The Literary Theology of Rose Terry Cooke
“You Ain’t No Christian, Not ’Cordin’ to Gospel Truth”: The Literary Theology of Rose Terry Cooke carol holly Now, if religion is good for anything, it is as good for everyday use as for prayer-meeting, Sunday, sickness, and death-beds. If the Bible insists on anything, it is that its teachings shall so regenerate the life of man, so enter and recreate his whole living that he shall become a “living epistle, known and read of all men.” —Rose Terry Cooke, “A Higher Life” (1874) ATE-NINETEENTH-CENTURY American writers un- L fairly censured New England’s church hierarchy. At least so claimed a reader who, in 1889, lamented the depiction of religious officials in the work of America’s “story-writers.” They “have been too hard on the church deacon,” in particular, the reader complained, “making him too often a type of hard- heartedness, hypocrisy, or avarice.” Among the alleged literary offenders was New Englander Rose Terry Cooke (1827–92), an author who had for years made the church deacon, along with other church leaders, the subject of her acerbic local color fiction. In the Christian Union, Cooke responded to her critic in the strongest of terms: Research for and writing of this article was supported by a grant from the Lilly Foundation and St. Olaf College. I would also like to thank Karen Cherewatuk, Mary Kelley, Linda Smith Rhoads, Nicole Tonkovitch, and the anonymous reviewer for the NEQ for their helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of the essay. The New England Quarterly, vol. LXXXIII, no. 4 (December 2010).
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