Читать книгу All Waiting Is Long - Barbara J. Taylor - Страница 7

All are agreed . . . it is important that the boy be given some sex instruction . . . No such agreement exists concerning sex knowledge for the girl . . . Some say that such instruction . . . is unnecessary, because the sex instinct awakens in girls comparatively late, and it is time enough for them to learn about such matters after they are married.

—Woman: Her Sex and Love Life,

William J. Robinson, MD, 1929

When Izzy passed on, it seemed fitting to christen ourselves the Isabelle Lumley Bible Class. After all, she was the one who came up with the idea for our Wednesday women’s scripture meetings. At least that’s how she told it. Those of us who were there from the beginning remember different, but no sense beating that drum again. Let the dead rest is what we say. Besides, Izzy left enough money to Providence Christian Church to erase any hard feelings and repair the crumbling steeple.

A Bible verse or two and a potluck lunch make for an edifying afternoon. And a much needed one, given the moral decline we see today. Gambling. Joyriding. Bootlegging. Not to mention the goings-on in “the Alleys” downtown. A regular red-light district. Our very own Sodom and Gomorrah right here in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Surely we’re glimpsing the end times.

That’s why it’s so comforting to have a man like Reverend Sheets in the pulpit. An optimist through and through. Somehow he always manages to come back around to Noah’s ark and that rainbow promise. An uplifting sentiment, though it wouldn’t hurt to hear a different Bible lesson from time to time. Maybe something from the New Testament.

Why, just the other day we were studying that verse in Matthew about pointing out a speck in your brother’s eye while ignoring the beam in your own. There’s folks in our congregation who could benefit from such wisdom. Hattie Goodfellow, for one, or should we say Hattie Goodfellow Hatton. Always looking down her nose at us, but who’s the real sinner? Marrying that fellow from her boarding house and traipsing off to Buffalo at her age. Here we thought she ran a respectable place. And now we’re told that her nieces, Violet and Lily, are headed north to help her. Can’t say why, but something doesn’t ring true about that story. If Hattie needs help setting up house, maybe she’s too old to be a newlywed.

Not that it’s any of our affair. Who are we to judge? Just wish she’d asked our opinion before leaping. Now that the deed is done, God bless and good luck. And if the marriage comes to ruin, as we fear it might, we’ll welcome Hattie back with open arms.

That’s the Christian way.