“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?