About Elizabeth Prentiss
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss was born on October 26, 1818, in Portland, Maine, the fifth child of Congregationalist minister Edward Payson. Her father died of tuberculosis in 1827, and the family moved to New York City in 1831. That same year, she professed faith in Christ and joined the Bleeker Street Presbyterian Church. From an early age, Elizabeth displayed notable literary talent, contributing stories and poems to religious periodicals such as The Youth’s Companion.
In 1838, she opened a small girls’ school in her home and also taught a Sabbath-school class. Two years later, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, to serve as a department head at a girls’ boarding school. In 1845, she married George Lewis Prentiss, brother of her close friend Anna Prentiss Stearns, and they settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where George served as pastor of South Trinitarian Church. In 1851, the family moved to New York City, where George became pastor of Mercer Street Presbyterian Church.
Elizabeth experienced deep personal loss, including the deaths of two of her three children by 1852, but she later had three more healthy children. Her writing continued to flourish despite her fragile health. In 1853, she published her first book of stories, and in 1856, she wrote the lyrics for her most famous hymn More Love to Thee, O Christ, inspired by a near-death experience of her daughter Minnie. She also contributed As on a Vast Eternal Shore, published in Schaff's Christ in Song in 1869.
Elizabeth Prentiss authored several influential works, including Stepping Heavenward (1869), serialized in the Chicago Advance, The Flower of the Family, and Religious Poems (1873). After her death on August 13, 1878, in Dorset, Vermont, her husband published The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss in 1882. Her hymns remain widely used in English and have been translated into multiple languages, reflecting her enduring impact on Christian devotion.
Children: Annie, Eddy, Bessie, Minnie, George, and Henry
Notable Hymns:
- More Love to Thee, O Christ (1869)
- As on a Vast Eternal Shore (1869)
Languages of Hymn Publication: English, Spanish, Tagalog, Hawaiian, German, Chinese, Albanian, Swahili, Dakota
