“The city is full of boys. . . . Since we cannot reach all of them this week, we must try to reach seven; and failing in that, suppose we say one?” With this simple question, Flossy Roberts turns Alfred Ried's world and that of the South End Mission upside down! After the death of his sister, Ester, Alfred doggedly tries to follow in her footsteps, reaching out to others with the love of Christ. She had had so many grand scheme! Yet each Sunday as he faces the Sabbath school full of poor, rough, undisciplined boys, he knows he has failed not only Ester but also his Lord Jesus.
When pretty, delicate Mrs. Roberts steps in to lend a hand, he is horrified. The boys will tear her limb from limb―he is sure of it! Yet her question and her diligence haunt both him and the boys.
Heartwarming stories of faith and love by Grace Livingston Hill's aunt―Isabella Alden. Each book is similar in style and tone to Hill's and is set in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The sixth of seven children born to Isaac and Myra Spafford Macdonald, of Rochester, New York, Isabella Macdonald received her early education from her father, who home-schooled her, and gave her a nickname - "Pansy" - that she would use for many of her publications. As a girl, she kept a daily journal, critiqued by her father, and she published her first story - The Old Clock - in a village paper when she was ten years old.
Macdonald's education continued at the Oneida Seminary, the Seneca Collegiate Institute, and the Young Ladies Institute, all in New York. It was at the Oneida Seminary that she met her long-time friend (and eventual co-author), Theodosia Toll, who secretly submitted one of Macdonald's manuscripts in a competition, setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to the publication of her first book, Helen Lester, in 1865.
Macdonald also met her future husband, the Rev. Gustavus Rossenberg Alden, at the Oneida Seminary, and the two were married in 1866. Now Isabella Macdonald Alden, the newly-married minister's wife followed her husband as his postings took them around the country, dividing her time between writing, church duties, and raising her son Raymond (born 1873).
A prolific author, who wrote approximately one hundred novels from 1865 to 1929, and co-authored ten more, Alden was also actively involved in the world of children's and religious periodicals, publishing numerous short stories, editing the Sunday Juvenile Pansy from 1874-1894, producing Sunday School lessons for The Westminster Teacher for twenty years, and working on the editorial staff of various other magazines (Trained Motherhood, The Christian Endeavor).
Highly influenced by her Christian beliefs, much of Alden's work was explicitly moral and didactic, and often found its way into Sunday School libraries. It was also immensely popular, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with an estimated 100,000 copies of Alden's books sold, in 1900.
2024 Reread Loved it just as much as the other times I've read and reread this book!
I don't know how many times I've read, re-read, and skimmed this book. I still love it each time I open the cover and start turning the pages. Flossy Roberts is so sweet and is willing to work wherever the Lord leads her. Her actions are bathed in prayer and even when setbacks happen, she won't give in to despair. And as for what "they say" it doesn't deter Flossy one bit. And her husband stands beside her and helps all the way. This book encourages, challenges, and convicts me, and it's one of my favorites.
I must go read "An Endless Chain" now as it tells more about some of the characters in here.
Flossie Roberts is a wealthy, fashionable little woman who takes everything to God in prayer, seeks earnestly for what small thing He would have her do that day to bring others closer to Jesus, and cares not for class distinctions or what others think about her. She would love to gather all of the ragged street urchins together, feed, clothe, educate, and bring them them all to know the Lord, but she and a couple other like-minded people decide to start with one particular boy, then they worked with seven, hoping that the interestingly unusual methods they used would change the “unreachables” into productive, loving members of society.
This book was written over 125 years ago, and yet as I read it, I am encouraged to bring everything to God in prayer much more than I do now, to often ask Him to show me what little thing He wants me to be doing right now that would help someone else give their heart to Him, and to think of every annoying, rowdy, or disreputable person as a potential child of God.
This book is fourth or fifth in Pansy’s (Isabella Alden) “Ester Ried” series. It’s a little hard to tell exactly which books come in which order, especially because one that I have seen listed among them is by a different author, whom Pansy commissioned to write it. I read “Ester Ried Yet Speaking” after “Wise and Otherwise,” but the book “Echoing and Re-Echoing” by Faye Huntington is sometimes listed as fitting between these two stories.
First published in 1883, I listened to this book as a free download from LibriVox.org. (Excellent reader!)
I have now finished all of the Ester Reid series!!! All six books have been very enjoyable, convicting conservative writing. No one writes like Pansy (Isabelle Alden) or Martha Finley anymore. Truth is filled within each page and each word fittingly spoken. “A Word fitly is spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Proverbs 25:11 The word choice in this book is like those pictures of silver! I have appreciated reading this series and am sad to have come to the end. If I had to pick a favourite, I would say “Julia Reid” was my favourite out of the series. Please, to all those haven’t read the series, pick up Ester Reid and read this life transforming series and allow God to change you in being like an Ester Reid.
Do what is in front of you, be faithful in the small things, lay everything out before the Lord, and watch how He works in the lives of those thought unredeemable. Another winner. Black Dirk and Nimble Dick are two of the 8 boys that Ester Ried's younger brother are anxious to influence for Christ. Impossible as they are undisciplined, unkempt, poor and contemptuous of any attempt to control or teach them at the Southside Mission. Enter a character from the Chattauqua series, Flossie Shipley Roberts, who in her quiet, gracious way loves these boys to a better life.
Fairly standard Victorian improving literature, although more fleshed out than many, with more life to it. A good quote that is very applicable to today's world with constant and overwhelming negative news: 'Perhaps just now there is nothing that I can do for the hundreds, so I want to narrow my thoughts down to what, possibly, I can'. Like with wildflowers - if everyone picked them there would be none left to enjoy - if everyone does a small act of good, they add up to a big impact.
Not quite as good as book 1, but still worth the read! The ending had me so frustrated when the author kept giving a glimpse into different parts of the story she didn't cover, but I now understand, since starting book 3 that you can hear more of the story by reading the other books. They do not go in chronological order.
This book is great because it has more to it than other books. For one thing, it is very interesting and is set in an interesting era. But the best thing about it is that the heart of the book is about living a truly Christ-like life. It makes you think, and at times even makes you evaluate your own life. I just really like that it's clean, and that there is more to the story than just romance and drama! It has meaningful substance that is beneficial as well as interesting.
I've been listening to the Chattauqua Girls Series by Pansy (Mrs. Alden) in the car. So very well written with many encouragements and admonitions on living the Christian life. This novel picks up the story of Flossie Shipley (Roberts)