In 1891 a Christian weekly magazine mailed letters to America’s most prominent Christian authors and ministers asking one question:
What is it to be a Christian?
Many of the replies from ministers and church elders spoke about adhering to New Testament doctrines. Some replied that being a Christian meant following the example set by the Divine Master.
A famous Unitarian pastor answered that to be a Christian was “to do the will of my father who is in heaven.”
Of course, Isabella was one of the Christian authors who received the letter.
Isabella Alden, about 1900.
Here is her answer, which was printed in newspapers across the country on Sunday, March 20, 1892:
“To be a Christian is to love the Lord Jesus Christ so much that I shall desire to have him reign supreme in my heart.”
For many years Isabella had an advice column in a popular Christian magazine. She used the column to answer readers’ questions—from a Christian perspective—on a variety of topics.
In an 1897 column Isabella wrote that she had received several letters in one week about “imprudent confidences.” The letters were from young women who regretted something they said or wrote.
Two or three girls wrote about their mothers in ways they wished they had not.
One young wife wrote “with utmost frankness” about the failings of her husband to a lady friend!
Several young ladies were very harsh in their criticisms of “certain gentleman acquaintances.”
Each ended their letter to Isabella with the same two questions:
“Ought I to take back the words I wrote? And ought I to tell the persons of whom I wrote what I have done?”
Here is Isabella’s advice:
There are really two questions. Let me so divide them.
With regard to the first, I answer: By all means, YES. Perhaps there is no more common error than that of giving vent to one’s anger by putting on paper words concerning others that in our cooler moments we would not even think, much less say.
Moreover, in nearly (if not quite every) case of the kind, the written words are more or less untrue. For the hour they may seem to us strictly true and justifiable; but the next morning, after the mail has been sent, and it is too late, what would we not give to be able to recall them? How sure we are to remember entire sentences that we no know to be false, or—at the very least—to convey entirely false impressions!
In all such cases, what better can we do than to write promptly and frankly:
“I am sorry I told you what I did. I was angry at the time, or so strangely hurt that I did not realize what I was doing. My mother meant what she said in an entirely different way from what I translated it; she did not speak the words in the manner which I ascribed to her; she did not speak quite those words. I see it all now. Please burn my letter, and forgive me.”
Or:
“Dear Friend, I have been unjust to my husband; he is not what I have led you to infer. It is I who was angry, and misinterpreted him.”
Some such reparation as this we owe to our own sense of honor, even though we are quite sure that our mistaken confidences will go no further. Every true correspondent will approve such a course, and think more highly of her friend that she can possibly do without this frankness.
Especially should this course be urged in the case of husband and wife. In a very peculiar and solemn sense these two are pledged to each other, and no third person should be permitted, save in the cases of gravest necessity, to step between them even in thought.
As to the second question, there may be individual cases where confession would be wise; but as a rule I see no reason why the heart of a husband or friend should be made sore by explanations of what they would otherwise never hear. A good general rule in such matters seems to be:
If you are quite confident that silence will do no one any harm, and reasonably certain that speaking would give pain, be silent.
I think I would make one exception to this, in the case of mother and young daughter. Between these two there should be not only implicit confidence, but such deference on the part of the duaghter that it would wound her conscience to keep even such a matter secret. In nine cases out of ten the good mother would rather be told the exact truth, and would be able to help her child to grow stronger.
There is one potent reason why it is best always to take back, so far as possible, confidences of the kind named; and that is because it is a humiliating thing to do, and helps one to be more careful in the future.
The fact is, confidences are very important and choice and troublesome matters. They need to be guarded with great care, and bestowed warily.
What do you think of the advice Isabella gave?
Does it sound like the kind of advice that applies today, too?
For many years Isabella had an advice column in a popular Christian magazine in which she answered readers’ questions—from a Christian perspective—on a variety of topics.
While the commercialization of Christmas seems like a twenty-first century problem, this letter from a young woman shows it was a concern in Isabella’s lifetime, too.
Here is the letter:
I know that it is quite too late—or too early—to talk about Christmas, and yet that is just what I want to talk about, or, rather, I want you to.
Ought not something be done about all this Christmas business to give us a different state of things from that which now exists? Why, I know homes whose happiness is simply wrecked by this mania for giving costly presents that they cannot afford, and giving multitudes of them, at that!
But I need not tell you about these things; you know just how people go on.
What can be done? Ought the custom of exchanging Christmas gifts to be abolished? Won’t you tell us what you think?
—A Grown-up Sister
Here is Isabella’s reply:
I am going to draw from my own observations for my talk about Christmas.
I know a home where are father and mother, four daughters in various stages of growing up, a married son with his wife and baby, and two boys of high-school and grammar-school ages—a large family circle.
There is not a wealthy nor hardly well-to-do member of this household. A good deal of management is required to meet the necessary monthly bills with anything like comfort. Yet they are, as a rule, a cheerful, happy family; busy from morning until night with school duties, household duties, and, on the part of the father and his eldest son, work that requires strength and brain-power.
This family has planned, whenever it is possible for them to do so, to spend three evenings of each week in the home circle, with music and pleasant talk, or with one reading aloud while the others sew, and mend disabled books and toys, and all sorts of things.
Popped corn and taffy, or apples and nuts, are occasional accompaniments of these pleasant evenings, and the cicle is often enlarged by the dropping in of a neighbor; those who have dropped in once, seeming eager to repeat the experience.
Many enjoyable books—not only of the kind that leave a pleasant flavor, but help to strengthen an underlying purpose—have been read aloud in this circle, to the enjoyment of all and the lasting helpfulness of some. These evenings always close with a favorite hymn, the repeating of a choice Bible verse by each one present, and a good-night prayer, led by the father. All things considered, this is as wholesome and delightful a family circle as one could find among our American homes.
That is, until three or four weeks before Christmas. By that time the spirit of unrest steals into this home and gets possession, more or less, of almost every member of the family.
The social evenings are entirely broken up; no one has time for family life. As soon as possible after dinner, the girls retire to their own rooms to struggle with secret preparations.
The mother works rapidly and with nervous glances toward the door, and the quick hiding of something every few minutes, for she has countless interruptions. She frankly declines to be read to, owning herself too busy thinking and planning to listen.
The father, who himself looks over-tired, tries with poor success, after he has skimmed the daily news, to be interested in his paper; and yawns and wishes they could get to bed early, and knows they won’t.
The school boys, their study-hour over, look in, ask for the others, lounge about uneasily for a few minutes, whistle a little, their mother wishing, meantime, that they would go, for one of the “things” she is trying to make is for them; and they do, finally, take themselves elsewhere in search of “something to do.”
The young mother upstairs wrestles with an unusually wakeful and nervous baby, and explains wearily to the tired father that the child has acted all day as though his Christmas plans were going crooked, just as most of hers are. Somehow, even the baby has caught the spirit of Christmas unrest.
Oh, the pity of it, that all this should be because the birthday of the Christ-child draws near!
Still, if the interrupted family gatherings and the pressure of a little extra work were all, these might cheerfully be borne for the sake of the greater good to come. But it is very far from being all. With unrest comes dissatisfaction in various lines.
One of the girls, who is a teacher, and whose duties in the school room press more heavily as the Christmas vacation nears, snatches minutes between times to join the throngs of Christmas shoppers and is jostled and bumped and pushed from counter to counter, and does not find the things she wants, and cannot afford to buy the things she sees, and is, by no means, sure any of the time just what she does want, only that she “must have something!”
The second daughter, who is learning dressmaking and sews in a shop where they have the “Christmas rush” upon them in full force, has no time for shopping, and comes home after hours, ready only for rest, and shuts herself up and tries to sew on her attempts at pretty secrets; and hasn’t the material she needs, and cannot afford to buy it, and stains the ribbon she is struggling over with a few rebellious tears, and wishes that she could ever have anything that she wanted! And “what on earth is she going to give Aunt Melissa, anyway?” That girl has been heard to say that she wishes Christmas did not come but once in twenty years.
I might continue the description, but I am only too sure that there is no need. You are all acquainted with homes where the true spirit of Christmas is all but lost in the pressure of added cares, and responsibilities, and expenses, and disappointments, and longings, and vain struggling, and over-wrought nerves, until there are hours when it becomes a dreaded thing, a nightmare, and ever increasing hopeless burden from which at any cost, some would escape.
Yet it is the anniversary of the coming of the King! The harbinger of peace and good will. Oh, the pity of it!
Now, what was the question? “Ought the custom of exchanging Christmas gifts be abolished?”
Oh, no, no! Abolish a good and beautiful and helpful custom because it has been warped and twisted into ugliness? A thousand times, no!
But it needs reformation. I am deeply interested in this problem, and I could fill this reply with quotes from those who are groaning under the burden. I think I know the remedies, if we could get them applied. If we could persuade all the dear people who have large hearts and many friends, with little time and less money, to begin their Christmas plans on the first, or, at the latest, the second day of the new year the problem would be largely solved.
I read last week in a daily city paper an account of a girl who was highly commended for putting aside a dollar of her earnings each week for a Christmas frolic. She said that when Christmas week came, she took her fifty dollars and went out and had a good time shopping. The writer of the article explained that she was a girl who earned eighteen dollars a week. She was living at home, but was “paying a dear price for her board, as every self-respecting girl whose father was poor would want to do.”
Some definite sum set apart each week for Christmas plans by those who have an allowance or are wage earners, is, undoubtedly, an excellent solvent of part of the Christmas problem.
The next thing is to have plans. A little blank book for Christmas notes as they grow in one’s mind should be kept in a secret drawer, to be taken out on occasion. One can imagine its record growing after this manner:
“Jimmie’s heart is set on a mechanical register bank that will register as high as ten dollars.”
“An electric toaster would be nice for mother, if I don’t think of something better.”
“Father ought to have a larger-type Bible.”
“Aunt Carrie very much wants Holman Hunt’s picture of Christ to hang in the room where the girls meet.”
“The Light of the World” by William Holman Hunt.
“Christmas Hints,” the book could be called, and it would make very interesting and helpful reading as the days passed. There could be pages set apart for the names of little trifles as they occur to mind or might be pretty for someone. It is a great relief when one starts out on Christmas shopping to have two or three entirely satisfactory alternatives, provided the first choice is not available.
Next: Wide open eyes, as one passes shop windows or takes a trolley ride to another town, or has a week’s vacation at the shore.
“There’s that very abalone pin that Emma admired so much, or one just like it!” exclaimed a friend of mine as we were viewing a shop window. “And it’s marked only one dollar. Isn’t it handsome? I mean to get it; I’ve been looking for one a long time.”
While she made her purchase the group of girls that I was chaperoning waited for her outside and discussed her. They wanted to know as soon as she appeared if her sister Emma was to have a gift of it then, for it certainly wasn’t her birthday.
“Oh, it isn’t for now,” said the shopper, showing her pin with great satisfaction. “This is to go into my locked box, against next Christmas.”
There were shouts of laughter and exclamations. “Christmas! But this is only July.”
“Yes, my dear, but December will come here as sure as fate, and I shall be serenely ready for it, while you are hopping about upsetting yourselves and all your acquaintances. I’ve done quite a bit of my Christmas shopping already.”
I knew a dear girl whose leisure and play were scarce and who, on one January day, planned the very kind of dress that she would make for her mother ready for the next Christmas. In the early fall she chose her material, and two weeks before Christmas Day had the dress finished and folded ready for mother.
“Made it!” I hear you exclaim. “Then she was a dressmaker; I should as soon think of making a house as a dress!”
No, she was not. She was simply a clever daughter. She selected her fabric from samples and sent her measurements to a dress-making company; they sent the dress to her, cut and fitted, ready for plain sewing. The result was a satisfactory and useful dress that cost no more than the materials would have cost in any store. How did she know about such a system? She had been keeping her eyes open, watching out for ideas and opportunities.
When I began this article my chief desire was to say an earnest word against the growing habit of indiscriminate Christmas giving. The “commercial habit,” we might call it, is the spirit that says, “I must give Mrs. Blank something, I suppose, because she sent me a book last year; but I’m sure I don’t know what it will be; I don’t care enough for her to waste my money on her.” That is a quote I heard from the lips of a thoughtless girl.
A great deal of our Christmas trouble derives from the fact that we do not carry the real Christmas spirit into our giving. If all planning and all buying and all presenting were done as in his sight, and in his name, we should be held from extravagance of expenditure, from selfishness as regards time and strength, from anything that would mar the joy of the Christmas morning in the eyes of him whose love and sacrifice we celebrate.
What do you think of Isabella’s advice?
Do you think her advice would work today to help people feel less stressed about christmas?
For many years Isabella had an advice column in a popular Christian magazine. She used the column to answer readers’ concerns—from a Christian perspective—on a variety of topics.
In 1897 she received a surprising letter from a young woman who regretted turning down a marriage proposal.
Here is the letter:
Suppose a gentleman had proposed marriage to a lady by letter, although he lived in the same town with her, and she, vexed at this, had simply returned the letter without other reply. Yet suppose that she loved the man, and believed him in every way worthy. What could she do to right matters?
Here is Isabella’s reply:
Yours is an extremely difficult question to answer. If I were the gentleman, it would take a good deal to “right matters.”
I am simply amazed at the number of young women who seem to be interested in a question of this kind. Why, in the name of common sense, should not a gentleman propose marriage by letter if that method suits him best? Certainly there is no discourtesy in such a letter. If he felt that in the quiet of his own room he could express the thought and desire of his heart better than he could by speech, the probabilities are that he is a thoughtful, earnest, sensible man. For such a man to condone the discourtesy of returning him his honest letter without other answer would, I should think, be very difficult.
Honestly, the possibilities are that he would decide that he had been mistaken in the character of the lady, and had made a narrow escape.
It is all very well to cultivate dignity and a certain fine self-respect; every true woman, even though she be quite young, should be enveloped by these as with a garment; but there is in some natures a tendency to let these degenerate until the persons become—what shall I say? Finical? Over nice? Neither of these quite covers the thought, but perhaps you understand me.
Do you not know people who seem to be on the watch for something at which to take offence, people who will not hesitate to stab the deepest feelings of their dearest friends because of some fancied slight or discourtesy? I know young ladies who pride themselves upon their extreme sensitiveness in such directions, and seem to think that they are made of finer grain than others, when the fact is that there is really no trait easier to cultivate. To think much about one’s self, and to imagine that others do not think enough about us, seems to be first, instead of second, nature to many.
Now, after this lengthy digression, let me try to answer the question, “What can be done to right matters?”
My dear, if you are really a sincere, self-respecting girl, and the gentleman has the character that you ascribe to him, write him a letter stating frankly that you unwittingly insulted him; that you are ashamed of yourself, and want to be forgiven. That may “right matters” in your individual case, and it may not. It depends on whether the gentleman is high-minded and unselfish, and so deeply attached to you that he is able to overlook your faults.
Oh, dear! Isabella wasn’t very sympathetic to the young lady’s plight, was she?
Do you think Isabella gave her good advice?
How would you react if you received a marriage proposal by mail?
Isabella Alden knew all about the Christmas shopping season. She had a large extended family, and she either bought or made gifts for each family member.
Her niece, author Grace Livingston Hill, recalled what it was like when the Aldens, Livingstons, and Macdonalds got together:
Our Christmases were happy, thrilling times. There were many presents, nearly all of them quite inexpensive, most of them home-made, occupying spare time for weeks beforehand; occasionally a luxury, but more often a necessity; not any of the expensive nothings that spell Christmas for most people today.
Isabella—being a clever and creative person—made many of the gifts she gave.
Sometimes she got gift-making ideas from magazines. She subscribed to The Ladies’ Home Journal and Harper’s Bazar, both of which regularly printed directions for making items to use or give as gifts. Sometimes she passed those ideas and directions on to her own readers.
For example, an 1898 issue of The Ladies’ Home Journal published instructions for making this pretty wall pocket:
Isabella liked the idea so much, she wrote simplified instructions that children could follow and printed them in an issue of The Pansy magazine. She told her readers how to make the wall pocket from pine board, calico, buttons, and felt, and hinted it would make a lovely gift “for mamma.” She wrote:
I get the idea and most of the details from Harper’s Bazar. The article from which they are taken says the contrivance is for an invalid, but let me assure you that mamma will like it very much, or, for the matter of that, papa also.
At Christmas she encouraged boys and girls to make gifts not only for family members and friends, but for strangers, too. She wrote this to readers of The Pansy magazine:
How many Pansies are planning the Christmas gifts they will make? In all the merry bustle and happy, loving thoughts, don’t forget to throw a bit of kindly cheer into those poor little lives darkened by distress and want.
If every member of The Pansy Society would make some little gift as a loving reminder to one who otherwise would have none, how many children, think you, would be made happy?
Remember, you do it “For Jesus’ sake.”
There were instructions for making this simple knitting bag, made of fabric, ribbon, and embroidery hoops:
And this case, made from pieces of cardboard and colored ribbons, to hold photos, greeting cards, or pictures cut from magazines.
She wrote:
What a delightful present that will be when you get it done! I can imagine an ingenious girl and boy putting their heads together, and making many variations which would be a comfort to the fortunate owner.
Isabella always knew how to give those gentle reminders that children (and adults!) sometimes need about the true spirit of Christmas.
What is your favorite way to share the message of Christmas with people in need?
Have you ever made a Christmas gift for someone? How was it received?
For many years Isabella wrote a popular advice column for a Christian magazine in which she answered readers’ letters about their problems and concerns.
In 1912 she received a letter from a very disappointed person who signed her letter, “Honest.”
Here is the letter:
I don’t know as there is any sense in my writing to you, but I kind of want to talk to somebody. I’m pretty near discouraged, and that’s the truth. And of all things to be discouraged about it’s religion. Isn’t that dreadful?
Folks disappoint me so! There isn’t anybody half as good as I thought they were; nor one-quarter as good as they ought to be, considering what they profess.
There’s a man here that I used to think was too good for earth, and I’ve found out he’s got an awful temper. And another man that they boast about being excellent is almost too stingy to eat his own dinner. And so it goes—everybody disappointing; and I’m disappointed in myself, too; maybe that’s the worst or it.
It seems as though religion has gone back on us, somehow, or we would all be different. What do you honestly think about it? I’m not “young people,” but I have lots to do with young folks and they disappoint me fully as much as the older ones.
Honest.
Here is Isabella’s reply:
I am especially glad to receive this honest letter just at this time. I wish very much that you could all have been at the devotional service this morning in the great amphitheater or the New York Chautauqua, and heard President Frost, of Berea College, Kentucky, on “Good People’s Shortcomings.” It was so entirely in line with your experience, and so helpful. I wonder if I can tell you enough about it to pass on the helpfulness?
His Bible illustrations interested me; they were in a line of which I had never thought before. For instance, there was Terah, who started to go with his family to Canaan, pulled up stakes and got out of the old home, and on his way to the new. But he found a pleasant place to stay, and tarried.
He meant to go on; he fully meant to. He thought about it quite often; but what is the record?
“And Terah died in Haran.”
Isn’t it a striking analogy? So many of us, having started for the promised land, tarry by the way, are willing to do so, feed ourselves on good resolutions and let the days slip by, not getting on an inch. Doesn’t that account for some of your disappointment?
Then read the story of Azariah. He “did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah.” Ah, doesn’t that sound well? It encourages us; but just read on. There is a “howbeit”’ in his record.
“Howbeit the high places were not taken away.”
He did well, in most things, even in the sight of God; but he didn’t reach up to his opportunities. He left those idolatrous high places standing, to lead the people astray.
Then there was Noah, the famous ark builder, so remarkable for his exact and persistent obedience that he stands out in history as an example, and was given the rainbow for a pledge that God would have him in remembrance. Yet, read in Genesis of Noah’s sad lapse into sin. The truth is told plainly: Noah began to be drunken.
That final record of human weakness and imperfection stands; it must have been for a purpose.
Now, come over to the New Testament and see those two friends — Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea — creep out of the shadow to minister to the body of Jesus the crucified. They must have been good men, great men, admirable men in character. In fact, we know that they were. But how much more we could have thought of them if they had not followed him secretly!
So we might go on indefinitely, always finding a “howbeit” or a “but” in the record.
Suppose we were to write a few chapters of the Bible ourselves, this morning? About Deacon Justice, and Elder Earnest, and Mistress Lofty, and Miss Tearful. Good, honest, sympathetic, devoted, “but” ….
The fact is, we are all strung up on disjunctive sentences, every one of us.
The record of imperfection, failure, missing the mark, lapsing into sin, was all made for a purpose. What was that purpose? Certainly not to discourage us. Wasn’t it, rather, the contrary? Even those who walked with God failed or fell short. They need not have done so, but they did. Search where we may, we find one perfect Pattern only. Was not this record made to give us courage to try forever to measure up to it?
It is pleasant and helpful to find the people who are traveling with us gaining in strength, in courage, in self-control, in all the graces that we need for the journey; but, after all, we need but one perfect Leader. If we keep our eyes fixed upon him, we need not stumble, even though those just ahead of us do.
It is no wonder we are disappointed with ourselves. We ought to be, but not to the point of giving up or of laying the blame on others. Our lapses should simply drive us closer to the Guide who has promised, someday, to present us to his Father “without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing,” and to cultivate a living faith that “what he has promised he is able also to perform.”
This will keep us from discouragement, and help us each day to grow more sure that, while we are none of us by any means what we might be, it is not “religion” that has “gone back on us,” but our own weak following.
As for our “professions,” what do we profess, my friend, but that we are sinners, trusting in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus to save us and pledged to look to him for daily grace to help us follow closely?
Be sure that he will do his part; let us begin anew each morning and try hard at ours.
What do you think of the advice Isabella gave?
Do you think Isabella’s advice helped give “Honest” a different perspective?
For many years Isabella wrote a popular advice column for a Christian magazine. She used the column to answer readers’ concerns—from a Christian perspective—on a variety of topics.
In 1912 she received a letter from a shy young woman who didn’t want her name or letter printed for fear she might be identified; so, Isabella summarized the young lady’s question.
The situation in brief is this: She is away from home earning her living as a bookkeeper, and is a member of a young people’s religious organization, which she enjoys on Sundays, but with their week-day social life she is not in sympathy. They, it seems, “dance a good deal.” They go frequently to the theater, not being “over particular” as to the plays they choose, “although multitudes of good Christian people older than they go to the same plays.” They are very frequent attendants at the moving-picture shows, where pictures that she, at least, does not approve, are being constantly shown.
They take evening walks, long ones, with young men, and frequent candy stores and ice-cream saloons, and accept “treats” from the men, and talk loud on the streets and laugh a great deal; and, in short, do not appear to be of her world at all.
The question is, how shall she manage this world in which she finds herself? Shall she mingle occasionally with the others in the least objectionable of their doings, even though they are not to her taste? Or shall she hold herself aloof from them altogether and bear the stigma of “prig” and ‘‘prude” and names of that sort? She has reason to think that she has already gained the ill-will of some by her “offishness,” and “almost thinks” that in order to win an influence over them she must sacrifice her own views and cater to theirs.
Here is Isabella’s advice:
This dear girl, who is not yet twenty, imagines that these conditions are peculiar to herself, whereas the fact is that she has presented a fair picture of the church and the world in one of the great problems that confront us today. It takes varying forms. In some places it is outspoken and aggressive. In others it is mild and insinuating. It is sometimes very cultured and sometimes it is bald and coarse, but whatever its guise, it is the same old spirit of worldliness that in some form is all but sure to meet and attack the young and growing Christian.
The most insidious of its attacks, the most specious of its arguments, is to try to convince the young person that in order to win others to His side she must yield certain of her—not principles; oh, no, indeed!—but “notions,” not allowing herself to become conspicuous in any way so as to be marked as “peculiar” or “narrow.” There is a class of people in the world today who seem to have discovered that the unpardonable sin is “narrowness.”
It is not so important to get the opinion of any individual with regard to this whole matter, as it is to find what the Guide Book says. It is very explicit. From its first hint, given by the Master himself—to the effect that he was not of this world and that the world hated him before it hated his disciples— to his distinct statement that in the world they should have tribulation, there is a steadily cumulative testimony that “the friendship of the world is enmity with God.”
This being conceded as the state of things foretold, of what use is it to talk about compromising in order to win the world?
When it is distinctly understood and frankly acknowledged that there is and has always been, and always will be, antagonism between the world and a follower of Jesus Christ, until that time comes when “he whose right it is shall reign,” it clears the whole question up wonderfully.
There are four rules that, being set down as a guide post for our daily living, may clear the atmosphere. They might be formulated somewhat in this way:
I will carefully and prayerfully distinguish between principles and “notions,” studying at the same time the trade-marks of worldliness as set down in the Guide Book.
I will give up in Christ’s name and for Christ’s sake all mere “notions” that, being examined, fail to bear the superscription of the Master, but seem to have been born of prejudice and self-will.
I will yield not one hair’s breadth of principle, even though I lose, or seem to be losing, my influence over every human being. “To his own Master he standeth or faileth.”
I will uphold principles which I believe honor Christ, inthe spirit that he has directed, cultivating daily love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness.
May I, in closing, remind you of the secret of Christian influence? It is never in compromise of principle but adherence in gentleness, in meekness, in long-suffering; “against such there is no law.”
There is a kind of sledge-hammer adherence that wounds, and stings, and repels; the law of Christ is against it, and it fails. The other war, in the long run, sometimes through tribulation, wins.
Remember who it was who said: “Be of courage, I have overcome the world.”
What did you think of the advice Isabella gave?
Have you ever had to make choices similar to the ones the young bookkeeper described?
Did you know …
Isabella often referred to the Bible as “the Guide Book” because (as she said in Four Girls at Chautauqua) it held “the light” and instruction to guide believers on their Christian journeys.
For many years Isabella wrote a popular advice column for a Christian magazine. She used the column to answer readers’ questions on a variety of topics.
In 1916 a Sunday-school teacher wrote to Isabella about a unique problem.
Here is her letter:
I want to know if you think there is any use in a woman past thirty—who has never been in the habit of committing to memory—trying to learn Bible verses by heart? Our pastor wants the Sabbath-school children trained to commit their lessons to memory, or at least to commit a verse a day, and he wants the teachers to set them an example; but I find it very hard to do, never having been accustomed to it. Would you say you couldn’t?
Here is the advice Isabella gave her:
Indeed, I would not. There is every use in it, and there is no good reason why you should not conquer and be far richer in your own life, as well as being able to set a good example.
Nearly all Bible verses are capable of careful analysis, and the finding out exactly what they say goes a long way toward fixing the word on the memory. Let me illustrate by the verse I am memorizing this morning, Romans 1:5:
“Through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name’s sake.”
Notice those four short words: “Through,” “unto,” “among,” “for.” They are pegs on which the thoughts hang. My attention once called to them, my mind naturally asks questions:
Through what? Unto what? Among whom? For what?
Getting those four statements fastened to their connecting word gave me the verse. And what an amazing verse it is! Well worth memorizing, and living by. Already this morning I have several times been reminded that my tardy and faulty obedience is due to my lack of faith in God’s assured word. I need to pray for the “obedience of faith.”
I must not take time to talk about my verses. This is only to illustrate how readily they can be picked to pieces in a way to aid the memory.
One thought I must add: Don’t fail to memorize chapter and verse. I have spent precious hours in looking for the whereabouts of verses with which I was perfectly familiar.
Pansy.
What do you think of the advice Pansy gave?
What tips or advice would you give someone who is just beginning to memorize Bible verses?
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