HIS ARM IS NOT SHORTENED
hen Anna had to choose between love and religion—the religion of an institution—she chose love. Her faith in God remained unshaken, but her methods of approach were the forms of love rather than the symbols or ceremonies of a sect. Twelve times in a quarter of a century she appeared publicly in the parish church. Each time it was to lay on the altar of religion the fruit of her love. Nine-tenths of those twelve congregations would not have known her if they had met her on the street. One-tenth were those who occupied the charity pews.
Religion in our town had arrayed the inhabitants into two hostile camps. She never had any sympathy with the fight. She was neutral. She pointed out to the fanatics around her that the basis of religion was love and that religion that expressed itself in faction fights must have hate at the bottom of it, not love. She had a philosophy of religion that worked. To the sects it would have been rank heresy, but the sects didn't know she existed and those who were benefited by her quaint and unique application of religion to life were almost as obscure as she was. I was the first to discover her "heresy" and oppose it. She lived to see me repent of my folly.
In a town of two thousand people less than two hundred were familiar with her face, and half of them knew her because at one time or another they had been to "Jamie's" to have their shoes made or mended, or because they lived in our immediate vicinity. Of the hundred who knew her face, less than half of them were familiar enough to call her "Anna." Of all the people who had lived in Antrim as long as she had, she was the least known.
No feast or function could budge her out of her corner. There came a time when her family became as accustomed to her refusal as she had to her environment and we ceased to coax or urge her. She never attended a picnic, a soirée or a dance in Antrim. One big opportunity for social intercourse amongst the poor is a wake—she never attended a wake. She often took entire charge of a wake for a neighbor, but she directed the affair from her corner.
She had a slim sort of acquaintance with three intellectual men. They were John Galt, William Green and John Gordon Holmes, vicars in that order of the parish of Antrim. They visited her once a year and at funerals—the funerals of her own dead. None of them knew her. They hadn't time, but there were members of our own family who knew as little of her mind as they did.
She did not seek obscurity. It seemed to have sought and found her. One avenue of escape after another was closed and she settled down at last to her lot in the chimney-corner. Her hopes, beliefs and aspirations were expressed in what she did rather than in what she said, though she said much, much that is still treasured, long after she has passed away.
Henry Lecky was a young fisherman on Lough Neagh. He was a great favorite with the children of the entries. He loved to bring us a small trout each when he returned after a long fishing trip. He died suddenly, and Eliza, his mother, came at once for help to the chimney corner.
"He's gone, Anna, he's gone!" she said as she dropped on the floor beside Anna.