 Stepping Heaven Word by E. Prentice, Chapter 17. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Anna Christensen. Stepping Heaven Word, Chapter 17. January 1, 1842. I mean to resume my journal and be more faithful to it this year. How many precious things said by dear Mrs. Campbell and others are lost forever because I did not record them at the time. I have seen her today. At earnest suggestion, I have let Susan Green provide her with a comfortable chair which enables her to sit up during a part of each day. I found her in it, full of gratitude, her sweet tranquil face shining, as it always is, with a light reflected from heaven itself. She looked like one who has had her struggle with life and conquered it. During last year, I visited her often and gradually learned much of her past history, though she does not love to talk of herself. She has outlived her husband, a house full of girls, and her ill health is chiefly the result of years of watching by their sickbeds and grief at their loss. For she does not pretend not to grieve, but always says, it is repining that dishonors God, not grief. I said to her today, doesn't it seem hard when you think of the many happy homes that are in the world that you should have been singled out for such bereavement and loneliness? She replied with a smile, I am not singled out, dear. There are thousands of God's own dear children scattered over the world, suffering far more than I do, and I do not think there are many persons in it who are happier than I am. I was bound to my God and Savior before I knew a sorrow, it is true, but it was by a chain of many links, and every link that dropped away brought me to Him, till at last having nothing left, I was shut up to Him and learned fully what I had only learned partially, how soul-satisfying He is. You think then, I said, while my heart died within me, that husband and children are obstacles in her way and hinder our getting near to Christ? Oh no, she cried. God never gives us hindrances. On the contrary, He means in making us wives and mothers to put us into the very conditions of holy living. But if we abuse His gifts by letting them take His place in our hearts, it is an act of love on His part to take them away or to destroy our pleasure in them. It is delightful, she added after her pause, to know that there are some generous souls on earth who love their dear ones with all their hearts, yet give those hearts unreservedly to Christ. Mine was not one of them. I had some little service to render her which interrupted our conversation. The offices I have had to have rendered me in my own long days of sickness have taught me to be less fastidious about waiting upon others. I am thankful that God has at last made me willing to do anything in a sick room that must be done. She thanked me, as she always does, and then I said, I have a great many little trials, but they don't do me a bit of good. Or at least, I don't see that they do. No, we never see plants growing, she said. And do you really think then that perhaps I am growing, though unconsciously? I know you are, dear child. There can't be life without growth. This comforted me. I came home praying all the way and striving to commit myself entirely to Him in His school I sit as a learner. Oh, that I were a better scholar, but I do not half learn my lessons. I am heedless and inattentive, and I forget what is taught. Perhaps this is the reason that weighty truths vote before my mind's eye at times, but do not fix themselves there. March 20th. I have been very much impressed by Dr. Cabot's sermons today. While I am listening to his voice and hear him speak of the beauty and desirableness of the Christian life, I feel as he feels that I am waiting to count all things but dross that I may win Christ. But when I come home to my worldly cares, I get completely absorbed in them. It is only by a painful wrench that I force my soul back to God. Sometimes I almost envy Lucy, her calm nature, which gives her so little trouble. Why did I throw my whole soul into whatever I do? Why can't I make so much as an apron for little earnest without the ardour and eagerness of a soldier marching to battle? I wonder if people of my temperament ever get toned down and learn to take life coolly. June 10th. My dear little Una has had a long and very severe illness. It seems wonderfully that she could survive such sufferings, and it is almost as wonderful that I could look upon them week after week without losing my senses. At first, Ernest paid little attention to my repeated entreaties that you would prescribe for her, and some precious time was less lost, but the moment he was fully aroused to her danger, there was something beautiful in his devotion. He often walked the room with her by the hour together, and it was touching to see her lying like a pale crushed lily in his strong arms. One morning she seemed almost gone, and we knelt around her with bursting hearts to commend her parting soul to him in whose arms we were about to place her, but it seemed as if all he asked of us was to come to that point. For then he gave her back to us, and she is still ours, only sevenfold dearer. I was so thankful to see dear Ernest's faith triumphing over his heart and making him so ready to give up even this little lamb without a word. Yes, we will give our children to him if he asks for them. He shall never have to snatch them from us by force. October 4th. We have had a quiet summer in the country, that is, I have with my darling little ones. This is the fourth birthday of our son and heir, and he has been full of health and vivacity, enjoying everything with all his heart. How he lights up our sombre household. Father has been fasting today, and is so worn out and so nervous in consequence that he could not bear the sound of the children's voices. I wish, if he must fast, he would do it moderately and do it all the time. Now he goes without food until he is ready to sink, and now he eats quantities of improper food. If Martha could only see how mischievous all this is for him. After the children had been hustled out of the way, and I had got them both off to bed, he said in his most dothful manner, I hope, my daughter, that you are faithful to your son. He has now reached the age of four years, and is a remarkably intelligent child. I hope you teach him that he is a sinner, and that he is in a state of condemnation. No, Father, don't, I said. You are all tired out, and do not know what you are saying. I would not have little earnest hear you for the world. Poor Father, he fairly groaned. You are responsible for that child's soul, he said. You have more influence over him than all the world beside. I know it, I said, and sometimes I feel ready to sink when I think of the great work God has entrusted to me. But my poor child will learn that he is a sinner only too soon, and before that dreadful day arrives, I want to fortify his soul with the only antidote against the misery that knowledge will give him. I want him to see his Redeemer in all his love, and all his beauty, and to love him with all his heart and soul, and mind and strength. Dear Father, pray for him, and pray for me too. I do, I will, he said solemnly, and then followed the inevitable long fit of silent musing, when I often wonder what is passing in that suffering soul. For a sufferer he certainly is who sees a great and good and terrible God, who cannot look upon iniquity, and does not see his risen son, who has paid the debt we owe, and lives to intercede for us before the throne of the Father. January 1st, 1842. James came to me yesterday with a letter he has been writing to Mother. I want you to read this before it goes, he said, for you ought to know my plans as soon as Mother does. I did not get time to read it till after tea. Then I came up here to my room and sat down curious to know what was coming. Well, I thought, I loved him as much as one human being could love another already, but now my heart embraced him with a fervor and delight that made me so happy that I could not speak a word when I knelt down to tell my Savior all about it. He said that he had been led, within a few months, to make a new consecration of himself to Christ and to Christ's cause on earth, and that this has resulted in him choosing the life of a missionary instead of settling down, as he intended to do, as a city physician. Such expressions of personal love to Christ and delight in the thought of serving him, I never read. I can only marvel at what God had wrought in his soul. For me to live to Christ seems natural enough, for I have been driven to him not only by sorrow but by sin. Every outbreak of my hasty temper sends me weeping and penitent to the foot of the cross, and I love much because I have been forgiven much, but James, as far as I know, has never had a sorrow except my father's death, and that had no apparent religious effect, and his natural character is perfectly beautiful. He is as warm-hearted and loving and simple and guileless as a child, and has nothing of my intemperance, hastiness, and quick temper. I have often thought that she would be a rare woman who could win and wear such a heart as his. Life has done little but smile upon him. He is handsome and talented and attractive. Everybody is fascinated by him, everybody caresses him, and yet he has turned his back on the world that has dealt so kindly with him, and given himself, as Edward says, clean away to Christ. Oh, how thankful I am, and yet to let him go, my only brother, mother's son. But I know what she will say. She will will him, Godspeed. Ernest came upstairs looking tired and jaded. I read the letter to him. It impressed him strangely, but he only said, that is what we might expect. Who knew James, dear fellow? But when we knelt down to pray together, I saw how he was touched and how his soul kindled within him in harmony with that consecrated devoted spirit. Dear James, it must be mother's prayers that have done for him this wondrous work that is usually the slow growth of years, and this is the mother who prays for you, Katie, so take courage. January 2nd. James means to study theology as well as medicine, it seems. That will keep him with us for some years. Oh, is it selfish to take this view of it? Alas, the spirit is willing to have him go, but the flesh is weak and cries out. October 22nd. Amelia came to see me today. She has been travelling for her health and certainly looks much improved. Charlie and I are quite good friends again, she began. We have daunted about everywhere and had a delightful time. What a snug little box of a house you have. It is inconveniently small, I said, for our family is large and the doctor needs more office room. Does he receive patients here? How horrid! Don't you hate to have people with all sorts of ills and aches in the house? It must have pressed your spirits. I daresay it would if I saw them, but I never do. I should like to see your children, your husband says you are perfectly devoted to them. As I suppose all mothers are, I replied laughing. As to that, she returned. People differ. The children were brought down. She admired little Ernest as everybody does, but only glanced at the baby. What a sickly looking little thing, she said. But this boy is a splendid fellow. Ah, if Mon had lived, he would have been just such a child. But some people have all the trouble and others all the comfort. I am sure I don't know what I have done that I should have to lose my only boy and have nothing left but girls. To be sure, I can afford to dress them elegantly and as soon as they get old enough I mean to have them taught all sorts of accomplishments. You can't imagine what a relief it is to have plenty of money. Indeed I can't, I said. It is quite beyond the reach of my imagination. My uncle, that is to say Charlie's uncle, has just given me a carriage and horses for my own use. In fact, he keeps everything upon me. Where do you go to church? I told her, reminding her that Dr. Cabot was its pastor. Oh, I forgot. Or Dr. Cabot. Is he as old-fashioned as ever? I don't know what you mean, I cried. He is as good as ever, if not better. His health is very delicate and that one thing seems to be a blessing to him. A blessing? Why, Kate Mortimer, Kate-Elecate, I mean. It is a blessing, I, for one, am very willing to dispense with. But you always did say queer things. Well, I daresay Dr. Cabot is very good in all that. But his church is not a fashionable one. And Charlie and I go to Dr. Bellamy's. That is, I go once a day, pretty regularly and Charlie goes when he feels like it. Goodbye, I must go now. I have all my fall shopping to do. Have you done yours? Suppose you jump into the carriage and go with me. You can't imagine how it passes away the morning to drive from shop to shop looking over the new goods. There seems to be a number of things I can't imagine, I replied, dryly. You must excuse me this morning. She took her leave. I looked at her rich dress as she gathered her about her and swept away and recalled all her empty, frivolous talk with contempt. She and her husband, I mean, are well matched. They need their money and their palaces and their fine clothes and handsome equipsages, for they have nothing else. How thankful I am that I am as unlike them as ex. October 30th. I'm sure I don't know what I was going to say when I was interrupted just then. Something in the way of self-courification, most likely. I remember the contempt with which I looked after Amelia as she left our house, and the pinnacle on which I sat perched for some days when I compared my life with hers. Alas, it was my view of life of which I was lost in admiration, for I am sure that if I ever came under the complete dominion of Christ's gospel, I shall not know the sentiment of disdain. I feel truly ashamed and sorry that I am still so far from being penetrated with that spirit. My pride has had a terrible fall. As I sat on my throne, I sat down on all the amelios of the world. I felt a profound pity at their delight in petty trifles, their love of possession, of mere worldly show and passing vanities. They are all alike, I said to myself. They are incapable of understanding a character like mine, or the exalted ennobling principles that govern me. They crave the applause of this world. They are satisfied with fine clothes, fine houses, fine equipages. They think and talk of nothing else. I have not one idea in common with them. I see the emptiness and holiness of these things. I am absolutely unworldly. My ambition is to attain whatever they, in their blind folly and ignorance, absolutely despise. Thus communing with myself, I was not a little pleased to hear Dr. Cabot and his wife announced. I hastened to meet them and to display to them the virtues I so admired in myself. They had hardly a chance to utter a word. I spoke eloquently of my contempt for worldly vanities and of my enthusiastic longing for a higher life. I even went into particulars about the foibles of some of my acquaintances. Though faint misgivings as to the propriety of such remarks and the absent made me half repent the words I still kept uttering. When they took leave I rushed to my room with my heart beating, my cheeks all in a glow and caught up in caressed children in a way that seemed to astonish them. Then I took my work and sat down just so. What a horrible reaction not took place. I saw my refined, subtle, disgusting pride just as I suppose Dr. and Mrs. Cabot saw it. I sat covered with confusion, shocked at myself, shocked at the weakness of human nature. Oh, to get back the good opinion of my friends. To recover my own self-respect. But this was impossible. I threw down my work and walked about my room. There was a terrible struggle in my soul. I saw that instead of booting over the display I had made of myself to Dr. Cabot I ought to be thinking solely of my appearance in the sight of God who could see far more plainly than the earthly I could all my miserable pride and self-conceit. But I could not do that and chafed about till I was worn out body and soul. At last I sent the children away and knelt down and told the whole story to him who knew what I was when he had compassion on me called me by my name and made me his own child and here I found a certain peace. Christian, on his way to the celestial city met and fought his Apollyons and his Giants too but he got there at last. End of Chapter 17 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Stepping Heavenward by E. Prentice Recording by Anna Christensen Stepping Heavenward Chapter 18 November This morning Ernest received an early summons to Emilia I got out of all manner of patience with him because he would take his bath and eat his breakfast before he went and should have driven anyone else distracted by my hurry and flurry. She has had an hemorrhage I cried Do Ernest make haste? Of course he returned. That would come sooner or later. You don't mean I said that she has been in danger of this all along? I certainly do. Then it was very unkind of you not to tell me so. I told you at the outset that our lungs were diseased. No, you told me no such thing. Oh Ernest, is she going to die? I did not know you were so fond of her he said apologetically It is not that I cried I am distressed at the thought of the worldly life she has been living at my never trying to influence her for good If she is in danger you will tell her so promise me that I must see her before I can make such a promise he said and went out I flew up to my room and threw myself on my knees sorrowful self-condemned I am my last opportunity of speaking a word to her in season though I had seen how much she needed one and now she was going to die Oh, I hope Guad will forgive me and hear the prayers I have offered her Evening Ernest says he had a most distressing scene at Emilius this morning she insisted on knowing what he thought of her and then burst out bitter complaints and lamentations charging it to her husband that she had this disease declaring that she could not and would not die and insisting that he must prevent it Her uncle urged for a consultation of physicians to which Ernest consented of course though he says no mortal power can save her now I asked him how her husband appeared to which he made the evasive answer that he appeared just as one would expect him to do December Emilia was so determined to see me that Ernest thought it best for me to go Oh, Katie she began at once Do make the doctor say I shall get well I wish he could say so with truth I answered Dear Emilia, try to think how happy God's own children are when they are with him I can't think she replied I do not want to think I want to forget all about it if it were not for this terrible cough I could forget it for I am really a great deal better than I was a month ago I did not know what to say or what to do May I read a hymn or a few verses from the Bible I asked at last Just as you like she said indifferently I read a verse now and then but she looked tired and I prepared to go Don't go I do not dare to be alone Oh what a terrible terrible thing it is to die to leave this bright beautiful world and be nailed in a coffin and buried up in a cold dark grave May I said to leave this poor sick body here and to fly to a world ten thousand times brighter more beautiful than this I had just got to feeling nearly well she said and I had everything I wanted and Charlie was quite good to me and I kept my little girls looking like fairies just from fairyland everybody said they wore the most picturesque costumes when they were dressed according to my taste and I have got to go and leave them and Charlie will be marrying somebody else and saying to her all the nice things he has said to me I really must go now I said you are wearing yourself all out I declare you are crying she exclaimed you do pity me after all indeed I do I said and came away heart sick Ernest says there is nothing I can do for her now but to pray for her she does not really believe herself in danger and has a vague feeling that if she can once convince him how much she wants to live he will use some vigorous measures to restore her Martha is to watch with her tonight Ernest will not let me January 18th, 1843 Our wedding day has passed unobserved Amelia's suffering condition absorbs us all Martha spends much time with her and prepares almost all the food she eats January 20th I have seen poor Amelia once more and perhaps for the last time she has failed rapidly of late and Ernest says may drop away at almost any time when I went in she took me by the hand and with great difficulty and at intervals said something like this I have made up my mind to it and I know it must come I want to see Dr. Cabot do you think he would be willing to visit me after my date collecting him so? I am sure he would I cried I want to ask him if he thinks I was a Christian at that time you know when if I was then I need not be so afraid to die but dear Amelia what he thinks is very little to the purpose the question is not whether you ever gave yourself to God but whether you are his now but I ought not to talk to you Dr. Cabot will know just what to say no but I want to know what you thought about it I felt distressed as I looked at her wasted dying figure to be called on to help decide such a question but I knew what I ought to say and said it don't look back to the past it is useless give yourself to Christ now she shook her head I don't know how she said oh Katie pray to God to let me live long enough to get ready to die I have led a worldly life I shudder at the bare thought of dying I must have time don't wait for time I said with tears get ready now this minute a thousand years would not make you more fit to die so I came away weary and heavy laden and on the way home stopped to tell Dr. Cabot all about it and by this time he is with her March 1st poor Amelia's short race on earth is over Dr. Cabot saw her every few days and says he hoped she did depart in Christian faith though without Christian joy I have not seen her since that last interview that excited me so that Ernest would not let me go again Martha has been there nearly the whole time for three or four weeks and I really think it has done her good she seems less absorbed in mere outside things and more lenient toward me and my failings do not know what is to become of those motherless little girls I wish I could take them into my own home but of course that is not even to be thought of at this juncture Ernest says their father seemed nearly distracted when Amelia died and that his uncle is going to send him off to Europe immediately I have been talking with Ernest about Amelia what do you think I asked about her last days on earth was there really any preparation for death these scenes are very painful he returned but one real preparation for Christian dying and that is Christian living but the sick room often does what a prosperous life never did not often sick persons delude themselves or are deluded by their friends they do not believe that they are really about to die besides they are bewildered and exhausted by disease and what mental strength they have is occupied with studying symptoms watching for the doctor and the like I do not now recall a single instance where a worldly Christian that died a happy joyful death in all my practice well in one sense it makes no difference whether they die happily or not the question is do they die in the Lord it may make no vital difference to them but we must not forget that God is honored or dishonored by the way a Christian dies as well as by the way in which he lives there is great significance in the description given in the Bible the death by which John should glorify God to my mind it is that to die well is to live well but how many thousands die suddenly or of such exhausting disease that they cannot honor God by even one feeble word of course I do not refer to such cases all I ask is that those whose minds are clear who are able to attend to all other final details should let it be seen what the gospel of Christ can do for poor sinners in the great exincency of life giving him the glory I can tell you my darling that standing as I so often do by dying beds this whole subject has become one of great magnitude to my mind and it gives me positive personal pain to see errors of the eternal kingdom made such by the ignominious death of their Lord go shrinking and reaping to the full possession of their inheritance Ernest is right I am sure but how shall the world in the Christian world be convinced that it may have blessed vortices of heaven while yet plotting upon earth and faith to go thither joyfully for the symbol asking poor Amelia but she understands it all now it is a blessed thing to have this great faith and it is a blessed thing to have a savior who accepts it when it is but a mere grain of mustard seed May 24th I celebrated my little Una's third birthday by presenting her with a new brother and children welcomed her with delight that was itself compensation enough for all it cost me to get up such a celebration Martha makes the most prosaic view of this proceeding in which she detects malice pre-pence on my part she says I shall now have one mouth for more to fill and two feet for more to shoe more to stir up at nights more laborious days and less leisure for visiting reading music and drawing well this is one side of the story to be sure but the other here is a sweet fragrant mouth to kiss here are two more feet to make music with a pattering about my nursery here is a soul to train for God and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost since it is the abode of a kingly tenant I may see less of friends but I have gained one dearer than them all to whom while I minister in Christ's name I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings have left me yes my precious baby you are welcome to your mother's heart welcome to our time her strength her health her tenderest cares to her lifelong prayers oh how rich I am how truly how wondrously blessed June 5th we begin to be woefully crowded we need a larger house or a smaller household I am afraid I secretly then at the bottom of my heart Martha and her father could give place to my little ones may God forgive me if this is so it is a poor time for such emotions when he has just given me another darling child for whom I have as rich and ample a love as if I had spent no affection on the other twin I have made myself especially kind to poor father into Martha lest they should perceive how inconvenient it is to have them here and be pained by it I would not for the world to spoil them of what little satisfaction they may derive from living with us but oh I am so selfish and it is so hard to practice the very law of love I've preached to my children yet I want this law to rule and reign in my home that it may be a little heaven below and I will not, no I will not cease praying that it may be such no matter what it costs me poor father, poor old man I will try to make your home so sweet in a home like to you that when you change it for heaven you will have no affection from one bliss to our higher evening soon after writing that I went down to see father whom I have had to neglect of late baby has so used up both time and strength I found him and Martha engaged in what seemed to be an exciting debate as Martha had a fiery little red spot on each cheek and was knitting furiously I was about to retreat when she got up in a flurried way and went off saying as she went you tell her father I can't I went up to him tenderly and took his hand how gentle and loving we are when we have just been speaking to God what is it dear father I asked is anything trouble you she's going to be married he replied oh father I cried how nice I was going to say but stop just in time all my abominable selfishness I thought I had left at my master's feet 10 minutes before now came tubing back in full force she is going to be married she'll go away and will take her father to live with her I can have room for my children and room for mother every element of discord will now leave my home and Ernest will see what I really am these were the thoughts that rushed my mind and that illuminated my face does Ernest know I asked yes Ernest has known it for some weeks then I felt injured and inwardly accused Ernest of unkindness and keeping so important a fact a secret but when I went back to my children vexation with him took fight at once the coming of each new child strengthens and deepens my desire to be what I would have it become makes my faults more odious in my eyes and elevates my whole character what a blessed discipline of joy and of pain my married life has been how thankful I am to reap its fruits even while pricked by its thorns June 21st it seems that the happy man who has wooed Martha and won her is no less a personage than old Mr. Underhill his ideal of a woman is one who has no nerves no sentiment no back aches, no headaches who will see that the wheels of his household machinery are kept well oiled so that he need never hear them creak in addition to our other accomplishments believes in him and will be kind enough to live forever for his private accommodation this expose of his sentiments he has made out to me in a loud, cheerful pompous way and he has also favored me with a description of his first wife who lacked all his qualifications and was obliging enough to depart in peace at an early stage of their married life meekly preferring this to make way for a worthier successor Mr. Underhill with all his foibles however is on the whole a good man he intends to take Amelia's little girls into his own home and be a father as Martha will be a mother to them for this reason he hurries on the marriage after which they will all go at once to his country seat which is easy of axis and what she says he is sure father will enjoy poor old father I hope you will but when the subject is alluded to he maintains a sombre silence and it seems to me he never spent so many days alone in his room rooting over his misery as he has of late oh that I could comfort him July 12 the marriage was appointed for the first of the month as old Mr. Underhill wanted to get out of town before the 4th as the time junior Martha began to pack father's trunks as well as her own and brush in and out of his room till he had no rest for the soul of his foot and seemed as forlorn as a pelican in the wilderness I know no more striking picture of desolation than that presented by one of those quaint birds standing upon a single leg feeling as the story has it then summer and thus a land der welt on the last evening in June we all sat together on the pieza enjoying, each in our own way a refreshing breeze that had sprung up after a sultry day father was quieter than usual and seemed very languid he was the most honest who out of regard to Martha's last evening at home had joined our little circle observed this and said cheerfully you will feel better as soon as you are once more out of the city father father made no reply for some minutes and when he did speak we were all startled to find that his voice trembled as if he were shedding tears we could not understand what he said I went to him and made him lean his head upon me as he often did when it ached he took my hand in both his you do love the old man a little he asked in the same tremulous voice indeed I do I cried greatly touched by his helpless appeal I love you dearly father and I shall miss you sadly must I go away then he whispered and I stay here till my summons ends it will not be long it will not be long my child with a cry of a hurt animal Martha sprang up and rushed past us into the house Ernest followed her and we heard them talking together a long time at last Ernest joined us father he said Martha is a good deal wounded and disappointed at your reluctance to go with her she threatened to break off her engagement rather than to be separated from you I really think you would be better off with her than with us you would enjoy country life because it is what you have been accustomed to you could spend hours of every day just what your health requires father did not reply he took Ernest's arm and tottered into the house then we had a most painful scene Martha reminded him with bitter tears that her mother had committed him to her with her last breath and set before him all the advantages he would have in her house over ours father sat pale and inflexible tear after tear rolling down his cheeks Ernest looked distressed and ready to sink as for me I cried with Martha I came with father by turns and clung to Ernest with a feeling that all the foundations of the earth were giving way it came time for evening prayers and Ernest prayed as he rarely does for he is rarely so moved and he quieted us all by a few simple words of appeal to him who loved us and father then consented to spend the summer with Martha if he might call our home his home and be with us through the winter this was not till long after the rest of us went to bed and a hard battle with Ernest he says Ernest is his favorite child and that I am his favorite daughter and our children inexpressibly dear to him I am ashamed to write down what he said of me besides I am sure there is a wicked wicked triumph over Martha in my secret heart I am too elated with his extraordinary preference for us to sympathize with her mortification and grief as ought but something whispered that she who has never pitted me deserves no pity now but I do not like this mean and narrow spirit in myself nay more I hate and abhor it the marriage took place and they all went off together father's rigid white face whiter more rigid than ever I am to go to mothers with the children at once I feel that a great stone has been rolled away from before the door of my heart the one human being who refused me a kindly smile a sympathizing word has gone never to return may God go with her and make her a happy home and make her true and loving to those motherless little ones End of Chapter 18 October 1st As I listen I realize that it is to her I owe that early, deeply seated longing to please the Lord Jesus which I never remember as having a beginning or an ending, though it did have its fluctuations and it is another pleasant picture to see her sit in her own old chair which Ernest was thoughtful enough to have brought for her pondering cheerfully over her Bible and her Thomas the Campus just as I have seen her do ever since I can remember and there is still a third pleasant picture only that it is a new one it is as she sits at my right hand at the table the living personification of the blessed gospel of good tidings with Father, opposite the fading image of the law given by Moses for Father has come back Father and all his ailments, his pillboxes his fits of despair and his fits of dying but he is quiet and gentle and even loving and as he sits in his corner his Bible on his knees reads the New Testament than he used to do and that the 14th chapter of St. John almost opens to him of itself I must do Marth of the Justice to say that her absence while it increases my domestic peace and happiness increases my cares also what with the children, the housekeeping the thought for mother's little comforts and the concern for fathers I am like a bit of chaff driven before the wind and always in a hurry there are so many stitches to be taken from everyone's brain mother says no mortal woman ought to undertake so much but what can I do while Ernest is straining every nerve to pay off those debts I must do all the needle work and we must get along with servants whose want of skill makes them willing to put up with low wages of course I cannot tell mother this and I really believe she thinks I scrimp and pinch and overdue out of mere stinginess December 30th Ernest came to me today with our accounts for the last three months he looked quite worried for him and asked me if there were any expenses we could cut down my heart jumped up into my mouth and I said in an irritated way I am killing myself with overwork now mother says so I sew every night till twelve o'clock and I feel all jaded out I did not mean that I wanted you to do any more than you are doing now dear he said kindly I know you are all jaded out and I look on this state of feverish activity with great anxiety are all these stitches absolutely necessary? you men know nothing about such things I said while my conscience pricked me as I went on hurrying to finish the fifth tuck in one of Una's little dresses of course I want my children to look decent Ernest sighed I really don't know what to do he said in a hopeless way fathers persisting in living with us is throwing a burden on you that with all your other cares is quite too much for you I see and feel it every day don't you think I had better explain this to him and let him go to Martha's no indeed I said he shall stay here if it kills me poor old man Ernest begin once more to look over the bills I don't know how it is he said but since Martha left us our expenses have increased a good deal now the truth is he paid me most generously for teaching her children I did not dare to offer my earnings to Ernest lest he should be annoyed so I had quietly used it for household expenses and it had held out till just about the time of Martha's marriage Ernest's injustice was just as painful just as insufferable as if he had known this and I now burst out with whatever my rapt overtaxed nerves impelled me to say like one possessed Ernest was annoyed and surprised and thought we had done with these things he said and gathering up the papers he went off I rose and locked my door and threw myself upon the floor in an agony of shame anger and physical exhaustion I did not know how large a part of what seemed mere childish ill temper was really the cry of exasperated nerves that had been on too strained attention and silent too long and Ernest did not know it either how could he his profession kept him for hours every day with open air there were times when his work was done and he could take entire rest and his health is absolutely perfect but I did not make any excuse for myself at the moment I was overwhelmed with the sense of my utter unfitness to be a wife and a mother then I heard Ernest try to open the door and finding it locked he knocked calling pleasantly it is I darling let me in I opened it reluctantly enough to see things and drive about with me on my rounds I have no long visits to make and while I am seeing my patients you will be getting the air which you need I do not want to go I said I do not feel well enough besides there's my work you can't see to so with those red eyes he declared come I prescribe a drive as your physician oh Ernest how kind how forgiving you are I cried running into the arms he held out to me if you knew how ashamed how sorry I am and if you only knew how ashamed and sorry I am he returned I ought to have seen how you taxing and overtaxing yourself doing your work and Martha's too it must not go on so by this time with a veil over my face he had got me downstairs and out into the air which fanned my fiery cheeks and cooled my heated brain it seemed to me that I have had all this tempest about nothing at all and that with a character skill so undisciplined and utterly unworthy to be either a wife or a mother but when I tried to say so in broken words Ernest comforted me with the gentleness and tenderness of a woman your character is not undisciplined my darling he said your nervous organization is very peculiar and you have had unusual cares and trials from the beginning of our married life I ought not to have confronted you with my father's debts at a moment when you had every reason to look forward to freedom for most petty economies and cares you had not interrupted if you had not told me you had this draft on your resources I should have always suspected you of meanness for you know dear you have kept me that is to say you could not help it but I suppose men can't understand how many demands are made upon a mother for money almost every day I got along very well till the children came but since then it has been very hard yes he said I'm sure it has but let me finish what I was going to say I want you to make a distinction for yourself which I make for you between mere ill temper and the irritability that is the result of a goaded state of the nerves until you do that nothing can be done to relieve you from what I am sure distresses and grieves you exceedingly now I suppose that whenever you speak to me or to the children in this irritated way you lose your own self-respect for the time at least and feel degraded in the sight of God also oh Ernest there are no words in any language that mean enough to express the anguish I feel when I speak quick and patient words to you the one human being in the universe whom I love with all my heart and soul and to my darling little children who are almost as dear I pray and mourn over it day and night God only knows how I hate myself on account of this one horrible sin it is a sin only as you deliberately and willfully fulfill the conditions that lead to such results now I am sure if you could once make up your mind in the fear of God undertake more work of any sort than you can carry on calmly quietly without hurry or flurry and the instant you find yourself growing nervous and like one out of breath would stop and take breath you would find this simple commonsense rule doing for you what no prayers or tears could ever accomplish will you try it for one month my darling but we can't afford it I cried with almost a groan while you have told me this very day that our expenses must be cut down and now you want me to add to them by doing less work but the work must be done the children must be clothed there is no end to the stitches to be taken for them and your stockings must be mended you make enormous holes in them and you don't like it if you ever find a button wanting to a shirt or your supply of shirts getting low all you say may be very true he returned but I am determined that you shall not be driven to desperation as you have been of late to be made and I had nothing to do but lean back and revolve all he had been saying over and over again and to see its reasonableness while I could not see what was to be done for my relief I have often felt in moments of bitter grief at my impatience with my children that perhaps God pitted me more than he blamed me for it and now my dear husband was doing the same when Ernest had finished his visit we drove on again in silence he looked out this problem all by yourself he smiled a little no, I did not but I have had a patient for two or three years whose case has interested me a good deal and for whom I finally prescribed just as I have done for you the thing worked like a charm and she is now physically and morally quite well I daresay her husband is a rich man I said he is not as poor as your husband at any rate Ernest replied but rich or poor I determined not to sit looking on while you exert yourself so far beyond your strength just think dear suppose for fifty or a hundred or two hundred dollars a year you could buy a sweet cheerful quiet tone of mind would you hesitate one moment to do so and you can do it if you will you are not ill tempered but quick tempered the irritability which annoys you so is a physical infirmity which will disappear the moment you cease to be goaded into it by that exacting mistress you have hitherto been to yourself all this sounded very plausible while Ernest was talking but the moment I got home I snatch up my work from mere force of habit I may as well finish this as it is begun I said to myself amid the stitches flew from my needle like sparks of fire little Ernest came and begged for a story but I put him off then Una wanted to sit on my lap but I told her I was too busy in the course of an hour the influence of the fresh air on Ernest's talk had nearly lost their power over me Ernest kept breaking the children leaned on and tired me the baby woke up and cried and I got all out of patience do go away Ernest I said and let Mama have a little peace don't you see how busy I am go and play with Una like a good boy but he would not go and kept teasing Una till she too began to cry and she and baby made a regular concert of it oh dear I sighed this work will never be done with him impatiently I was not willing that this little darling whom I love so dearly should get through with his nap and interrupt my work yet I was displeased with myself and tried by kissing him to make some amends for the hasty unpleasant tones with which I had grieved him and frightened the other children this evening Ernest came to me with a larger sum of money than he had ever given me at one time now every cent of this is to be spent he said in having work done I know any number of poor women who will be thankful to have all you can give them dear me it is easy to talk and I do feel grateful to Ernest for his thoughtfulness and kindness but I am almost in rags and need every cent of this money to make myself decent I am positively ashamed to go anywhere my clothes are so shabby besides supposing I leave off sewing and all sorts of overdoing of a kindred nature I must nurse baby I suppose and be up with him nights and others will have their cross days and their sick mother will have his alas there can be for no royal road to a sweet, cheerful, quiet tone of mind January 1st 1844 mother says Ernest is entirely right in forbidding my working so hard I own that I already feel better I have all the time I need to read my Bible and to pray now and the children do not irritate and annoy me as they did who knows but that I shall yet become quite amiable Ernest made his father very happy today by telling him that the last of those wretched debts is paid I think that he might have told me that this deliverance was at hand I did not know but we had years of these struggles with poverty before us what with the relief from this anxiety my improved state of health and father's pleasure I am in splendid spirits today Ernest too seems wonderfully cheerful and we both feel that we may now look forward to a quiet happiness we have never known with such a husband and such children as mine I ought to be the most grateful creature on earth and I have dear mother and James besides I don't quite know what to think about James's relation to Lucy he is so brimful running over with happiness that he is also full of fun and of love and after all he may only like her as a cousin February 14th father has not been well of late it seems as if he kept up until he was relieved about those debts and then sunk down he read to him a good deal and so does mother but his mind is still dark and he looks forward to the hour of death with painful misgivings he is getting a little childish about my leaving him and clings to me exactly as if I were his own child Martha spends a good deal of time with him and fusses over him in a way that I wonder she does not see she is annoying him he wants to be read to to hear a hymn sung or a verse repeated and to be left otherwise in perfect quiet he is constantly pulling out and shaking up his pillows bathing his head in hot vinegar and soaking his feet it looks so odd to see her in one of the elegant silk dresses old Mr. Underhill makes her wear with her sleeves rolled up the skirt hit away under a large apron rubbing away at poor father until it seems as if his tired soul would fly out of him February 20th father grows weaker every day Ernest has sent for his other children John and Helen Martha is no longer able to come here her husband is very sick with a fever and cannot be left alone no doubt he enjoys her bustling way of nursing and likes to have his pillows pushed from under him every five minutes I'm afraid I feel glad that she is kept away and that I have father all to myself Ernest never was so fond of me as he is now I don't know what to make of it February 22nd John and his wife and Helen have come they stay at Martha's where there is plenty of room John's wife is a little soft dumpling thing and looks up to him as a mouse would up at a steeple he strikes me as a very selfish man he steers straight for the best seat leaving her standing if need be accepts her humble attentions with the air of one collecting his just debt and is continually snubbing and setting her right yet in some things he is very like Ernest and perhaps a wife destitute of self-assertion and without much individuality would have spoiled him as Harriet has spoiled John for I think it must be partly her fault that he dares to be so egotistical Helen is the dearest prettiest creature I ever saw but why would James take a fancy to Lucy? I feel the new delight of having a sister to love and to admire and she will love me in time I feel sure of it March 1st Father is very feeble and in great mental distress he gropes abound in the dark and shutters at the approach of death we can do nothing but pray for him and the cloud will be lifted when he leaves this world if not before for I know he is a good yes a saintly man dear to and dear to Christ March 4th Dear Father has gone we were all kneeling and praying and weeping around him when suddenly he called me to come to him I went and let him lean his head on my breast as he loved to do sometimes I have stood so by the hour together ready to sink with fatigue and only kept up with the thought that if this were my own precious father's bruised head I could stand and hold it forever daughter Catherine he said in his faint tremulous way you have come with me to the very brink of the river I thank God for all your cheering words and ways I thank God for giving you to be a help-meet to my son Farewell now he added in a low firm voice I feel the bottom and it is good he lay back on his pillow looking upward with an expression of seraphic peace and joy on his worn meager face and so his life passed gently away oh the affluence of God's payments what a recompense for the poor love I had given my husband's father and the poor little services I had rendered him oh that I had never been impatient with him never smiled at his peculiarities ever in my secret heart felt him unwelcome to my home and how wholly I overlooked in my blind selfishness what he must have suffered in feeling himself homeless dwelling with us on sufferance but master and head nowhere on earth may God carry the lessons home to my heart of hearts and make the cloud of mingled remorse and shame which now envelops me to descend in showers of love and benediction on every human soul End of Chapter 19 Recording by Zara in June of 2007 Chapter 20 of Stepping Heaven Word by E. Prentice This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sarah Jennings Stepping Heaven Word by E. Prentice Chapter 20 April I have had a new lesson which has almost broken my heart. In looking over his father's papers Ernest found a little journal briefing its records indeed but we learned from it that on all those weddings and birthdays when I fancied his austere religion made him hold a loop from our merry-making he was spending the time in fasting and praying for us and for our children Oh, shall I ever learn the sweet charity that sinketh no evil and believe with all things? Those prayers What evils may they not have warded off dear old father Oh, that I could once more put my loving arms about him and bid him welcome to our home and how gladly would I now confess to him all my unjust judgments concerning him and entreat his forgiveness Must life always go on thus must I always be airing ignorant and blind how I hate this arrogant sweeping past my brother-man this utter ignoring of his hidden life I see now that it is well for my mother that she did not come to live with me at the beginning of my married life I should not have born with her little peculiarities nor have made her half so happy as I can now I thank God that my varied disappointments and discomforts my feeble health, my poverty my mortifications have done me some little good and driven me to him a thousand times because I could not get along without his help but I'm not satisfied with my state in his sight that something is lacking, though I know not what it is May Helen is going to stay here and live with Martha how glad, how enchanted I am old Mr. Underhill is getting well I saw him today he can talk of nothing but his illness and Martha's wonderful skill in nursing him declaring that he owes his life to her I felt a little peaked at this speech because Ernest was very attentive to him and no doubt did his share towards the cure we have fitted up Father's room for a nursery hitherto all the children have had to sleep in our room which has been bad for them and bad for us I have been so afraid they would keep Ernest awake if they were unwell and restless I have secured an excellent nurse who has as fresh and blooming as the flower whose name she bears the children are already attached to her and I feel that the worst of my life is now over June little Ernest was taken sick on the day I wrote that the attack was fearfully sudden and violent he is still very very ill I have not forgotten that I once said I would give my children to God should he ask for them but oh this agony of suspense eats into my soul and eats it away oh my little Ernest my firstborn son my pride, my joy, my hope and I thought the worst of my life was over August we have come into the country with what God has left us our two youngest children yes I have tasted the bitter cup of bereavement and drunk it down to its dregs I gave my darling to God I gave him I gave him but oh with what anguish I saw those round dimpled limbs wither and waste away the glad smile fade forever from that beautiful face what a fearful thing it is to be a mother but I have given my child to God I would not recall him if I could I am thankful he has counted me worthy to present him so costly a gift I cannot shed a tear but I must find relief in writing or I shall lose my senses my noble, beautiful boy my firstborn son and to think that my delicate little Una still lives and that death has claimed that bright, glad creature who was the sunshine of our home but let me not forget my mercies let me not forget that I have a precious husband and two darling children and my kind sympathizing mother left to me let me not forget how many kind friends have heard about us in our sorrow above all let me remember God's loving kindness and tender mercy he has not left us to the bitterness of a grief that refuses and disdains to be comforted we believe in him we love him we worship as we never did before my dear Ernest has felt this sorrow to his heart's core but he has not for one moment questioned the goodness or the love of our father and thus taking from us the child who promised to be our greatest earthly joy our consent to God's will has drawn us together very closely together we bear the yoke in our youth together we pray and sing praises in the very midst of our tears I was done with the silence because thou didst it September the old pain and cough have come back with the first cool nights of this month perhaps I am going to my darling I do not know I am certainly very feeble consenting to suffer does not annul the suffering such a child should not go hence without rending and tearing its way out of the heart that loved it this world is wholly changed to me and I walk in it like one in a dream and dear Ernest has changed too he says little and is all kindness and goodness to me but I can see here is a wound that will never be healed I am confined to my room now with nothing to do but to think think think I do not believe God has taken our child in mere displeasure I would not but feel that this affliction might not have been necessary if I had not so chafed and writhed and secretly repined at the way in which my home was invaded and at our galling poverty God has exchanged the one discipline for the other and oh how far more bitter is this cup October 4th my darling boy would have been six years old today Ernest still keeps me shut up but he rather urges my seeing a friend now and then people say very strange things in the way of consolation I begin to think that a tender clasp of the hand is about all one can give to the afflicted one says I must not grieve because my child is better off in heaven yes he is better off I know it I feel it but I miss him none the less others say he might have grown up to be a bad man and broken my heart perhaps he might but I cannot make myself believe that likely one lady asked me if this affliction was not a rebuke of my idolatry of my darling and another if I had not been in a cold worldly state needing this severe blow on that account but I find no consolation or support in the remarks my comfort is in my perfect faith in the goodness and love of my father my certainty that he had a reason and thus afflicting me that I should admire and adore if I knew what it was and in the midst of my sorrow I have had and do have a delight in him hitherto unknown so that sometimes this room in which I am a prisoner at the very gate of heaven may a long winter in my room and all sorts of painful remedies and appliances and deprivations and now I am getting well and drive out every day Martha sends her carriage and mother goes with me dear mother how nearly perfect she is I never saw a sweeter face nor ever heard sweeter expressions of faith in God and love to all about her than hers she has been my tower of strength all through these weary months and she has shared my sorrow and made it her own I can see that dear Ernest's affliction and this prolonged anxiety about me have been a heavenly benediction to him I am sure that every mother whose sick child he visits will have a sympathy he could not have given while all our own little ones were alive and well I thank God that he has thus increased my dear husband's usefulness as I think that he has mine also how tenderly I already feel towards all suffering children and how easy it will be now to be patient with them July 12th it is a year ago this day that the brightest sunshine faded out of our lives and our beautiful boy was taken from us I have been tempted to spend this anniversary in bitter tears and lamentations for oh this sorrow is not healed by time I feel it more and more but I begged God when I first awoke this morning not to let me so dishonor and grieve him I may suffer, I must suffer he means it, he wills it but let it be without repining without gloomy despondency the world is full of sorrow it is not I alone who taste its bitter drafts nor have I the only right to a sad countenance oh for patience to bear on cost what it may cheerfully and gratefully I lay myself and all that I am or own at the feet of him who redeemed me with his precious blood engaging to follow him bearing the cross he lays upon me this is the least I can do and I do it while my heart lies broken and bleeding at his feet my dear little Una has improved somewhat in health but I am never free from anxiety about her she is my milk white lamb my dove, my fragrant flower one cannot look in her pure face without a sense of peace and rest she is the sentinel who voluntarily guards my door when I am engaged at my devotions she is my little comforter when I am sad companion and friend at all times I talk to her of Christ and have always done just as I think of him and as if I expected sympathy from her and my love to him it was the same with my darling Ernest if I required a little self-denial I said cheerfully this is hard but doing it for our best friend sweetens it and their alacrity was pleasant to see Ernest threw his whole soul into whatever he did and sometimes when engaged in play I gave him a little when directed to do something else such as carrying a message for me and the like but if I said if you do this cheerfully and pleasantly my darling you do it for Jesus and that will make him smile upon you he would invariably yield at once is not this the true the natural love linking every little daily act of a child's life with that divine love that divine life which gives meaning to all things but what do I mean by the vain boast that I have always trained my children thus alas I have done it only at times for while my theory was sound my temper of mind was but too often unsound I was often and often impatient with my dear little boy often my tone was a worldly one I often full of eager interest and mere outside things and forgot that I was living or that my children were living saved for the present moment it seems now that I have a child in heaven and I'm bound to the invisible world by such a tie that I can never again be entirely absorbed by this I fancy my ardent eager little boy as having some such employments in his new and happy home as he had here I see him loving him who took children in his arms and blessed them with all the warmth of which his nature is capable and as perhaps employed as one of those messengers whom God sends forth as his ministers for I cannot think of those active feet those busy hands as always quiet oh my darling that I could look in upon you for a moment a single moment and catch one of your radiant smiles just one August 4th how full are David's psalms of the cry of the sufferer he must have experienced every kind of bodily and mental torture he gives most vivid illustrations of the wasting wearing process of disease for instance what a contrast is the picture we have of him when he was ready and with all of a beautiful countenance to look to and the one he paints of himself in after years when he says I may tell all my bones they look and stare upon me my days are like a shadow that decline and I'm withered like grass I'm weary with groaning all the night make eye my bed to swim and I water my couch with my tears for my soul is full of troubles and my life droth near unto the grave and then what whales of anguish are these I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted thy wrath lyeth hard upon me and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me lover and friend hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into utter darkness yet through it all what grateful joy and God what expressions of living faith and devotion during my long illness and confinement to my room the bible has been almost a new book to me and I see that God has always dealt with his children as he deals with them now and that no new thing has befallen me all these weary days so full of languor these nights so full of unrest have had their appointed mission to my soul and perhaps I have had no discipline so salutary as this forced inaction and uselessness at a time when youth and natural energy continually cried out for room and work August 15th I dragged out my drawing materials in a listless way this morning and began to sketch the beautiful scene from my window at first I could not feel interested it seemed as if my hand was crippled and lost its cunning when it unloosed its grasp of little earnest and let him go but I prayed as I worked that I might not yield to the inclination to despise and throw away the gift with which God has himself endowed me mother was gratified and said it rested her to see me act like myself once more I've been very selfish and I've been too much absorbed with my own sorrow and my illness and my own petty struggles August 19th I met today an old friend, Maria Kelly who was married it seems and settled down in this pretty village she asked so many questions about my little earnest that I had to tell her the whole story of his precious life sickness and death I forced myself to do this quietly and without any great demand on her sympathies my reward for the constraint I thus put upon myself was the abrupt question haven't you grown stoical I felt the angry blood rush through my veins as it is not done in a long time my pride was wounded to the quick and those cruel unjust words still wrinkle in my heart this is not as it should be I'm constantly praying that my pride may be humbled and then when it is attacked I shrink from the pain the blow causes and I'm angry with the hand that inflicts it it is just so with two or three unkind things Martha has said to me I can't help brooding over them and feeling stung with their injustice even while making the most desperate struggle to rise above and forget them it is well for our fellow creatures that God forgives and excuses them when we fail to do it and I can easily fancy that poor Maria Kelly is at this moment dearer in his sight than I am who have taken fire at a chance word and I can see now what I wonder I did not see at the time God was dealing very kindly and wisely with me when he made Martha overlook my good qualities of which I suppose I have some as everybody else has and call out all my bad ones since the axe was thus laid at the root of self-love and it is plain that self-love cannot die without a fearful struggle May 26th, 1846 how long it is since I have written in my journal we've had a winter full of cares, perplexity as mother began it by such a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism as I could not have supposed she could live through her sufferings were dreadful and I might almost say her patience was for I often thought it would be less painful to hear her groan and complain than to witness such heroic fortitude such sweet docility under God's hand I hope I shall never forget the lessons I have learned in her sick room Ernest says he never shall cease to rejoice that she lives with us but he can watch over her health he has indeed been like a son to her and this has been a great solace amid all her sufferings before she was able to leave the room poor little Una was prostrated by one of her ill turns and is still very feeble the only way in which she can be diverted is by reading to her and I have done little else these two months but hold her in my arms singing little songs and hymns telling stories and reading what few books I can find that are unexciting simple yet entertaining my precious little darling she bears the yoke in her youth without a frown but it is agonizing to see her suffer so how much easier it would be to bear all her physical infirmities myself as opposed to those who look on from the outside we must appear like a most unhappy family since we hardly ever get free from one trouble before another steps in but I see more and more that happiness is not dependent on health or any outside prosperity we are at peace with each other and at peace with God we thus do not perplex or puzzle us though we do not pretend to understand them on the other hand Martha with absolutely perfect health with a husband entirely devoted to her and with every wish gratified yet seems always careworn and dissatisfied her servants worry her very life out she misses the homely household duties to which she had been accustomed and her conscience stubbles at little things and overlooks greater ones it is very interesting I think to see different homes as well as the different characters that form them Amelia's little girls are quiet good children to whom their father writes what Mr. Underhill and Martha pronounce beautiful letters wherein he always styles himself their broken hearted but devoted father devotion to my mind involves self-sacrifice and I cannot reconcile its use in this case with the life of ease he leads while all the care of his children is thrown upon others by the phrases not only imposed upon themselves but upon their friends and passed for persons of great sensibility as I have been confined to the house nearly the whole winter I have had to derive my spiritual support from books and as mother gradually recovered she enjoyed Layton with me as I knew she would Dr. Cabot comes to see us very often but I do not now find it possible to get the instruction from him I used to do I see that the Christian life must be individual as the natural character is and that I cannot be exactly like Dr. Cabot or exactly like Mrs. Campbell or exactly like Mother though all three stimulate and are an inspiration to me but I see too that the great points of similarity in Christ's disciples have always been the same this is the testimony of all the good books sermons hymns and memoirs I have read that God's ways are infinitely perfect that we are to love him for what he is and therefore equally as much when he afflicts as when he prospers us there is no real happiness but in doing and suffering his will and that this life is but a scene of probation through which we shall pass to the real life above End of Chapter 20 Chapter 21 of Stepping Heaven Word by E. Prentice This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Kalinda Stepping Heaven Word by E. Prentice Chapter 21 May 30 Ernest asked me to go with him to see one of his patients as he often does when there is a lull in the tempest at home We both feel that as we have so little money of our own to give away it is a privilege to give what services and what cheering words we can As I took it for granted that we were going to see some poor old woman I put up several little packages of sugar with which Susan Green always keeps me supplied and added a bottle of my own raspberry vinegar which never comes amiss I find to old people Ernest drove to the door of an aristocratic looking house and held me to a light in his usual silence It is probably one of the servants we are going to visit I thought within myself but I am surprised it is bringing me the family may not approve it The next thing I knew I found myself being introduced to a beautiful brilliant young lady who sat in a wheelchair like a queen on a throne in a room full of tasteful ornaments, flowers and birds Now I had come just as I was when Ernest called me and that was means a very plain gingham dress wherein I had been darning stockings all the morning I suppose a saint wouldn't have cared for that but I did and for a moment stood the picture of confusion my hands full of oddly shaped parcels and my face all in a flame My wife, Miss Clifford, I heard Ernest say and then I caught the curious puzzled look in her eyes which said as plainly as words could do What has this creature brought me? I ask your pardon, Miss Clifford, I said thinking it best to speak out just the honest truth but I suppose the doctor was taking me to see some of his old women and so I have brought you a little tea and a little sugar and a bottle of raspberry vinegar How delicious! cried she It freely rests me to meet with a genuine human being at last Why didn't you make some stiff prim speech instead of telling the truth out and out I declare I mean to keep all you have brought me just for the fun of the thing This put me at ease and I forgot all about my dress in a moment I see you were just what the doctor boasted you were she went on but he never would bring you to see me before I suppose he has told you why I could not go to see you To tell the truth he never speaks to me of his patience unless he thinks I can be of use to them I dare say I do not look much like an invalid's of she but here I am tied to this chair it is six months since I could bear my own weight upon my feet I saw then that though her face was so bright and full of colour her hand was thin and transparent but what a picture she made as she sat there in magnificent beauty relieved by such a background of foliage, flowers and artistic objects I told the doctor the other day that life was nothing but a humbug and he said he should bring me a remedy against that false notion the next time he came and you I suppose are that remedy, she continued Come begin, I am ready to take any number of doses I could only laugh and try to look daggers at Ernest who sat looking over a magazine, apparently absorbed in its contents Ah, she cried nodding her head sagaciously I knew you would agree with me Agree with you in calling life a humbug, I cried, now fairly aroused itself is not moral reality I have not tried death yet, she said more seriously but I have tried life twenty five years and I know all about it it is eat, drink, sleep, yawn and be bored it is what shall I wear, where shall I go, how shall I get rid of the time it says, how do you do, how is your husband, how are your children it means now I have asked all the conventional questions and I don't care a fig what their answer may be this may be its meaning to some persons I replied for instance to mere pleasure seekers but of course it is interpreted quite differently by others to some it means nothing but a dull, hopeless struggle with poverty and hardship and its whole aspect might be changed to them should those who do not know what to do to get rid of the time spend their surplus leisure in making this struggle less brutalizing yes, I have heard such doctrine and at one time I tried charity myself I picked up a dozen or so of dirty little wretches out of the streets and undertook to clothe and teach them I might as well have tried to instruct the chairs in my room besides the whole house had to be aired out after they were gone and mama missed two teaspoons and a fork and was perfectly disgusted by the whole thing then I felt a knitting socks for babies but they only occupied my hands and my head felt as empty as ever mama took me off on a journey as she always did when I took to moping and that diverted me for a while but that everything went on in the old way I got rid of part of the day by changing my dress and putting on my pretty things it is a great thing to have a habit of wearing one's ornaments, for instance and then in the evening one could go to the opera or the theater or some other place of amusement after which one could sleep all through the next morning and so get rid of that but I had been used to such things all my life and they had got to be about as flat as flat can be if I had been born a little earlier in the history of the world I would have gone into a convent that sort of thing is out of fashion now the best convent I said for a woman is the seclusion of her own home there she may find vocation and fight her battles and there she may learn the reality and the earnestness of life pshaw cried she excuse me however saying that but some of the most brilliant girls I know have settled down into mere married women and spend their whole time in nursing babies think how belittling is it more so than spending it in dressing, driving, dancing and the like? of course it is I had a friend once who shone like a star in society she married and children as fast as she could well what consequence? she lost her beauty, lost her spirit and animation lost her youth and lost her health the only earthly things she can talk about are teething, dieting and the measles I laughed at this exaggeration and looked round to see what Ernest thought of such talk but he had disappeared as you have spoken plainly to me knowing me to be a wife and a mother you must allow me to speak plainly in return, I began oh, speak plainly by all means I am quite sick and tired of having truth served up in pink cotton and scented with lavender then you will permit me to say that when you speak contemptuously of the vocation of maternity you dishonor not only the mother who bore you but the Lord Jesus himself who chose to be born of woman and to be ministered unto by her through a helpless infancy Miss Clifford was a little startled how terribly an Ernest you are, she said it is plain that to you at any rate life is indeed no humbug I thought of my dear ones of Ernest, of my children, of mother and of James and I thought of him who alone gives reality to even such joys as these my face must have been illuminated by the thought for she dropped the bantering tone she had used hither to and asked with real Ernestness what is it you know and that I do not know that makes you so satisfied while I am so dissatisfied I hesitated before I answered feeling as I never felt before how ignorant, how unfit to lead others I really am then I said perhaps you need to know God to know Christ she looked disappointed and tired so I came away first promising at her request to go see her again I found Ernest just driving up and told him what had passed he listened in his usual silence and I longed to have him say June 1st I have been to see Miss Clifford again and made mother go with me Miss Clifford took a fancy to her at once ah she said after one glance at the dear loving face nobody need tell me that you are good and kind but I am a little afraid of good people I fancy they are always criticizing me and expecting me to imitate their perfection perfection does not exact perfection was mother's answer I would rather be judged by an angel than by a man and then mother led her on little by little and most adduately to talk of herself and of her state of health she is an orphan and lives in this great stately house alone with her servants until she was laid aside by the state of her health she lived in the world and of it now she is a prisoner and prisoners have time to think here I sit she said all day long I never was fond of staying at home or of reading and needlework I absolutely hate in fact I do not know how to so some such pretty feminine work might beguile you of a few long hours of these long days said mother one can't be always reading but a lady came to see me a Mrs. Goodhugh one of your good sort I suppose and she preached me quite a sermon on the employment of time she said I had a solemn admonition of providence and ought to devote myself entirely to religion I had just begun to be interested in a bit of embroidery but she frightened me out of it but I can't bear such dreadfully good people with faces a mile long mother made her produce the collar or whatever it was showed her how to hold the needle and arrange her pattern and they both got so absorbed in it that I had leisure to look at some of the beautiful things with which the room was full make the object of your life right I heard mother say at last and these little details will take care of themselves but I haven't any object Miss Clifford objected unless it is to get through these tedious days somehow before I was taken ill my chief object was to make myself attractive to the people I met and the easiest way to do that was to dress becomingly and make myself look as well as I could I suppose said mother that most girls could say the same they have an instinctive desire to please and they take what they conceive to be the shortest and easiest road to that end it requires no talent, no education no thought to dress tastefully the most empty hearted frivolous young person can do it, provided she has money enough those who can't get the money make up for it by fearful expenditure of precious time they plan, they cut, they fit, they rip they trim until they can appear in society looking exactly like everybody else they think of nothing, talk of nothing but how this shall be fashioned and that be trimmed and as to their hair Satan uses it as his favorite net and catches them in it every day of their lives but I never cut or trimmed said Miss Clifford no, because you could afford to have it done for you but you acknowledge that you spent a great deal of time in dressing because you thought that the easiest way of making yourself attractive but it does not follow that the easiest way is the best way and sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home for instance well, let us imagine a young lady living in the world as you say you lived she has never seriously reflected on any subject one half hour in her life she has been born on by the current and let it take her where it would but at last some influences brought to bear upon her which leads her to stop to look about her and to think she finds herself in a world of serious momentous events she sees she cannot live in it was not meant to live in it forever and that her whole unknown future depends on what she is not on how she looks she begins to cast about for some plan of life and this leads a plan of life Miss Clifford interrupted I never heard of such a thing yet you would smile at an architect who having a noble structure to build should begin to work on it in a haphazard way putting in a brick here and a stone there weaving in straws and sticks if they come to hand and when asked on what work he was engaged and what manner of building he intended to erect should reply he had no plan but thought something would come of it Miss Clifford made no reply she sat with her head resting on her hand looking dreamily before her a truly beautiful but unconscious picture I too began to reflect that while I had really aimed to make the most out of life I had not done it methodically or intelligently we are going to try to stay in town this summer hitherto Ernest would not listen to my suggestion of what an economy this would be he always said this would turn out anything but an economy in the end but now we have no teething baby little Raymond is a strong healthy child and Una remarkably well for her and money is so slow to come in and so fast to go out with discomfort to be suffered in the country it would take a book to write down and here we shall have our own home as usual I shall not have to be separated from Ernest and shall have leisure to devote to two very interesting people who must stay in town all the year round no matter who goes out of it I mean dear Mrs. Campbell and Miss Clifford who both attract me though in such different ways End of Chapter 21 Recording by Colinda in Dover, New Hampshire on July 17th, 2007 Chapter 22 of Stepping Heaven Word by E. Prentice This is a LibriVox recording while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Colinda Stepping Heaven Word by E. Prentice Chapter 22 October Well, I had my own way and I am afraid it has been an unwise one for though I have enjoyed the leisure of bordered by everybody being out of town and the opportunity it has given me to devote myself to the very sweetest work on earth the care of my darling little ones the heat and the stifling atmosphere have been trying for me and for them My pretty rose went last May to bloom in a home of her own so I thought I would not look for a nurse but take the whole care of them myself This would not be much of a task to a strong person but I am not strong and a great deal of the time just dressing them and taking them out to walk has exhausted me then all the mending and other sewing must be done and with the overexertion creeps in the fretful tone the impatient word yet I never can be as impatient with little children as I should be but for the remembrance that I should count it only a joy to minister once more to my darling boy cost what weariness it might But now new cares are at hand and I have been searching for a person to whom I can safely trust my children when I am laid aside thus far I have had in this capacity three different temptations in human form The first, a smart, tidy looking woman informed me at the outset that she was perfectly competent to take the whole charge of the children and should prefer my attending to my own affairs while she attended to hers I replied that my affairs lay chiefly in caring for and being with my children to which she returned that she feared I should not suit her as she had her own views concerning the training of children She added, with condescension that at all events she should expect in any case a difference of judgment between us that I, being the younger and least experienced of the two should always yield to her She then went on to give me her views on the subject of nursery management In the first place she said I never pet or fondle children it makes them babyish and sickly Oh, I see you will not suit me I cried, you need go no farther I consider love the best educator for a little child Indeed, I think I shall suit you perfectly she replied, nothing daunted I have been in the business 20 years and have always suited wherever I lived You will be surprised to see how much sewing I shall accomplish and how quiet I shall keep the children But I don't want them kept quiet I persisted, I want them to be as merry and cheerful as crickets and I care a great deal more to have them amused than to have the sewing done though that is important, I confess Very well, ma'am, I will sit and rock them if you wish it But I don't wish it, I cried exasperated at the coolness which gave her such an advantage over me Let us say no more about it You do not suit me and the sooner we part the better I must be mistress of my own house and I want no advice in relation to my children I shall hardly leave you before you will regret parting with me She returned in a placid, pitying way I was afraid I had not been quite dignified in my interview with this person with whom I ought to have had no discussion My equanimity was not restored by her shaking hands with me in a patronizing way at a parting and expressing the hope that I should one day be a green tree in the paradise of God Nor was it any too great a consolation to find that she had suggested to my cook that my intellect was not quite sound Temptation of the second confessed that she knew nothing but was willing to be taught Yes, she might be willing, but she could not be taught She could not see why Herbert should not have everything he chose to cry for nor why she should not take the children to the kitchens where her friends abode instead of keeping them out in the air She could not understand why she must not tell Una every half hour that she was fair as a lily and that the little angels in heaven cried for such hair as hers and there was no rhyme or reason to her mind why she could not have her friends visit in her nursery since, as she declared the cook would hear all her secrets if she received them in the kitchen Her assurance that she thought me a very nice lady and that there never were too such children as mine failed to move my hard heart and I was thankful when I got her out of the house Temptation the third appeared for a time the perfection of a nurse She kept herself and the nursery and the children in most refreshing order She amused Una when she was more than usually unwell with a perfect fund of innocent stories The work flew from her nimble fingers as if by magic I boasted everywhere of my good luck and sang her praises in Ernest's ears till he believed in her with all his heart We were out late We had been spending the evening at auntie's and came in with Ernest's night key as quietly as possible in order not to arouse the children I stole softly to the nursery to see if all was going on well there Bridget, it seems, had taken the opportunity to wash her clothes in the nursery and they hung all about the room drying a hot fire raging for the purpose In the midst of them with a candle and a prayer book on a chair Bridget knelt fast asleep the candle within an inch of her sleeve and asked her that she was not asleep but merely wrapped in devotion did not soften my hard heart nor was I moved by the representation that she was a saint and always were black on that account I packed her off in anything but a saintly frame and felt that a fourth temptation would scatter what little grace I possessed to the four winds These changes upstairs made discord, too, below My cook was displeased at so much coming and going and made the kitchen a sort of purgatory which I dreaded to enter and Amber fairly ran away with her and she became impertinent to the last degree I said coolly If any lady should speak to me in this way I should resent it but no lady would so far forget herself and I overlook your rudeness on the ground that you do not know better than to use such expressions This capped the climax She declared that she had never been told before that she was no lady and did not know how to behave and gave warning at once I wish I could help running to tell how much of a woman's life is made up of such trials and provocations and how easy it is when on one's knees to bear them a right and how far easier to bear them wrong when one finds the coal going too fast the butter out just as sitting down to breakfast the potatoes watery and the bread sour or heavy and then when one is well nigh desperate does one's husband fail to say in bland tones My dear, if you would just speak to Bridget I am sure she would improve Oh, that there were indeed magic in a spoken word and do what I can the money Ernest gives me will not hold out he knows absolutely nothing about that hydro-headed monster a household I have had to go back to sewing as furiously as ever and with the sewing the old pain in the side has come back and the sharp quick speech that I hate and that Ernest hates and that everybody hates I groan, being burdened and I'm almost weary of my life and my prayers are all mixed up with words and my prayers are all mixed up with worldly thoughts and cares I am appalled at all the things that have got to be done before winter and I'm tempted to cut short my devotions in order to have more time to accomplish what I must accomplish How have I got into this sloth When was it that I came down from the mount where I had seen the Lord and came back to make these miserable petty things as much my business as ever Oh, these fluctuations in my religious life amaze me as if I were God's child It would be dishonor to him to doubt it I cannot doubt that I have held his real communion with him with any earthly friend and oh, it has been far sweeter October 20th I made a parting visit to Mrs. Campbell today and as usual have come away strengthened and refreshed She said all sorts of kind things to cheer and encourage me and stimulated me to take up the burden of life cheerfully and patiently just as it comes She assures me that these fluctuations of feeling will by degrees give place to a calmer life especially if I avoid, so far as I can do it all unnecessary work, distraction and hurry and a few quiet resting words from her have given me courage to press on toward perfection no matter how much imperfection I see in myself and others and now I am waiting for my father's next gift and the new cares and labors it will bring with it I am glad it is not left for me in my own lot I am afraid I should never see precisely the right moment for welcoming a new bird into my nest dearly as I love the rustle of their wings and the sound of their voices when they do come and surely he knows the right moments who knows all my struggles with a certain sort of poverty, poor health and domestic care if I could feel that all the time as I do at this moment how happy I should always be January 16th, 1847 this is the 10th anniversary of our wedding day it is a very meaningful one if I recalled upon to declare what has been the chief element of my happiness I should say it was not Ernest's love to me or mine to him or that I am once more the mother of three children or that my own dear mother still lives though I revel in each and all of these but underneath them all deeper, stronger than all lies a peace with God that I can compare to no other joy which I guard as I would guard hid treasure and which must abide if all things else pass away my baby is two months old and her name is Ethel the three children together form a beautiful picture which I am never tired of admiring but they will not give me much time for writing this little newcomer takes all there is of me mother brings me pleasant reports of Miss Clifford who under her gentle lies is becoming an Ernest Christian already rejoicing in the providence that arrested her where it did and forced her to reflection mother says we ought to study God's providence and we do since he has a meaning and a purpose in everything he does sometimes I can do this and find it a source of great happiness then worldly cares seem mere worldly cares and I forget that his wise kind hand is in every one of them February Helen has been spending the whole day with me as she often does helping me with her skillful needle and with the children in a very sweet way I am almost ashamed to indulge in writing down how dearly she seems to love me and how disposed she is to sit at my feet as a learner at the very moment I am longing to possess her sweet gentle temper but one thing puzzles me in her and that is the difficulty she finds in getting hold of these simple truths her father used to grope after but never found till just as he was passing out of the world it seems as if God had compensated such turbulent fiery natures as mine by revealing himself to them for the terrible hours of shame and sorrow through which their sins and follies cause them to pass I suffer far more than Helen does suffer bitterly painfully but I enjoy tenfold more for I know whom I have believed and I cannot doubt that I am truly united to him Helen is naturally very reserved but by degree she has come to talk with me quite frankly today as we sat together in the nursery little Raymond snatched a toy from Una who as usual yielded to him without a frown I called him to me and he came reluctantly Raymond dear said did you ever see Papa snatch anything from me he smiled and shook his head well then until you see him do it to me never do it to your sister men are gentle and polite to women and little boys should be gentle and polite to little girls the children ran off to their play and Helen said now how different that is from my mother's management with us she always made us girls yield to the boys I would not have thought they could go up to bed unless one of us got a candle for them that I suppose is the reason then that Ernest expected me to wait upon him after we were married I replied I was a little stiff about yielding to him for besides mother's precepts I was influenced by my father's example he was so courteous treating her with as much respect as if she were a queen and yet with as much love as if she were always a girl I naturally expected the like from my husband you must have been disappointed then she said yes I was it cost me a good many pouts and tears of which I am now ashamed and Ernest seldom annoys me now with the little neglects that I used to make so much of sometimes I think there are no little neglects said Helen it takes less than nothing to annoy us and it takes more than everything to please us I cried but Ernest and I had one stronghold to which we always fled in our treblest times and that was our love for each other now he provoked me by his little heedless ways I had to forgive him because I loved him so and he had to forgive me my faults for the same reason I had no idea husbands and wives loved each other so said Helen I thought they just got over it as soon as their cares and troubles came on and just jogged on together somehow we both laughed and she went on if I thought I should be as happy as you are I should be tempted to be married myself I thought your time would come I cried don't ask me any questions she said her pretty face growing prettier with a bright warm glow give me advice instead for instance tell me how I can be sure that if I love a man I shall go on loving him through all the wear and tear of married life and how I can be sure he can and will go on loving me well then setting aside the fact that you are both lovable and loving I will say this happiness in other words love in married life is not a mere accident union has been formed as most Christian unions are by God himself it is his intention and his will that it shall prove the unspeakable joy of both husband and wife and become more and more so from year to year but we are imperfect creatures wayward and foolish as little children horribly unreasonable selfish and willful we are not capable of enduring the shock of finding at every turn that our idol is made we are not capable of enduring the shock of finding at every turn that our idol is made of clay and that it is prone to tumble off its pedestal and lie in the dust till we pick it up and set it in its place again I was struck with earnest asking in the very first prayer he offered in my presence after our marriage that God would help us love each other I felt that love was the very foundation on which I was built and that there was no danger that I should ever fall short in giving my husband all he wanted in full measure but as he went on day after day repeating this prayer and I naturally made it with him I came to see that this most precious of earthly blessings had been and must be God's gift and that while we both looked at it in that light and felt our dependence on him for it we might safely encounter together all the assaults made upon us by the world the flesh and the devil I believe we owe it to this constant prayer that we have loved each other so uniformly and with such growing comfort in each other so that our little discords always have ended in fresh accord and our love felt conscious of resting on a rock and that that rock was the will of God it is plain then said Helen that you and earnest are sure of one source of happiness as long as you live whatever vicissitudes you may meet with I thank you so much for what you have said the fact is that you have been brought up to carry religion into everything but I was not my mother was as good as she was lovely but I think she felt and taught us to feel that we were to put it on as we did our Sunday clothes and wear it as we did then carefully and reverently but with pretty long graved faces but you mix everything up so that when I am with you I never know whether you are most like or most unlike other people and your mother is just so but you forget that it is to earnest I owe my best ideas about married life I don't remember ever talking with my mother or anyone else on the subject and as to carrying religion into everything how can one help it if one's religion is a vital part of oneself a cloak put on to go to church in and hang up out of the way against next Sunday Helen laughed she has the merriest yet gentlest little laugh one can imagine I long to know who it is that has been so fortunate as to touch her heart March I know now and glad I am the sly little puss is purring at this moment in James's arms at least I suppose she is as I have discreetly come up to my room and left them to themselves so it seems I have had all these worries about Lucy for not what made her so fond of James was simply the fact that a friend of his had looked on her with a favourable eye regarding her as a very proper mother for four or five children who are in need of a shepherd yes Lucy is going to marry a man so much older than herself that on a pinch he might have been her father she does it from a sense of duty she says and to a nature like hers duty may perhaps suffice and no cry of the heart have to be stifled in its performance I am so happy in the happiness of James and Helen that we are not in the mood to criticize Lucy's decision I have a strange and most absurd envy when I think what a good time they are having at this moment downstairs while I sit here alone vainly wishing I could see more of Ernest just as if my happiness were not a deeper more blessed one than theirs which must be purged of much dross before it will prove itself to be like fine gold yes I suppose I am as happy in my dear husband and children as a wife and mother can be in a world which must not be a real heaven must we should love the land we journey through so well as to want to pitch our tents in it forever and cease to look and long for the home wither we are bound James will be married almost immediately I suppose as he sails for Syria early in April how much a missionary and his wife must be to each other when severing themselves from all they ever loved before they go forth hand in hand not merely to be foreigners and lands but to be henceforth strangers in their own should they ever return to it Helen says playfully that she has not a missionary spirit and is not at all sure that she will go with James but I don't think that he feels very anxious on that point March it does one's heart good to see how happy they are and it does one's heart good to have one's husband set up in opposition to the goings on by behaving like a lover himself End of Chapter 22 Recording by Kalinda in Dover, New Hampshire on July 17th 2007