do and
express in its own way, and which, therefore, so frequently exposed its
subject to the misunderstanding of strangers or of unappreciative souls;
crown all with the stern conscientiousness which would not compromise
the truth even for love's sake, and the exquisite selfreverence, if you
will allow the expression, which held the region of religious emotion as
holy ground, and which regarded the attempt to open or to penetrate the
inner shrines of Christian feeling as something akin to sacrilege--and
blend all these in a delicate, highly-strung, nervous organization, and
you have the elements of a fearful capacity for suffering.

Besides this _capacity_ for suffering, Mrs. Prentiss had a very clear
cognition of the sacred _office_ of suffering, and of its relation to
perfection of character. There were two ideas which pervaded her whole
theory of religious experience. The one was that whenever God has
special work for His children to do, He always fits them for it by
suffering. She had the most intense conviction of any one I ever knew
of the necessity of suffering to perfection of character or of work.
Doubtless there have been others who have learned as well as she its
value as a purifying and exalting power, but very few, I think, who have
so early and so uncompromisingly taken that truth into their theory of
Christian education. She quoted with approval the words of Madame Guyon,
that "God rarely, if ever, makes the educating process a painless one
when He wants remarkable results." Such must drink of Christ's cup
and be baptized with His baptism. Along with this went another and a
complementary thought, viz., that as God prepares His workmen for great
work by suffering, so there is another class of His children whom He
does not find competent to this preparation; who escape much of the
conflict and suffering, but never attain the highest enjoyments or fight
the decisive battles of time.... In a volume of Fenelon's Christian
Counsel, which was one of her favorite closet companions, this passage
is scored: God "attacks all the subtle resources of self-love within,
especially in those souls who have generously and without reserve
delivered themselves up to the operations of His grace. The more He
would purify them, the more He exercises them interiorly." And she has
added a special note at the foot of the page: "He never forces Himself
on ungenerous souls for this work."

Along with this went the thought that Go