A little past three o’clock on Saturday afternoon, January 2, 1869, Anna S. Prentiss, wife of the Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, D.D., fell asleep in Jesus.  The preceding pages show what strong ties bound Mrs. Prentiss to this beloved sister.  Their friendship dated back thirty years; it was cemented by common joys and common sorrows in some of their deepest experiences of life; and it had been kept fresh and sweet by frequent intercourse and correspondence.  Mrs. Stearns was a woman of uncommon attractions and energy of character.  She impressed herself strongly upon all who came within the sphere of her influence; the hearts of her husband’s people, as well as his own and those of her children, trusted in her; and the whole community where she dwelt mourned her loss.  She had been especially endeared to her brother Seargent, with whom she spent several winters in the South prior to her marriage.  Her influence over him, at a critical period of his life, was alike potent and happy; their relation to each other was, in truth, full of the elements of romance; and some of his letters to her are exquisite effusions of fraternal confidence and affection. [1] Her letters to him, beginning when she was a young girl and ending only with his life, would form a large volume.  “You excel any one I know,” he wrote to her, “in the kind and gentle art of letter-writing.”  In the midst of his early professional triumphs he writes: 

You do not know what obligations I am under to you; I owe all my success in this country to the fact of having so kind a mother and such sweet affectionate sisters as Abby and yourself.  It has been my only motive to exertion; without it I should long since have thrown myself away.  Even now, when, as is frequently the case, I feel perfectly reckless both of life and fortune, and look with contempt upon them both, the recollection that there are two or three hearts that beat for me with real affection, even though far away—­comes over me as the music of David did over the dark spirit of Saul.  I still feel that I have something worth living for.

For years her letters helped to cherish and deepen this feeling.  He thus refers to one of them: 

I can not tell how much I thank you for it.  I cried like a child while reading it, and even now the tears stand in my eyes, as I think of its expressions of affection, sympathy, and good sense....  I wish you were here now—­oh, how I do wish it!  But you will come next fall, won’t you? and be to me

  The antelope whose feet shall bless
  With her light step my loneliness.

But my candle burns low, and it is past the witching hour of night.  Whether sleeping or waking, God bless you and our dear mother, and all of you.  Good-night—­good-night.  My love loads this last line.

To Mrs. Prentiss and her husband, the death of Mrs. Stearns was an irreparable loss.  It took out of their life one of its greatest earthly blessings.