I think it very striking and very true. Praying for Dr. —— this morning, I had such a peaceful feeling that he was safe. Do you feel so about him? I had a very different experience about another man who has been to see me since I began this letter, and who said I was the first happy person he ever met. May God lay that to his heart!… Rummaging among dusty things in the attic this forenoon with great repugnance, I found such a beautiful letter from my husband, written for my solace in Switzerland when he was in Paris (he wrote me every day, sometimes twice a day, during the two months of our enforced separation) that even the drudgery of getting my hands soiled and my back broken was sweetened. That's the way God keeps on spoiling us; one good thing after another till we are ashamed. Well, let us step onward, hand in hand. I wonder which of us will outrun the other and step in first? I am so glad I'm willing to live.
In the course of this spring The Percys was published. The story first came out as a serial in the New York Observer. It was translated into French under the title La Famille Percy. In 1876 a German version appeared under the title Die Familie Percy. It was also republished in London. [7]