A Helper and Comforter to Others

A selection from a letter by Mrs. Henry Smith, a close friend of Elizabeth Prentiss, to Mr. Prentiss, four months after the death of his dear wife. Elizabeth Prentiss was the author of the beloved hymn, More Love to Thee, O Christ, and the book, Stepping Heavenward, used by God to help many a weary saint traveling on their way to glory. Mrs. Smith reflects on the character of her friend. The letter was written January 2, 1879.

How naturally, modestly, almost indifferently, she received the tributes which poured in upon her! Yet, though she cared little for praise, she cared much for love, and for the consciousness that she was a helper and comforter to others.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 289.

Bereavement

A selection from a letter by Elizabeth Prentiss, hymn writer and author. She also encouraged many with her letters. Her brother once told her, “You excel anyone I know in the kind and gentle art of letter-writing.” This letter was written to a friend at a time when death had invaded her family. Her sister, Anna, had been taken in death and a niece was soon to be removed. The letter was written January 9, 1869.

One of the hard things about bereavement is the physical prostration and listlessness which make it next to impossible to pray, and quite impossible to feel the least interest in anything. We must bear this as a part of the pain, believing that it will not last forever, for nothing but God’s goodness does. How I wish you were near us, and that we could meet and talk and pray together over all that has saddened our lives, and made heaven such a blessed reality!

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 263.

Being Fifty Years Old

A selection from a letter by the beloved hymn writer, Elizabeth Prentiss, also author of the helpful book, Stepping Heavenward. Mrs. Prentiss wrote the letter to a friend a week after she celebrated her 50th birthday. Mrs. Prentiss was born October 26, 1818; the letter was written November 2, 1868.

You asked if I look over the past on my birthdays. I suppose I used to do it and feel dreadfully at the pitiful review, but since I have had the children’s to celebrate, I haven’t thought much of mine. But this time, being fifty years old, did set me upon thinking, and I had so many mercies to recount and to thank God for, that I hardly felt pangs of any sort. I suppose He controls our moods in such seasons, and I have done trying to force myself into this or that train of thought. I am sure that a good deal of what used to seem like repentance and sorrow for sin on such occasions, was really nothing but wounded pride that wished it could appear better in its own eyes. God has been so good to me! I wish I could begin to realise how on paper. Life seems teaching some new, or deepening the impression of some old, lesson, all the time.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 252.

More Prayer

A selection from a letter by Elizabeth Prentiss, author of Stepping Heavenward, a book which has touched the hearts of many, to her husband, George Lewis Prentiss, written in October of 1869.

I am not skilled in argument, but my heart sides with God in everything, and my conception of His character is such a beautiful one that I feel that He can not err… The more time we spend upon our knees, in real communion with God, the better we shall comprehend His wonderful nature, and how impossible it is to submit that nature to the rules by which we judge human beings. Every turn in life brings me back to this—more prayer.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 279.

Seasons of Peculiar Joy

A selection from a letter by Elizabeth Prentiss, author of the wonderful book, Stepping Heavenward, to Mrs. Leonard Dorset, August 3, 1869:

I believe fully with you that there is no happiness on earth, as there is none in heaven, to be compared with that of losing all things to possess Christ. I look back to two points in my life as standing out from all the rest of it as seasons of peculiar joy, and they are the points where I was crushed under the weight of sorrow. How wonderful this is, how incomprehensible to those who have not learned Christ!

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 276.

Praying by the Wayside

A selection from a letter by Elizabeth Prentiss to Miss Eliza A. Warner, September 27, 1868:

And the praying we do by the wayside, in cars and steamboats, in streets and in crowds, perhaps keeps us more near to Christ than long prayers in solitude could without the help of these little messengers, that hardly every stop running to Him and coming back with the grace every moment needs.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 247.

To Rejoice, To Mourn

A selection from a letter by Elizabeth Prentiss to Miss Eliza A. Warner, September 27, 1868:

The summer has gone, and I am grieved that I have not been, from its beginning to its end, so like [Christ], so full of Him, as to constrain everybody I met to love Him too. Isn’t there such power in a holy life, and have not some lived such a life? I hardly know whether to rejoice most in my love for Him, or to mourn over my meager love; so I do both.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 246.

Life is a Battlefield

A selection from a letter by Elizabeth Prentiss to Mrs. Condict, November 7, 1875:

Whatever may be said to the contrary by others, to me life has been a battlefield, and I believe always will be; but is the soldier necessarily unhappy and disgusted because he is fighting? I trow not.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 447.

In the Furnace

A selection from a letter by Elizabeth Prentiss to Miss Eliza A. Warner, September 27, 1868:

Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them; I do not know why I should insist on not being one of them.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 247.