Though I have known many people, I have had few close friends in the course of my life and even fewer that have really encouraged me to walk in a godly, Christian way. One thing I have noticed about living in a post-Christian world is that likeminded believers can be few and far between, making communication difficult at times. Like so many others, I have made myself a companion of books, to help fill that void. Books have done a lot for me. They’ve taught me about the world, taken me to places I probably will never see, opened my eyes to new ideas and thoughts, and cultivated in me a real love for life and learning. Sometimes a good book can do as much for the soul as a good friend. Even better, a good book can put one into contact with some of the best people that have ever lived, helping to mold and shape character into something pure and good. “If a girl will chose her books from those whose ideals are high and whose language is pure and clean, unconsciously she will mold her life to those portrayed in the books she reads….By going to the proper kinds of authors, she may get glimpses of, and even come into intimate acquaintance with, the lives of the purest and noblest of earth.” (Beautiful Girlhood by Mable Hale, Chapter 24, page 121) Despite all this, I’ve never been much of a biography reader, preferring books on nature, history and poetry to anything else. That being said, when my mother handed me Elizabeth Prentiss ‘More Love to Thee’ by Sharon James, I was quite happy to read it.
My interest in the book was nothing more than mere curiosity to discover the woman behind the hymn “More Love to Thee.” However, in reading this book, I was to find so much more than that. By the end I had made the acquaintance of an ordinary woman who lived life in an extraordinary way. Much of the general information the book presented I already knew. Elizabeth Payson Prentiss was born on October 26th, 1818. She was the fifth child of Dr. Edward Payson and his wife Louisa. She lost her father at a young age, helped her mother through a lonely widowhood, and taught school with her older sister. On April 16th, 1845, she was joined in marriage to George Prentiss, a minister who had recently been ordained. Together they had six children, four of whom survived into adulthood. Not only did Elizabeth write the hymn “More Love to Thee,” but she also wrote books like Stepping Heavenward, The Little Preacher, and Aunt Jane’s Hero. Elizabeth died on Tuesday, August 13th, 1878 at the age of fifty-nine. What I was unprepared for was how amazingly similar many of her experiences, dreams struggles, and even trials were to those I’ve either experienced myself or known someone else who has. Elizabeth’s story is capable of speaking to women in any season of life over issues like feminism, marriage, singleness, emotional purity, education, home culture, raising children, the will of God, prayer and many others too numerous to mention. No matter what stage her life one is reading about, it is easy to either identify or sympathize with her joys and difficulties. Without being annoyingly perfect (in fact, many times she’s quite the opposite), Elizabeth Prentiss is more than a good example for women – she is excellent. She had a firm conviction in the Sovereignty of God and that He acts in the best interest for His people, whether or not that entails blessing or sorrow. One day, when a friend was lamenting on the terrible fact that God allows his people to suffer, Elizabeth replied, “Well, Carrie, we can’t understand it, but I have been thinking that this might be God’s way of preparing his children for very high degrees of service on earth, or happiness in heaven.” (Chapter 2, page 17) That was the theme of her life as she struggled through the illness and death of many friends and family members, and the loss of first her health, and then her husband’s. “Through the most difficult of trials, she trusted that the purpose of God for his children in this life is to prepare them for heaven. She believed that sufferings drive the Christian closer to God because they force the Christian to be more dependent on him.” (Conclusion, page 205)
One thing I very clearly identified with was her doubts about her spiritual condition. Her personality allowed her to do nothing by halves; she was either one way or another. “When she was feeling ‘worldly’ she would go all out for whatever leisure pursuit she enjoyed at the time. At such times, she would inwardly despair of her spiritual state, and feel that she had never been truly converted. But when she was on a spiritual high, she felt as if all she ever wanted to do was to please God.” (Chapter 2, page 14) Later on in life, she felt her spiritual condition was being neglected not through transitory pleasures, but by the cares of everyday living. Through the long years of bearing children, watching them die or go through illness, and struggling to maintain a household despite feeling very unwell, Elizabeth often felt that God was far away, that she was unable to do anything to grow as a Christian. But if one looks at the meta-narrative of her life, it was directed more and more towards holiness. To put it in her own words: “God never places us in any position in which we can not grow. We may fancy that He does. We may fear we are so impeded by fretting, petty cares that we are gaining nothing; but when we are not sending any branches upward, we may be sending roots downward. Perhaps in the time of our humiliation, when everything seems a failure, we are making the best kind of progress. God delights to try our faith by the conditions in which He places us. A plant set in the shade shows where its heart is by turning towards the sun, even when unable to reach it. We have so much to distract us in this world that we do not realize how truly and deeply, if not always warmly and consciously, we love Christ. But I believe that this love is the strongest principle in every regenerate soul. It may slumber for a time, it may falter, it may freeze nearly to death; but sooner or later it will declare itself as the ruling passion.” (Conclusion, page 205)
Love for Christ was definitely a ruling passion in Elizabeth Prentiss’s life. Even during her darkest hours, this love governed her every move. Her most famous hymn, “More Love to Thee,” was written shortly after the death of her two children, Eddy and Bessie. It was a terrible time for her, yet in the midst of this, she was able to write to another who had also lost a child, “I trust that in this hour of sorrow you have with you that Presence, before which alone sorrow and sighing flee away. God is left; Christ is left; sickness, accident, death cannot touch you here. Is this not a blissful thought?… May sorrow bring us both nearer to Christ!” (Chapter 6, page 85) Not long after, she was to scribble down the verses to her most well-known hymn. They were lain aside for several more years until her husband discovered them and insisted on having them published. Out of anything she ever wrote, it is the most revealing of her inner soul, a heart that, despite all the ills and sufferings thrust upon it, was still beating with a fervent love for its Saviour. I truly enjoyed getting to know this unusual woman through this biography. Her steadfast love for Christ, true devotion to husband and family, and amazing belief in the will of God are nothing short of inspiring. She is one friend I am very much looking forward to meeting when I too reach heaven some day.
