One Side of Christian as Described by Rose Terry Cooke.
By Rose Terry Cooke
Now Lydia Crane was not naturally inclined to be querulous or selfish; she had been duly converted during the process of a revival in Lyndon, and joined the Church during Parson Bench's lifetime. She read her Bible daily; said her prayers—I use the phrase advisedly—and was a punctual attendant on all the means of grace. She was the head and front of the Church sewing-society, and secretary of the Foreign Mission Circle, yet in the living of her life she became, at the age of thirty-five, fretful, self-centred, opinionated, and domineering; but perfectly certain that she was an exemplary Christian. Charity, sympathy, tenderness, do not grow in such solitude as hers; it is not good for men or women to be alone; and if to be a Christian is to wear the image of Christ, as the gospel seems to imply, there was very little obvious likeness in Miss Lydia to the Master whose name she wore. Yet she was a thoroughly honest woman, anxious above all things to do right; ready to give to every "object" that impelled the long-handled contribution boxes, with deacons at the other end, through every slip on every other Sunday, though she had not even a kind word for the beggar at her door; for begging implied "shiftlessness," and that was unpardonable.—Sunday Afternoon.