Introduction
Introduction
Have you ever read an old book and had trouble understanding it? American English is constantly changing, and what was a common expression in the 19th century may now seem unusual or even incomprehensible. This book, by Elizabeth Prentiss, has been carefully and lovingly updated so that you can read it without the distraction of strange words, spelling, and figures of speech that don’t make sense to us today.
We learn from Elizabeth’s husband, George Prentiss, that she “aimed to impress the truth, not her style, and therefore aimed at plainness and directness.”* Knowing this, we feel she would appreciate her works being made “plain”, that is, clear and obvious, to today’s readers. This was written long before The Percy’s, in 1854, the same year that she wrote the final two books in the Suzy Series.
“With the exception of Stepping Heavenward, none of Mrs. Prentiss’s larger books has had so wide a circulation, both at home and abroad, as The Flower of the Family. A French translation, entitled La Fleur de la Famille, has passed through five or six editions. It was also translated into German under the title Die Perle der Familie.
In both languages, it received the warmest praise. The work depicts a marked type of the family life of thirty years ago, which is becoming rare in our own days and on this account, as well as for its intrinsic merits, deserves to be reprinted. Its aim cannot be better expressed than in the following extract from a letter of Mrs. Prentiss to a friend, written soon after its publication in 1854:
I long to have it doing good. I never had such desire about anything in my life; and I never sat down to write without first praying that I might not be suffered [allowed] to write anything that would do harm, and that, on the contrary, I might be taught to say what would do good. And it has been a great comfort to me that every word of praise I have ever received from others concerning it has been “It will do good,” and this I have had from so many sources that, amid much trial and sickness ever since its publication, I have had rays of sunshine creeping in now and then to cheer and sustain me.
Numberless testimonies of its usefulness continued to cheer her to the end of her days.”
George L. Prentiss
New York, September 1883
My own journey with this book fulfills Mrs. Prentiss's hope that it would do good. I began updating it while I was laid up in bed for weeks after an accident. Though at times I was complaining or short-tempered with those who were here to help me, Lucy’s example in all her struggles and disappointment reproved and inspired me to trust God and be better. Elizabeth Prentiss wrote this out of her own experiences with poor health and life’s sorrows. She created characters that reflected what to her was true Christian conduct.
Quoting George Prentiss again, “It aims to exact trivial home duty, by showing how such duty performed in the fear of God and the love of Christ may lead upward and onward through present self-denial, to the highest usefulness, peace and joy.”*
Rebecca S. Perkins
July 2022
* See appendix for more thoughts about Elizabeth by George Prentiss.
Though I have a rooting here,
Which holds me downward, yet in my desire
To that which is above me I aspire;
And all my best affections I profess
To Him that is the Sun of Righteousness.
George Wither