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