Mary Arden

By Grace Livingston Hill and Ruth Livingston Hill

Copyright 1948

Grace Livingston Hill was a prolific author of Christian fiction in the first part of the twentieth century.  This is her last book, completed by her daughter and published after her death.  This is the first book of hers I’ve read, and I have to say I found it frustrating, yet hard to put down.  

Mary Arden has just graduated from college and has decided to leave the prosperous home of her parents to return to the country home she spent time in as a child, which she has just inherited.  Unfortunately, her horrible and conniving mother is distraught with this plan.  And yes, her mother is truly horrible.  She has picked out an equally horrible and conniving young man, Brooke Haven, for Mary to wed and neither will accept perfect, gentle Mary Arden’s refusal.  Perfect, gentle Mary Arden has just been reacquainted with equally perfect and gentle young Laurie Judson who is now a preacher in the small country town.   Mary’s wonderful father would understand, but is inconveniently out of the country during the whole ordeal.

The book was hard to put down because I needed to know if the mean tricks of the evil characters would keep the perfectly good angelic characters apart.  Not only that, but a miscommunication between Mary and Laurie threatened their happily ever after.  This book was frustrating because one simple miscommunication threatened their happiness.  

The most frustrating aspect, though, was the author’s depiction of every main character as either totally good or totally evil.  Mary Arden never did anything wrong or kept an immoral thought in her head.  Her mother never displayed a redeeming quality or acted unselfishly.  Laurie Judson was the picture of a perfectly kind and moral Christian man, while Brooke Haven was the devil in disguise.  

Lesson relearned:

None of us are always good, or always right.  Neither are we always wrong, or always evil.  Some degree of both good and evil exist in us all.  The challenge and the hope is to let the good prevail!