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Advice to Readers about Forgiveness

Published on by Isabella Alden4 Comments

In the early 1900s Isabella wrote a regular column for a Christian magazine in which she answered reader letters and offered advice—from a Christian perspective—on a variety of subjects.

The letter below came from a teen in California:

I am in sore need of help. I find that I cannot use the whole of the Lord’s Prayer. Our pastor talked last Sunday about the Lord’s Prayer being a “model,” but I cannot model my praying after it. The words that trouble me are, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Now, there is one person whom I cannot forgive. She has purposely come between me and my best friends. She has said untrue things about me—dozens of them—and she loses no opportunity to be hateful to me.

How can I pretend to forgive such a creature? The last thing she wants is my forgiveness—why, she says that she despises me, and wouldn’t speak to me, nor stay in the same room with me for the world!

I cannot understand why I should be expected to forgive her. Even God doesn’t forgive people unless they ask him to, does he? And yet, the prayer says, “Forgive us our debts AS we forgive.” Doesn’t that mean that if I pray that prayer I am actually asking God to forgive me in the same way that I am forgiving her? That seems to me an awful prayer!

I want God to forgive me: and I want to serve him, yet it seems as though that said I mustn’t ask him, because I cannot forgive her! I don’t understand it, and I don’t know what to do. And there is that verse about “loving your enemies”—that is simply impossible! And yet I do truly love Jesus and want to follow him. What shall I do?

Here’s how Isabella responded to her letter:

Undoubtedly your pastor is right, and the Lord Jesus gave us a “model prayer.” Yet the phrase you quoted has not the exact meaning you give to it. It is not a challenge to God to treat us, in the matter of forgiveness, just as we are treating somebody else; it is rather our acknowledgment to God that we have obeyed his directions.

Do you remember that in the chapter preceding the one with the Lord’s Prayer, the words of Jesus are plainer and stronger than those in the prayer? When you go to pray and remember that your brother has something against you, go first and be reconciled to him, then come and offer your gift of prayer.

The duty of forgiveness is so plainly and repeatedly taught in the Bible that there is no way of escaping it. Nor are we by any means to wait to be asked. Note the language of that direction in Mat. 5:23:

“And there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee.”

Not even necessarily you against him but he against you.

You speak of God having to be asked before he forgives, but you forget what is involved. When God forgives, he absolves from sin, and presents eternal life; and the plan of salvation is, there is no compulsion, the sinner is free, he may accept or refuse, but forgiveness, remember, is offered, and God waits for its acceptance.

If I understand your letter (or, rather, your letters, for the quotation is gathered from several who, with varying surroundings, have much the same problem), your main trouble is, I think, that you do not take in the real meaning of that word “forgiveness,” or that word “love,” as applied to your enemies. It is not that you are directed to have pleasure in the society of the one who has injured you, or to feel the same toward her that you do toward a friend.

It is not that you should trust her, so long as she continues to prove herself unworthy of trust, nor that you should love her in the way that you love those who please you. None of these things would you be able to do. But there is higher ground than this, and the Christian, because of God in his life, can reach it.

You can refrain from talking about this one who has injured you, and making the wounds deeper by spreading them open.

You can be kept from brooding in private over what has been done.

You can be helped to genuinely want good and not evil to come to that one.

You can learn to pray daily for her highest good.

You can grow into an earnest desire to be helpful to her in any way that may open.

All this is possible and reasonable, and his been done by God’s children again and again. It may look impossible to you but it is not, because the impossible is God’s part.

Yield yourself to him, and what he sees that you honestly want he will grant. This is loving our enemies and forgiving them their debts. It is not a love of enjoyment in their society necessarily, until there is a radical change in them—but it is higher than that, because it is divine. It is thinking God’s thoughts after him.

Don’t imagine for a moment that you can run away from the obligation that is upon you to forgive, by skipping the Lord’s Prayer. Remember that its spirit must pervade all real prayer.

What do you think of Isabella’s advice?

Do you think she gave the right counsel to the teen from California?

You can read Isabella’s Advice to Readers about Ornaments by clicking here. 

New Free Read: For This

Published on by Isabella Alden7 Comments

Do you remember John Remington? He was the young minister who was the main character in Isabella’s novels Aunt Hannah and Martha and John (1890) and John Remington, Martyr (1892).

In 1893 Isabella wrote a short story in which John made another appearance. Titled “For This,” the story centers around a certain mite-box.

Churches used mite-boxes to encourage people to give offerings. They were named for the “widow’s mite” mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 21:

And He looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.

And He saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.

And He said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all;

For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God; but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.
(Luke 21:1-4)

Typically, a church distributed mite-boxes on a Sunday to all church goers, including children. Each person was asked to fill their boxes with coins for a specified period of time (such as six months) before the church called for their collection.

Mite-boxes made of paper—like the one featured in the story—could be decorated with the name of the person or family who filled it, or with words or images that had meaning to the church’s cause.

That, in a nutshell, is how mite-boxes were typically managed in the Presbyterian Church; but leave it to Isabella to find a new use for a mite-box in her story!

You can read “For This” for free. Just click here to visit BookFunnel.com. Then, choose whether you want to read the story on your computer, phone, iPad, Kindle, or other electronic device.

Or choose the “My Computer” option to print the story as a PDF document to read and share with friends.

Marking Ester’s Bible

Published on by Isabella Alden7 Comments

Ester Ried owned a Bible—a “nice, proper-looking Bible” that she read from time to time when she remembered to do so.

If her Bible was at hand when Ester was ready to read, she used it. If not, she took her sister Sadie’s, or picked up “the old one on a shelf in the corner, with one cover and part of Revelation missing.

But when Ester traveled to New York to visit her cousin Abbie, she packed in such haste, she forgot to add her Bible to her suitcase—a circumstance Abbie immediately tried to correct.

“Oh, I am sorry—you will miss it so much! Do you have a thousand little private marks in your Bible that nobody else understands? I have a great habit of reading in that way. Well, I’ll bring you one from the library that you may mark just as much as you please.”

Mark in a Bible? That was an entirely new concept for Ester.

She had never learned that happy little habit of having a much-used, much-worn, much-loved Bible for her own personal and private use, full of pencil marks and sacred meanings, grown dear from association, and teeming with memories of precious communings.

Once Abbie delivered the Bible to her, Ester began to think the idea of marking certain verses was an excellent one. The only problem was, she didn’t know how to go about it and had only a pencil to at her disposal.

When Isabella wrote Ester Ried in 1870, there were no Bible journal kits, stickers or markers like the ones we can buy in stores today.

Colorful Bible tabs from Etsy.com

And she probably never imagined there would one day be Bibles specifically designed for readers to create their own artwork inspired by a verse on the page, like the one below:

From ScribblingGrace.com

So when Isabella wrote Ester Ried, she had her title character take a much more simple approach; she had Ester merely underline certain Bible verses that had meaning to her, which was a perfectly sensible method for a young lady who was new to regular Bible study. As Ester progressed in her Christian journey, so, too, did her ability to memorize and mark verses that held special meaning for her.

Reverend Dwight Lyman Moody was a friend of Isabella’s family, and a keen proponent of Christians marking their Bibles.

Dwight Lyman Moody

He rarely went anywhere without his Bible, which he called his “Old Sword.”

After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871—a disaster that caused so much loss for so many people—someone asked Rev. Moody what he had lost in the fire. Rev. Moody focused on what was important:

“I have not lost my Bible, or my reputation.”

Anyone who was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the pages of his Old Sword would have seen proof of Rev. Moody’s constant study.

“My Bible is worth a good deal to me because I have so many passages marked that, if I am called upon to speak at any time, I am ready.”

He often told people not to buy a Bible they were unwilling to mark up or write in; and he suggested using a Bible that was printed in a way that offered plenty of room for jotting notes and suggestions.

“Bible-marking should be made the servant of memory; a few words will recall a whole sermon. It sharpens the memory, instead of blunting it, if properly done, because it gives prominence to certain things that catch the eye, which by constant reading you get to learn by heart.”

So what method did Rev. Moody use to mark in his Bible? Below is a plate (unfortunately it’s a little fuzzy after being duplicated many times) that shows his Bible, open to the first chapter of Ephesians. (You can click on the image to see a larger version.)

In addition to notes and references to other verses, he utilized a series of underlines and diagonal lines, which he called “railways.” It may look like a jumble of lines and notes, but his system was really very simple.

In the first column in the page on the right you can see how he used railways to connect words of promise that had meaning to him:

Blessed
Chosen
Accepted
Redemption
Together
Inheritance
Sealed

In the second column he underlined words he identified as “together” words. Then, in the blank area on the page on the left, he cited additional “together” verses he found in Galatians, Colossians, Ephesians, Romans, and I Thessalonians.

Although this system worked for him, Rev. Moody encouraged everyone to find their own methods.

“There is a danger, however, of overdoing a system of marking, and of making your marks more prominent than the Scripture itself. If the system is complicated it becomes a burden, and you are liable to get confused. It is easier to remember the texts than the meaning of your marks.”

In 1884 Rev. Moody wrote an introduction to a book titled How to Mark Your Bible, which incorporated many of the methods he used in his own Bible markings.

The book shares many examples of how to mark your Bible with railway connections and word groups in the same way Rev. Moody did.

You can read the book for free. Just click on the cover to get started.

Do you use markings, colors, stickers or tabs in your Bible?

What marking method works best for you?

New Year’s Day Calls in Pansy’s Books

Published on by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

“I have spent this New Year’s day in receiving calls,” wrote Miss Docia Myers (in Isabella’s novel Docia’s Journal). “The whole thing is a sham. I don’t believe in that sort of calls. If one could see only one’s good friends, and exchange greetings, it would be pleasant; but this passing compliments with people for whom one doesn’t care a pin, is utterly distasteful to me.”

Not everyone shared Docia’s opinion. In the mid-to-late 1800s, the tradition of paying New Year’s calls was one of the most entertaining—and least formal—of society conventions. Isabella was very familiar with the custom and wrote about it in several of her novels.

Here’s how New Year’s Day calls worked:

On New Year’s Day ladies—married and unmarried—remained at home to receive the calls of their gentlemen friends. The ladies dressed in their finest, and made their parlors as bright and cheerful as possible so as to welcome the gentlemen in from the cold.

Waiting for Calls on New Year’s Day by Winslow Homer.

Julia Ried (in Isabella’s novel of the same name) wore her very best for the occasion:

Didn’t I blossom out on New Year’s morning! Talk of Solomon arrayed in all his glory; it didn’t seem to me that he could have compared with me.

According to custom, ladies began receiving New Year’s calls beginning at 10:00 a.m. and had to be prepared to welcome and entertain any man who presented himself for the next twelve hours.

Gentlemen making New Year’s Day calls, from Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms (1888).

Gentlemen were responsible for calling upon every woman of their acquaintance. They could pay their calls alone, or they could join a group of friends and call upon the ladies together. The calling card below—printed especially for 1877 New Year’s calls—shows the names of six young men who made the rounds together.

The men went from house to house, their visits lasting only about ten or fifteen minutes before they were off to pay their next call. In some cases a gentleman’s visit was so short, he didn’t even take off his hat, coat, or gloves.

Julia Ried enjoyed the whirlwind, saying:

It was my first experience in that scene of the whisking in and out of half a dozen gentlemen at a time, so constantly followed by half a dozen more, that presently one lost one’s balance, and ceased to remember people as individuals, but as number forty-five or sixty-two, as the case might be, and, as the day whirled on, was dimly conscious of but one idea—an eager desire to reach a higher number than Mrs. Symonds or Miss Hervey, and Mrs. or Miss anybody else. I thought it delightful.

While the gentlemen discussed the weather, paid the ladies compliments, and wished them a prosperous new year, the ladies served refreshments.

Some women offered simple plates of fruits, cakes, and breads, with coffee and tea.

Fresh fruit, something of a rarity in winter, was also a welcome offering.

More ambitious hostesses set out full buffets, with a menu that might include turkey, oysters, ham, or roast beef, as well as hot side dishes.

The larger the menu, the more chances it included alcohol. Ale, wine, champagne, or a festive punch made with a whiskey base were regularly served by hostesses.

It’s not hard to imagine that if a gentleman was acquainted with thirty young women and visited each in quick succession on New Year’s Day, sampling food and drinking to the health of his hostess as he went along, there was a very good chance the gentleman might be a little tipsy by the time he finished his calls that evening.

Isabella recognized that danger. In Julia Ried she wrote about a young man named Norman Mulford who called upon Julia on New Year’s Day. Norman was “a bright, handsome boy of nineteen, fair-faced, except for a slightly unnatural flush. He was fresh from college honors, and seemed almost intoxicated with triumph and wine—just the sort of a boy to be led into all sorts of temptation.”

Unfortunately, Norman couldn’t resist the temptation of the “glittering glasses and sparkling liquid” offered him by every hostess at each stop along his way that day. Norman’s loving father was deeply aware of his struggle, saying, “I would have been thankful, I think, for almost anything that would have shielded him from the dangers and temptations of this day.”

But by the time Norman visited Julia, he was feeling defiant and resentful of his father’s efforts to keep him from drinking. When Julia and her friend, Mrs. Tyndall, explained to Norman that they promised his father they wouldn’t offer him any wine, Norman’s eyes took on a “stormy glare” and “his voice shook with suppressed passion as he spoke.”

“I am very grateful to my father, I assure you. I wouldn’t have you break your promise; but, I suppose you did not also promise that I should not help myself at your hospitable table?”
Whereupon he walked directly over to the refreshment table, and deliberately poured for himself a goblet of wine, drained the glass, and then immediately made his adieus.

Norman wasn’t alone in his struggles. Many young men found that as their social circles widened, the list of calls they had to make also grew, and the number of men who finished their New Year’s calls thoroughly intoxicated became a very real problem for society.

That may be one of the reasons the practice eventually fell out of favor. By the 1900s, the custom of paying New Year’s Day calls had been replaced by the New Year’s Eve celebrations we know today.

Christmas Shopping with Isabella

Published on by Isabella Alden7 Comments

Julia Ried (in Isabella’s novel of the same name) had ten dollars with which to purchase Christmas gifts for her family and friends.

She knew exactly what she wanted to give her mother, sister Sadie and brother Alfred for Christmas; and since this would be her first Christmas away from home, she even thought out how she would ship the gifts to her family:

I had packed them in imagination in a neat little box, and written the accompanying letter scores of times.

In our modern world, ten dollars doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but in 1873, when Julia Ried was published, those ten dollars went much further than they do today.

For example, Julia could purchase a set of six handkerchiefs to give to Sadie at a cost of only thirty cents:

And since a lady could never have enough handkerchiefs, Julia might instead have opted to give Sadie a dozen of them (with fancy colored borders) at a cost of just 48 cents:

Or, Julia might have purchased for Sadie a knitted cap and scarf set, since such sets were just as popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s as they are now.

For Alfred, Julia might have purchased a new shirt to wear to his job as a store clerk (or even two shirts at these prices):

This full-page newspaper ad from 1912 illustrates other affordable gifts Julia might have chosen for Alfred, from a sturdy pair of gloves to a warm sweater to a new cap (click on the image to see a larger version):

When it came to selecting a gift for her mother, Julia knew no ordinary gift would do. She wrote:

Dear mother, she seemed to think that her first and greatest duty in life was to toil for and spare her children. Patient, faithful, tender mother! Tonight, as I recall her sweet, pale, tired face, I can think of no frown of impatience or anger that ever marred its sweetness. I can think of nothing left undone, that she could do, to smooth the path in which her children trod.

Clearly a special gift was in order for Mrs. Ried. A very pretty sewing box, covered in a sturdy but lovely patterned fabric (called “cretonne”) might have been the perfect gift:

Or she might have chosen for her mother a lovely ladies’ hat pin to add some sparkle to her life:

All of these would have been thoughtful gifts for Julia to send home to her family; but …

If you have read the book, you know that that Julia succumbed to an entirely different temptation when it came to spending her ten dollars—a temptation that left her with no money to buy gifts she wanted to give her family!

As the characters in Isabella’s novels so often did, Julia Ried had to learn many lessons about the dangers of peer pressure and placing trust in the wrong person—lessons that are just as relevant today as they were in 1873.

What do you think of the Christmas gifts in these ads from the late 1800s/early 1900s?

Which gifts would you purchase to give loved ones?

Free Read: A Gingham Patch

Published on by Isabella AldenLeave a comment

This month’s free read by Grace Livingston Hill is a wonderful short story about a minister in need, answered prayers, and the spirit of giving.

You can read “A Gingham Patch” for free!

Just follow this link to go to BookFunnel.com. Then, choose whether you want to read the story on your computer, phone, iPad, Kindle, or other electronic device.

Or choose the “My Computer” option to print the story as a PDF document to read and share with friends.

Daily Thoughts for December

Published on by Isabella Alden2 Comments

This post contains the final installment of Isabella’s monthly Bible devotional series titled “Daily Thoughts,” which she wrote for The Pansy magazine in 1885.

Isabella’s “Daily Thoughts” for the month of December focus on Chapters 139 and 46 of the Book of Psalms.

Please Note: You will see that the PDF version of the original 1885 “Daily Thoughts” for December contains two errors:

  1. There is no verse for December 31 (unfortunately for us!).
  2. The verses for December 25 through 30 are incorrectly attributed to Chapter xli (Chapter 41) of the Book of Psalms. This was probably just a printing error in the original issue of The Pansy magazine. The correct chapter is Psalms xlvi (Chapter 46).

Click here to open a PDF version of Isabella’s “Daily Thoughts” for December, which you can read, print, save, and share with others.

Or, click here to download a simplified Word version.

If you missed Isabella’s “Daily Thoughts” for previous months, you can find them here: January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October November