CHAPTER XX

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF A YOUNG WOMAN'S

RELIGION

In later adolescence comes one of the crucial periods of the religious life. The young woman is now naturally engaged in making intelligent working plans for her future, and the ideals of her romantic girlhood are being sifted by new knowledge and tested by experience. Experience of love and happiness and success, of bereavement and sorrow and disappointment, tests religious values anew. Inward growth as well as accumulating wisdom give her a wider comprehension of the problems and possibilities of life. It is a time of the most fascinating possibilities, the most intricate problems, and the gravest perils. To meet these needs makes an educational attitude on the part of the religious adviser imperative.

Need of Distinguishing Essentials. The first need of the older friend who would be a wise counselor amid this stress is to have a clear concept of what is essential. Truth is eternal, but it is not all known yet by the wisest; and an individual's attention can focus on only one thing at a time. Thus what may seem to the mature Christian to be a willful, even an heretical omission, may be due merely to the fact that the growing soul, busy with crowding experiences, has not yet reached the problem involved. Patience is needed to distinguish passing phase from permanent bent; but one important function of the religious guide is to

point out to the novice in living what she may be too preoccupied to see when it is most necessary.

The Evidences of a Healthy Religious Life. What are the "Christian evidences," not in the sense of the theological curriculum but in the "observable behavior" of the young woman, that may content those who "watch over her as they that must give an account"? It is difficult to make a logical analysis of a living thing; but neither is it necessary. Life manifests itself in living, and disease and danger are evident in disturbances of living processes. What are the normal functions of the religious life?

For answer we turn to the greatest "Master in the Kingdom of Life," and find that Jesus had certain clearly defined standards and tests which he applied alike to his own life and to the lives of others. These tests in the high realm of personality are essentially the same as those by which science distinguishes the presence of life in its simplest forms. Living substance, of any degree of complexity, will always grow, act from inner impulses, react adaptively to its environment, and ultimately produce its kind. In what human activities did Jesus seek the fundamental evidences of spiritual life? Was it not in growth, adaptation, activity, and reproduction?

1. Growth. The life which consists in "knowing the only true God" and his revelation in terms of human life is eternal in its quality. Such a life can never come to a standstill. Through maturity, into old age, and forever, there is room to grow. But growth is not only endless, it is the growth of a whole. Fragments

1 John 17. 3: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

endlessly succeeding fragments are not growth, and they yield no possibility of a growing apprehension of God. Over and over Jesus reiterates the value of each individual's "own self" and its inevitable loss if the direction of its growth is either divided or self-centered.2 The conscious direction of growth is a matter of the will, and so the first test of a life is its purpose. Jesus frankly told the purpose of his own life; and its varying application to the fundamental problems of living is given in the various statements of that for which he "came" or was "sent."4 The way in which he worked out these problems makes an appeal to the young woman's most vital interests. The most satisfying evidence that she is growing in the right direction is the test that Jesus applied: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first and great commandment."5

2. Adaptation. "Life is the continuous adjustment of the organism to its environment." The environment of a personality must consist primarily of persons. The fellowship of persons-past, present, and to come, and all together with the Supreme Person-Jesus sums up in his concept of the kingdom of God. The first com

2 Luke 9. 25: "For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?"

John 5. 30: "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.'

Luke 19. 10: "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

Mark 1. 38: "And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth." Mark 2. 17: "When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'

Matt. 22. 37, 38: "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and the great commandment.""

Mark 12. 30: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.'

mandment gives first place to the supreme factor in this personal environment, but "the second is like unto it," and it is by the character of the individual's reaction to his neighbor that the spiritual life is tested.

Righteousness is the first standard of successful adaptation. To love one's neighbor as oneself is to recognize the like value of all selves, and to act accordingly. Hence love must be ethical. Again and again when emotion or ritualism were offered as evidences of religion, Jesus, like the prophets, strips them away in his searching test for justice, mercy, and truth. A young woman's life that squares with the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount gives satisfactory evidence of moral vitality.

Moral Insight. No organism can be adaptable to its environment if it is not sensitive to it. One of the unerring tests applied by Jesus to the spiritual life is ability to perceive spiritual significance. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" was the only prerequisite for receiving his teaching. The spiritual insensitivity that attributed to "the prince of the devils" the works which revealed the heart of God the Father is a sin that "hath never forgiveness" because the optic nerve of the soul, paralyzed by self-administered poison, is incapable of responding to any stimulus in heaven or earth. One symptom of the onset of this moral obtuseness is attributing wrong motives to others. Its first stage is yielding to wrong motives oneself. Sensitivity to personal environment is illustrated supremely in Jesus's consciousness of the Father's moral approval, combined with his tender compassion to the

Matt. 12. 22-37, Compare 16. 1-6.

7 John 15. 10, 8. 29.

coarsest and most ignorant of the sinning multitude.8 One test of a young woman's spiritual life is her growing discernment of moral needs in herself and in others, and her willingness to use the discipline of life as a means of learning its spiritual laws.

Loyalty. In the intricate adaptations required by personal relationships, success demands adequate control of the individual life. Every girl who thinks realizes that efficient control of her life requires such a knowledge of its possibilities, of what is needed to stimulate them, and of the future, as she herself cannot have. Other persons may have a partial knowledge of some of these elements that exceeds her own, but they are ignorant of her inner self, and of the inner selves of the people who act upon her. Only the God who made the individual life and the universe in which it lives can fit the one to the other. Jesus joyously announced that he had found the secret of freedom in loyalty. "Thy will be done" was to him no passive martyrdom or cringing before the inevitable, but a warm and stimulating enthusiasm. When he offered this joy to his friends it was with the frankest admission of its cost. To find eternal life one must lose the self that is limited by mental reservations and secret cowardice.10 But he demanded this extreme of loyalty because he had experienced its fullness of reward.11 In this spirit also Paul chose as his honorary title, "The bondslave of Jesus Christ." With what attitude is the young woman meeting those circumstances over which she has no control? Does she

8 Luke 7. 39-50, Mark 2. 15-17.

"My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work" reveals the community of purpose between a "full-grown son" and his Father (John 4. 34). 10 Matt. chapter 10. 11 John 10. 17-18.