nished years wrought
in the South Trinitarian society! I can think of only six families then
worshipping there, that are worshipping there now. But so long as a
single one remains, the memory of Mrs. Prentiss will still be precious
in the old church.

The story of the New Bedford years may be told, with slight additions
here and there, by Mrs. Prentiss' own pen. Most of her letters to her
own family are lost; but the letters to her husband, when occasionally
separated from her, and others to old friends, have been preserved and
afford an almost continuous narrative of this period. A few extracts
from some of those written in 1845, will show in what temper of mind she
entered upon her new life. The first is dated Portland, January both,
just after Mr. Prentiss received the call to New Bedford:

I have wished all along, beyond anything else, not so much that we might
have a pleasant home, pleasant scenery and circumstances, good society
and the like, as that we might have good, holy influences about us, and
God's grace and love within us. And for you, dear George, I did not so
much desire the intellectual and other attractions, about which we have
talked sometimes, as a dwelling-place among those whom you might train
heavenward or who would not be a hindrance in your journey thither.
Through this whole affair I know I have thought infinitely more of you
than of myself. And if you are happy at the North Pole shan't I be happy
there too? I shall be heartily thankful to see you a pastor with a
people to love you. Only I shall be jealous of them.

To her friend, Miss Thurston, she writes from New Bedford, April 28th:

I thank you with all my heart for your letter and for the very pretty
gift, which I suppose to be the work of your own hands. I can not tell
you how inexpressibly dear to me are all the expressions of affection I
have received and am receiving from old friends. We have been here ten
days, and very happy days they have been to me, notwithstanding I have
had to see so many strange faces and to talk to so many new people. And
both my sister and Anna tell me that the first months of married life
are succeeded by far happier ones still; so I shall go on my way
rejoicing. As to what your brother says about disappointment, nobody
believes his doctrine better than I do; but life is as full of blessings
as it is of disappointments, I conceive, and if we only know how, we may
often, out of mere _will_, get the former i