Chapter 2
_Her Religion_
XI
THE GIRL AND THE UNIVERSE
When Wonder suggests its first questions to her they are large questions. They have to do with the Universe. They are eternal and unanswerable questions. They fall from baby lips but they baffle sages. It may be on some bright summer morning that she stands amidst the daisies scarcely taller than they, listening intently to the words of wisdom which tell her that God made the daisies every one, and all the flowers and the butterflies and the cows in the meadows. After a time of silence she puts her question, her clear eyes searching the face of her would-be teacher. "Who made God?" she asks, and while the teacher wavers she repeats her question until some sort of answer comes. That night when she is tucked into bed her mind returns by way of her evening prayer, to the subject of the morning. She hurls another question, "Where is God?" Since she cannot be evaded she is so often told that God is everywhere and accepting it with all the faith of the literalist she begins her search for Him. She strives to solve the mysterious fact that He can be everywhere and yet in all the places where one searches He is not to be found.
Then her grandmother who sat in the sunny room upstairs as long as the little girl can remember is taken sick. Some days pass and her mother with tears streaming down her face tells her little daughter that grandmother has gone to heaven. The mystery bearing down upon the little soul deepens. "What is Heaven?" and "where is Heaven?" she asks. They tell her of its beauties, its peace, happiness and joy. They say that grandmother wanted to go and then they cry again. The little girl cannot understand it all, but she tries. If grandmother is happy and really wanted to go, why does mother look so sad, why the closed blinds, why is everything so quiet? She asks the question in the presence of her practical unimaginative aunt, who bids her be quiet and adds in her even, impressive voice, "Your grandmother is dead." The word has an awful sound and she raises her eyes to the severe face above her and asks, "What _is_ dead?" But the aunt does not answer, and the little girl goes to the window to think it all over. She knows that _dead_ is dreadful--grandmother has gone, the house is quiet, father will not play with her and mother cries. She is only a very little girl but she has met the unanswerable questions, "Who made God? Where did I come from? Where is Heaven? What is it like? What is Death?"
As the years pass her instructors in religion attempt to teach her. In varied words, according to varied creeds they answer or postpone the answer to her questions. She learns that God is good and God is great; that He takes care of people, at night especially; that one may ask Him for whatever she wants and if it is best she will get it; that if one would please God she must be very good and there are many things she must not do; that those who please Him shall be rewarded and those who fail shall be punished.
Her instructors do not mean always that this shall be the sum total of their teachings but stripped of all the songs, the pictures and cards, the birthday greetings, the flowers and stories, these things in the majority of cases sum up the little girl's conclusions. There enters into her religion in many cases that name which seems so often to sound sweeter when murmured by baby lips than at any other time. The little girl has learned to love the Baby asleep in the hay, the Child before whom the Magi knelt, the obedient and lovable boy who played in Nazareth. Then the new outlook comes and the little girl sees Jesus the Redeemer and God the Father. She listens with eager fascinated interest to the stories of what He did and said, tries to obey the commands He gave, suffers for her sins of commission, prays and hopes to be forgiven. The One who searches the hearts of men must find as honest, devoted faith among these little girls as anywhere in His army of believing followers.
Then the spirit of altruism begins to awaken. She is no longer a _little_ girl. She begins to understand the meaning of _sacrifice_, she is stirred with the desire to serve. Christ the Messiah, the Savior and Master, claims her interest and her heart is filled with desire to serve and to prove her love to Him. She pledges herself to His service, strives to be faithful, suffers agonies of remorse over her failures. Among all the hosts who follow Him there are none more loyal and loving than this girl in her teens.
The years pass and in the later teens and early twenties another world forces itself upon the girl. It is the world of sin and evil, of selfishness, greed and hypocrisy. She shrinks from it but it is bound to be revealed. She catches a glimpse of a world of suffering and pain that makes her heart ache. And while these worlds are pressing hard she is plunging into the secrets of things. The revelation of biology, astronomy, chemistry, the history of peoples, languages and books, the science of economics, and the mysteries of psychology are demanding consideration. Something happens to the bright, sweet unquestioned faith. Questions persist, doubts suggest themselves and demand answer. Nature asks "What do you think about me?" The problems of sin and sickness, accident and injustice ask "How do you explain us?" and darkness settles over the girl's spirit. Sometimes she refuses to think things out and accepts the new explanations of things whatever they happen to be, turning in cynicism from the old. But more often she does think--asking the old questions she faced as a little girl all over again out of a larger world and a trained mind. "Who made God?--what was the very beginning of beginnings?" she asks. "Is it some _one_ or some _thing_?" "What is Death and what is after that? How am I to _know_?" Soul, mind and spirit cry out for concrete proof of that which can never be concretely proven.
The thing she needs just here, is the very thing she is most often denied. She needs some one who can show to her the larger God and the greater Christ for her larger world and greater thought. She is losing or has lost her smaller conceptions in the maze of wonders which have been revealed to mind and heart. She needs to know that she has not lost her God, rather is she just beginning to discover Him; that she has not lost her Christ, instead the Christ is just beginning to be revealed to her in all His greatness. She needs some one to make clear to her the meaning of the promise, "_Seek_ and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you." From a new view-point with a larger horizon she may be helped to begin her trustful search for God knowing that truth can never lead away from God. She is just a girl but the Universe is hers in which to seek Him. Its laws, as fast as she can discover them, are her servants to lead her to Him and its broadening horizons but bring her nearer.
When she can face all the new knowledge, feel the shaking of the old foundations, in this spirit of trustful _discovery_, her doubts will pass away. The world is saved through Christ, not through dogma and if she can have the wise instructor or friend who can show her these things she is safe.
Whenever one thinks of the little girl among the daisies there comes to him in woful contrast the little girl in the crowded cities' wretched streets. She is denied the daisy field. Stars do not tempt her to wonder. The narrow streets filled with material things, pressing close, crowd out sun and moon. The name of God is familiar to her ears but she does not ask questions about Him. She associates the name with loud voices, angry faces and often with blows. Death awakens wonder but there is little time for answers to puzzled questionings. The few days of relief from noise, the expressions of sympathy and friendship, the unusual words of tenderness all make a deep impression--then life goes on as before only harder because of the added expense. As the years pass she accepts the teachings of her church, she can recite them more or less glibly but they have nothing special to do with her life. Philosophy and science do not trouble her. She says her prayers thinking about other things and when she grows older stops saying them, save at church.
Oftentimes as a little girl she receives no religious instruction, never enters a church and the name of God drops in curses from her own lips. Only now and then fear of the future takes possession of her for a moment. Only in great stress of unusual suffering or pain, or in the presence of awful sorrow is her soul stirred to ask the little girl's question, "What is Heaven like?"
Sometimes the bitterness of her lot causes her to treat the idea of God with scorn. "Look at me," she said one day in my presence. "What have I done that God should punish me with the troubles I've got. There ain't no God, that's what I say, anyways."
Poor girl! The church must give to her the God whom she can trust and love, but it will have to give Him in widespread, simple justice. First she must see Him in _deeds_ and then in words.
The girl amidst the squalor of wretched conditions in heartless cities, needs a God who is her defender and champion as well as her Savior. When some wise instructor or inspired friend can give to her this view of the Lord God of Hosts, the Father of all, who seeks through His children to save His children her salvation has begun.
Oftentimes one meets the gentle, trustful, lovable little girl who asks her question and receiving the answer accepts it, never to doubt it through all the years, never to ask the great universal questions again. Sometimes it is because the answers were so wisely given, sometimes because the depths of the girl's mental and spiritual life are never touched. She has a comfortable faith, earnest, true, honest and sincere. It does not embrace the world, nor is it deeply concerned with the great problems with which the world wrestles. It is not necessary perhaps that it should be. The girl is naturally religious, trustful and believing. Her sweet, untroubled faith blesses the life of every day.
Those who are interested in the religion of girlhood and young womanhood are filled with hope today as they listen to the answers which are being given by wise mothers and teachers, to the great questions of the universe. The answers leave room for a _growing_ religion which grows as the girl grows.
A while ago my friend walked through the country fields with a little six year old. My friend says she has left behind an "outgrown religion." Her complacence and cynicism received a shock that afternoon. A lamb which was the baby of the flock had been made a special pet by the children and came immediately when the six year old called. The days were getting cold and the lamb's woolly coat was thick. My friend, intending to instruct the child said, "Put your hand on the lambie's thick wool. Cold days are coming and Nature makes the lamb's wool nice and warm."
"Yes," answered the child, her eyes shining, "the Heavenly Father makes its coat warm. He didn't give them a papa like mine to get their clothes. He gives them to them himself."
My friend was surprised by the words and before she could think of a suitable reply, the child continued--
"He tells the birdies to go down where it's warm and there are flowers all the time. Just a few stay here when it's cold and they have warm feathers. The bear and the foxes and the horsie and kitty,--the Heavenly Father makes all their coats warm. He is very, very busy," she added impressively.
For weeks during the preparations which nature makes for the coming winter, my friend, hitherto satisfied with abstract law found her mind going back to the Heavenly Father "very, very busy" in the great world He had made. She was so impressed that she went with the child to her kindergarten class in school and in Sunday-school and in both she heard of the love and care of the Heavenly Father.
As she listened to the simple teachings, the children's answers and comments, she realized that in the circle there was a very real personality called the Heavenly Father whom these children knew and loved. "I wish such had been my training," she said regretfully. "Perhaps I should have been saved the darkness and perplexity in which I have lived for years."
Months after in a large class of earnest, eager and attentive girls I listened to a wonderful teacher. I loved with a deeper love, after that lesson, the Christ whose presence seemed to fill that room as the teacher showed her girls the Master at His task of saving the world by showing it God, the Father.
One day I stood in a silent home with a brilliant, cultured girl, who had traveled much and enjoyed every privilege. She had that afternoon left her mother beside her father out on the sloping hillside in the great silent city. We raised the curtains the maid had drawn, the girl laid aside her coat and hat and said sadly, "Now life must begin again, without all that is dearest to me." I tried to find words to strengthen her but she turned her calm face toward me and said, "How do people live through it and go on, who haven't God? The Father of the World has them both in His keeping. I can wait till I find them again."
This girl had never doubted. She had wondered and thought, questioned and _believed_. Wise parents had given to her the God of the Universe--the Father, and His Son the revelation of Himself to men that it might be saved, in such simple terms, so free from petty dogma that as she had grown in mind and spirit He grew in wonder and majesty and power, commanding her love and worship.
If a girl, troubled and perplexed by the things the mind cannot grasp or heart understand, chances to read this chapter let her know that the trouble lies not with the God of whom she has been taught but with those who, trying to do their best, have been weak in their teaching.
If we can banish from our faith all its man made littleness, all its chaos of bickerings, all the fret of the conflicting opinions of those who, after all, are themselves but children searching after truth, and give to the growing girl, a growing religion, the God of the Universe will become her God and she will worship him in sincerity and truth all the days of her life.
"Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our feverish ways; Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise."
XII
IN THE HANDS OF A TRIAD
Despite all the words that have been written and spoken in the past it is still true that many of those engaged in the religious training of a girl, or responsible for the form of religion which is presented to her, do not realize, or else they ignore the fact that she is in the hands of a triad--body, mind and spirit. As a triad she develops if she be a normal girl, as a triad she acts. Her character is made by these three agencies working together. It is a fact, the significance of which none of us fully realize, as yet, that a clean mind and a clean heart in an unclean body is very rare. A quick, alert balanced mind and a pure, heroic spirit in a starved and diseased body is also rare. A well-nourished, well-cared-for body with all its functions doing their work and a mental weakling is a rare combination.
Once we did not know that adenoids made children mentally deficient, nor did we dream that teeth properly attended to, and a pair of glasses could transform a girl from a sullen, morose disobedient child into an interesting, happy and obedient one; but some of us have seen that transformation and marveled at it. Once we believed that inherent moral degeneracy sent a twelve-year-old girl to the courts. Now we are beginning to see the relationship between a room with no windows and no running water, a dirty alley or a wretched street and the moral degeneracy. Once we shook our heads and said, "Well, they say there's one black sheep in every family." Now we are beginning to see that the black sheep may be made by the gratification of every physical desire and every mental whim and the neglect of the spirit.
Churches, schools and individuals are beginning at last to _seriously_ consider the teaching of morals and religion and as they give themselves to the task of laying down practical workable plans, suddenly as if it were a new revelation comes the _fact_ that the individual is a triad and she must be taught as such.
If homes were ideal it would be an easy task. If it were possible for the majority of homes to approach the ideal it would seem an easier task. But with poverty, ignorance, inefficiency and indifference clutching at the very center of dynamic power, the task is one of the greatest which men have as yet been asked to meet. If homes were ideal, from the moment the little girl comes into the world, and even before her coming, sensible, rational care would be taken of her body, not only to make it beautiful but that it might do its work for her in healthful, normal fashion and be a good servant throughout her life. Her mind would be awakened and trained to think, her will to act and to control and all her sense of reverence, wonder and worship developed while her love for the good and the beautiful, the heroic and self-sacrificing was stimulated.
But homes are not ideal and the majority have neither accepted nor considered deeply the task of preparing the _whole_ girl for life. Some prepare her physically and let the rest of the triad develop as it will. Some prepare her mentally and morally while both body and spirit suffer. Some seek to prepare her spiritually by fitting on as a sort of garment what they believe to be religion while body and mind receive little attention and some let all three develop as convenience and chance may dictate.
When men's consciences have been awakened and they find the home incapable or inert, they have turned the responsibility over to the public school and the church. Of late civic forces have given their aid. Those directly interested in the religious training of the girl are coming to agree that these three agencies are needed and that they must work _together_ if the whole girl is to be helped.
_Some one_ must teach a girl the things about herself that she ought to know. That some one is her mother. No one else can do it with the same power. Neither church nor school can perform well the delicate task of revealing life's secrets, and blundering is deadly. But church and school and civic forces together can help the mother, can give her a proper conception of her duty, give her the words to say, perhaps. The school can teach morals and keep its own moral standards high; the church can awaken the spiritual life of a girl and nurture it, that knowledge and high ideals may work together to fortify and strengthen her. The civic forces can see to it that the girl has the opportunity for pure physical enjoyment, for mental stimulation and moral uplift.
What civic forces have been able to do through tuberculosis exhibitions and child welfare exhibits, by showing parents the truth regarding the importance of the physical care of their girls, furnishes encouragement to go further. Good newspapers may speak to parents untouched by the school and out of touch with the church and have done so. The majority of parents when they see and believe will act.
There was a time, and not long since, when those engaged in teaching religion were not concerned with the number of hours the girl worked, the age at which she began, the sort of room in which she slept, the amount of real food she had. And because they were not concerned they lost her. Today a teacher cannot teach religion if she does not care about life. She attempts it but she fails. Jesus astonished the Scribes, Pharisees, Doctors of the Law and Priests of the Temple by His intense interest in the physical needs of men. He took into account the _whole_ man and set body, mind and spirit free.
When one considers how little mental stimulus and training comes to the average girl after leaving school and is aware of the vast majority who leave school at any early age, she is not surprised at the lack of power to think on the part of so many, and at the very limited knowledge she finds when attempting to teach. The girls of today need to be informed on matters of public welfare and political and economic affairs as never before. Where shall they go for that information and how shall they be led to desire it? Girls need to know the meaning of religion and in simple fashion the history of creeds and denominations. They need instruction from the Bible which cannot be given in a half hour a week of more or less regular study.
Once those who were teachers of religion were not deeply concerned with what the girl read and the things about which she thought. Now one cannot teach religion truly unless she _knows_ what a girl reads, about what she talks and thinks, whether she is in touch in any way with that which can broaden her mind and give her food for thought.
No girl is safe, no girl can be her best or get the most out of life who is weak on the third side of the triad. Unless she has the help of a well developed spiritual nature how the littlenesses, the routine, the difficulties, the jealousies and envyings, the gossiping and petty dishonesties of life dwarf her.
Long ago, when I first began to print pictures, I tried to print a picture of a beautiful rail-boat against long lines of sand dunes, on a postal card. I couldn't. They explained to me that I must have sensitized cards, then the imprint could be made. The girls of today need to be developed and sensitized spiritually that the imprint of purity and righteousness may be made upon the whole life. The spiritual life, as well as the mental and physical, is as we shall see in a later chapter, a matter of cultivation.
If the girl herself reads this chapter she will stop a moment to examine the triad which makes up her own life. Perhaps the physical side is weak. She may strengthen it if she will. Now is the time, while she is young and it will obey her. When habit has written its words in iron on muscle, heart and nerves it will be harder for her to control it. Perhaps she has been careless about fresh air, perhaps has been tempted to let pie and cake and coffee make a lunch, perhaps to neglect rubbers, to get only half the sleep she needs or to dress foolishly on cold winter days. If the physical side of the triad is weak a girl must suffer. The body is a despotic master and it is a splendid servant. Even if others have failed to help her and circumstances have been against her, a girl can if she will, improve her physical condition and every little improvement is worth the cost. It may not seem to her at first a part of her religion to keep her body well and to strengthen it by every means in her power, but it is.
It may be that the mental side is weak; that it is lazy and does not want to think; that the only food it craves is the sensational, and light, _very light_ reading and not much of that. But the girl who is in earnest can refuse to gossip and learn to talk and think about the great needs and problems of our day. She can turn quickly the pages where crime and accidents are recorded and read carefully those that tell of the progress in science and the happenings among the nations of the world. She can read a great book once a month or once in three months according to the time she has and she can think and talk about what she reads. She can find some hobby in which to be interested. The effort she makes to compel her mind to work will bring a very real reward.
It is a pitiful thing to see a woman at thirty or forty who has nothing to think about but herself and the affairs of her neighbors, and who never reads. If the mental side of the triad has grown weak through laziness and neglect, the girl may strengthen it. The effort to make it strong may not seem a part of religion but it is.
And if she knows now as she thinks honestly about it, that the spiritual side of the triad that governs her life is weak, she may strengthen it. She can read the Book that through all the ages has strengthened men's spirits and made them conquerors over temptation and sin. She can think about the words that have helped women to keep sweet and strong amidst trial, and danger, sorrow and disappointment. And she can pray. She does not need long prayers. She needs just a word with God, her Father and her Helper every day to keep her strong, and another at night to give her courage to go on trying when she has weakly yielded to temptation and failed. If she has neglected it she may begin now to strengthen the weak place that she may be saved from spiritual sickness which is the worst of all.
One covets for every girl the opportunity to live in the hands of the healthful, trained, awakened triad. Life is a blessed experience to the girl who is well physically, alert mentally and strong spiritually. If that experience is to come to the majority of girls, then those interested in her religion must more and more understand that true religion touches all of life--the triad--body, mind and spirit.
One summer night when the thunder was roaring over the sea and vivid flashes of lightning blinded for the moment one daring enough to face the storm, the little village church bell rang the dread alarm of fire. The apparatus for firefighting was of the type most city people have forgotten. Men rushed to the fire company's quarters and dragged the engine forth. From one of the highest hilltops flames lighted the sky. The men seizing the rope dragged the apparatus up the steep slope. Just before reaching the top it stuck. Suddenly a sharp appealing voice rang out into the darkness. It did more than request, it commanded and demanded. "Everybody take hold" it shouted, and under the power of it people sprang to obey and the engine reached the hilltop.
Those who look with sympathy and love at girlhood today, cannot help wishing that some Voice of power would ring out through every place where girls are found saying--"Everybody take hold!" If everybody would respond to the task as that night in the fire and the storm, the girl, in body, mind and spirit might easily be saved. Everybody may not respond now--but how about _you_, the girl herself?
XIII
THOU SHALT NOT
In our effort to get away from the harsh negative teaching of the past which made young people feel that life meant "don't," we have made the mistake of failing to teach with power the fact that there are things to which God's law and man's law say _thou shall not_. "I did not know it would do any harm," is oftentimes a truthful statement and the girl has the right to be carefully, wisely and sanely taught the things to which she must say no. A girl's religion must have not only the _constraining_ power which sends her out to do the kindly deed, say the word of comfort and cheer, give of her time and her talent to help make life easier for those who find it hard, but it must have the restraining power which shall keep her from self-indulgence and sin.
Whenever the _thou shalt not_ side of religion is mentioned the girls themselves and those responsible for their training immediately think of the question of amusements, which is after all only a part of the greater question of how much leisure a girl should have and what she should do with it. Preachers, teachers and Christians generally, differ so widely on the matter of disputed amusement questions that _thou shalt not_ loses its force. It is the parents' right to decide the girl's amusements and determine her social life and when one sees the length to which parents permit and even encourage their daughters to go, he knows that the _thou shalt not_ might well be said to _them_. When parents do not care what their girls do, or are too careless and ignorant to realize danger, when the girls are without friends and unprotected, then the teacher of religion must without hesitation, forcefully and with the arguments of _fact_, teach them to say "no" to the things which she believes can bring only harm, which weaken the power to resist other evils and which are unhealthy for the growing girl. One may teach with feeling and power the "_thou shalt not_" in which she believes without uttering bitter words of condemnation of those who differ with her.
Religion and the law together have the right to say to the unprotected girl, lacking wisdom, without discretion, eager for fun and adventure, ignorant of danger, _thou shall not_. The words should be written over every unchaperoned or inadequately chaperoned high school dance, over the public dance hall, over the cabaret, over the vaudeville where the vulgar hides behind a mask, over every place which by its very nature opens doors of temptation and lowers powers of resistance. The teachers of religion, and all agencies for moral training and uplift, _because_ of the comparative helplessness of girlhood, have the right to teach by every means at their command _thou shalt not_.
Some one must teach the growing girl that extravagance is sin; some one must say _thou shalt not_ to her common faults of promising without thought of the cost of keeping the promise, of exaggeration and untruthfulness. Some one must help her see the utter folly of snobbishness and false pride. In some way she must be taught the cruelty and meanness of gossip, the results of a sharp tongue and a critical spirit. She must be shown the sin of ingratitude and the curse of jealousy and envy. In fact the old ten commandments are needed by the girlhood of today as truly as they were needed by that great army of people in the days of the youth of a race, when their great law giver and leader strove to save them from the results of their own ignorance and newly acquired liberty.
Who teaches _thou shalt not_ to the girl of today? Indirectly, a great many people. Directly, clearly, definitely so that she understands and is impressed, very few. The Sunday-school in a half-hour a week attempts to do it, but the Sunday-school reaches a very small part of the girlhood of our land, and its work with those whom it has reached is often ineffective. It is at present engaged in a serious effort to make its teachings more effective and far reaching. The public school is not directly teaching the _thou shalt not_, for teaching it does not mean saying it, in the form of a command. It does much indirect moral teaching, which is invaluable. It is experimenting with direct moral teaching and many of the experiments have shown highly gratifying results, which lead us to hope that the day is not far distant when direct teaching of the common laws of moral living shall find a place in every school. We shall have to find some new definition first, for such words as success, wealth, honesty, courage, honor and the long list in the vocabularies which the pupils in every school make for themselves.
In reacting against the thundering negatives of the past, the church has, in the decade or more that lies behind us, been teaching an unbalanced religion. "Thou shalt," and "thou shalt not" must be taught together if the best results are to be reached. In individual instances so great success has been won by the teacher of religion that his method is worth one's earnest study.
One morning there came into Sunday-school class a very ordinary looking little girl of ten years. Her father was a truck driver, her mother had been a domestic. There were four children in the home, the little girl being next to the youngest. The parents had no relation to any church. The two older children had turned out great disappointments to them and when a neighbor invited the ten-year-old to go to Sunday-school the mother gave her consent, saying that perhaps the church could keep her from following her brother and sister. It did.
In that home there was no moral instruction, no moral suasion. When the children had told a lie directly to the mother they were punished severely. When they told a lie to a teacher or neighbor the mother was their defender and they escaped punishment. They heard their mother lie to her husband, to her neighbors, to the rent collector and the grocer. They learned not to fear a _lie_ but to fear being discovered in it. They became clever liars and the little girl at ten was an adept. For disobedience, cheating, taking food and pennies they were alternately turned over to their father for punishment or shielded from his wrath according to the mother's temper at the time of the offense. They were not taught or helped to hate sin or to see it in its hideous aspect. _Thou shalt not_ was a matter of convenience, not of principle.
The teacher into whose class the little girl came was a woman of experience who before her marriage had been a teacher in the public school. She called in the home, she learned the standing of the girl in the day school, in less than a month she _knew_ her. What she found out made her determine to help the child hate falsehood and cheating in every form. By story and incidents she showed Sunday after Sunday, side by side, the cowardice and unhappiness of the liar, the distrust of his fellowmen, the misery which he must suffer and the courage, happiness and freedom of the truth-loving and truth-telling child. Every lesson said "don't lie" and "speak and act the truth." One day the little girl was invited to her teacher's home to look at pictures and choose some books to read, for the teacher had discovered her love for pictures and books. After a very happy hour, while saying good-by in the hall, the child suddenly seized her teacher's hand and stammered, "How can you help telling lies?" The teacher says, "As I looked into her plain little face with its quivering lips, I loved her. I determined to fight for her and with her." It was a fight, for habit was strong and environment did not change. For over five years that teacher faithfully presented the "_thou shall not_" and "_thou shall_" which shaped the girl's ideals and helped her reach them. She taught her to pray; she inspired her with a genuine love for God the Helper, who would "see her through," she opened doors of service for her. At twenty she is a truthful and truth-loving girl, she has been able to say "no" to the things which proved the downfall of brother and sister; she is a useful, self-supporting, thoroughly respectable member of society and an earnest Christian. She has been able to lead her younger brother safely past the dangerous places and is helping him through school. What the church, through its religious instruction, has been able to do for this girl and many others it might do in far larger measure were it equipped with a regular teaching force adequate to its need, if its preachers could come into real contact with the children and youth of the community and present to them with power the _thou shalt not_ which shall give them at least an opportunity to strive to obey.
If the girl herself is reading this chapter I know she will agree with me when I say that a girl respects and honors in her heart the teacher who presents to her, fearlessly and honestly, the things which she believes a girl cannot do with safety, which lead into dangerous places and which make it hard for her to keep pure, true, unselfish in thought and deed; and she respects even more highly the teacher who can give her broad sane reasons for finding substitutes for these things. She may, as she grows older, come to the conclusion that her teacher was mistaken but she respects her for her honest effort to help.
In every girl's creed there must be some negative. The _law_ says you must and you must not. As she reads this page perhaps some girl will stop for a moment and write out the things to which she believes a girl should say "no." Here is such a list, written in the form of a creed by a girl when a sophomore at college.
"I believe that a girl should not indulge in amusements which make her nervous and excited, give her a headache, make it hard for her to study, cost her a good deal of money and crowd out all thoughts of duty and which make her feel envious and jealous of those who are more popular or fortunate than she, and sometimes make her think things she hates to remember.
I believe that a girl should _never_ repeat what she has heard about another person if it could in any way injure that person's character.
I believe that she should not lie even by looks or by silence. I believe that she should never deceive another, never make fun of the weaknesses or misfortunes of other people and never treat another girl as she would not herself want to be treated."
This is a negative creed. It does not say _do_, it says _don't_, but there are times when every girl needs _Don't_. Put _don't_ into your own creed, you girls who are thinking over these things.
When you are tempted to lose your head and plunge into things you have been taught are wrong, just because "_everybody_" that mysterious mischief maker, is doing these things, keep steady and _Don't_.
When you are tempted to make things more comfortable, more interesting, more exciting by exaggeration--Don't.
When you are tempted to escape by a lie the consequences of what you have said or done--_Don't_.
When you are tempted to let envy or jealousy find expression in words or acts of meanness and unkindness--_Don't_.
When you are tempted to repeat a story or say a daring thing you would not say in the presence of the one whose respect you desire--_Don't_.
When you are tired of the struggle to be true and do right, tired of the effort to seek always the best things and are tempted to give up--_Don't_.
When you are tempted to repay injustice with revenge, unkindness with cruelty, jealousy with malice, to do to others as they do to you--_Don't_.
Learn the power of control, of _restraint_ and though it be only the negative side of religion, it will help to make you strong.
When the instructor in religion opens his eyes and sees the peril which lies in wait for the girl wage earner, the society girl and even the schoolgirl, what he is forced to see makes him say with a passionate cry from his soul, as he thinks of the individual girls whom he knows and loves, "_Thou shall not_."
XIV
THOU SHALT
A thought which slumbers in the mind has within it the germ of life. At any moment when the right stimuli have been given, it may spring into conscious being and find expression in action that will color the entire life. While it slumbers today, tomorrow may bring the waking moment and so it must be reckoned with in the formation of character. Still it lacks the positive element. It is limited.
It becomes the work of those interested in the welfare of the girl to cause the awakening and constant stimulation of those thoughts which shall lead to action along right lines. The repeated impression upon the mind of deeds of heroism, of unselfish daily living, of great action on the part of ordinary people in a common-place environment has an unmistakable effect upon the forming character.
But if the thoughts engendered by the deeds of heroism and achievement be called into action by the opportunity in the girl's life to reproduce them, then the effect upon the character is made definite and intense. It is not until the girl has done a kindred thing, until the impression has found its way out in action, that the full result upon the forming character is seen. All the complex life about her is busy through the eye and ear, through numberless sensations and instinctive reactions leaving impressions. Their imprint upon her life may be seen by any close observer when the girl herself is unconscious of it. But it is the special set of impressions which _habitually_ find _expression_ that determine character.
This is most encouraging, for it means that if the girl can be lead to express the right impression and leave the others to fade away into the recesses of consciousness where it will be hard to awaken them, the determination of her character will be a possible task. It means that in the years of habit formation and character making those who share the task of the girl's training have the opportunity to lead her to repeatedly express in positive action the high ideal, the noble self-sacrifice, the great deed or ambition, the generous impulse slumbering in her thoughts and appearing in her day dreams. The material which is furnished her for thought creates her day dreams, what she sees in her day dream _effects_ character, what she _does makes_ it.
It is for this reason that parents and teachers who are seriously concerned with the problem of making a girl's religion a real and vital thing seek ways and means by which she may be led to express both in words and actions the thoughts and desires which their teaching has awakened.
A successful teacher had been studying with her class for some weeks the lessons founded upon "Unto the least of these, my brethren"--"A cup of cold water even," "Ye have done it unto me," and kindred texts. She taught well and the girls were thinking. Some attempted as individuals to express what they thought. In the minds of most, the stories, illustrations and facts slumbered. One Saturday three of the more thoughtless girls were asked to accompany the teacher on a visit to a children's hospital. They were much impressed by what they saw. The convalescent ward proved of great interest and the babies fighting for their lives against pneumonia brought tears to their eyes. On their way home they expressed the wish that the class might make some of the bonnets and gowns which the sweet-faced young nurse had said the hospital needed so much for its baby patients. "Perhaps the other girls will not be interested," said the teacher. Immediately the most thoughtless girl in the class replied, "Oh, Miss D----, they cannot help it. We will _tell_ them what we saw! We have been studying long enough about what we ought to do. We haven't done a thing! At least--I haven't--" she added.
Two dozen bonnets and gowns, well made after the pattern furnished by the hospital, were the result of the interest of that class. While the girls sewed they talked. They discussed in simple girlish fashion the problems of poverty and illness and the duty of one part of society to the other. In this sort of informal discussion they expressed themselves far more freely than in their Sunday-school class or their classroom at school. By the expression of high and generous thoughts they strengthened their own ideals and placed themselves in the presence of their friends and companions on the side of Christ-like living.
About a week after the last bonnet and gown made by the class had been sent to the hospital the teacher was surprised by a visit from Arline, a heedless and hitherto disinterested member of the class. It was a bitter cold day, the sunless air penetrating even the warmest garments.
"I brought you this box of things to give away," the girl said as the teacher tried to conceal her surprise. "There must be a good many babies in the river district who need warmer clothing these cold days. I had some time for sewing and my aunts helped."
The teacher found three bonnets and gowns carefully made, three tiny flannel petticoats, six pairs of warm stockings and three small hot water bottles.
"I bought the things with my own money," said the girl. "It is the first time I ever did anything like this. I enjoyed it."
The church visitor found a needy place for each thing and told Arline most heartily how grateful she was for the help she had been able to pass on. The simple deed by which Arline expressed in the positive terms of action what she had been thinking seemed to make a definite change in her character and about three months from the time she had made her gift, in a simple and natural way she came into the church. As the girls were given more and more definite opportunity to express themselves in thoughtful acts and kindly words, the teacher found sympathetic, interested listeners to the lessons she tried to make inspiring and practical in their appeal, and one by one the girls decided for themselves to come into the church and help it do its work in the world. The definite stand of such a group of interesting girls, easily leaders in school and the social life, made a decided difference in the standards of the young people of that community. The community as a whole, and the parents of the girls especially, owe to that teacher a very real debt for her part in the character building of those girls, who before they came in contact with her had had only vague and hazy ideas of a girl's duties and privileges. She furnished them with material for thought and with opportunity for translating that thought into action which is rapidly determining their characters.
A class of girls in another community made up of "freshmen" and "sophomores" in the high school who were accused by other girls, and with reason, of being "snobbish," "proud," and of forming "cliques," had been studying with a most interesting teacher a course on Christian life and conduct. They had been urged to show in their own lives, in school, in their social relations, the characteristics they learned each Sunday should belong, not only to every Christian but to every girl. Then their teacher began to make the suggestions definite, getting as many as she could from the girls themselves. They were asked to increase the membership of their club, attend and take part in young peoples' socials from which their "set" had held aloof, join in the work of the Girls' Guild, to which they had given a little money but nothing else. These things were hard for some of them. At first they were not able to do them naturally and easily and they found the friendship and confidence of the other girls hard to gain. But they had come to the conclusion in class that these things were right and the enthusiasm and approval of their teacher over the attempts they were making spurred them on. Then they began to make discoveries. They found out what interesting girls there were outside their "set." They found they had exaggerated their own importance. They began to enjoy the good times of the young people in the church societies and to want a real part in them. The change in the spirit and life of that class, even in a year, was wonderful. At the end of the second year with that teacher the spirit of the young people in that cosmopolitan church had entirely changed. Those girls had wrought the change because they had themselves been transformed. They had been expressing, day after day, in positive action the things they learned, and the impressions which before had slumbered in the mind burst into life through the daily deed. They studied Christ's rules for living, they traced the results of obedience to those rules in the lives of those who truly followed Him and _they_ tried to _do_ in their own every day lives, until _doing_ brought _power_ to do and character was being made.
In the religion of every girl there must be the positive side; whether she works in a factory or attends a fashionable boarding school her character will be made and her religious life formed through the impressions which constantly find expression in words and actions.
A girl's religion, especially in the early teens, must be active not passive. She must be made to feel--_and be given the right outlet for the feelings aroused within_ her, to dream--_and be helped to find a way to work out her dreams_. She must be given knowledge and _be shown the way in which to use it._
It is in this way that the girl, every girl, may hope to find a sane and natural religion which shall be a real help in the real world where she must live. Christ was a doer of deeds. The gospel record of His life has somewhat to say of the things He did _not_ do but its pages are filled with the things that He did. Lame, blind, lepers, insane, poor, lonely and sorrowful as well as "sinners," His friends and His disciples bear witness to the things that He _did_. Christianity is a religion of deeds and whether it be through a factory-club, a neighborhood house, Camp Fire Girls, Christian Associations, the summer camp, girls' conferences, the Sunday-school or the home, the girl must be impressed with the fact that religion and life go hand in hand and must be shown the way to give that impression opportunity to express itself, until repeated expression shall have marked out the trend of _character_.
If the girl herself is reading this chapter she will realize that while in a girl's religion there must of necessity be the simple definite "thou shalt not," the most important part of that religion is Thou Shalt. The girl herself should be so busy doing the things that ought to be done that there is no time for the undesirable and forbidden things. It is much to the girl's credit that she loves a religion that does things. The world needs, every church, every community, every school and every home needs, girls who have found their religion and put it into practise. Find yours, then put it to work, _helping_, helping _everywhere_.
XV
A MATTER OF CULTIVATION
A great many people are willing to sow seed. There is an inspiration in the picture which the word "Sower" brings to the mind. I can never forget those days when the boys and girls just entering their teens took their spades and hoes, left the schoolroom with its algebra and technical grammar behind and went out into the glorious spring sunshine to plant their school gardens. On the various packages of seed were pictured the promised flowers or vegetables and with joy they looked forward to the day when they should be able to proudly exhibit the results of their planting.
When the planting was done most of the children believed that the hardest part of the task was over. Year after year successive classes failed to realize the fact of _Time_. As the weeks passed and the slow development that is nature's way to perfection went on, one would hear a boy say, "Next year I'm going to plant radishes; they grow faster," and another, "You will never get me to plant squashes again; they're too slow."
These young gardeners found very difficult, and some found quite impossible, the task of _waiting_, meanwhile working with the soil and protecting the growing plants, that the flower and fruit might be as fine as possible. Despite encouragement from other children and from instructors, some of the boys and girls lost their enthusiasm entirely and seldom looked at their gardens.
Those boys and girls, planting their seeds of flower and fruit on the sunny hillside and in the shaded nooks where the school gardens lay, were not at all unlike the men and women who today plant the good seed in the gardens of hearts that come to them in the glorious springtime of life ready for the sowing. Like the boys and girls these older gardeners are pleased with the picture of the result of their seed sowing. With enthusiasm they enter upon the task of planting, with eagerness they watch for the first appearance of results. And then Time enters in. There is evidence of weeds; slugs and worms appear. Then comes the clear call for the two great virtues of the sower who will win a harvest--Labor and Patience. He must cultivate the soil, else only the meager harvest can be his. The art of cultivation is the one so many would-be harvesters fail to learn.
To realize what the art of cultivation can accomplish one needs to read carefully the increase in the record of the producing power of certain wheat fields in our country during the past four years. Courage comes with the study of the reports of modern miracles accomplished through the advice and instruction of the agricultural schools and colleges which have escaped from the thraldom of the abstract. Every one should look once into the faces of boys and girls of the rural schools who having been instructed in the art of cultivation have practised it and increased the value and quantity of the output on their fathers' farms, ten-fold. It fills one with hope to look into the bright eager face of a fourteen-year-old prize winner, holding side by side in his hand the stalks of corn, one small and meager, the other rich and full, made so by the art of cultivation which he has so patiently practised.
What the cultivation of the soil has accomplished in the agricultural world it can accomplish in the teaching of religion. If young America is irreligious today it is because we have sown the seed and left it to itself. In the soil of young hearts are the elements which make a sane, full output of religious life possible--but cultivation is _necessary_ and, if we are to raise the type of our girlhood, _imperative_. We shall be compelled to resist the temptation to give up because the seed does not grow faster.
Those entrusted with the cultivation of this human soil into which the seed has been dropped must know what that seed needs as it develops--urging forward here, that through self-expression it may grow strong, restraining there, that it may not spread itself out and through over-expression become weak. Only loving personal knowledge of each individual life will make possible this guidance and restraint. They must know the environment in the midst of which the good seed is striving to climb to fruition, else they cannot know just what to drop into the soil to stimulate the seed in its fight for strength, nor how to protect it from growths that threaten to choke it.
Those entrusted with the cultivation of this soil, if they are to be successful, must learn to use the mighty stimulus to growth that comes from simple friendship. Seed which can come to fruition under no other conditions springs into vigorous life under the power of warm friendship. Many a seed which might have developed and borne rich fruit has shriveled and dried in the chill of unfriendliness and misunderstanding. These cultivators of the heart soil must learn very quickly the value of sunshine. Young life needs the rain and has it, but young life loves the sunshine, it blossoms in the presence of hope and expectation, it droops in the atmosphere of distrust.
If one obeys the law in the sowing of the seed and follows the direction in its nurturing, the Lord of all harvests will himself give the increase.
"God's Word should be sown in the heart like seed; Then men's hands must tend it, their lives defend it, Till it bursts into flower as a deathless deed."
Somewhere in the religious training of a girl there must be a large place for the feeding of the soul; for unless food which is able to sustain life and expand it is supplied the girl can never become a power in herself. Hers will not be an invigorating religion; there will not be in her that vitality which will make it possible for her to banish fear and fret, to rise above discouragement, to endure suffering, to triumph over sorrow, to forget self. But if she can gain this energizing power she will not join, in womanhood, the ranks of those spending their days in search of inspiration; she will have it in her own soul. If she lacks this vital power she will become one of the multitude of Christians who are dependent upon circumstances for their happiness, upon the words of others for their encouragement, upon the pleas and persuasion of others to move them to service. From this sort of woman, who is kindly and pleasant when things go smoothly, who courageously attacks a problem as long as another stands by to brace up and urge on, who gives time, thought or money when some strong appeal is made and then loses interest and forgets, until another "prod" is given, from this sort of expression of religious life all who are interested in girls would save them and so are seeking the means of nourishing their souls that power may be generated from within.
It is not possible to get inspiration from a source with which one has no connection and the whole task of those attempting to give to the girl a workable religion, is the task of making connections with the Source of power.
Some weeks ago I observed the work of an instructor attempting to make the connection through the study of the Bible. She knew that telling a girl to read her Bible is not helping or training her to do it. These girls had purchased ten and twenty cent Testaments which could be cut, and small loose-leaf note books, on the covers of which were pasted one of the pictures of Christ. The girls had spent two weeks clipping from the Testaments and pasting in their note books "the things Jesus said about himself and the words God spoke concerning Him." Two weeks more were spent clipping the "things others said about Him"--Peter, Paul, John, the Pharisees. The next work was to clip what Jesus said about forgiveness, about one's duty to neighbors, treatment of one's enemies, the way to be happy. Later they were to use both Old and New Testaments, cutting out the verses which they thought would be of comfort to any one in sorrow, to one who had greatly sinned, and verses which they considered good advice to young people. That instructor was making a sane, practical attempt to feed the souls of those girls by helping them search out for themselves what the Bible has to say on topics of real interest.
I saw a note book recently prepared by a fifteen-year-old girl which I believe most valuable because of the things about which it has lead her to think. She had taken as the subject of her book, "The Good Shepherd." On the cover was a picture with that title; in the inside a fine collection of pictures representing Jesus as the Good Shepherd, clippings regarding oriental shepherd life, "The Shepherd Psalm," the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the words of hymns like "The Ninety and Nine" and poems like "That Li'l Black Sheep."
One cannot soon forget that book with its decorated margins, its neat mounting of cards and clippings and its beautiful pictures. The effect of the book upon the girl who made it, the teachers said was very apparent. Another book was entitled "Come Unto Me," and the pictures, verses and hymns were most impressive. When each girl has exchanged books with each member of the class, they are to be sent to a rescue home for girls.
The Bible messages to mankind brought by such simple methods into direct contact with a girl in her early teens is one means of nourishing her soul. If it is true that the best in poetry, art, literature and oratory, as well as the greatest uplift to character, finds its source in that Book the girl should come into real touch with it that it may feed her expanding soul. It is this sort of first-hand, individual study while she is still a girl which will help her later to turn to the Book for encouragement, comfort and strength, and lead her to great thoughts and the attempting of great things because her own soul is inspired.
The majority of teachers, superintendents and leaders interested in religious instruction today were trained in Christian homes and taught as little children to pray. Attendance at church services of various kinds gave to them almost unconsciously a phraseology of prayer and impressed upon them the place of prayer in the Christian life. So familiar is the fact of prayer that they forget that the majority of pupils in the average Sunday-school of today are not familiar with the words of prayer at family worship, are at best irregular in church attendance and that many are associated with no society in the church where there is any training in prayer.
To such young people prayer has nothing to do with life. They say the Lord's Prayer at school perhaps, formally and hurriedly in the morning, they hear the prayer from the superintendent's desk on Sunday, or perchance remember the evening, "Now I lay me down to sleep," which is said in many homes not Christian, by the little child. But the prayer; which though only an echo of adult prayers, and only half understood, calms many a fear in a childish heart, helps to victory over sin many a struggling ten-year-old reared in a Christian home, is utterly foreign to the child who has none of these influences and who meets in the average Sunday-school not cultivation, but the abstract taken for granted type of instruction.
I have in my possession a most interesting set of papers written by girls in their early twenties regarding their memories of their own training in prayer and the result of it in their lives. I quote first from the papers of girls brought up in Christian homes.
"I can remember now the very wording of some of my father's prayers and those words found their way into my own--some of them are still there. Often when a child, I prayed impulsively, using unconventional terms and saying 'you' instead of 'thou.' Before I was twelve mother often reminded me of my prayers when she said good night. As I grew older nothing was said to me about it. I was hot-tempered and continually 'getting mad' at other girls and teachers and almost every one. No one will ever know the remorse I suffered after one of those outbursts. At night I would pour out my soul in a plea for forgiveness. I was sure God forgave me and started next day with determination to conquer. I often prayed about examinations which were very hard for me. Once or twice I prayed that mother would see that I needed a different kind of dress from the one she planned. I am sure that I felt God was a sympathetic friend and prayer to me was natural."
Here was a girl who because of the cultivation in the home turned simply and naturally to God to supply her need. She is today a pure, healthy, natural young woman who has seemingly triumphed over her propensity to "get mad." Another girl says:
"I have prayed ever since I remember. We always had family prayers at home and in church our pastor always prayed for us children. I used to pray when I was afraid, which I often was at night when the wind blew, and I felt comforted. My little sister was not strong and for years I prayed every night that God would let us keep her. Sometimes when I had been scolded in school for whispering, in which I was a great offender, I prayed in shame and remorse for forgiveness. As I grew older I still prayed when afraid and repentant and often on a beautiful day, or in the canoe at sunset when I could not say all I felt. When I was about eighteen I began to pray for the missionaries and people who were poor and sick. I do not remember any definite instruction about prayer. It seemed natural to me. I often felt doubts when the answer didn't come but had a very definite feeling that the trouble must be with me."
This girl by environment and unconscious training has also found speaking with God a natural thing. There are so many papers which express through different personalities the same general facts which cannot fail to impress one who reads, with the power of the cultivation of prayer.
But in the papers and from the interviews of girls in the early twenties whose only definite relation with the church is the Sunday-school class, who come from non-Christian homes, whose parents almost never enter a church a different note sounds.
One says:
"I am trying to be a Christian. I have not joined the church. I cannot say that I pray very regularly but I have tried to. It does not seem to help me much. The minister prayed for me the day my brother died and it helped. Sometimes I read in a book of prayers."
And another writes:
"I do not believe I ever was taught to say my prayers when a child. I do not remember ever praying except the Lord's Prayer. I am interested in our class, the teacher makes the lessons interesting. I like to hear them discuss things. I always bow my head during prayer anywhere. Sometimes I have thought I would pray for myself but I never have."
One of the most interesting papers is written by a young woman engaged in rescue work for girls, or has talked personally with a great many girls about prayer. She says:
"There was another girl with whom I talked one afternoon whose face I can see clearly now. She was suffering from great remorse because of her sin, for up to the time of her misfortune she had been 'a good girl.' One of the workers suggested that she pray for strength and forgiveness. '_Pray_,' she said bitterly. 'They told me that when I was a little girl and went to Sunday-school. _Pray_. How can I talk to God? What would he do for me? I tried last night when I couldn't sleep but _don't know what to say_!'"
There was no natural turning to a strong sympathetic Friend and Father on the part of these girls, or the twenty or more whose testimony I have been looking over. Those who were trying to be Christians made it a matter of duty to try to pray but it was irregular and forced; there was no natural spontaneity about it. It wasn't real to them, it played no vital part in life. In looking over the papers one is convinced of the tremendous asset the girl has who from childhood has been trained to turn to the Source of Strength when in fear or trouble or need and when filled with the joy of living. A girl's life must be raised to a higher plane by daily contact with the Highest. If she sincerely speaks but for a moment to God, realizing his love, mercy, justice and righteousness, it will not be as easy for her to be jealous, unkind, untrue or a gossip. One covets for all girls this natural, spontaneous turning to God which has seemed to come to so many through the Christian home and its unconscious influence and instruction. Nothing can take the place of the earnest daily prayer of a manly father, and the instruction of a sweet, Christian mother. But the task which so many homes lays down the community must take up. The public school _cannot_ cultivate the spirit of prayer, and if the home does not, the church remains the only possible agent through which it may be done. The Sunday-school teacher is the church's most potent instrument, therefore a large share of the task is hers.
The teachers in the Beginners' departments realize the need of the cultivation of prayer and pray simply and often during the session, baby lips repeating the words. Through cards and memory verses prayers go into homes where none are ever made. In Primary departments the instruction is continued and children are led to express themselves in simple words of worship. In the Junior departments there is the superintendent's prayer--the appeal it makes depending upon the leader's sympathy, and knowledge of childhood. Often both are lacking. These Junior girls know the street, the moving picture show, the unsupervised playground, the temptations of school life; they are beginning to show the moral effect of poverty on the one hand and social ambitions and false standards on the other. How many prayers for girls from ten to twelve does one hear? How many can he find though he search ever so diligently.
When we come to the girl in her teens we find often in large numbers of classes that the only instruction in prayer is the indirect teaching from the prayer at the desk. How many girls listen reverently to it?
They come from stores and shops, from high schools, offices, homes of plenty and homes of want. They know temptation, they meet it in more dangerous forms than ever before. How does the prayer affect life as they know it? Very little I am bound to believe unless _the great experience_ has come to them and they have said in simple girlish fashion, "O Christ, I choose thee King of my life--I follow thee wherever the way shall lead," unless that transferring of _will_ from vague and indefinite desire to a definite purpose has come, the prayer which is a part of the average opening service will have little influence. Even if the great decision has been made, the prayer of one far away at the desk, often out of touch with young life, does not bring the uplift.
What a teacher may do the following testimony of a young girl may help us to see:
"I never had any special instruction in prayer at home. I think I must have said my prayers when a very little child. My parents are just fine but they do not go to church. They almost always spend Sundays with grandmother on the farm. I do not remember any instruction about prayer, though of course it was mentioned and I knew good people prayed, until I was seventeen when the finest teacher I ever had talked to us about it for four Sundays. Then I saw how much the people who had helped the world had prayed and how much it did for them. She made Christ seem so beautiful and sympathetic that though I can't explain it I wanted to pray myself. That afternoon out in the hammock I did. I shall never forget how wonderful the world seemed.... In a few weeks three of us joined the church and we prayed for the other girls. That year eight of us joined."
The testimony speaks for itself. She taught them what prayer had done for others; she made them want to pray. I do not know that teacher but I feel sure she knew by experience what she taught.
I know another teacher who is very successful in cultivating the spiritual life of every class of girls as it comes to her. I find that each new class has been asked to join with her at night in using wisely selected prayers written by Stevenson, Rauschenbusch, Phillips Brooks, and others taken from religious journals and from calendars. Each prayer is used daily for two weeks. After about six months the teacher asks that a committee be appointed to write a prayer for the class, this committee being changed every two weeks.
Some of the prayers were very helpful and all had a crude, simple sincerity that was fine. I saw a letter written to this teacher by a seventeen-year-old girl away from home and out on a strike. It was a pathetic letter but one sentence cheered the teacher's heart--"The prayer that Midge and Kate wrote keeps coming to my mind and it helps me to keep a level head when we all git kinder wild."
When girls see that prayer is not beseeching an unwilling God for _things_ the desire for which may be born of pure selfishness, but is the way by which help to keep steady and strong, power to love one's fellows and to live courageously and well comes to many, it will make a difference in what they think about prayer and the way they pray. But most girls do not know these things intuitively. They must be helped to know them. The spirit within them must be cultivated. Prayer and seeking the Bible for courage and help are largely matters of cultivation. The great Teacher prayed Himself in such a wonderful way that the disciples listening cried--"Lord, teach us how to pray." And he answered their request, giving them _the words to say_ until they should find words for themselves. He made them _want_ to pray.
If the girl herself chances to read this chapter let her be assured that there is no lesson in all the world which she can learn which can give to her anything like the courage, strength, comfort and help to go right on in the face of hard things, that can come to her through learning how to truly pray, not empty words, not words for others to hear, but words that say all she feels of disappointment and longing, of hope and gladness. The Great God hears _all_ one can say and knows what she cannot say. Only God can do that. Even the best friends tire of our struggles and failures. God never does and when I speak to Him I may _know_ He cares. Though I am one speck of humanity in a great mass of men and women, though the girl who is reading this is just one ordinary girl, one among millions the world around, she may speak to God, her Creator without fear, may touch His _greatness_ and her heart be warmed by His answering touch.
"Speak to Him then, for He heareth, and spirit with spirit may meet. Closer is He than breathing, And nearer than hands and feet."
XVI
A PLEA AND A PROMISE
The Plea is for a purer, more invigorating atmosphere for our girls to breathe--the Promise, that when it is given to them they will respond, their religious, as well as physical and mental life will be normal and the vitality in it will express itself in action.
Inspiration is a part of a girl's religion and inspiration means "inhaling--taking into the life that which creates high and lofty emotions."
Memory takes me back to school days when with windows wide open, shoulders squared and heads erect, the teacher's command bade us inhale and we filled our lungs to the full with fresh, life-giving air. Then came the command to exhale, and we emptied our lungs, that there might be room for more of the clear invigorating air. In life's larger school our girls of today are inhaling what? Is it the fresh, untainted, life-giving air?
The other day on the street I overheard a girl uttering words that made me turn in dismay to look at her. I saw, not what I expected to see, a coarse, ill-clad, ignorant girl, but a pretty, fashionably dressed girl with high school books under her arm. Where had she breathed in the sentiments regarding honor which in slangy phrases she breathed out with no hesitation or shame? There was nothing high or lofty in the emotion enkindled by what she breathed into her soul from her environment, and what she had breathed out into her companion's ears could not fail to weaken and injure.
I found myself wondering what her environment could be and later when I described her, a girl companion told me her name. I remembered her then, one of the girls who had grown up quickly, the daughter of a skilled mechanic who made good wages and owned a comfortable home. She was an only child and her mother was socially ambitious for her. The mother had done nothing to interest her daughter in the church, only now and then did she attend Sunday-school; friends were entertained Sunday evening, so she had no connection with the young peoples' societies of the church. She is a type of a vast number of girls whose religious sense lies dormant.
Knowing now her environment, I asked myself, "Where can she 'breathe in that which will stir her soul to high and lofty emotion,' and enable her to help and bless her world?" At home? Can she there breathe in that which will enkindle noble ambition to love and serve in a world which so needs love and service?
Once there were numberless homes and, thank God, there are still many where a girl can breathe in deep draughts of the fresh, sweet, wholesome atmosphere in which the family lives. But knowing something of that mother, I knew she discussed with her daughter, dress and parties, her future at college, her music, her marks, and laid wisely and well her plans for the forming of friendships which she considered "an advantage." In her presence she criticized friends and neighbors and related bits of gossip. Occasionally she scolded her for faults that happened at the moment to annoy. Her father talked boastfully of his successes and ambitions, criticized the men for whom he did business, found fault with those whom he employed, occasionally talked of politics in a vain attempt to interest his wife and daughter. There were few books in the home. The newspapers and one or more popular magazines represented the only reading of the family. The daughter played a little, sang a little, sewed a very little and studied as much as she must to insure the certificate for entrance to college. But she attended matinees, dancing parties in large numbers, and belonged to a whist club. A whist club, poor girl, at sixteen! Her parents were blind and deaf to the fact that in their daughter's life there was nothing, save now and then a desperate attempt on the part of an earnest high school teacher, or a word from a teacher who occasionally found her in the Sunday-school class, which might inspire her soul with high ideals, pure, noble thoughts expressed in action which makes life sweeter. Of nature's beauties, of her countless miracles, of the dramatic acts of current history, of the lives and needs of other girls she knew almost nothing. In her pitiful little world she lived, her best self dying for want of pure air with the oxygen of power in it.
Can she find in the social life and amusements of the day the inspiration needed to fill her soul with life that it may develop as her normal healthy body develops? No, the girls of our country do not find our social life a help to the higher expression of self. Only here and there do wise parents make social life simple, free from show and sham, from false standards and appeals to the senses. But few know how to center the social life in the home, in the out-of-doors, in clean sports, instead of letting it center about exotic conditions, unreasonable hours, and deadly refreshments. Only now and then does the present social life demand any exercise of mental power.
It is wonderfully encouraging to find, here and there, groups of girls of sixteen and their boy friends having their simple good times in each other's homes, enjoying the picnic and the skating party; or the girls by themselves enjoying camp life, the tramp in the woods, the gymnasium class; or with their parents or chaperones enjoying the moving pictures of high standard, without vaudeville. These girls are such a contrast to the usual groups of sophisticated, bored, blasé girls who at eighteen have tired of the ordinary means of recreation and amusement. Our social life suffers from too rapid growth. It does not offer the tonic for healthy social nature. It needs pruning. Some of it needs to be torn up by the roots.
And what of the schools? Can she find there the atmosphere that will stir her soul to noble, unselfish joyous living? Yes, in some schools. Many are engaged in merely continuing the "system," following a curriculum strangely deficient in those things which touch life directly, to inspire it and kindle it with ambition.
Recently, four names, the names of women, were presented to classes of girls in the last year of the grammar grades and the four years of the high school. The girls were asked, "Did you ever hear of Frances Willard? What do you know about her?" Then followed the names of Mary Lyon, Clara Barton, Alice Freeman Palmer. The show of hands and the written replies were pitiful. Some had a vague idea that they had heard the name somewhere, a few gave one or two facts. Clara Barton seemed the one most familiar but knowledge concerning her was very limited.
Then Jane Addams' name was tried, the same meager replies resulting. Finally the name of the wife of a noted and notorious insane criminal was given and scarcely a hand was down in answer to the first question, and pencils flew over the paper in answer to the second. What does it mean? It does not condemn the school, nor does it hold the school responsible but it does suggest that there might be some substitute characters for the mythical ones of ancient history, or that possibly the lives of great and noble women might be studied with greater profit by the girls of today than certain abstract problems in physics. In many of the classes where the questions were asked that fresh, clear, vitalizing atmosphere charged with reality, seemed lacking.
When we can calmly look at our schools, recognize the tremendous difficulties under which they work, realize their limitations, and with profound belief in what they have done, gratitude for what they are doing and confidence in what they are going to do, get at our task of setting teachers free and vitalizing courses of study, we shall be able to generate in them all the atmosphere in which the girl will find inspiration for noble living.
Where can the girl turn for the life giving atmosphere? To the church? Yes, if the church were awake to the facts and equipped to meet her needs. But what a small part of our country's girlhood comes into direct contact with the church, and how few churches have adequate leadership provided for those whom it does touch. The whole problem of adolescence is a problem of leadership. A wise leader has almost unlimited power in charging the atmosphere with the spirit of uplift. The church _must_ furnish leadership. It _must_ guide or lose its youth. It must advise with practical, possible advice.
Perhaps the day will come when groups of churches will unite in forming social centers and the business men of those churches shall _seriously_ consider the problem of where girls shall meet their young men friends and how they shall spend their evenings together. Perhaps some day the men of the church will select in their community a good, clean moving picture house, and there are some, where they can advise their young people to go, helping them thus to escape the snare of those who cater to evil.
Those most deeply interested in a girl's religion, have come to see its relation to every other phase of her life, and to know that one may not snatch amusements from the lives of young people, giving nothing in return.
Just what is wisest to give in return is our great problem. The church _must_ meet it and it needs help.
The time is ripe and more than ripe for the direct appeal to the home. It should be made through every avenue and in every language. It should be made through every newspaper and printed in every tongue--"_Responsibility_ belongs to the home." All sorts of homes must help in making the atmosphere in which a young girl must live, _safe_, free from poisons that mean suffering and in the long run death to the best things.
I happened one day in a smoke laden city upon a group of women in one of the residential districts who were meeting together to see if all the families for a certain number of blocks east and west would promise to use only hard coal in their homes. One of the women, the mother of three young children, pictured vividly the difference it would make in the atmosphere their children must breathe and closed her appeal by saying, "But women, it means that we must _all_ burn it. The help one or two of us can give amounts to almost nothing. Into each of our cellars the hard coal must go and each of us must insist upon using nothing else. Then we shall have clean, pure air for our babies to breathe throughout all this section."
She had stated the answer to the whole problem of bringing inspiration to our girls. It will need _every_ home and _every_ church to keep the atmosphere clean and invigorating.
It may be that the girl herself is reading and thinking over this _Plea_ and _Promise_. If she is she will realize how earnestly we covet for her all the best things and how we long for wisdom to help her get them. Perhaps she will think that _she_ can do a great deal toward getting them for herself, _and she can_. Let me recall to her mind one of the girls whom we find in almost every gymnasium class, whose pale face and stooping shoulders attract at once the instructor's attention. Let me remind her of the special exercises given that girl for chest development, the advice about food and the command, "Live with your windows open. Let the air into your lungs." Again and again you will remember the instructor gave the command to the class, "_Breathe_. Use your lungs! Half of you use only two-thirds of your lung capacity!" And then by way of emphasis she contrasted her own chest expansion and yours, adding, "If you want health, take deep breaths."
The Plea which I make to the girl herself is that she use, to the full capacity, her power to inhale those things that shall give inspiration for pure, helpful living. Every girl has that power. Some use only two-thirds of it, some one third, some have forgotten its existence. If a girl wants to really live she must "breathe deep," with her soul's windows open wide to the atmosphere that will give her strength. If she is obliged to live with those who do not think of these things, whose own spirits are starved, she can seek friends who will help, she can go to the places where her mind and soul are stirred as well as her senses, she can find in good books great uplift and courage. She will, if she truly wants inspiration and help to live nobly, attend regularly some church where the service makes her long to be her best. She will, if possible, join some class where she can study the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who _now_ even as when He was here, lifts those who listen to Him out of failure and discouragement into hope, in whose presence every girl may breathe in the atmosphere filled with life giving power.
If a girl responds to this _Plea_ to open her soul to the great Giver of life, I can _Promise_ that she will find true happiness and joy.
XVII
A PERSON NOT A FACT
Every thoughtful person craves facts. They are cold, hard, sometimes disconcerting but they carry weight. "It is a fact, it has been proven," hushes many a query and silences many an argument. And yet it is not in the array of facts which can be given at any moment that young people find their incentives and inspirations. They may have all the facts at their tongue's end but lack the fire which shall transfuse those facts into power to act in accordance with their teachings. Julius Cæsar is a fact. A girl may have no doubt of his existence, she may not question the great events of his life, but he does not stir her to action. The fact of George Washington does not awaken the patriotism of a girl and in schools where merely the facts regarding his life are given his influence is practically negative. But whenever the facts have been breathed upon by a sympathetic spirit and the fact George Washington transformed into the personality that lives in the girl's presence then his influence begins to count.
It is not the facts about Abraham Lincoln that engender heroism. The facts may be presented in such a way as to hold but passing interest. I have heard the life and times of Abraham Lincoln taught that way. But I have seen Abraham Lincoln presented to a class of foreign girls by one to whom he had become a friend as real and genuine as if he stood by her side. As I listened _I_ saw Abraham Lincoln. I felt the kindness and patience of his great soul, the honest purpose and the fine courage of his life. The facts were there in that lesson but more than the facts were there. _He_ was there. At the close of the lesson that teacher looking into the faces of the girls who represented nearly every land across the sea said to them, "What do you think of him?" One girl responded eagerly "I think he was _grand_!" and a dark-haired intense girl, her black eyes glowing, rose and said with an earnestness and fervor I can _never_ forget, "I _love_ him!" "You shall hear more tomorrow," said the teacher, and they looked as if it were hard to wait.
A careful observation of the ways of presenting great men of history and great characters in literature to young people will convince one beyond doubt that the girl may store the _facts_ in the memory for a time, but if the living personality is presented _it_ will remain to mold and guide and influence the life. The teacher's greatest power is never in what she teaches but in what is revealed to the individual through her teaching. The mind hungers for facts, searches for facts and wearies of facts. It follows personality.
When Richard Watson Gilder tried to voice the plea of the young doubter, puzzled, perplexed and suffering from the great array of apparently conflicting facts and most of all from his own failure to win out over the temptations that swept over him he said:
"Thou Christ, my soul is hurt and bruised! With words the scholars wear me out; My brain o'erwearied and confused, Thee, myself and all, I doubt. And must I back to darkness go Because I cannot say a creed? I know not what I think! I know Only that _Thou_ art what I need."
The fact is not enough. John Kendrick Bangs says it forcibly--
"A mere acceptance of the fact of love of God above, Of all the vast omnipotence of Him our Maker and Defence Is not believing."
Slowly we are getting back to the recognition of the proper place of fact, of its power as the background and basis against which and upon which Personality must stand. Our eyes are opening to see that if the girl is to gain a religion which shall mean life, she must gain it through a person who reveals a _Person_.
Here is Mary D----, a girl of fifteen, a worker in a mill employing a very cheap grade of help. Her face was hard, there was no light of anticipation in her eyes--she had nothing to anticipate. She toiled through the long hours, for there was no limit to her day in the state where she lives. Her home was not a home but a place where she could stay nights--when her father was not so quarrelsome through cheap drink that he drove her out. One day a woman at a noon service in the factory shocked at a profane remark of Mary's said reprovingly, "Don't you believe there is a God?" "Sure I do," said Mary, "but I don't see's it makes no difference to me." Further questions followed and Mary declared her belief, adding, "I don't bother much about them things." Mary had some _facts_ and declared some sort of belief in them, but they made _no difference_.
The next summer, Mary, overcome by the work of the year and an attack of the grippe, was sent by a woman in one of the churches, to a girl's camp. She lived in decent fashion, she saw a lake, great mountains, sunsets and stars! She found flowers and sat quite still watching birds that seemed so marvelous to her.
Slowly she grew strong. One night she went to the sloping bank by the lake under the great pine trees to attend the twilight service. The sky was crimson with the sunset and there was a wonderful path of light across the lake. The songs and the beauty moved Mary's soul. She wanted something with all her heart that she had never wanted before. She did not know what it (the great change) was at first, but before she slept she turned to another girl in the tent and expressed it as best she could--"I want to be _good_," she said.
Through the weeks that followed she saw in the faces, in the kindness and courtesy, in the good times she had never known, in the women who planned them and in the songs and talks at sunset a _Person_. She heard His name often. He represented all of the happiness and comfort she had ever known and one day with all the eagerness of an awakened soul she said, "I love Him." They told her what changes must come in the life of a girl who said those words and meant them, for they had seen the faults in her and they were many. She was undaunted by all they said she must do, and answered in her uncouth fashion, "I'd die doin' them fur Him."
They wanted her to leave the mill but she said no, one of the girls was leaving and she was to have her place with lighter work. She wanted to go back and tell the girls some things, she said.
Not three years have passed but Mary D---- is a new girl. She is attractive; one can scarcely believe unless he has seen it. She is clean; she is happy. Her friends secured a position for her father out-of-doors where he had loved to work as a boy. Mary took him to the Mission and there he promised to begin the fight against his enemy. The men in the Mission helped. Regular pay made a decent home possible. They have begun to live.
Overcome by the effects of ignorance and sin, failures as citizens, as individuals, as human souls, they met a _Person_ and life was transformed. If it were possible to replace in every factory for Mary D---- who assented to the facts but passed them by as having nothing to do with her, Mary D---- who met a Person and loved Him what a world of new moral forces we could create!
He was revealed to Mary D---- not in the abstract which could not impress her but in the concrete which she understood. O if only we _could_ grasp the significance of that!
Ruth M---- was a college junior with ancestry and wealth, brilliant, sarcastic, selfish. She knew all the facts and accepted them. She was a member of a church with which she had united at fourteen as had her mother and grandmother before her. She did not think much about the facts, they had not greatly impressed her. If questioned, she promptly stated that she believed this and that, she thought such and such things were probable though no one could prove them, and dismissed the subject to talk of her own plans and interests.
Then her great sorrow came. In a moment she lost everything dear to her. They called it an accident. She held God accountable and in bitterness and anger turned her back upon all the facts. The months passed and her health breaking she was obliged to leave college. At the beautiful health resort to which she went she met a girl she had known well when a little child. They renewed the friendship. Then the girl's sorrow came. It was not death, it was far worse, scandal and disgrace in her family, which had been unstained before. Out of a clear sky it came.
In amazement Ruth watched her friend. She saw her suffer but she saw no conquering bitterness, heard no words of wild rebellion. She looked into a sweet calm face and saw a girl less than twenty, with life's conditions changed in a moment, adjust herself to the new conditions and go on. Seeking a solution she questioned her friend and met a Person. Day after day as she saw Him revealed in that heroic life, as she beheld the girl overcoming in His strength natural resentment against the injustice and unkindness of those who would make her suffer for the sins of her parents, the facts were swallowed up in the Person and she loved Him.
Together, the past summer, in a rest camp for mothers and babies they worked out the commands of the Person who had made it possible for them to take up life after bitter loss and find it sweet.
If one could summon to a central place the girls who have met the Person what an inspiration they would be! Of every sort and condition, of every color and nation, speaking languages new and old and dialects that have never been written, all uniting in the testimony that He has made life great for them.
The facts are in chaotic state. Parts of truth and segments of universal fact are waiting for man to unite them. Only the perfect whole can speak with certainty and we must wait for that. The creeds are countless. They do not matter much. The Person said little about them. They are just our poor attempts to put in words--God and His will. It is
"Not the Christ of our subtile creeds But the Lord of our hearts, of our homes, Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs; The brother of want and blame, The lover of woman and men, With a love that puts to shame All passions of mortal ken."
The only way to meet a fact is to face it, follow it and see where it will lead. It is prejudice that blinds one's eyes to facts. It is only man's limited vision, that makes a part seem as a whole, that accepts as _fact_ the thing he would _like_ to be a fact, that one need fear. Facts that _are_ facts need never cause one to doubt. For fact is truth and truth leads to God. The business of every church and every teacher of religion is to discover the facts, _and present the Person_.
If the girl herself is reading these words let her be assured that more than any array of facts that she can gather, more than any proofs man can summon, she needs the Person. The handicapped girl finds in Him strength to triumph in spite of it, the privileged girl finds in Him the inspiration for her work of extending her privileges, the girl who is easily led to find in Him one who never leads astray, the girl who is misunderstood can find in Him one who understands perfectly, the indifferent girl who "means to" will find in Him a friend to encourage, steady and compel, the girl who worships the twin idols can find in Him a rescuer who shall set her free, the girl of high ideals will see in Him the highest Ideal, the source of all the others, and the average girl of the every day with her good points and bad, her successes and failures, will find in Him a Friend who will make life seem wonderfully worth while.
Don't let the multitude of things in which you are interested, the maze of contradiction, the abstract facts, the trials and hardships of life, the pleasures you love, or any other thing make you pass Him by. If you gain everything else in life and miss Him you will fail to know what life means. If you find Him you will find Love and that is the best thing life can give.
XVIII
THE GLORY OF THE CLIMAX
So many miss it. It is more than duty but the path that leads to the glory of it often begins with the plain, insistent, _ought_ of duty. It is more than obedience, though without obedience none ever find it. How many girls there are who are disappointed, dissatisfied, suffering perhaps in body and soul because they never learned to obey! It is a great thing to be able to hear "you ought" and then at whatever cost to _obey_ it. But the climax is not found in these things great as they are.
Faithful servants of a religion whose law is duty one finds among girls and honors them. Good and faithful servants of a religion whose law is obedience there are among girls. But neither of these have found the glory of the climax. The climax is Love. The supreme command of the Founder of true religion is--Thou shalt Love.
The religion of love is a girl's religion and she can never be satisfied with any other. If those who have tried to teach her religion have failed to show her this, then they have succeeded in giving her only a set of laws to be obeyed or a list of things she should not do. Love gives to Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not _power_ without which they can accomplish little.
Love transforms hard, disagreeable, empty service and makes it glorious. No one knows this better than a girl. She has done things when necessity compelled her to do them, and she has done them when love compelled her to do them. She knows the difference. Jesus founded His Kingdom on the knowledge He had of Love. He _knew_ the kingdom would stand. On his lonely island of banishment dreaming in the twilight, with all the struggle and attainment behind him Napoleon realized it as he said, "Caesar, Charlemagne, I, have founded empires. They were founded on force and have perished. Jesus Christ has founded a kingdom on Love, and to this day there are millions who would die for Him."
When I say that the religion of girlhood is the religion of Love I mean real love. Warm, sweet, tender, quick to understand, quick to discern need, tireless in service. I mean the love that does not wait to be asked to serve, the love that gives because it must give. When a girl's religion is filled with this love and rests upon it the girl does not say, "Well, I suppose if I am a Christian I can't do that." The thought in her heart if it were put into words would be, "I wonder if He would want me to do that?" Simple, natural, sincere desire not to do the thing displeasing to One who loves and is loved.
One day I was looking at a deep well, sunk away down in the rocks. Machinery dragged the water from the earth and machinery turned it into service. Some days later I saw a mountain spring. It poured and poured out over the rocks, down the precipice into the brook, on into the river. It ran as if it were glad to run and would never stop! Green things grew on every side of it, mosses clung to the rocks it touched, rich grass filled the meadow through which it flowed, birds followed it. Life and beauty seemed to spring from every place it touched.
When I remembered the well of water deep down in rock, dragged up by machinery it seemed to me like religion, the religion of service through duty, and I knew that it would keep right on serving as long as the machinery worked and would do its part dutifully.
Then I looked again at the spring. It seemed to me like religion, the religion of love that blessed because it is its nature to bless and poured itself out in service because it must.
It is the religion of love which holds one to the side of the road where need is great, work must be done, perhaps sacrifice made. That Samaritan who stopped, dismounted, tenderly cared for an injured brother of hated race, lifted him to his own beast, slowly walked beside him to a place where rest and shelter could be provided, knew the love-inspired religion. The Priest and the Levite were followers of the law, the letter of the law, but they looked upon the man in his need, crossed to the other side and _passed by_.
The Jericho road is still with us, and the needy who call for help and for justice are upon it, injured in body or soul. The religion of the letter of the law looks, crosses to the other side, passes by. On one side of the road Need, on the other side Greed, and Love always where Need is.
The religion of Love follows the road the Founder took, the road that leads to the place of service. That road may lead to China, it may lead to the islands of the sea. It took Livingstone to Africa, Dan Crawford to the Bantus for twenty-two years and now is taking him back for the rest of his days. It took Carey to India, it left Grenfell in Labrador, it led last year's college girls to every quarter of the globe. It leads this one down among the dirty, helpless, little children trying to play in wretched scorching city streets, it leads that one to the lonely countryside where girls starved for life are waiting. And, oh, so often it leads one to the door of her own church, to her own street, to her own class-room, to the girl beside her in the office. Sometimes it leads to one's own kitchen, or it stops beside the chair where one's own mother sits. One can never tell where the road of the religion of love may lead, but one cannot fail to see that those who follow it have shining faces and they love to live.
One day at sunset I waited at the little wharf to walk through the pines with Elizabeth. She was paddling in her canoe over the lake that had turned to crimson and gold, from the fresh air camp on the other side to which she went every afternoon in summer to play games and tell stories. "I had a great day," she called in her clear, cheering voice as she neared the wharf, and added as she stepped from the boat, "Little Billy loves me and Katie Kane whispered softly and _blushed_ when she said it, that she told me a lie yesterday and was never going to tell a lie no more as long as she lived! Poor Katie," she laughed.
When we reached the knoll where the three pines were we stopped and looked back. Words could never describe what we saw. Elizabeth stood silently watching it, her sweet face, her dark hair and her middy blouse tinged with the glow of it. As the sun slowly slipped into the lake she waved her hand playfully at it. "Good night, old man," she said. "Give us a cooler day tomorrow. Fifty new children come to camp." After a moment while we waited for darkness to come stealing over the lake, forgetful of me, she said with her whole soul in her voice, "Oh, I _love_ it, I love it _all_--the world, and those poor blessed children," then very softly "and God."
She had found the girls' religion, the religion Jesus Christ said, when they asked Him, meant two things--"Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God--and Thy Neighbor."
This is the girl's religion, for in loving she shall find Love--the glory of the climax.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl and Her Religion, by Margaret Slattery