Inside the mystery of America's first mystics
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From ForewordReviews.com:
This contemplative spiritual mystery begins on Christmas Eve in 1815 with a letter from Christina Warner Wuster to her great niece, Lydia, explaining that she is passing on a somewhat unusual family legacy in the form of a tattered quilt, a gold charm, and a hymnal. These seemingly unrelated talismans take on great significance as Lydia and a cast of characters from history and the author's imagination make their way through adventures large and small.
Making brief but authentic appearances are B. Franklin and T. Jefferson;
the patriarch of the modern-day Lutheran Church; a young fraulein who
can channel the word of God; the Quakers; and even Father Christmas in
this dramatic look at the mystics, fortune-tellers, true believers and
evil-doers who make up our Western spiritual history. However, Scott does
not let historical names and dates get in the way of telling a compelling
story, and like Dan Brown's recent blockbuster, The DaVinci Code,
the question of fact or fiction only adds to the enjoyment of this studious
page-turner.
Johann Kelp is poor, motherless, has just lost his preacher father, and
feels alone in the world. His one saving grace is his proficiency as a
student. He longs to study somewhere with ornate libraries and worthy
teachers."Johann
desperately wanted to go on to school. He once dreamt about places where
there were libraries, places where educated people discussed Scripture
and natural philosophy." Johann gets his wish, and more, too,
and turns out to be a great teacher, himself.
Lydia is an independent young woman living in a time when such tendencies
are not celebrated but rather suppressed. Her curiosity leads her to an
ancient Tabernacle in the Pennsylvania woods.
"She had been drawn to this place by a longing that she couldn't
explain to herself. She felt as if she had wanted to come here for her
entire life, even before she had ever seen that old hymnal."
Lydia's and Johann's lives intersect in surprising ways, and although
this story is at times hard to follow, as the narrative switches time
by hundreds of years from chapter to chapter, and characters are introduced
by personal letter and then not heard from again for a while, still, nothing
is extraneous. Both the history and the expression of religion are natural,
not forced, and suit the action.
Scott has written a rare book in this category -- a spiritual adventure
story that is actually exciting to read.
