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.