The inward conflict which has been referred to she described sometimes, in the language of the old divines, as the want of God’s “sensible presence,” or of “conscious” nearness to and communion with Christ; sometimes, as a state of “spiritual deprivation or aridity”; and then again, as a work of the Evil One.  She laid much stress upon this last point.  Her belief in the existence of Satan and his influence over human souls was as vivid as that of Luther; she did not hesitate to accuse him of being the fomenter and, in a sense, the author of her distress; the warnings of the Bible against his “wiles” she accepted as in full force still; and she could offer with all her heart, and with no doubt as to the literal meaning of its closing words, the petition of the old Litany:  “That it may please Thee to strengthen such as do stand, and to comfort and help the weak-hearted, and to raise up those who fall, and finally to beat down Satan under our feet.”

The coming trouble seems to have cast its shadow across her path even before the close of 1870.  Early in 1871 it was upon her in power.  Her letters contain very interesting and pathetic allusions to this experience.  But they do not explain it.  Nor is it easy to explain.  In the absence of certain inciting causes from without, it would never, perhaps, have assumed a serious form.  But these sharp spiritual trials are generally complicated with external causes, or occasions; ill-health, morbid constitutional tendencies, loss of sleep, wearing cares and responsibilities, sudden calamities, worldly loss or disappointment, and the like.  It is in the midst of such conditions that pious souls are most apt to be assailed by gloom and despondency.  And yet distressing inward struggles and depression arise sometimes in the midst of outward prosperity and even of unusual religious enjoyment.  In truth, among all the phenomena of the Christian life none are more obscure or harder to seize than those connected with spiritual conflict and temptation.  They belong largely to that terra incognita, the dark back-ground of human consciousness, where are the primal forces of the soul and the mustering-place of good and evil.  A certain mystery enshrouds all profound religious emotion; whether of the peace of God that passeth all understanding, or of the anguish that comes of spiritual desertion.  Those who are in the midst of the battle, or bear its scars, will instantly recognise an experience like their own; to all others it must needs remain inexplicable.  Even in the natural life our deepest joys and sorrows are mostly inarticulate; the great poets come nearest to giving them utterance; but how much the reality always surpasses the descriptions of the poet’s pen, even though it be the pen of a Shakespeare, or a Goethe!

Mrs. Prentiss never afterward referred to this “fiery trial” without strong emotion.  It terrified her to think of anyone she loved as exposed to it; and—­not to speak of other classes—­she seemed to regard those as specially exposed to it, who had just passed, or were passing, through an unusually rich and happy religious experience.  One of her last letters, addressed to a dear Christian friend, related to this very point.  Here are a few sentences from it: