Elizabeth Prentiss: Biography

Elizabeth Prentiss is best known today as the author of Stepping Heavenward, a story of a young woman’s journey to godliness. She was also wrote the lyrics for the hymn, “More Love to Thee, O Christ.” She was born in 1818, and she died in 1878. 

Elizabeth Prentiss: Family Background 

Elizabeth was born in Portland, Maine. Maine was then a district of Massachusetts, and Portland was its chief town and seaport, distinguished for the beauty of its location, its social refinement, and all the best characteristics of New England character. Not a few of the early settlers had come from Cape Cod and other parts of Massachusetts, and the blood of the Pilgrim fathers ran in their veins. Among its leading citizens at that time were men eminent for private and public virtue, and some of whom became still more widely known—either because of their own influence or because of their gifted children.

 Elizabeth Prentiss was the youngest daughter of Edward Payson, a famous minister and revival preacher. For more than half of a century, the name of Edward Payson had been a household word among the churches of New England and beyond. Edward Payson came from very old Puritan stock, and from a family noted for the numbers of ministers it produced for over two centuries.

Elizabeth Prentiss: Youthful Years

 Elizabeth showed exceptional gifts at a young age, and she began writing children’s stories when she was still in her teens. As a young woman, she published some of her children’s stories and poems in a Christian magazine called The Youth’s Companion. When she was twenty, she opened a small girls’ school in her parents’ home, and she also began teaching a Sunday school class. When she was twenty-two, Elizabeth Prentiss became a director at a girls’ boarding school.

When Elizabeth was 27, she married George Prentiss, the brother of one of her best friends. She and her husband made their home in New Bedford, MA, where George became a pastor of one of the local churches.

Challenges and Triumphs

Elizabeth Prentiss was no stranger to suffering. In her thirties, she lost both her second child and her fourth child – all in the span of just three months. She struggled with poor health for most of her life.

Rather than feeling sorry for herself, Elizabeth used life’s trials as a spiritually strengthening tool and to give her empathy for the sufferings of others. She was an angel of strength and consolation to many others who were undergoing trials.

Elizabeth Prentiss continued writing throughout much of her life. She wrote over twenty books, including the spiritual classic, Stepping Heavenward, which was published in 1869. She also wrote letters, poems, and lyrics to hymns.

Elizabeth died in 1878, at the age of sixty. After her death, her husband published a biography of her, together with a collection of her letters. He did this to fulfill his wife’s wish that her sufferings could be used for the comfort of others.