* * “A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food,
And yet a spirit, still and bright,
With something of an angel’s light.”
The teacher’s method was not that of pumping in, but drawing out. There were no extended monologues, but the Socratic style of colloquy—brief, comprehensive, passing rapidly from point to point, characterized the most suggestive and helpful hour I ever spent in Bible class. There was not the faintest effort at rhetorical effect; not a suspicion of the hortatory in manner, but all was so fresh, simple and earnest, that in contrast to the pabulum too often served up on similar occasions, this was nutritious essence. A Bible class teacher is like a hen with ample brood and all inclined to “take to the grass.” How to coax them back from their discursive rambles by discovering the toothsome morsel and restfully proclaiming it, the average teacher “finds not,” but it is a portion of “the vision and faculty divine” in this California phenomenon. Let me jot down a few notes:
“What we call the new birth is but the opening of the eyes of the spirit upon its own world.” “There can be no kingdom of love to us, unless we enter it by love. We can not be mathematicians unless we enter the kingdom of mathematics. We can not perceive anything unless we address to it the appropriate organ of perception.” “Have we risen into any experience of the higher life? Are we in the way of completeness of soul? A soul dark toward God is in sad plight. No meaning in worship—none in prayer—that is a soul diseased.” “Baptism makes a child of God as coronation makes a king. But remember, he was a king before he was crowned.” As Lucretia Mott said, “We must have truth for authority, and not authority for truth.” “Dorcas did not bestow alms-gifts but alms-deeds; wrought not by a Dorcas society, but by Dorcas herself.” “Christ’s miracles were subject to the laws of the spiritual world. He could not spiritually bless those who were not susceptible to spiritual blessing.” “If I would prove to any one that God is his father I must first prove to him that I am his brother.”
When the delightful hour was over, among the loving group that gathered around her, attracted by the healing virtue of her spiritual atmosphere, came a temperance sojourner from the east. As my name was mentioned, the face so full of spirituality lighted even more than was its wont, and the soft, strong voice said, “Sometimes an introduction is a recognition—and so I feel it to be now.” Dear reader, I consider that enough of a compliment to last me for a term of years. I feel that it helped mortgage me to a pure life; I shall be better for it “right along.” For if I have ever clasped hands with a truth-seeker, a disciple of Christ and lover of humanity, Sarah B. Cooper held out to me that loving, loyal hand. The only “invitation out” which I gave to myself, and insisted on keeping, was to this woman’s home on Vallejo avenue, where, with her noble husband and true-hearted daughter, she illustrates how near the gates of Paradise a mortal home may be. One’s ideal seldom “materializes,” but in that lovely cottage, with its spotless cleanliness, fair, tasteful rooms, individualized so perfectly that he who ran might read how high the natures mirrored here, in the flower-decked dinner table and the “good talk,” in the study upstairs packed with choice books, and the sunset window looking out over the Golden Gate, I stored up memories that ought to yield electric energy for many a day. We talked of the past—and I found that my new friend, as well as her husband, had been for years the pupil of my beloved father in the gospel, our lamented Dr. Henry Bannister, late Professor of Hebrew in Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston, Ill. With what reverence and tenderness we talked of that brave, earnest, sympathetic life! We spoke of her experiences as a teacher in the South, and she rejoiced in the good tidings I brought of a “Yankee school-ma’am’s” welcome for temperance’s sake in nearly one hundred cities of Dixie’s land. We talked most of all about God and his unspeakable gift of Christ Jesus our Lord. I found this tireless brain had busied itself with the study of all religions, the testimony of science, philosophy and art; a more hospitable intellect I have not known, nor a glance more wide and tolerant, but “Christ and him crucified” is to that loyal heart “the Chief among thousands and altogether lovely.”
Let me give a few sentences from the inspiring letters that come to me across the distance between that bay window by the Golden Gate, and my “Rest Cottage” by the inland sea:
“If I know myself, I have one regnant wish: To help build up the coming kingdom.” “I desire you to include me in all your invocations for light and guidance.” “We move on in one work, we are co-laborers for a common Master—blessed be His name. We both aim at one thing: character-building in Christ Jesus. I am to speak before the C. L. S. C. at Pacific Grove, Monterey, on the ‘Kindergarten in its Relation to Character-Building.’ I shall speak of temperance. Have tried to help women both north and south who are working in their little towns heroically.” “The Chautauqua of the Coast, energized by desperate, sometimes almost despairing love for their tempted ones.”
The Independent and other leading journals have in Mrs. Cooper a valued correspondent, and her work among the little, ill-born and worse-nurtured children of San Francisco’s moral Sahara has been described by her own pure and radiant pen. It is one of the most potent forces in that city’s uplift toward Christianity. Among the best types of representative women, America may justly count Sarah B. Cooper, the student, the Christian exegete and philosopher, and the tender friend of every untaught little child.