Mrs. Lewis' solemn words put a silence on the lips for a few minutes, but practical Mrs. Brown broke it by remarking:
"Perhaps it would be a good plan for us to study hygiene. I have always thought, if we gave more attention to ventilation, and to what we shall eat and wear, and so on, we should have better health."
"Yes," said a still more practical sister, "that would be real nice. Then I was noticing in the paper that there is a Presbyterian cook-book just out. I should like to have some read out of that."
This caused a smile to go around the circle, for Mrs. Boot was one of those inveterate pie and cake makers, whose life consisted in the abundance of pastry; who was an unhappy woman until she had obtained the last new receipt for cake and made it up.
"I have an idea," said a bright little lady. "Suppose we all agree to spend at least two evenings a week in reading or study at home, then bring what we gather to the sewing-society and talk it over, each one give some bit of news or scientific fact, or give a review of the last new book."
"Oh, I have tried that a little on my own book," said Mrs. Peterson. "I sat up one night after all the rest had gone to bed, and read all about that Dr. Somebody, with a hard name—I can't pronounce it, it begins with an 'S.' Well, he and his wife are digging up buried cities, hundreds and thousands of years old—and finding the most wonderful things, money, and jewellery, and splendid vases, and all sorts of nice things. Now, says I to myself, I've got something to talk about at sewing society to-morrow. It'll make 'em open their eyes, too, I guess, so I read it all over again, to be sure and have it at my tongue's end. Well, I went to sewing society, and when there was a kind of a lull in talk, I began to tell three or four that sat around me, all about that wonderful story that I'd been reading. Do you believe it, they just poked fun at my story, and said, 'of course 'twa'n't true, and we couldn't believe half we read in the papers, and it would tura out like the Cardiff giant, most likely.' I was going on to tell how he brought, out the curiosities, and ever so many people saw them, and of course it was true; but la! one wanted the thread, another the scissors, and another called out, 'Mrs. Peterson, do you overcast your seams or fell 'em?' Then Mrs. Baker said, 'Why, Melia Parsons, you're making that little pair of pants upside down, then they all hollered and yelled at Melia, and I never tried to tell anything more about Dr. What-yer-call-him and his cities; might just as well try to talk in a hornets' nest."
This speech produced so much merriment that the chairman playfully called Mrs. Peterson to order, and the talk went on. Some thought a course of history was "just the thing," in short, there were as many different plans and opinions as there were ladies, it began to look very much as if no decision could ever be reached.
"I hope," said Mrs. Lewis, "that I shall not be thought persistent or officious if I say a few more words. You know I am fond of reading, there was a time when I read everything, now I am turning away from it all, to the blessed Bible. While I would not disparage liberal culture, nor the reading that conduces to it, I think the time has come when we cannot remain ignorant of the Bible and be guiltless. Some people feel mortified if they cannot tell just where every line of poetry that happens to be quoted can be found, but who thinks of being ashamed because they cannot tell the author of the matchless poems in the Old Testament? I do think there are no poems like Isaiah's and Jeremiah's and the Psalms. For imagery and pathos and sweetness all other poems are tame in comparison. Do we want works of power? He says, 'My word is as the fire and the hammer.' Is it tragedy that our souls delight in? There is the divine tragedy: 'But He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities…. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth,' and the closing scene: 'And behold the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened.'"
"If we wish to strengthen and discipline our minds, and grow in knowledge, let us study the Bible by all means, for here we find difficulties enough to tax an angel's powers, and at the same time find rest and consolation, means of growth, too, for we are assured that those who meditate on that Word 'shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.' Oh, you do not know, if you never have tried it, how blessed it is to build up a pyramid of texts, for instance, all about God's love to us, and the names he calls us by; it makes his love such a reality. Theft there are the promises, soft pillows for weary heads, and there are directions for all perplexities. I tell you there is nothing like the Bible. I have tried all the rest. Like Solomon I have found it all vanity. 'Oh, how I love thy law!' 'How sweet are thy words unto my taste!' When this becomes our experience, life will be a different thing to us; it will not be dull and empty. You know how we get absorbed in other reading, perhaps a novel, and it leaves a gloomy, unsatisfied feeling when it is done, but the Bible is never done, and the studying it grows and grows every day. When the Lord comes, I'm afraid we shall not feel comfortable if he finds us studying hard on every other book and his laid by covered with dust. If I were to ask you what book you would advise me to spend the most of my time on, the few years that I live, whether the Bible or the current literature of the day, you would probably say, 'The Bible by all means, because you have but a few years left to you at most,' but the truth is, that many in this room may die before I do. Not one of us knows what day the books will for us be for ever closed; and did it never cross your minds that the Bible is the only book we will want to take with us away down to the edge of the river? When I lie down to die I feel sure that I shall not wish for a page of mental philosophy whispered in my ear, nor the finest passage of Shakespeare; but, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; Thou art with me,' and 'I have loved thee with an everlasting love.' 'Thou art mine, I have called thee by my name.' 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.'"
"Let us compromise this matter," suggested Mrs. Parker. "Let every other meeting be devoted to Bible study, and a committee be appointed to select something from the works mentioned here to-day as subjects for the intervening meetings."