Mrs. Lewis spoke next. When Mrs. Lewis spoke everybody always paid attention. She was a large, fine looking lady of seventy or thereabouts. Old age had crowned her with a halo of soft snowy hair, while her dark eyes still glowed with almost the brightness of youth. Her naturally fine mind, enriched by extensive reading, and her deep religious experience, combined to constitute her almost an oracle in the little town. In all their gatherings she was the centerpiece, a very queen for dignity and elegance, in her invariable black silk, and soft white cap. "Let us study the Bible," said Mrs. Lewis. "I don't know of any book we are more ignorant of."
"Oh, Mrs. Lewis! You wouldn't make us into a Sabbath-school class, I hope," said feathery little Mrs. Etheridge. "I thought we did that up years ago. I am sure I can repeat quantities of it," and she tossed back her pretty head and looked wise. "The Bible is all well enough for the Sabbath, but I should dearly love to read the poets. I am passionately fond of Byron; some of his poems are just too sweet for anything."
Some of the wise ones almost thought Mrs. Lewis' text had a spice of sarcasm in it as she quoted for answer, "The testimonies of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple."
Miss McIntosh, learned, and strong-mindedly inclined, said that she had heard that the ladies in Millville had spent one afternoon a week in the study of Political Economy, with very much benefit; they felt that their minds had been enlarged and strengthened; her preference would be for something of that sort, some broad, deep subject, that would require study; she would suggest Mental Philosophy.
"The Bible just fits in there," said Mrs. Lewis. "'Thy Word is a great deep,' and Peter said that Paul wrote 'things hard to be understood,' you remember."
"And that's queer, too," spoke up Mrs. Peterson. "Such a deep book, and yet I feel more at home in it than in any other book you have talked about, and I haven't much learning to speak of either. But I get so interested in some of the folks in it, and the Lord's dealings with them. I've been thinking about Moses ever since Mr. Parker preached about his not being allowed to go into the promised land. It seems as if I was acquainted with him. It must have been a powerful disappointment to him, after he had trudged along so many years—turned back, too, when he'd got a good piece on his way; then it was so aggravating, to get up there and look over into the nice green meadows, and know that if he hadn't let out his temper so, he might have gone in with the rest of them. I declare, I got so exercised thinking it over when I was a working my butter, that I forgot to salt it."
"I think I should like to study Shakespeare," said Mrs. Berkeley. "Where does one find such knowledge of human nature as there? Where else are such rare gems to be had by digging?"
"In my book," said Mrs. Lewis, "the Psalmist says, 'It is more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold;' and another says, 'It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.' Is not that a knowledge of human nature that excels even Shakespeare?"
"It strikes me a variety would suit all," said another. "George Eliot's writings are full of power, and deep enough for me, I assure you. We might read some of her books, then some of Dickens and Thackeray, then occasionally a book of poems; Longfellow and Whittier, or, if we want to study harder, there is Mrs. Browning, Tennyson, and Shakespeare. It would be excellent discipline to try and get at the exact meaning of the authors, and puzzle out all the obscurities, it would not be long before we should feel quite rich in a literary way. In reading such works together, and talking them over, of course we make them ours as we can in no other way."
"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever," quoted Mrs. Lewis. "Do you know that all those writings, valuable and good in their place as they are, when compared with the Bible seem to me just like grass and flowers? Now, if we have but a little time to give to study, why not spend a good part of it in studying the 'endureth-for-ever' book, because, as nearly as I can find out, that book and ourselves are the only things in this world that are going to endure for ever? Don't it strike you that in such a case we ought to be more familiar with it than with all these others?"