In casting about for what to read next, I hit on\u00a0Stepping Heavenward,<\/em>\u00a0by Elizabeth Prentiss.<\/p>\n Reviewing\u00a0Love Comes Softly\u00a0<\/em>made me think about the ways in which Christian fiction have changed over time. Voice in\u00a0the Wind,\u00a0<\/i>published in 1993, felt very different from\u00a0Love Comes Softly, <\/em>which was\u00a0published in 1979. This set me to wondering about what Christian fiction looked like in the much farther past.\u00a0Stepping Heavenward\u00a0<\/em>was published as a serial in 1869.<\/p>\n As an added bonus,\u00a0Stepping Heavenward\u00a0<\/em>was published in the same decade\u00a0Love Comes Softly\u00a0<\/em>was most likely set. Throughout Love Comes Softly,\u00a0<\/em>I felt that its author, Janette Oke, was imputing modern religious practice and life outlook into a historical setting without respect for change over time.\u00a0Stepping Heavenward\u00a0<\/i>promises a picture at period practice and outlook.<\/p>\n I first read\u00a0Stepping Heavenward<\/em> when I was a young teen. I remember feeling quite grown up when I picked it up, because it was my mother\u2019s book, and I\u2019d seen her reading it many times. The book definitely made its rounds in Christian homeschooling circles.<\/p>\n Stepping Heavenward<\/em> is loosely autobiographical. It is written in journal form, and follows the life of Katy Mortimer, beginning on her 16th birthday in 1831 and ending in 1858. The book shows us Katy\u2014again, in journal form\u2014as she grows up, marries, and starts a family.<\/p>\n Katy begins as a spirited, passionate teenager and, over the course of her life, struggles with her faith, and with doubts. This being the book that it is, of course, Katy ultimately becomes a strong, mature Christian (at least, these are the terms all the modern reviews use). I want to pick that apart and get at what\u2019s really going on underneath\u2014the fault lines, the untaken paths.<\/p>\n I want to do a full reread before I start this series, so I\u2019m not going to start reviewing today. I\u2019ll finish today by offering a bit more information about the author.<\/p>\n Elizabeth Payson was born in Maine in 1818; her family settled in New York City, where she would spend most of her adult life, in 1831. At age 20, Elizabeth opened a school for girls in her home, and later worked at a girls\u2019 boarding school. At 27, she married George Lewis Prentiss, and became a pastor\u2019s wife, first in Bedford, Massachusetts, and then in New York City.<\/p>\n While her family was part of the new (and rapidly growing) middle class\u2014which offered her things like trips abroad with her family\u2014this didn\u2019t save Elizabeth from losing two of her six children in childhood, or from suffering from chronic illness during most of her life.<\/p>\n