To a Friend, Oct. 21, 1871.

Mr. Prentiss sent in his resignation last evening, and the church refused unanimously to let him go.  “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” penetrated the walls of the parsonage, as they sang it when the decision was made, and so we knew our fate before a whole parlorful rushed in to shake hands, kiss, and congratulate.  You would have been delighted had you been here.  Prof.  Smith, who took strong ground in favor of his going, takes just as strong ground in favor of his staying.  I feel that all this is the result of prayer.  I never got any light on the Chicago question when I prayed about it; never could see that it was our duty to go; but I yielded my judgment and my will, because my husband thought that he must go.  I think our very reluctance to it made us shrink from evading it; we were so afraid of opposing God’s will.  Now the matter is taken out of our hands and we have only to resume our work here.  God grant that this baptism of fire may purge and purify us and prepare us to be a great blessing to the church.  It is a most awe-inspiring providence, God’s burning us out of Chicago, and we feel like putting our shoes from off our feet and adoring Him in silence....  Pray that the lessons we have been learning through so many trying months may help us to be helping hands to those who may pass through similar straits.  One of my brothers was burnt out, and his own and his wife’s letters drew tears even down to the kitchen.  For two days and a night they lost their baby, five months old, in addition to all the other horrors.  But they found refuge with a dear cousin, who has filled his house to overflowing.  I may have spoken of this cousin to you:  he has a foundling home on Mueller’s trust system.

Before taking leave of the call to Chicago a word should be added to what she says concerning it in her letters.  The prospect of her husband’s accepting the call rendered the summer a very trying one; but it was far from being all gloom.  She had a marvellous power of extracting amusement out of the most untoward situation.  In 1843 she wrote from Richmond, referring to Mr. Persico’s troubles:  “I never spent such melancholy weeks in my life; in the midst of it, however, I made fun for the rest, as I believe I should do in a dungeon.”  It was so in the present case.  She relieved the weariness of many an anxious hour by “making fun for the rest.”  As an illustration, one evening at Dorset, while sitting at the parlor-table with her children and a young friend who was visiting her, she seized a pencil and wrote for their entertainment a ludicrous version of the Chicago affair in two parts.  The paper which was preserved by her young friend, illustrates also another trait which she thus describes at the close of a frolicsome letter to Miss E. A. Warner:  “It is one of the peculiar peculiarities of this woman that she usually carries on, when she wants to hide her feelins.”  Part I. begins thus: