August 19, 2006,
Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City, Utah, 2006)
While “traveling through the dark” — as William Stafford calls our journey through life — I recently stumbled over a little book being touted as a spiritual classic.
“Jesica’s First Prayer” was written in 1867 by a 27-year-old woman named Sarah Smith. She wrote under the pen name Hesba Stretton (“Hesba” were the initials of her siblings). Charles Dickens first published the story in his Household Words magazine. After that, copies were sold for a penny each across England, In 1906 the story was made into a movie, making Hesba Stretton the champion of “homeless waifs” everywhere.
The book is only 28 pages long.
And since I tend to trust short books more than long ones (people who write shorter are more intent on sharing than lecturing, I think), I bought “Jessica’s First Prayer” and took it home to read.
Let me say, it’s not for everybody.
Not because it’s graphic, but because it’s sweet. Reading it is a little like eating a vat of chocolate pudding.
But then I have always had a soft spot for chocolate pudding.
In the novel, Jessica is a street urchin (a “young jade,” the book calls her), whose mother beats her and leaves her to beg on the streets. She befriends a street vendor, who gives her coffee and crumbs. One day, Jesica decides to follow him home. She soon finds herself at a church where the vendor serves as the custodian. She hides and watches as all the well-fed, well-dressed, Christians arrive for the worship service. The organ music is so lovely, it makes her cry. And the minister keeps talking about something called “prayer.” Her one wish in life becomes to learn what “prayer” is all about.
To make a short story even shorter, Jessica ends up in the office of the minister who — thankfully — is a bona fide man of God, not a poser. He fans the tiny spiritual flame in Jessica’s soul, a flame that eventually grows enough to light and warm the lives of others.
If you’ve got a few minutes and want to see the kind of story that charmed the socks off your great-great-grandmother, Google the words “Jessica’s Firs Prayer, text” and a copy will pop up on the screen for you to print out and read.
Your first thought may be the same as mine. A lot has changed since 1867: language, society, religion, values.
But your second thought may be mine as well. That is, when a writer is able to touch something authentic — in this case, the yearning of a young girl and the unselfish nature of a true Christian minister — the connection to our current world is as fresh as this morning’s headlines.
It’s as if true spirituality were a precious stone that has been handed down for dozens of generations. Over that time, it has been placed in many different settings. Many of those settings look out-of-fashion or dated now, but the jewel itself is still as vibrant and bright as it was the day it was unearthed.
It was the founder of Christianity, after all, who described his father’s kingdom as a “pearl of great price.”
That was 2,000 years ago.
If “Jesica’s First Prayer” is any indication, it remains a pearl today.