whose own spirits are starved, she can seek friends who will help, she can go to the places where her mind and soul are stirred as well as her senses, she can find in good books great uplift and courage.  She will, if she truly wants inspiration and help to live nobly, attend regularly some church where the service makes her long to be her best.  She will, if possible, join some class where she can study the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who now even as when He was here, lifts those who listen to Him out of failure and discouragement into hope, in whose presence every girl may breathe in the atmosphere filled with life giving power.

If a girl responds to this Plea to open her soul to the great Giver of life, I can Promise that she will find true happiness and joy.

XVII

A PERSON NOT A FACT

Every thoughtful person craves facts.  They are cold, hard, sometimes disconcerting but they carry weight.  “It is a fact, it has been proven,” hushes many a query and silences many an argument.  And yet it is not in the array of facts which can be given at any moment that young people find their incentives and inspirations.  They may have all the facts at their tongue’s end but lack the fire which shall transfuse those facts into power to act in accordance with their teachings.  Julius Caesar is a fact.  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.

It is not the facts about Abraham Lincoln that engender heroism.  The facts may be presented in such a way as to hold but passing interest.  I have heard the life and times of Abraham Lincoln taught that way.  But I have seen Abraham Lincoln presented to a class of foreign girls by one to whom he had become a friend as real and genuine as if he stood by her side.  As I listened I saw Abraham Lincoln.  I felt the kindness and patience of his great soul, the honest purpose and the fine courage of his life.  The facts were there in that lesson but more than the facts were there. He was there.  At the close of the lesson that teacher looking into the faces of the girls who represented nearly every land across the sea said to them, “What do you think of him?” One girl responded eagerly “I think he was grand!” and a dark-haired intense girl, her black eyes glowing, rose and said with an earnestness and fervor I can never forget, “I love him!” “You shall hear more tomorrow,” said the teacher, and they looked as if it were hard to wait.