of an
institution--she chose love. Her faith in God remained unshaken, but her
methods of approach were the forms of love rather than the symbols or
ceremonies of a sect. Twelve times in a quarter of a century she
appeared publicly in the parish church. Each time it was to lay on the
altar of religion the fruit of her love. Nine-tenths of those twelve
congregations would not have known her if they had met her on the
street. One-tenth were those who occupied the charity pews.

Religion in our town had arrayed the inhabitants into two hostile camps.
She never had any sympathy with the fight. She was neutral. She pointed
out to the fanatics around her that the basis of religion was love and
that religion that expressed itself in faction fights must have hate at
the bottom of it, not love. She had a philosophy of religion that
_worked_. To the sects it would have been rank heresy, but the sects
didn't know she existed and those who were benefited by her quaint and
unique application of religion to life were almost as obscure as she
was. I was the first to discover her "heresy" and oppose it. She lived
to see me repent of my folly.

In a town of two thousand people less than two hundred were familiar
with her face, and half of them knew her because at one time or another
they had been to "Jamie's" to have their shoes made or mended, or
because they lived in our immediate vicinity. Of the hundred who knew
her face, less than half of them were familiar enough to call her
"Anna." Of all the people who had lived in Antrim as long as she had,
she was the least known.

No feast or function could budge her out of her corner. There came a
time when her family became as accustomed to her refusal as she had to
her environment and we ceased to coax or urge her. She never attended a
picnic, a soiree or a dance in Antrim. One big opportunity for social
intercourse amongst the poor is a wake--she never attended a wake. She
often took entire charge of a wake for a neighbor, but she directed the
affair from her corner.

She had a slim sort of acquaintance with three intellectual men. They
were John Galt, William Green and John Gordon Holmes, vicars in that
order of the parish of Antrim. They visited her once a year and at
funerals--the funerals of her own dead. None of them knew her. They
hadn't time, but there were members of our own family who knew as little
of her mind as they did.

She did not seek obscurity. It seemed to have so