When you are tempted to escape by a lie the consequences of what you have said or done—­Don’t.

When you are tempted to let envy or jealousy find expression in words or acts of meanness and unkindness—­Don’t.

When you are tempted to repeat a story or say a daring thing you would not say in the presence of the one whose respect you desire—­Don’t.

When you are tired of the struggle to be true and do right, tired of the effort to seek always the best things and are tempted to give up—­Don’t.

When you are tempted to repay injustice with revenge, unkindness with cruelty, jealousy with malice, to do to others as they do to you—­Don’t.

Learn the power of control, of restraint and though it be only the negative side of religion, it will help to make you strong.

When the instructor in religion opens his eyes and sees the peril which lies in wait for the girl wage earner, the society girl and even the schoolgirl, what he is forced to see makes him say with a passionate cry from his soul, as he thinks of the individual girls whom he knows and loves, “Thou shall not.”

XIV

THOU SHALT

A thought which slumbers in the mind has within it the germ of life.  At any moment when the right stimuli have been given, it may spring into conscious being and find expression in action that will color the entire life.  While it slumbers today, tomorrow may bring the waking moment and so it must be reckoned with in the formation of character.  Still it lacks the positive element.  It is limited.

It becomes the work of those interested in the welfare of the girl to cause the awakening and constant stimulation of those thoughts which shall lead to action along right lines.  The repeated impression upon the mind of deeds of heroism, of unselfish daily living, of great action on the part of ordinary people in a common-place environment has an unmistakable effect upon the forming character.

But if the thoughts engendered by the deeds of heroism and achievement be called into action by the opportunity in the girl’s life to reproduce them, then the effect upon the character is made definite and intense.  It is not until the girl has done a kindred thing, until the impression has found its way out in action, that the full result upon the forming character is seen.  All the complex life about her is busy through the eye and ear, through numberless sensations and instinctive reactions leaving impressions.  Their imprint upon her life may be seen by any close observer when the girl herself is unconscious of it.  But it is the special set of impressions which habitually find expression that determine character.