|
| Christian news worldwide |
 Home |
 Archives |
 Subscriptions |
 Adverts |
 Find a church |
 About us |
 Contact us |
 Site Map |
 PrintableVersion Elizabeth Prentiss'More love to thee'19th-century superwomanELIZABETH PRENTISS Sharon James pulls off a masterpiece in this book by describing the life of this amazing woman, Elizabeth Prentiss. From an early age, Elizabeth is no stranger to suffering when her father dies when she is only nine years old. After this the family are forced to move to cheaper accommodation, while mother and eldest sister support the family. As a mother, pastor’s wife and author, she faces enormous pressures. During her life many of her relations die young and she experiences the death of two of her own children. Her married life consists in looking after her husband and family, visiting sick and needy people in the ‘parish’ and taking them homemade gifts. Her approach to everyday tasks is worth noting. She is able to commit to God all she does and it becomes part of her sanctification. Sharon James concludes she has absolute confidence in the sovereignty of God; nothing happens ‘by mistake’. Throughout her life, she remains faithful to God despite her own suffering. A great impression is gained of life in the mid-19th century when infant mortality was high and when doctors knew nothing about germs and infection. This book forces us to step outside our own concerns and enter into the experiences of a person whose difficulties are so much greater than our own in certain respects. The themes of ‘purity, piety, submissiveness and domesticity’ permeate her writings. Throughout her novels for women, which include the trilogy, Stepping Heavenward, Aunt Jane’s Hero, and The Home at Greylock, the virtues of submissiveness are implicit and also the idea that women were stronger for not trying to compete with men in the marketplace, but contenting themselves with nurturing their family at home. Sharon James concludes that, though Elizabeth Prentiss would not endorse this view, her novels seem to reinforce a two-sphere teaching whereby men were active outside the home and church, while women were the chief spiritual influence in home and church. Sharon James takes issue with this teaching and maintains that there are two major flaws in the two-sphere teaching. She says, ‘the two-sphere teaching accorded dignity to the homemaker’, but ‘tended to divide roles in a decidedly rigid way’. It discouraged men from leading in the home. It also made it virtually impossible for unmarried, widowed or childless women to work outside the home to support themselves and be usefully employed. Elizabeth Prentiss is the author of the hymn ‘More Love, O Christ, to Thee’ and wrote a number of stories for children. Though Elizabeth Prentiss’s writings, to some extent, reflected the sentimentality of the culture of her day, she nevertheless communicates her great passion for God and his all-consuming role in her life. Maria Wells, © Evangelicals Now - February 2007 |
|
