Sacramental Shopping by Sarah Way Sherman

Author:Sarah Way Sherman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of New Hampshire Press

The anguish Lily experiences, her sense of inward shame and disfigurement, are, in this context, the beginnings of grace, as is her excruciating sense of personal exposure, an exposure that parallels Amy March’s own journey through the “valley of humiliation,” when she is publically chastised by her teacher and forced to stand before her schoolmates as an example of wrongdoing, wrongdoing that also involves financial debt and social display.53 Facing these painful feelings and accepting them as true reflections of her inward state would, in this context, bring Lily closer to salvation. For, as Faithful explains, sorrow and shame can lead the sinner to long for Christ’s mercy and to acknowledge “the absolute necessity of closing with him for life.”54 And yet, Faithful also acknowledges that this painful but necessary recognition of sinfulness is oftentimes more than a body can bear. Moreover, an accurate interpretation of these emotions, and their true implications, is difficult to achieve without guidance: “But though I say it discovereth itself thus unto him, yet it is but seldom that he is able to conclude that this is a work of grace, because his corruptions now and his abused reason makes his mind to misjudge in this matter; therefore in him that hath this work there is required a very sound judgment, before he can with steadiness conclude that this is a work of grace.”55

Indeed, in Christian’s dialogue with Ignorance, Ignorance refuses this recognition outright: “I will never believe that my heart is thus bad.” Faithful counters by referring to scripture as a source of authority, “Why the Word of God saith that man’s ways are crooked ways, not good, but perverse. It saith they are naturally out of the good way, that they have not known it. Now when a man thus thinketh of his ways, I say when he doth sensibly and with heart-humiliation thus think, then hath he good thoughts of his own ways, because his thoughts now agree with the judgement of the Word of God.”56 Later, in conversation with his other companion, Hopeful, Christian asks what he thinks of men such as Ignorance and Talkative who deny their sinfulness, “Have they at no time, think you, conviction of sin, and so consequently, fears that their state is dangerous?” Hopeful turns to the question back to Christian: “Nay, do you answer that question yourself, for you are the elder man.” Christian replies, that sometimes “they may, but they, being naturally ignorant, understand not that such convictions tend to their good; and therefore do they desperately seek to stifle them, and presumptuously continue to flatter themselves in the way of their own hearts.” Hopeful confirms Christian’s analysis, “I believe as you say, that fear tends much to men’s good, and to make them right at their beginning to go on pilgrimage.” And Christian sums up the lesson this way: “Without doubt it doth, if it be right. For so says the Word, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’”57

In light

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