This girl had never doubted.  She had wondered and thought, questioned and believed.  Wise parents had given to her the God of the Universe—­the Father, and His Son the revelation of Himself to men that it might be saved, in such simple terms, so free from petty dogma that as she had grown in mind and spirit He grew in wonder and majesty and power, commanding her love and worship.

If a girl, troubled and perplexed by the things the mind cannot grasp or heart understand, chances to read this chapter let her know that the trouble lies not with the God of whom she has been taught but with those who, trying to do their best, have been weak in their teaching.

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.

  “Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
  Forgive our feverish ways;
  Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
  In purer lives thy service find,
  In deeper reverence, praise.”

XII

IN THE HANDS OF A TRIAD

Despite all the words that have been written and spoken in the past it is still true that many of those engaged in the religious training of a girl, or responsible for the form of religion which is presented to her, do not realize, or else they ignore the fact that she is in the hands of a triad—­body, mind and spirit.  As a triad she develops if she be a normal girl, as a triad she acts.  Her character is made by these three agencies working together.  It is a fact, the significance of which none of us fully realize, as yet, that a clean mind and a clean heart in an unclean body is very rare.  A quick, alert balanced mind and a pure, heroic spirit in a starved and diseased body is also rare.  A well-nourished, well-cared-for body with all its functions doing their work and a mental weakling is a rare combination.

Once we did not know that adenoids made children mentally deficient, nor did we dream that teeth properly attended to, and a pair of glasses could transform a girl from a sullen, morose disobedient child into an interesting, happy and obedient one; but some of us have seen that transformation and marveled at it.  Once we believed that inherent moral degeneracy sent a twelve-year-old girl to the courts.  Now we are beginning to see the relationship between a room with no windows and no running water, a dirty alley or a wretched street and the moral degeneracy.  Once we shook our heads and said, “Well, they say there’s one black sheep in every family.”  Now we are beginning to see that the black sheep may be made by the gratification of every physical desire and every mental whim and the neglect of the spirit.