All civilization begins in sensation and feeling. The most abstruse
and abstract thought of to-day is possible because ages and ages ago
men living in caves were hungry and sought food, were cold and sought
warmth, felt fear and sought protection. They conquered in battle with
fierce animals and neighboring tribes, and felt the joy of victory and
the satisfaction of possession. The "self" sensations and feelings are
at the foot of the ladder of civilization by which man, with almost
infinite patience has climbed thus far. But self is not all. As the
ages passed, man's pleasure of protection included his neighbor in his
feeling and thought. Misfortune evoked pity, and suffering called
forth sympathy, the desire for fair play for self grew until it became
a sense of justice which included the other man, and the moral sense
developed and was strengthened by experience through the succeeding
ages.
From the beginning "the _spirit_ of man sought ever to speak." At
first he would propitiate the spirits of air and fire, the rulers of
earth and sea, the harvest and the battle,--please them and buy their
favor that he might be happy. In weird chants and dances, in feast
days and fast days, by sacrifice and penance, he endeavored to appease
the spirits of his gods and insure happiness for himself. Great
multitudes of the human race have gone no farther. After all the
progress of thought their prayers are still intense appeals for
blessing upon self and self-interests, and they still keep the feasts
and fasts, and bring offerings with hope of personal reward. But every
century brings an increasing number so filled with the sense of
another's need that in some measure at least they forget self. Their
prayers are petitions for others,--their gifts are poured out without
thought of recompense; the spiritual nature within them, awakened and
developed, triumphs and manifests itself in a thousand varying deeds
that bless mankind.
This spiritual nature, which from the beginning has sought after its
Creator that it might worship him, is not a thing apart, living in a
separate "house," but rather a phase of man's complexity. It depends
for its growth upon both the physical and mental sides of man's
nature, and cannot be divorced from them.
At the foot of the path that reaches to the very height of spiritual
life, we find feeling as sensation and emotion. The myriad sensations
which express themselves in bodily consciousness through the physical,
and the emotions which find expression through mental consciousness,
can not escape their share of responsibility for the development of
the spiritual side. As year after year he sees successive classes of
children repeat the development of their predecessors, one stands in
awe and reverence before the presence of laws which seem universal in
the development of child life. He notes the days when life means food
and clothing furnished by another. He notes the strong development of
the self interests to the exclusion of others. He sees the gradual
development of the sense of justice, of pity, of sympathy. He watches
the development of altruism in adolescence. He sees the rapid change
of body, mind, and spirit, and witnesses the struggle for control,
sometimes on the part of one, sometimes the other, until at last
physical, mental or spiritual emerges in control of a life. Or in the
rarer cases, where a more perfect development has come, all three work
together in the effort to make a perfectly balanced man.
We saw in our brief study of the physical side that a girl in her
teens can feel. Her whole being is sensitized, ready at a moment's
notice to respond. In our study of the mental side we saw that she can
and does think, is capable of the heights and depths of emotion, and
is able in a limited way to make comparisons and reach sane
conclusions.
As the physical side of her nature is awake and the mental side keen,
curious and eager, so the spiritual side feels the thrill of new life
and opens to all the wealth of impression. She is close to the great
mysteries of life, and "whence came I, what am I here for, where am I
going," press her for answer. In her early teens she accepts gladly
the theories and creeds of those who teach her. There are
comparatively few "unbelievers" from thirteen to sixteen. The average
girl at this period is religious in the truest sense of the word. Her
moral sense is keen, her conscience is alive,--she longs unspeakably to
be good; to overcome jealousy and envy; to be truthful, thoughtful of
others; and a score of minor virtues she longs to possess. Yet in
strange perversity she is often none of these things. She finds it
easy to pray, and a song, a picture, a story filled with deeds of
deepest self-sacrifice, awakens immediate response. She can be
appealed to through her emotions, and her deepest religious sense
touched and developed. The awakening of her spiritual nature thus
through the emotions is perfectly legitimate. The appeal should never
be sensational, and never under any circumstances awaken an hysterical
response. Not tears but unbounded joy should be the result of her
response to an appeal to all that is best in her.
If the Sunday-school were equipped with just the right teachers, and
able to so influence parents and home conditions that the girl in her
early teens were regular in attendance, very few would reach the age
of sixteen without having determined to love and obey God and to live
in the world as Christ lived. Almost all would unite with the church,
which is the visible expression of the religious life,--and be ready to
throw themselves into its work.
In all my experience with Sunday-school girls of this period regular
in attendance and interested in the work I have found when talking
with them that they invariably say, "I think I _am_ a Christian," "I
am trying hard to be good and to be a Christian," "I am willing to
sign the card, I have been trying to be a Christian for a long time,"
etc., etc. Then, having so expressed themselves, if later I talk over
with them the matter of uniting with the church, I find only a few
objections repeated year after year by successive classes. "My father
and mother think I am too young," "My father says I would better wait
until I know what I am doing," "I am afraid I am not good enough," and
the one most reluctantly expressed, "If I join the church I am afraid
I'll have to----," then follow the things which perhaps must be given
up. I have yet to find the girl from thirteen to sixteen who has been
a regular attendant at Sunday-school since primary age who has no
desire to call herself a Christian. The splendid devotion to duty, the
sympathy, the service to the world, the marvelous love and compassion,
the supreme sacrifice of our Lord, makes the strongest possible appeal
to the spiritual nature of the girl. We may confidently expect her to
respond, and she does.
But if the girl has been irregular in attendance, has lost interest in
class or teacher, is permitted to enjoy the stimulus of social life
while too young, comes to church only on special occasions, has little
or no definite moral instruction at home, and does not come into close
touch with rich spiritual life, she will drift through the years of
adolescence with her spiritual nature undeveloped and expressing
itself only in vague longings unsatisfied. The chances are that such a
girl will never have anything but a superficial interest either in her
own development or the vital life of the church expressed in its
various agencies.
Two years ago, at a conference, a girl of sixteen from a fashionable
boarding-school, coming from a home where fads and fashions rule, said
to me, "I never knew Christ was so wonderful, but then I have never
thought much about it, though I go to morning service in the winter. I
have never met women and girls like those I have seen this week; they
are so interesting,--they are doing so many things to help people,--they
seem to love to live. I don't want to live a mean, selfish kind of
life. I am going back to school for my last year. What can I do? How
can I help?" I have met many girls of whom she is the type. Little is
being done for the spiritual side of their natures. The Sunday-school
at present does not reach them to any great extent. One of the
greatest problems facing the fashionable church is how to reach in any
way girls in their teens who are members of its congregation. Such
girls with their abundance of life have at least a right to those
things offered in the Sunday-school which will mean the awakening and
developing of the spirit. They need teachers especially equipped in
every way to meet them and help them. To find such teachers is one of
the problems that must be met within the next few years. Perhaps we
may look confidently for help before long to the girls of culture and
refinement now in our colleges hard at work upon every kind of problem
dealing with the development of a better life for girls and women. For
these girls are beginning to look at the Sunday-school seriously as
the means of bringing moral and religious education to girls of all
classes, and are asking how they may best equip themselves for service
in its various departments.
The problem of the other girl is just as great. She works all the
week, and when on Sunday morning she is tired, the family sympathize.
She gradually drops out of Sunday-school, is not able because of her
long hours to enter into the work of the church, does not come into
contact with any vitalizing spiritual force, and slowly this part of
her nature, lacking food and stimulus, begins to die. She spends
Sunday afternoon and evening socially, and enters upon the new week's
work with no uplift of soul and spirit to help her when temptations
come.
She needs a real teacher, sympathetic and appreciative, to hold her
during the first years of her working life. One who can make the class
a social factor, and by her effort and personality make the
Sunday-school hour interesting enough to insure attendance. Then the
teacher has an opportunity at least to bring the girl into contact
with Christ, and through instruction to feed and develop her spiritual
nature until it is ready through exercise to develop itself.
The spiritual nature needs food as does the physical. If the physical
life is poorly nourished in this time of the most rapid development, a
loss of vitality and power is the inevitable result. The same is true
of the mental life. There must be healthful, attractive, abundant food
for interesting, enjoyable thought. And just as surely the spiritual
life, unless the emotions and moral sense are nourished, will yield to
slow paralysis or run into wrong and wasteful channels.
But there comes a time in the spiritual experience of the girl,
usually about sixteen, when she wants to do something to express the
longing to give herself which is growing more intense each year. If
the Sunday-school and church are together able to provide her with
work she is fairly safe for the next few years. The work will mean
definite interest, will call for some sacrifice, and will bring the
satisfaction of accomplishment. The spiritual side of her nature will
find in this way opportunity for immediate expression, and we must
never let the fact escape us that without opportunity for expression
abundant life is impossible.
Sooner or later there is bound to come to the average girl in her
teens a period of doubting, anxious questioning. Most often it appears
at the very end of the period. The outcome of this longer or shorter
period of turmoil in thought may be a much broader, deeper faith in
the Christian ideals and the realities of life, or it may be a
drifting away from the church and the loss of definite faith in
anything.
There are in the world many more people who will not _do_ than who
will not _believe_, but a large and growing number of young women are
questioning, doubting, and finally deciding that we can not know, and
that the faith of our childhood is without reasonable foundation. Some
of these will seek satisfaction for the spiritual nature in later
years in all sorts of "isms," "ists," and cults; some will drop all
definite terms of faith and find a measure of satisfaction in
educational work among the poor. Some will grow hard and cynical, lose
all interest in any visible form of religion, and give themselves over
to a good time. The doubters and questioners are often thoughtful,
sincere young people, with mental ability of the best sort and high
moral sense, and every Sunday-school teacher who has any influence
with them must put forth every possible effort to save them, for their
own sake and that of the world. For the world can ill afford to lose
its women of faith.
Occasionally, the girl who asks questions is not sincere in her desire
to find answers; she just wants to argue. Argument with such a girl is
not helpful. As a rule, doubts expressed grow stronger. In talking
with a girl who wants to tell all that she doubts, I have found it
helpful to lead her to make positive statements as to what she
believes, and urge her if she feels that she must part with her old
faith to start a new one with what she _does believe_. To treat her as
"wicked," or to be "shocked" by her expression of unbelief is
exceedingly unwise. Positive teaching, free from dogmatism, along the
line where her doubts seem to lead will help to strengthen her, and
work with actual problems of a social and altruistic nature will act
as a good balance. Those who are at work with actual life problems
have invariably the strongest and broadest faith because they come
close to humanity and see its worth as well as its weakness, and in
the long run can not explain what they see without the presence of God
in the world, nor help the deep needs they realize without the aid of
Christ.
If the girl who questions is sincere, and is troubled and unhappy
because she can not believe, she deserves and should have the deepest
sympathy. The teacher to whom she comes for help is to be envied, for
she has the great privilege of an opportunity to help her _see_.
Oftentimes it is such a little thing that hides from her the whole
great range of Christian thought. I shall remember always the little
hill that hid my view of the White Mountains I had made such a
sacrifice to see. I had reached my stopping-place late at night, in
the rain, and when morning came with a flood of sunshine I went
eagerly forth to catch a first glimpse of the mountains. They were
nowhere in sight. A quiet country road, shaded by tall trees, and a
long, low range of hills was all I saw. Deep disappointment filled my
soul. I determined to go back. Before noon my companion climbed the
hill opposite the house and beckoned eagerly for me to follow. I shall
never forget what I saw! There they were, clear, blue, reaching up to
the bluer sky. How I loved them that summer,--touched with fire at
sunset, purple and gold in the deepening twilight, soft and far away
in the early morning mist; and when clouds shut them in, hid them from
sight, I knew they were there, calm, still, immovable! I had seen
them. Yet for a whole morning a little hill shut them from my vision,
and I had concluded that some one had deceived me, that from the
little town they could not be seen.
The greatest power of the teacher is that of beckoning to the pupil
that he may follow, helping him to climb the little hills, that he may
open his eyes and _see_. The mental questions must be answered as far
as possible. The difficulty in the way must be surmounted. The hill
must be climbed. If the teacher feels that she can not meet the task
herself, friends and books may help. The girl usually doubts the
miracles; doubts the deity of Christ, thinks the Bible is not
different from other books, asks the old, old question, "If a man die,
how can he live again?" She questions the existence of a God of power
in a world where so much evil and misery abound; says the foundation
of everything is gone, and that she is wretched and unhappy.
It seems to me a most helpful thing to make her feel that all
thoughtful men and women have at some time in their experience asked
these questions. Both the teacher and the girl must accept the fact of
mystery,--that there is much that we cannot hope to know, many laws of
mind and matter of which we know just a little, and many more of which
we know nothing. Mystery is a fact. That the spiritual sense can reach
into a realm where the mental faculties cannot follow, and that the
spirit of man can perceive what the mind alone cannot comprehend, we
have a right to believe.
When so much has been acknowledged the teacher may tell her pupil what
she personally believes about the disputed questions, and what the
scholars of the world believe on both sides of the question. The
teacher's belief is often the strongest argument, especially if she
has met the questions, found an answer, and her own faith is positive,
sane and strong. But if the teacher meets the troubled, anxious mental
state of the girl with dogmatic argument, insisting upon the definite
phraseology of some creed, she will most certainly fail to help. What
we want to do is not to inculcate a creed, but to help a girl to come
into living, vital touch with her Maker, that she may live with
confidence and be a help in the world.
In time she will find the creed that expresses for her in the most
satisfactory way what she has come to believe.
One of the most keen and interesting girls I have ever met, a junior
in college at nineteen, said to me after stating all that she could
not believe and why,--"Can't I believe that Christ was the finest man
that ever lived, and try to live and work in the world as he did? I
can't believe anything else." "Yes," I said, "that is true, believe
that. I think he was _more_, but start there. Do all you have planned
to help the needy, but don't forget to read again and again what he
said about himself and what those who have served the world most
fearlessly and faithfully say of him."
Two years later at the conference she told me she had come to the
conclusion that "what he did and said and his present influence in the
world can't be explained unless he was in a sense different from
ourselves, divine." This was _her conclusion_, reached by thought and
study. It was worth much more than any insistence two years before
that she believe as I did.
The way to help most effectually the girl who doubts, so far as my
experience has gone, is to help her to see that she can start,
standing firmly on what she believes, and then to help her faith grow
by giving her work to do and by putting in her way books that give
constructive teachings. Then one may supply her with stories of those
who have lived what they believe, and if possible bring her into
contact with fine, sane men and women of strong faith who love and
enjoy life.
Sometimes all the doubts and questionings come because life is so hard
and seems so unfair and unjust. Then the troubled girl needs to know
just one thing--"God _is_ love"; and only the teacher who loves can
help her,--she will know how.
Nothing can so stimulate the teacher's own faith as to be brought,
year after year, face to face with world-wide questions hurled at her
from the lips of girls in their later teens. She learns at last to
anticipate the time when doubts will trouble by giving during the
early teens definite constructive teaching that will strengthen faith
and deepen the spiritual sense.
The girl in her teens is a worshiper of the ideal, and the teacher's
business is to furnish her with ideals so beautiful, so strong and so
desirable that with irresistible power they woo her until she is ready
to leave all and follow. If she is possessed by a great ideal nothing
is too difficult for her to do, no price is too high to pay in the
effort to realize it. Ideals are the things in life most real, for
they determine action.
In impressing high ideals upon mind and spirit the teacher of girls in
their teens has advantages over those of any other period. All nature
is ready to help, the wealth of emotion waits to be stirred to action,
the spirit waits to be led.
If the spirit of the teacher is to lead, it must itself be led. It
must be dominated by great ideals.
The girl in her teens needs a teacher whose deepest longings are not
all satisfied--then she understands. She needs a teacher who is not
afraid to let her emotions speak--who knows that the greatest deeds
possible to man have their birth in the emotions. She needs a teacher
who sees amid all the joys and real pleasures of the world, as well as
amid the petty cares and dark and puzzling problems which are our
common lot, the Spirit of her Creator working out in man for ultimate
good the great plan of which she is a part.
Such a teacher can open the eyes of her girls and help them to see the
Father for whom the human spirit is ever seeking--and will not be
satisfied until it finds.