Jennie's Religion

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 16, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 48.

Jennie's Religion

IT was decided that Jennie and I should have six weeks in the country, my son Tom, Jennie's husband, spending the week-ends with us.

Jennie had not had a holiday in years. What with caring for Tom and the children, to say nothing of me, she never had time to think of a holiday. But now the children were old enough to leave, and my health good enough to allow me to travel. I did think Jennie ought to go without me, but she would not hear tell of it. She said she just knew I was starved and thirsty and aching for the country; and so I was, but I don't know how she found it out. But then I never do know how Jennie finds things out. She always knows what we all want before we hint a word, especially if we're sick.

Yes, I do think a lot of Jennie. No, her being a daughter-in-law does not make it any harder. I like all my sons' wives. I make it a point to do so. You see, they were not choosing daughters-in-law for me, but wives for themselves, and it was none of my business. If I could like them, so much the better for me, my sons, and every one concerned. Of course we do not think alike in all things. When I was their age, I did not think as I do now about many things.

But to go back to my story. Jennie would not go without me. That was settled. She would not yield that point, but she gave in to a lot of other things.

I would hear her say, "Now I can take that crochet yoke of Edith's and finish it, so the child can have her under waist to wear before the summer is over." "No, you can't, mother," would be the answer. "No crochet work for you. You are going up there to rest."

Then it would be, "I can just as well hem those table napkins up there in the country as not." But when she looked for the napkins to put in her trunk, they could not be found. She did get the stocking bag in, saying she could darn up the stockings and send them back with Tom, Monday morning; but somebody needed a darning-needle, so the secret was out, and the stocking bag disappeared.

The evening before we left, she appealed to Tom at the table, asking him what she was going to do, and if he did not think she ought to take some work with her.

Tom smiled, and picked up a paper he had just been reading. "Mother's church paper tells you here, in the little moral on the front, to take your religion with you on your holidays," he answered. "Take that, Jennie, and I'll warrant you'll find lots to do."

"Just as if you could separate mother from her religion!" blurted Bob, who was beginning to look like a lost sheep, and his mother not even yet gone.

Well, we set out, and I had not been on a train for so long I felt like a child. Jennie was very thoughtful and quiet, and I asked her if she was homesick already. "No, I'm not, mother; but ever since Tom spoke of my taking my religion with me, I have felt bothered. I don't believe I have any of the real, old-fashioned religion."

Well, if I didn't laugh at her, and told her I hoped her kind would become popular! But she would not be comforted. She went on to say that she had never been able to meditate and pray long prayers like so many people she knew.

"I have never spoken of this before, mother," says she, "but I have been bothered. You all think I am almost perfect, and that has quieted my conscience. Why, mother, many and many nights, when the children were small, and we had so much sickness, I would just thank God that He had helped me through the day, and commit you all to His care, and I'd be asleep before I could say a thing more. Then, in the morning, I would be so tired that I would sleep until the last minute, and then only have time to ask Him to help me do my little part well."

"Well, Jennie," says I, "I think all those prayers were answered, for I can not remember when you did not do your little part well, and it was not such a little part either," says I. "Why, when Jack's leg was broken, and Tom failed in business, and the house was burned, and even when the dear baby died, we all know how your religion revealed itself."

"Well, I hope I am all right, mother; but I do wish I could pray longer prayers and spend more time in meditation. Now that I have more time, I find I have not the habit, and can not form it. Perhaps, when I am up in the country, where all is quiet, I can do more thinking."

I smiled to myself. I could not imagine Jennie sitting down to think over religion for very long, for she wouldn't sit ten minutes until she'd think of something she could do for some one, and she'd be doing instead of thinking. But Jennie's religion suited me all right, and I noticed she had it with her, and that it suited the people at the farm.

When we were going home at the end of our holiday, I asked her if she had succeeded in forming her habits of meditation and long prayers; and she said no, she had not, and looked so disappointed I just laughed at her good and hard, and says I: "What would you call it, reading to Mrs. Davey when she was pitting cherries and other things, and making the dessert for dinner three times a week—I think I even saw you hanging out the clothes for her one Monday—and helping that poor, awkward oldest girl to make a decent shirt-waist for herself, and teaching the little ones to sing that pretty little hymn, and even persuading Mr. Davey to take Mrs. Davey off to church for the first time in a year, and you looked after dinner? And, mind you, he told me he was going to get a separator, and sell his cream, so as to make it easier for the women folks; and I know who influenced him in that, even if he doesn't know himself," says I.

"O, mother! I didn't do one thing I didn't want to do; and do you really think that is religion and the proper kind? I do hope so, for I am lacking when it comes to long prayers, and some of the church sisters have looked at me rather disapprovingly sometimes when my simple petitions were given at the meetings."

"Well, Jennie, your kind of religion suits all the people you live with, and it suits your husband's mother, and they say mothers-in-law are hard to suit," says I.

"Not mothers-in-law whose own religion makes them look for the best," says she.

But it doesn't take any religion to see Jennie's religion, though it does take a lot to keep up with her.—Gertrude M. Neil, in "Christian Guardian."