Margaret Slattery

“ 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. ”

“ We need a prophet who shall awaken womanhood and girlhood to see that the wild rush for sensational and unhealthful pleasures has always meant one thing—final inability to enjoy, the day when all pleasures pall.
Would that the prophet might come, and speedily, that our girls might stand up on their feet free, no more slaves to Fashion or servants of Pleasure. Free—their faces clear, tinted and rosy with the keen joy of living. Free—their eyes bright with health and energy. Free from the lines of worry that stamp the faces of all those who yield to the demands of the Twin Idols. ”

“ O little town of Bethlehem! Small indeed—but spreading over all the earth. Only a few days before in America millions of children had heard its story, hugged their precious gifts, and thought of the angels and the shepherds. Thousands of parents, forgetting the pressure of dull gray days, filled with problems of food, clothing and shelter had smiled upon their own 34children and thought tenderly of the Child, and many men and women without a child to love remembered the days of their own childhood and greeted each other with “Merry Christmas.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is the self-conscious girl. Shy and made awkward by her shyness, unable to forget that she has hands and feet, painfully aware that she must walk while others watch her, that she is expected to say something and those who listen will criticize, she suffers intensely. The great onrush of self overwhelms her, she stammers, blushes, fingers and eyes help to reveal her suffering and as soon as possible she beats a retreat. How intense her sufferings are only those who know by experience can say. The shy and self-conscious girl will always be misunderstood. ”

“ Pictures of the old masters painted on walls of cathedrals, hanging in great galleries, hymns tender and sweet that had thrilled the souls of thousands, poetry that had comforted man in his deepest hours of need, shadowy forms of Crusaders who had dared the perils of sea and land, hunger and thirst and the swords of the enemy, the monk, the pilgrim, the student searching for truth:—all these passed before us under the olive trees and went out into the mist. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a girl of high ideals is thinking about them now and knows that she has of late been tempted to lower them a little, let me ask her to look at them very earnestly before she consents to tarnish them even a little. Perhaps it is only to wear upon the street the sort of dress which attracts attention and causes remarks to fall from the lips of loafers as she passes, perhaps to accept invitations from those who do not measure up to the standard, perhaps to engage in a dance in which the ideal could not join, to repeat gossip which is interesting but may not be true or to be mean and unkind. ”

“ It was along the high ridge of Olivet that, in the pressure of the days when relief workers toiled twelve and fifteen hours without respite, they came to renew their strength. In the home of the Greek Patriarch more than one strong soul, overcome for the 86moment by the ceaseless stream of dirty, hopeless, despairing human things that he must strive to save from the wreckage of war, found, in the white moonlight sifting down over the hill, in the kindly stars, in the silence and in sacred memories, courage to attempt again tasks that had been called impossible. ”

“ Through the weeks of instruction that follow the decision, when the girl learns, under her pastor’s or teacher’s direction, the history of the church, the development of her own denomination, and the statements of its creed, the work the church has done, and is actually doing for the poor and outcast, the rich and careless, her admiration for it deepens, and all the love and devotion of her girl heart goes out to Him whose wonderful life and sacrifice have inspired ordinary men and women to live in the world as real Christians. ”

“ The new paths bring new days fraught with possibilities. In time they may bring a new Palestine: not the mystic land of the Zionists but the promised land of which the prophets and poets of Israel sang. Old Palestine died in nineteen-fourteen with the rest of the world that was and will never be again. New Palestine is born. What its future shall be depends upon the souls of those who follow the new paths. They may lead only to temporary triumph, to the selfish goals of the kingdoms of men: they may lead to the Kingdom of God. ”

“ When I said good-night to her in her lovely room and thought of her protected, sheltered life, I wondered how she might be helped to know into what pleasant places her lot had fallen and how she might come to understand and do in later years her full duty toward the other fifteen-year-old girl who that day made paper boxes, feathers, flowers or shirtwaists, toiled in the laundries or the cotton factory, or walked with heavy heart from place to place searching for work. They are dependent upon one another, these two. They do not know it now, but if each is to be her best, they must know. ”

“ There is such evident joy in just living! When one catches a glimpse of the groups in their light dresses, with hair ribbons of every size and color according to the wearer’s interpretation of the latest fashion, wending their way to the high school, he feels that life is indeed a glorious summer morning. Though sighs and complaints may be heard over lessons too long and too difficult, they are not very deep, and are soon forgotten ”

“ The Plea which I make to the girl herself is that she use, to the full capacity, her power to inhale those things that shall give inspiration for pure, helpful living. Every girl has that power. Some use only two-thirds of it, some one third, some have forgotten its existence. If a girl wants to really live she must "breathe deep," with her soul's windows open wide to the atmosphere that will give her strength. ”

“ The stone courtyards, the little chapels, the marks of Crusaders’ crosses, the burial stones made us conscious indeed of the triumphs and tragedies of men and nations that had written 98themselves from that hilltop into the history of Palestine and so into the making of the world. It was very easy, standing in that upper room, bare now save for an ancient picture, to imagine the long table, the couches, the reclining disciples. One is almost overwhelmed as he realizes the effect of that simple supper of bread and wine upon the characters of succeeding generations of men. ”

“ All day through the busy streets of the shopping district they passed—the city's handicapped girls. Some were held back from the best that life can give by poverty, which like a great yawning chasm lies between the girl and all her natural desires and ambitions, some held back from the joy of simple, natural living by the forced, artificial social system of which they are a part, some pitiful specimens of physical and mental handicap and some who showed the strain of the handicap of sin, mingled in that Christmas crowd. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It does not follow them—they come in over the blue waters of the bay, look with shining eyes at Liberty with her promise of fulfilment of all the heart's desires, they sit in the long rows of benches at Ellis Island, pass through the gate and are gone, the majority to be lost in the mass that struggles for a mere livelihood—just the chance to keep on living.
What if some summer morning, or in the dim twilight of a bitter winter day, a miracle should be wrought and the handicapped should be lifted so that girlhood might be free to work out the realization of its dreams! ”

“ If the girl in her teens is in business she meets daily the temptation to let her own interests interfere with her employer’s, to waste time, to give excuses, to indulge in pleasures that do not uplift, but mean late hours, little sleep, and physical unfitness for work. She needs every Sunday the practical words of warning and inspiration straight from the heart of a woman who understands her temptations and can help her to overcome them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ VII THE GIRL WHO WORSHIPS THE TWIN IDOLS
The twin idols that accept with all the complacency of an ancient Buddha the devotion of more worshipers than any church or creed can claim are Fashion and Pleasure. Not sane fashion which helps make men and women attractive and clothes them with neatness and care, protects them by courtesies, and shields them by conventionalities, but mad fashion. Not real pleasure that fills eye with delight and days with happiness that will be remembered even when one is old and days are dark and hard but mad pleasure, the thief and robber. ”

“ 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 ”

“ A girl may have no doubt of his existence, she may not question the great events of his life, but he does not stir her to action. The fact of George Washington does not awaken the patriotism of a girl and in schools where merely the facts regarding his life are given his influence is practically negative. But whenever the facts have been breathed upon by a sympathetic spirit and the fact George Washington transformed into the personality that lives in the girl's presence then his influence begins to count. ”