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.