THE GLORY OF THE CLIMAX
So many miss it. It is more than duty but the path that leads to the glory of it often begins with the plain, insistent, _ought_ of duty. It is more than obedience, though without obedience none ever find it. How many girls there are who are disappointed, dissatisfied, suffering perhaps in body and soul because they never learned to obey! It is a great thing to be able to hear "you ought" and then at whatever cost to _obey_ it. But the climax is not found in these things great as they are.
Faithful servants of a religion whose law is duty one finds among girls and honors them. Good and faithful servants of a religion whose law is obedience there are among girls. But neither of these have found the glory of the climax. The climax is Love. The supreme command of the Founder of true religion is--Thou shalt Love.
The religion of love is a girl"s religion and she can never be satisfied with any other. If those who have tried to teach her religion have failed to show her this, then they have succeeded in giving her only a set of laws to be obeyed or a list of things she should not do.
Love gives to Thou Shalt and Thou Shalt Not _power_ without which they can accomplish little.
Love transforms hard, disagreeable, empty service and makes it glorious.
No one knows this better than a girl. She has done things when necessity compelled her to do them, and she has done them when love compelled her to do them. She knows the difference. Jesus founded His Kingdom on the knowledge He had of Love. He _knew_ the kingdom would stand. On his lonely island of banishment dreaming in the twilight, with all the struggle and attainment behind him Napoleon realized it as he said, "Caesar, Charlemagne, I, have founded empires. They were founded on force and have perished. Jesus Christ has founded a kingdom on Love, and to this day there are millions who would die for Him."
When I say that the religion of girlhood is the religion of Love I mean real love. 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.
Machinery dragged the water from the earth and machinery turned it into service. Some days later I saw a mountain spring. It poured and poured out over the rocks, down the precipice into the brook, on into the river. It ran as if it were glad to run and would never stop! Green things grew on every side of it, mosses clung to the rocks it touched, rich gra.s.s filled the meadow through which it flowed, birds followed it.
Life and beauty seemed to spring from every place it touched.
When I remembered the well of water deep down in rock, dragged up by machinery it seemed to me like religion, the religion of service through duty, and I knew that it would keep right on serving as long as the machinery worked and would do its part dutifully.
Then I looked again at the spring. It seemed to me like religion, the religion of love that blessed because it is its nature to bless and poured itself out in service because it must.
It is the religion of love which holds one to the side of the road where need is great, work must be done, perhaps sacrifice made. That Samaritan who stopped, dismounted, tenderly cared for an injured brother of hated race, lifted him to his own beast, slowly walked beside him to a place where rest and shelter could be provided, knew the love-inspired religion. The Priest and the Levite were followers of the law, the letter of the law, but they looked upon the man in his need, crossed to the other side and _pa.s.sed by_.
The Jericho road is still with us, and the needy who call for help and for justice are upon it, injured in body or soul. The religion of the letter of the law looks, crosses to the other side, pa.s.ses by. On one side of the road Need, on the other side Greed, and Love always where Need is.
The religion of Love follows the road the Founder took, the road that leads to the place of service. That road may lead to China, it may lead to the islands of the sea. It took Livingstone to Africa, Dan Crawford to the Bantus for twenty-two years and now is taking him back for the rest of his days. It took Carey to India, it left Grenfell in Labrador, it led last year"s college girls to every quarter of the globe. It leads this one down among the dirty, helpless, little children trying to play in wretched scorching city streets, it leads that one to the lonely countryside where girls starved for life are waiting. And, oh, so often it leads one to the door of her own church, to her own street, to her own cla.s.s-room, to the girl beside her in the office. Sometimes it leads to one"s own kitchen, or it stops beside the chair where one"s own mother sits. One can never tell where the road of the religion of love may lead, but one cannot fail to see that those who follow it have shining faces and they love to live.
One day at sunset I waited at the little wharf to walk through the pines with Elizabeth. She was paddling in her canoe over the lake that had turned to crimson and gold, from the fresh air camp on the other side to which she went every afternoon in summer to play games and tell stories. "I had a great day," she called in her clear, cheering voice as she neared the wharf, and added as she stepped from the boat, "Little Billy loves me and Katie Kane whispered softly and _blushed_ when she said it, that she told me a lie yesterday and was never going to tell a lie no more as long as she lived! Poor Katie," she laughed.
When we reached the knoll where the three pines were we stopped and looked back. Words could never describe what we saw. Elizabeth stood silently watching it, her sweet face, her dark hair and her middy blouse tinged with the glow of it. As the sun slowly slipped into the lake she waved her hand playfully at it. "Good night, old man," she said. "Give us a cooler day tomorrow. Fifty new children come to camp." After a moment while we waited for darkness to come stealing over the lake, forgetful of me, she said with her whole soul in her voice, "Oh, I _love_ it, I love it _all_--the world, and those poor blessed children," then very softly "and G.o.d."
She had found the girls" religion, the religion Jesus Christ said, when they asked Him, meant two things--"Thou shalt love the Lord Thy G.o.d--and Thy Neighbor."
This is the girl"s religion, for in loving she shall find Love--the glory of the climax.
THE END