ting and healthful, but it was not so in the end. The points
of sympathy and the points of difference between them will come out so
plainly in Mrs. Prentiss' letters that they need not be indicated here.
It would not be easy to imagine two women more utterly dissimilar,
except in love to God, devotion to their Saviour, and delight in prayer.
These formed the tie between them. Miss ----'s last days were sadly
clouded by mental trouble and disease.

A little book called "Holiness through Faith," published about this
time, was another disturbing influence in Mrs. Prentiss' religious life.
This work and others of a similar character presented a somewhat novel
theory of sanctification--a theory zealously taught, and which excited
considerable attention in certain circles of the Christian community. It
was, in brief, this: As we are justified by faith without the deeds
of the law, even so are we sanctified by faith; in other words, as we
obtain forgiveness and acceptance with God by a simple act of trust in
Christ, so by simple trust in Christ we may attain personal holiness; it
is as easy for divine grace to save us at once from the power, as from
the guilt, of sin.

For more than thirty years Mrs. Prentiss had made the Christian life a
matter of earnest thought and study. The subject of personal holiness
in particular had occupied her attention. Whatever promised to shed
new light upon it she eagerly read. Her own convictions, however, were
positive and decided; and, although at first inclined to accept the
doctrine of "Holiness through Faith," further reflection satisfied her
that, as taught by its special advocates, it was contrary to Scripture
and experience, and was fraught with mischief. Certain unhappy
tendencies and results of the doctrine, both at home and abroad, as
shown in some of its teachers and disciples, also forced her to this
conclusion. Folly of some sort is indeed one of the fatal rocks upon
which all overstrained theories of sanctification are almost certain to
be wrecked; and in excitable, crude natures, the evil is apt to take the
form either of mental extravagance, perhaps derangement, or of silly, if
not still worse, conduct. But, while deeply impressed with the mischief
of these Perfectionist theories, Mrs. Prentiss felt the heartiest
sympathy with all earnest seekers after holiness, and was grieved by
what seemed to her harsh or unjust criticisms upon them.

What were her own matured views on the