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; she will have it in her own soul.  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.