A Matter of Cultivation : Part 2

The Girl and Her Religion
by Margaret Slattery

(Page 16 of 21)

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.

Copyright, 1913 by Luther H. Cary
Fifth Printing, The Pilgrim Press
Boston