E. Prentiss

“ We live a day at a time not knowing what shall be on the morrow. But whether I live or die my happiness is secure and so I believe is of my beloved ones. This is a true picture of our home:
A sick-room full of the suffering ravages the body but cannot touch the soul. A worn, wasting mother ministered unto by a devoted husband and by unselfish Christian children. Some of the peace of God if not all of it, shines in every face, is heard in every tone. It is a home that typifies and foreshadows the home that is perfect and eternal.
Our dear Helen has been given us for this emergency. ”

“ Just as if my happiness were not a deeper, more blessed one than theirs which must be purged of much dross before it will prove itself to be like fine gold. Yes, I suppose I am as happy in my dear, precious husband and children as a wife and mother can be in a world, which must not be a real heaven lest we should love the land we journey through so well as to want to pitch our tents in it forever, and cease to look and long for the home whither we are bound. ”

“ Poor Helen!—When it was all over, I do not know what to say of mother but that she behaved and quieted herself like a weaned child. Her sweet composure awed me; I dared not give way to my own vehement, terrible sorrow; in the presence of this Christ-like patience, all noisy demonstrations seemed profane. I thought no human being was less selfish, more loving than she had been for many years, but the spirit that now took possession of her flowed into her heart and life directly from that great Heart of love, whose depth I had never even begun to sound. ”

“ Who by searching can find out God? My dear father entered heaven after a prosperous life path wherein he was unconscious of a pang, and beloved James went bright and fresh and untarnished by conflict straight to the Master's feast. But what a long lifetime of bereavement, sorrow, and suffering was my darling mother's pathway to glory!
Surely her felicity must be greater than theirs, and the crown she has won by such a struggle must be brighter than the stars! And this crown she is even now, while I sit here choked with tears, casting joyfully at the feet of her Saviour! ”

“ I think of myself the whole time; I behave like a heroine when Dr. Elliott is present, and like a naughty, spoiled child when he is not. Poor mother! how can she endure me? As to my piety, it is worse than none.
Kate, a few hours later.-Well, nobody can deny that I have a real gift in managing children! And I am very lovable, or mother wouldn't be so fond of me. I am always pleasant unless I am sick, or worried, and my temper is not half so hasty as it used to be. I never think of myself, but am all the time doing something for others. ”

“ Baby is not at all well. To see a little frail, tender thing really suffering, tears my soul to pieces. I think it would distress me less to give her to God just as she is now, a vital part of my very heart, than to see her live a mere invalid life. But I try to feel, as I know I say, Thy will be done! Little Ernest is the very picture of health and beauty. He has vitality enough for two children. He and his little sister will make very interesting contrasts as they grow older. His ardor and vivacity will rouse her, and her gentleness will soften him. ”

“ Seeing mother so fond of Thomas A Kempis, I have been reading it, now and then, and am not fond of it at all. From beginning to end it exhorts to self-denial in every form and shape. Must I then give up all hope of happiness in this world, and modify all my natural tastes and desires? Oh, I do love so to be happy! I do so hate to suffer! The very thought of being sick, or of being forced to nurse sick people, with all their cross ways, and of losing my friends, or of having to live with disagreeable people, makes me shudder. I want to please God, and to be like Him. ”

“ How rich I felt when I heard Ernest's voice, as he replied to a question asked at the door, proclaim, "Mother and children all well." To think that we, who thought ourselves rich before are made so much richer now!
But she is not large and vigorous, as little Ernest was, and we cannot rejoice in her without some misgiving. Yet her very frailty makes her precious to us. Little Ernest hangs over her with an almost lover-like pride and devotion, and should she live I can imagine what a protector he will be for her. I have had to give up the care of him to Martha. ”

“ SEPT. The old pain and cough have come back with the first cool nights of this month. Perhaps I am going to my darling—I do not know I am certainly very feeble. Consenting to suffer does not annul the suffering. Such a child could not go hence without rending and tearing its way out of the heart that loved it. This world is wholly changed to me and I walk in it like one in a dream. And dear Ernest is changed, too. He says little, and is all kindness and goodness to me, but I can see here is a wound that will never be healed. ”

“ I do not believe anybody else in the world is like me in this respect. Then when I feel differently, and can make a nice, glib prayer, with floods of tears running down my cheeks, I get all puffed up, and think how much pleased God must be to see me so fervent in spirit. I go down-stairs in this frame, and begin to scold Susan for misplacing my music, till all of a sudden I catch myself doing it, and stop short, crestfallen and confounded. I have so many such experiences that I feel like a baby just learning to walk, who is so afraid of falling that it has half a mind to sit down once for all. ”

“ He has not left us to the bitterness of a grief that refuses and disdains to be comforted. We believe in Him, we love Him, we worship as we never did before. My dear Ernest has felt this sorrow to his heart's core. But he has not for one moment questioned the goodness or the love of our Father in thus taking from us the child who promised to be our greatest earthly joy. Our consent to God's will has drawn us together very closely, together we bear the yoke in our youth, together we pray and sing praises in the very midst of our tears "I was dumb with silence because Thou didst it." ”

“ Leave it to God to choose to make you feel sometimes, in order to sustain your weakness and infancy in Christian life; sometimes weaning you from that sweet and consoling sentiment which is the milk of babes, in order to humble you, to make you grow, and to make you robust in the violent exercise of faith, by causing you to sweat the bread of the strong in the sweat of your brow. Would you only love God according as He will make you take pleasure in loving Him? ”

“ The world I live in now is a new world; a world full of suffering that leads to unutterable felicity. Oh, this precious, precious baby! How can I thank God enough for giving him to me!
I see now why He has put some thorns into my domestic life; but for them I should be too happy to live. It does not seem just the moment to complain, and yet, as I can speak to no one, it is a relief, a great relief, to write about my trials. During my whole sickness, Martha has been so hard, so cold, so unsympathizing that sometimes it has seemed as if my cup of trial could not hold another drop. ”

“ I have often thought that she would be a rare woman who could win and wear such a heart as his. Life has done little but smile upon him; he is handsome and talented and attractive; everybody is fascinated by him, everybody caresses him; and yet he has turned his back on the world that has dealt so kindly with him, and given himself, as Edwards says, "clean away to Christ!" Oh, how thankful I am! And yet to let him go! My only brother-mother's Son! But I know what she will say; she will him God-speed!
Ernest came upstairs, looking tired and jaded. ”

“ He is reserving better things for my child!"
Dear mother's are not the only arms I have flown to. But it does not seem as if God ought to take me in because I am in trouble, when I would not go to him when I was happy in something else. But even in the midst of my greatest felicity I had many and many a misgiving; many a season when my conscience upbraided me for my willfulness towards my dear mother, and my whole soul yearned for something higher and better even than Charley's love, precious as it was. ”

“ I am glad she is at last relieved from the knowledge of all my cares, and though I often and often yearn to throw myself into her arms and pour out my cares and trials into her sympathizing ears, I would not have her back for all the world. She has got away from all the turmoil and suffering of life; let her stay!
The scenes of sorrow through which we have been passing have brought Ernest nearer to me than ever, and I can see that this varied discipline has softened and sweetened his character. ”

“ I believe we owe it to this constant prayer that we have loved each other so uniformly and with such growing comfort in each other; so that our little discords always have ended in fresh accord, and our love has felt conscious of resting on a rock and that that rock was the will of God."
"It is plain, then," said Helen, "that you and Ernest are sure of one source of happiness as long as you live, whatever vicissitudes you may meet with. I thank you so much for what you have said. The fact is you have been brought up to carry religion into everything. ”

“ What with the relief from this anxiety, my improved state of health, and father's pleasure, I am in splendid spirits to-day. Ernest, too, seems wonderfully cheerful, and we both feel that we may now look forward to a quiet happiness we have never known. With such a husband and such children as mine, I ought to be the most grateful creature on earth. And I have dear mother and James besides. I don't quite know what to think about James' relation to Lucy. He is so brimful running over with happiness that he is also full of fun and of love, and after all he may only like her as a cousin. ”

“ What made her so fond of James was simply the fact that a friend of his had looked on her with a favorable eye, regarding her as a very proper mother for four or five children who are in need of a shepherd. Yes, Lucy is going to marry a man so much older than herself, that on a pinch he might have been her father. She does it from a sense of duty, she says, and to a nature like hers duty may perhaps suffice, and no cry of the heart have to be stifled in its performance. We are all so happy in the happiness of James and Helen that we are not in the mood to criticise Lucy's decision. ”

“ And she said, too, that when friends came to see us, full of sympathy and eager to say or do something for our comfort, it was our duty to receive them with as much cheerfulness as possible.
I said they, none of them, had anything to say that did not provoke me.
"It is always a trying task to visit the afflicted," mother said, "and you make it doubly hard to your friends by putting on a gloomy, forbidding air, and by refusing to talk of your dear father, as if you were resolved to keep your sorrow all to yourself." ”

“ She takes excellent care of Katy, keeps her looking as if she had just come out of a band-box, as the saying and always has her room in perfect order. But one misses the loving word, the re-assuring smile, the delicate, thoughtful little forbearance, that ought to adorn every sick-room, and light it up with genuine sunshine. There is one comfort about it, however, and that is that I can spoil dear Katy to my heart's content.
As to the baby, he is a fine little fellow, and his mother is so happy in him that she can afford to do without some other pleasures. ”

“ I can see that dear Ernest's affliction and this prolonged anxiety about me have been a heavenly benediction to him I am sure that every mother whose sick child he visits will have a sympathy he could not have given while all our own little ones were alive and well. I thank God that He has thus increased my dear husband's usefulness as I think that He has mine also. How tenderly I already feel towards all suffering children, and how easy it will be now to be patient with them! ”

“ Martha will take baby when I have other things to attend to, and she keeps him every Sunday afternoon that I may go to church, but she knows no more about his physical training than I do. If my dear mother were only here! I feel a good deal worn out. What with the care of baby, who is restless at night, and with whom I walk about lest he should keep Ernest awake, the depressing influence of father's presence, Martha's disdain, and Ernest keeping so aloof from me, life seems to me little better than a burden that I have not strength to carry and would gladly lay down. ”

“ It is true he sees my faults; anybody can, who looks. But he does not see my prayers, or my tears of shame and sorrow; he does not know how many hasty words I repress; how earnestly I am aiming, all the day long, to do right in all the little details of life. He does not know that it costs my fastidious nature an appeal to God every time I kiss his poor old face, and that what would be an act of worship in him is an act of self-denial in me. How should he? The Christian life is a hidden known only by the eye that seeth in secret. ”

“ I never was so happy, in my husband and children, in other words in my home, as I am now. Life looks very attractive. I am glad that I am going to get well.
But Ernest watches me carefully, and want me, as a precautionary measure, to give up music, writing, sewing, and painting-the very things that occupy me! and lead an idle, useless life, for a time. I cannot refuse what he asks so tenderly, and as a personal favor to himself. Yet I should like to fill the remaining pages of my journal; I never like to leave things incomplete. ”

“ As to Lucy she is exactly in her sphere: the calm dignity with which she reigns in her husband's house, and the moderation and self-control with which she guides his children, are really instructive. She has a baby of her own, and though it acts just like other babies and kicks, scratches, pulls and cries when it is washed and dressed, she goes through that process with a serenity and deliberation that I envy with all my might. ”

“ All I had wanted was to have Charley come here every day, take me out now and then, and care for nobody else.
"Yes, marriage!" mother repeated. "For what is the meaning of an engagement if marriage is not to follow? How can you fail to see, what I see, oh! so plainly, that Charley Underhill can never, never meet the requirements of your soul. You are captivated by what girls of your age call beauty, regular features, a fair complexion and soft eyes. His flatteries delude, and his professions of affection gratify you. ”

“ Does the whole duty of woman consist in keeping her house distressingly clean and prim; in making and baking and preserving and pickling; in climbing to the top shelves of closets lest haply a little dust should lodge there, and getting down on her hands and knees to inspect the carpet? The truth is there is not one point of sympathy between Martha and myself, not one. One would think that our love to Ernest would furnish it. ”

“ The way of salvation is to me a wide path, absolutely radiant with the glory of Him who shines upon it; I see my shortcomings; I see my sins, but I feel myself bathed, as it were, in the effulgent glow that proceeds directly from the throne of God and the Lamb. It seems as if I ought to have some misgivings about my salvation, but I can hardly say that I have one. How strange, how mysterious that is! And here is father, so much older, so much better than I am, creeping along in the dark! ”

“ He was so courteous, treating her with as much respect as if she were a queen, and yet with as much love as if were always a girl. I naturally expected the like from my husband."
"You must have been disappointed then," she said.
"Yes, I was. It cost me a good many pouts and tears of which I am now ashamed. And Ernest seldom annoys me now with the little neglects that I used to make so much of."
"Sometimes I think there are no 'little' neglects," said Helen. "It takes less than nothing to annoy us." ”