secret history of many a quiet woman's heart! Then our modern
civilization, while placing woman higher in some respects than she ever
stood before, at the same time makes her pay a heavy price for
her advantages. In the very process of enlarging her sphere and
opportunities, whether intellectual or practical, and of educating
her for their duties, does it not also expose her to moral shocks and
troubles and lacerations of feeling almost peculiar to our times? Nor is
religion wholly exempt from the spirit that rules the age or the hour.
There is a close, though often very subtle, connexion between the
two; just as there is between the working of nature and grace in the
individual soul.

The phase of her history upon which Mrs. Prentiss was now entering
can not be fully understood without considering it in this light. The
melancholy that was deep-rooted in her temperament, and her tender,
all-absorbing sympathies, made her very quick to feel whatever of pain
or sorrow pervaded the social atmosphere about her. The thought of what
others were suffering would intrude even upon her rural retreat among
the mountains, and render her jealous of her own rest and joy. And then,
in all her later years, the mystery of existence weighed upon her heart
more and more heavily. In a nature so deep and so finely strung, great
happiness and great sorrow are divided by a very thin partition.

But spiritual trials and conflict gave its keenest edge to the suffering
of these years. Such trials and conflict indeed were not wanting in the
earliest stages of her religious life, nor had they been wanting all
along its course; but they came now with a power and in a manner almost
wholly new; and, while not essentially different from those which have
afflicted God's children in all ages, they are yet traceable, in no
small degree, to special causes and circumstances in her own case. Early
in 1870 she had fallen in with a book entitled "God's Furnace," and a
few months later had made the acquaintance of its author--a remarkable
woman, of great strength of character, of deep religious experience, and
full of zeal for God. Her book was introduced to the Christian public by
a distinguished Presbyterian clergyman, and was highly recommended
by other eminent divines. By means of this work, as well as by
correspondence and an occasional visit, she exerted for a time a good
deal of influence over Mrs. Prentiss. At first this influence seemed to
be stimula