In honor of Mother’s Day this month’s free read is a story about the debt of love we owe to those who raised us.
After a life of sacrifice, widowed Mrs. Kensett finds her twilight years spent shuffling between the homes of her adult children, where she’s treated more like a burden than a beloved guest. She expects more of the same when she arrives at the doorstep of her youngest son and his new bride—only to find an unexpected sanctuary at long last.
In Lesson Six, D.L. Moody taught that assurance is the privilege of every believer. But how does faith—the root from which assurance grows—actually work?
In this month’s lesson, Mr. Moody explains that “faith is the simplest and most universal experience in the world,” yet Christians often overcomplicate it or misplace it entirely.
Through memorable illustrations Mr. Moody shows that biblical faith consists of three essential elements: knowledge, assent, and action. “Without action they accomplish nothing,” he writes. He also shares a powerful story from his own life when he discovered that “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
While April 15 marked the celebration of National Library Outreach Day, many long-time book lovers still remember it by its original name: National Bookmobile Day. No matter the name, it’s a day to celebrate traveling libraries and the dedicated people and organizations that deliver great books to people who can’t get to bookstores or libraries on their own.
Bookmobiles were the brain child of Mary Titcomb, a visionary Maryland librarian who devised a plan to reach readers who lived in rural areas so remote, they were unable to visit a library. In 1905 Mary loaded as many books as she could into a horse-drawn wagon, and set off to deliver books to isolated areas of the county.
Maryland librarian, Mary Titcomb.
Drawn by two horses, the first book wagon was designed by Mary herself. It had shelves on each side with doors that opened outward for easy browsing, while the interior was packed with additional cases of books to replenish the stock on long journeys.
At first she laid out 16 routes that covered 500 square miles of territory. Sometimes the wagon was out one day, more often two or three. To drive to the most distant outpost of the routes took four days round-trip.
A bookmobile at a rural Minnesota farm about 1920 (courtesy of Minnesota Digital Library)
Her program was an immediate success and its fame quickly grew. In 1912 Mary replaced the horse-drawn wagon with an automobile, which allowed her to not only complete the routes more quickly, but add additional routes as well. Soon she began setting up book “stations” in some areas, where residents could borrow books and return them after reading. Then, on a set schedule, a book wagon would deliver a fresh inventory books to replace those already read—a routine that was the precursor of our current system of library branches.
While on her routes Mary visited farms, remote cabins, and homes of invalids. In some cases, she found that only the children in a home knew how to read, so she helped families select books written at a level so the children could read to their parents. In other districts, men who knew how to read outnumbered the women and children. For these and each area she visited, she made notes and returned with books that suited the residents.
A bookmobile at a rural school in 1920.
In different newspaper accounts, Mary reported that the most requested books were practical and educational on topics like truck gardening, fruit raising, poultry culture, and domestic science.
Books on religion were also popular, “with a preference for those of a devotional nature.”
About 75 percent of fiction she delivered was juvenile, which she said meant “the books are read by both parents and children.” Susan Warner’s novel The Wide, Wide World was a favorite, as were other religious fiction titles. And since Isabella Alden’s novels were staples in public library systems across the country at that time, there’s a strong possibility the library outreach movement brought Isabella’s novels along on those bookmobile deliveries.
A bookmobile serving soldiers stationed in Kentucky, 1917.
It’s not hard to imagine that rural readers would have identified with the characters in Isabella’s books, like Esther in Ester Ried’s Namesake. Imagine being a young girl living on an isolated farm, opening a book to find Esther Ried Randall—a character whose life mirrored her own. Like the reader, Esther lived far from the bustle of the city, yet she harbored a dream of going off to college as an independent young woman. How much that book would have inspired that young girl to follow her educational and spiritual ambitions!
Or imagine a young boy with a penchant for getting into trouble and how much he would have identified with the main character in Isabella’s novel, Tony Keating’s Surprises.
In many ways, Isabella’s books (and others like them) were the only window some readers had on a larger world of instruction, culture, and good taste. Isabella’s skill for using stories to explain God’s love and plan for salvation ensured that traveling libraries delivered more than just entertainment—they delivered spiritual nourishment, as well.
A busy bookmobile in 1927.
Isabella’s books and Mary Titcomb’s outreach program were a perfect pairing. Both women were dedicated to making sure that God-given talents and wholesome reading were not restricted by geography or social standing.
For the girl dreaming of college or the boy seeking a better path, Mary Titcomb’s book wagon was more than just a vehicle; it was a lifeline that brought the world—and The Word—directly to their gate.
Isabella Alden was blessed with two striking talents: she was a gifted storyteller and a skillful teacher. She used those God-given talents to explain sometimes difficult Biblical truths in simple terms her readers could understand. In 1895 she wrote this short but effective letter to readers of The Pansy magazine about what it means to be intimate with Jesus:
DEAR YOUNG PEOPLE:
Why should we pray, do you think?
I have been looking in the Bible for a reason. I find a splendid one; it is because God hears, and helps. Look at the seventeenth verse of the thirty-fourth Psalm and see if it does not say so.
“The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.”
To be sure it begins, “The righteous cry,” but that means the people who try to do right. There isn’t much use in the prayers of other people; because, of course if we do not mean to try to do right, what use in asking God to help us? But now, what a wonderful thing it is that he is ready to hear us at any time and at all times! You know people, I presume, who are often too busy to hear what you have to say. Suppose God were so. Suppose he had to wait until he had answered twenty-five thousand other prayers before he could listen to yours!
When should we pray?
I know a girl who is troubled over the verse:
“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
“I can’t do that; “she said. “I have to think of lots of other things, and talk about them. How can anybody?”
It happens that this girl has a young friend about whom she talks a good deal.When she has any company her friend is sure to be one of them; if she has a gift she is sure to share it with her, if possible; and her brother said to her once, “You are always talking about Fannie Pierce.”
I reminded her of this, and of how much she made people realize that she loved Fannie, and said to her that I supposed the verse meant something like that. There were people who loved Jesus so much that they thought about him whenever any question came up as to where they should go, or what they should do, or be; wondering what would please him, and going to him about it, and thanking him for help. There is a sense in which they might be said to be “always thinking about him;” yet they think of many other things; only they are sure not to plan things which will not be pleasant to their friend.
I think she understood me, for she said, “Oh, I know how I feel about Fannie. Do you really think I could be as intimate with Jesus as that?”
What do you think? Doesn’t he call us to be very intimate with Him?
Isabella’s “Letter about Prayer” reminder us that the best lessons are often the simplest. Although it was written for children, Isabella used a very relatable example of a girl’s friendship with “Fannie Pierce” to explain a spiritual concept. For today’s readers, Isabella’s words still challenge us to consider if we are truly as “intimate with Jesus” as we are with those we love most on earth.
Do you think Isabella’s letter accomplished it’s purpose?
Isabella Alden’s novel Ester Ried, Asleep and Awake opens with a memorable scene: Ester Ried—barely eighteen years old—finds herself with much more responsibility than a girl of her age should have. With an ill mother, four younger siblings, and several boarders to care for and feed, she is often pressed for time, thin on patience, and struggling to keep up with a never-ending list of things to do.
Much of her time is spent in the kitchen cooking, washing dishes, and supervising laundry; and on scorching summer days, the heat from the wood stove makes the entire room even hotter, so her cheeks were always in a state of “glowing.”
Trade card for a traditional wood-burning kitchen stove, about 1890
When Ester Ried was published in 1870, kitchen stoves were large, cast-iron pieces of furniture; and while their primary function was for cooking, stoves also served as essential elements of a home’s heating system. In winter a wood-burning stove helped keep the house warm and cozy. In summer, the same stove could make a kitchen unbearably hot.
Isabella’s readers could identify with Ester Ried’s plight. Isabella, too, must have had more than her share of summer days spent “glowing” in an overheated kitchen while she cooked her family’s meals, heated water for bathing, and tended to a litany of household tasks.
An 1884 trade card from the Detroit Stove Works, manufacturer of wood-burning, oil, and gasoline stoves.
So in 1880, when a new type of cooking stove—the gasoline stove—appeared on the market, Isabella took notice.
Unlike traditional wood-burning stoves that required constant monitoring of logs, flues, and dampers to manage the temperature, gasoline stoves offered a revolutionary level of control. They worked much like a kerosene lamp: a cloth wick pulled the gasoline up to the burner where it turned into a gas, creating a steady, hot blue flame.
An 1890 ad for the Sun Dial gas stove.
By simply turning a knob to adjust the wick, a woman could make her cooking and baking incredibly precise. Best of all, because they didn’t radiate intense ambient heat like massive cast-iron wood stoves, they spared homemakers from suffering in a sweltering kitchen.
In 1880 Isabella wrote about a young wife and mother who learned about the advantages of a gasoline stove in a short story titled, “Faith and Gasoline.”
Summer heat and money troubles force Faith Vincent to face the heartbreaking prospect of being separated from her husband for the entire summer—until a neighbor’s wisdom, a clever “gasoline stove,” and a good amount of prayer help Faith secretly transform her despair into a promising future for herself and her family.
“Confidence is essential to success in every pursuit of life,” evangelist D.L. Moody writes in his April 1897 Bible lesson—and this truth applies equally to spiritual matters. Many Christians, he tells us, live imprisoned in what John Bunyan called “Doubting Castle,” experiencing weary, gloomy faith instead of joyful certainty.
Through the Apostle John’s five tests and some very memorable illustrations, Mr. Moody shows how every Christian can move from doubt to confident trust in their salvation.
Then, join us again on April 28, 2026 for Lesson Seven of Mr. Moody’s Bible Class. If you missed Lessons One through Five, you can find them by clicking here or on the Free Reads tab above.
In an 1899 issue of The Pansy magazine, Isabella shared these wise words:
“A good conscience is more to be desired than all the riches of the East. How sweet are the slumbers of him who can lie down on his pillow and review the transactions of every day, without condemning himself! A good conscience is the finest opiate.”
You can find more of Isabella’s words of wisdom to read, print, and share. Just enter “quotables” in the search box to see more.
In February 1881 Isabella was thirty-nine years old and an extremely busy woman. She was editor of The Pansy magazine, and was also the magazine’s primary contributor of fiction and non-fiction articles.
The March 1887 issue of The Pansy magazine.
She was the primary creator of the Presbyterian church’s Sunday school lessons for young children, which were published in The Sabbath School Monthly and distributed to Presbyterian churches across the country. She also wrote stories for other Christian magazines that were published in America and Europe.
Almost every week she had a speaking engagement somewhere in Ohio—where she and her family were living at the time—or in a neighboring state. Sometimes her appearances included a public reading of her newest story or novel; sometimes she lectured on the proper content and delivery of Sunday school lessons for young children, a topic on which she was an acknowledged expert.
At home in Cincinnati, she was a busy minister’s wife in a demanding household that also included:
Her seven-year-old son Raymond
Her fourteen-year-old step-daughter Anna
Her forty-four-year-old sister Julia
And her precious seventy-seven-year-old widowed mother, Myra Spafford Macdonald, whose health was slowly declining.
How Isabella managed to juggle so many responsibilities all at once is a mystery, but there must have been times when the mounting pressures threatened to overwhelm her.
One of those pressure points may have occurred in January 1881, when her husband became pastor of a congregation in Cumminsville, Ohio. The new church was only about five miles away, but it meant the family had to once again pack up their lives and begin again in an entirely new place.
Is it any wonder, then, that this curious little paragraph appeared in a Cincinnati newspaper just one month later:
From The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 10, 1881.
The “Cleveland Sanitarium” was a polite name for an inpatient psychiatric hospital near Cleveland (some 250 miles from Isabella’s new home in Cumminsville).
At that time the hospital was formally named “The Northern Ohio Hospital for the Insane,” and “paralysis of the brain” was among the many conditions they treated. In the hospital’s 1880 annual report to the governor, they gave this definition of the condition:
It wasn’t the first time Isabella had sought help for her physical and emotional needs. Twenty years earlier, as a new bride, Isabella checked into the Castile Sanitarium in New York and stayed five months. During her stay there she gardened and played croquet, walked and spent as much time out of doors as possible in between her scheduled therapy treatments.
She may have had the same experience during her stay in Cleveland. The Cleveland Illustrated Guidebook, published by William Payne in 1880, describes the hospital’s grounds where “nature and art have united to make [them] attractive.”
Immediately in front is a stream, separating the grounds from the … railroad track. A grove skirts the entire grounds, affording an abundance of shade and strolling room for the patients, and adding to the general beauty of the location.
Perhaps the beautiful grounds reminded Isabella of the New York sanitarium and the benefit she’d found in similar treatment twenty years earlier.
Illustration included in the “Twenty-Sixth Annual Report of the Cleveland Asylum for the Insane to the Governor of the State of Ohio for the Year 1880.”
Here’s what is most striking about this episode: Isabella didn’t hesitate to get help when she needed it. She checked into a hospital that literally had “Insane” in its official name, and she didn’t seem worried about the stigma. Maybe that’s because mental and emotional health were viewed differently in the 1880s. Conditions like “paralysis of the brain,” melancholy, and nervous exhaustion were treated as medical conditions—ailments that could be cured with rest, therapy, and proper care. Or maybe Isabella was just remarkably practical about her own wellbeing. When life became overwhelming, she took action.
Unlike Isabella’s previous stay at a sanitarium (which you can read about here), we can’t know what treatments she received this time. But just a little more than a month later, on March 14, 1881, the Cincinnati Enquirer published a single line update about Isabella:
And just like that, Isabella was home. A little over a month of treatment, and she was back to her family, her work, and her impossibly busy schedule. We don’t know exactly what happened during those weeks in Cleveland, but we know the outcome: she recovered and went on to maintain her extraordinary productivity for decades to come. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is admit we need help—and then actually get it.
What strikes you most about Isabella’s decision to seek help? Do you think it would have been harder or easier in the 1880s compared to today?
Have you ever had a moment when life’s responsibilities threatened to overwhelm you? What helped you get through it?
YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT ISABELLA’S HEALTH AND HOW ILLNESSES WERE TREATED DURING HER LIFETIME BY READING THESE PREVIOUS POSTS:
Between 1900 and 1910 American consumers were introduced to some revolutionary new inventions and products that would significantly change their lives. In 1903 the Wright Brothers powered their first sustained airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
In 1908 the first Model T Ford automobile rolled off the production line in Detroit, Michigan.
Other inventions during the decade included the safety razor (1901), Cornflakes (1907), teabags (1904), washing machines (1908), and vacuum cleaners (1901).
From a 1909 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
But in 1907, an entirely new product took the country by storm: the Thermos bottle. This cleverly designed vacuum bottle could keep drinks hot or cold for hours—something no other portable container could do.
Ad in a 1909 issue of Life magazine.
It’s easy to imagine Isabella Alden embracing this new invention, especially given the lifestyle she adopted after she and her family moved to California around 1901.
The Aldens settled in Palo Alto, where son Raymond was teaching at Stanford University. A few years later, Isabella and her husband became involved with the newly-founded Mount Hermon Christian camp near Santa Cruz. Mount Hermon reminded her of her beloved Chautauqua Institution, and it quickly became her summertime place of peace where she could rest, read, and worship among the giant redwood trees. Isabella recalled:
“Tent life seemed to belong to it as much as houses belong in most other places. We ate out of doors, and worked out of doors, and practically slept out of doors, with all the curtains of the tent looped high.”
When Thermos bottles first appeared in stores, they were luxury items. Depending on size, prices ranged from $3.50 to just over $5.00—the equivalent of about $125 to $150 in today’s money.
From a 1908 booklet, “Everything for the Autoist but the Auto.”
Travelers quickly embraced the Thermos bottle as a necessity worth the investment. Upper-middle class households purchased them, too, using Thermos bottles to keep food and drinks at stable temperatures without relying on wood-fire stoves, electricity, or refrigeration—all expensive options.
One in a series of trade cards distributed by The American Thermos Company.
The American Thermos Bottle Company of Norwich, Connecticut, launched a full ad campaign in magazines, trade journals, and newspapers. As sales increased, they launched additional products—pitchers and carafes, food storage bowls, and even completely furnished picnic baskets. With growing demand came increased production, and by the 1920s Thermos bottles were much more affordably priced.
Isabella never specifically mentioned a Thermos in her memoirs or her stories, but throughout her life she eagerly embraced new inventions and technologies. It seems probable that during those early rustic summer days at Mount Hermon, she might have had a Thermos bottle at her side for a cool drink of water.
Isabella’s niece, author Grace Livingston Hill, was also quick to embrace new inventions, and mentioned Thermos bottles in her novels, including The Prodigal Girl (1929) and The Street of the City (1942). In her novel Ladybird (1930), Grace wrote about the main character Fraley MacPherson marveling over a picnic lunch:
“There were other little packages with other sandwiches, some with fragrant slices of pink ham between them. There were hard-boiled eggs rolled in paper. There were olives and pickles, and chocolate cake and cookies, and white grapes and oranges—a feast for a king! There was coffee amazingly hot in a Thermos bottle. And in the wilderness!”
Thermos magazine ad from 1909
Whether or not Isabella actually owned a Thermos, she certainly lived during one of the most innovative decades in American history—and she took advantage of it. Her writing shows someone who was genuinely curious about new inventions and quick to see how they might improve her daily life. That openness to change and progress is just one more reason her work still feels surprisingly modern today.
You can read more about how Isabella embraced new inventions and technology in these posts:
Have you ever listened to someone tell a seemingly ordinary story, only to realize halfway through that they’re actually revealing something profound? That’s what happens in this month’s free read. “Family Portraits (Painted Unawares)” is a short story Isabella Alden published in a Christian magazine in 1900.
The story introduces us to Mrs. Andrews, a chatty neighbor who drops by on a hot summer day to tell about her son Harlan’s brief visit home from Boston. What begins as simple rambling about the weather, dinner plans, and a fishing trip gradually reveals itself as something much deeper—a portrait of a family bound together by selfless love.
Mrs. Andrews doesn’t realize she’s painting this portrait. She’s just telling her story in her own enthusiastic way. But it isn’t long before we begin to see what she can’t: a family where people consistently choose each other’s happiness over their own desires and where love—not biology—creates the deepest bonds.
A Note on Isabella’s Craft
What’s striking about this story is Isabella’s restraint. She doesn’t preach. She doesn’t tell us what to think about Mrs. Andrews or her family. She simply lets Mrs. Andrews talk, and trusts us to see the beauty in what’s being revealed.
Isabella has a gift for finding profound spiritual truth in everyday lives. In her stories, she elevates working-class people who live out their faith in practical, unassuming ways.
Maybe that’s why, more than 120 years after she wrote it, this story still has meaning. Today we still struggle with the tension between our own desires and others’ needs. We still wrestle with complicated family relationships. We still chase after perfect holidays and celebrations, forgetting that love is what makes any day special.
This story reminds us that the best relationships are built on small, daily choices we make, like prioritizing someone else’s happiness above our own, or spending time together, even if it’s brief and imperfect. Even more importantly, it reminds us that we don’t have to be extraordinary people to create extraordinary love.
You can spend time with Mrs. Andrews and her wonderful family for free!
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Isabella Alden 