Square, "feeling some of our restless cravings already quieted, as only contact with God's people could quiet them." A short and very restful stay at Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, ended the European chapter of her life; on September 24, 1861, she was again in New York, coming back with four children instead of three, her husband's health improved; and she prepared, alike by her experiences of joy and sorrow, to grapple with the new duties that awaited her at home. VI. THE PASTOR'S WIFE. A NEW church was built for her husband, the Church of the Covenant, and in the important and busy labours of that charge his wife was his constant and most helpful coadjutor. But her health was a terrible drawback to all active exertion; and she had other troubles. There was much sickness among her children, and "the war" had a depressing effect. At the very beginning of this new chapter of her New York life she was deprived of her elder sister, Mrs. Hopkins, a very learned and very gifted lady, to whom she had owed much of her own intellectual training and stimulus, and of the many scholarly accomplishments she possessed. The death of her husband's aged mother was another trial; "she belonged to the number of those holy women of the old time, who trusted in God and adorned themselves with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, and whose children to the latest generation rise up and call them blessed." Much of the good that Mrs. Prentiss now did was done by letters, and especially to those afflicted. To her dying sister-in-law, Mrs. Edward Payson, she could say: "Dear Nelly, I congratulate you with my whole heart. Do not let the thought of what those who love you must suffer in your loss diminish the peace and joy with which God now calls you to think only of Himself and the home He has prepared for you. Try to leave them to His kind, tender care. He loves them better than you do; He can be to them more than you have been; He will hear your prayers and all the prayers offered for them, and as one whom his mother comforteth He will comfort them. We who shall be left here without you cannot conceive the joys on which you are to enter, but we know enough to go with you, to the very gates of the city, longing to enter in with you, to go no more out. Ah, your tears will soon be wiped away; you will see the King in His beauty; you will see Christ your Redeemer, and realise all He is and all He has done for you; and how many saints whom you have loved on earth will be standing ready to seize you by the hand and welcome you among them? As I think of these things, my soul is in haste to be gone; I long to be set free from sin and self, and to go to the fellowship of those who have done with them for ever, and are perfect and entire, wanting nothing." To another sister-in-law, Anna Stearns, who had lost her husband, she writes on the twenty-fifth anniversary of her wedding-day: "I have thought of you all day with the tenderest sympathy, knowing how you had looked forward to it, and what a contrast it offers to your bridal day twenty-five years ago. But I hope it has not been wholly sad. You have a rich past that cannot be taken from you, and a richer future lies before you; for I can see, though through your tears you cannot, that the Son of God walks with you in this furnace of affliction, and that He is so sanctifying it to your soul that ages hence you will look on this day as better than the day of your espousals. It is hard now to suffer, but after all, the light affliction is nothing, and the weight of glory is everything. Don't you see that in afflicting you He means to prove to you that He loves you, and that you love Him? Don't you remember that it is His son, not His enemy, that He scourgeth? The greatest saint on earth has to reach heaven on the same terms with the greatest sinner; unworthy, unfit, good-for-nothing, but saved by grace. Do cheer and comfort yourself with these thoughts, and your sick-room will be the happiest room in the house, as I constantly pray it may be." It was not long ere this dear relative passed away, to realize the visions which her sister had spread before her. Mrs. Prentiss had great facility in throwing her thoughts into verse, and often with great success. Perhaps her best known hymn is that entitled "More love to Thee, O Christ." "More love to Thee, O Christ, More love to Thee! Hear Thou the prayer I make This is my earnest plea,— More love, O Christ, to Thce, More love to Thee! Once earthly joy I craved, This all my prayer shall be,— Let sorrow do its work; Come grief and pain; Sweet are Thy messengers, Sweet their refrain, When they can sing with me, More love, O Christ to Thee, Then shall my latest breath My heart shall raise; This still its prayer shall be,— More love to Thee!" Nothing could satisfy her without Christ. At this time The Gates Ajar was making a great sensation, for men like anything that gives them glimpses of the mysterious future. But in her eyes the book had a great defect. "Have you read The Gates Ajar?” she wrote to a friend. "I have, with real pain. I do not think you will be so shocked with it as I am, but hope you don't like it. It is full of talent, but has next to no Christ in it, and my heaven is full of Him." And Christ's likeness in others was very dear to her. "I can't help liking what is Christ-like in people, whether I love their natural characters or not; after all, what is there in the world worth much love? ?" It was one of her deepest convictions that suffering increased love for Christ. "I want to make you feel," she wrote to a much afflicted friend, “that His sufferers are His happiest, most favoured 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 gaiety 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 the 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 pass out of that prison house into a peace that passes 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 cup of unmingled prosperity. . . . But for the gospel of Christ, to hear of such bereavements as yours would appal, would madden one. But what a halo surrounds that word 'But!"" VII. BIBLE READINGS. BESIDES visits to the sick, and letter-writing, the chief form of pastoral aid in which Mrs. Prentiss took an active part was Bible readings. These began at Dorset, her country home, to make up in a measure for the want of stated service, but they were continued with growing interest to the close of her life In fact, during the last four years of her life her weekly Bible reading was her chief interest. Sometimes she was called to address a class of young ladies in connection with a neighbour's church. This she always did with great effect. Dr. J. M. Ludlow remarks on the combination of rarest beauty and highest spirituality of thought with the utmost simplicity of language and the plainest illustrations. Her conversation was like the mystic ladder which was set up on earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. Her most solemn counsel was given in such a way as never to repress the buoyant feeling of the young, but rather to direct it toward the true joy of the Lord. In 1876 these Bible readings were believed in some cases to have created much interest in religion. In other cases they gave the opportunity which was much needed of correcting the vagaries of perfectionism and other systems that were not for edification. The subject of the last Bible meeting she ever held (August 8, 1878) was "Witnessing for Christ." After the reading of many passages of Scripture, she dwelt on the many ways in which we may witness for Christ. She urged all those present to make a public confession of Him at His Table. "But they might all be witnesses for Him in quiet simple ways, and that every day of their lives. Not that their Lord really needed their service. But He allowed them to work for Him somewhat as a mother allows her little child to do things for her, not because she needs the child's help, but because she loves to see the child trying to please her. And yet there comes a time when the child is of real service to her mother. But how easily God can dispense with the best and most useful of them! One may seem to have a great task to perform in the service of the Master, but in the midst of it he is taken away, and while he is missed the work of God goes right on. It is love that Christ loves, and the smallest testimony of real love is most pleasing to Him. And love shown to one of His suffering disciples He regards as love to Himself. So a little child, just carrying a flower to some poor invalid, may thus do Christ honour and become more endeared to Him. There is no one, old or young, who has not the power of blessing other souls. We have all more influence, whether for good or evil, than we dream of." Her counsels were very practical. At this reading, the subject of prayer having come up, she said: "Always move the lips in prayer. It helps to keep one's thoughts from wandering. A mother can pray with her sick child on her lap more acceptably than if she leave it alone in order to go and pray by herself. Accustom yourself to turn |