e in heaven one day.

Until the fall of 1873 her husband and two or three friends only knew of
the existence of these verses, and their publication had not crossed her
mind. But shortly after her return from Dorset she was persuaded to let
Mr. Randolph read them. She soon received from him the following letter:

The poems _must_ be printed, and at once! "We"--that is, the firm living
at Yonkers--read aloud all the pieces, except those in the book, at one
sitting, and would have gone on to the end but that the eyes gave out.
Out of the lot three or four pieces were laid aside as not up to the
standard of the others. The female member of the firm said that Mrs.
Prentiss would do a wrong if she withheld the poems from the public.
This member said _he_ should give up writing, or trying to write,
religious verses.

I am not joking. The book must be printed. We were charmed with the
poems. Some of them have all the quaintness of Herbert, some the simple
subjective fervor of the German hymns, and some the glow of Wesley. They
are, as Mrs. R. said, out of the beaten way, _and all true_. So they
differ from the conventional poetry. If published, there may be here and
there some sentimental soul, or some soul without sentiment, or some
critic who doats on Robt. Browning and don't understand him, or on
Morris, or Rossetti, because _they_ are high artists, who may snub the
book. Very well; for compensation you will have the fact that the
poems will win for you a living place in the hearts of thousands--in a
sanctuary where few are permitted to enter.

A day or two later Mr. Randolph wrote in reply to her misgivings:

If I had the slightest thought that you would make even a slight mistake
in publishing, I would say so. As I have already said, I am _sure_ that
the book would prove a blessing in ten thousand ways, and at the same
time add to your reputation as a writer.

She could not resist this appeal. The assurance that the verses would
prove a blessing to many souls disarmed her scruples and she consented
to their publication. The most of them, unfortunately, bore no date. But
all, or nearly all of them, belong to the previous twenty years, and
they depict some of the deepest experiences of her Christian life during
that period; they are her tears of joy or of sorrow, her cries of
anguish, and her songs of love and triumph. Some of them were hastily
written in pencil, upon torn scraps of paper, as if she were on a
journey.