The Girl and Her Religion | Page 2

out over the cold in winter, and to endure the scorching days of summer. And her religion? What is it that religion may offer to her in compensation for what she has been denied?
It is the right of every girl to receive, through the educational work of the community, training which shall fit her for clean, honest and efficient living. Yet every year sees hundreds of girls turned out into the world wholly unequipped for life, their special talents undiscovered, their energies undirected, their purposes unformed, their ambitions unawakened.
It is the right of every girl to be shielded from the moral danger and physical strain of labor for her daily bread, at least until she shall reach the age of sixteen. Yet every year sees a long procession of girls from eight to sixteen entering into the economic struggle who cannot claim their rights.
It is the right of every girl to have a good time, to play under conditions that are morally safe, and to enjoy amusements that leave no stain. Hundreds of girls live in communities where this is absolutely impossible. What has religion to offer to a girl denied an education which will fit her for the life she must live, compelled to enter into a fierce struggle for daily bread while still a child, surrounded by every sort of cheap, exotic amusement behind which temptation lurks? Has it anything to offer in compensation, if it permits conditions to go on unchanged?
It is the right of every girl to enjoy companionship and friends. Thousands of girls toil through the day in shops, factories, offices and kitchens and at night sit friendless and alone until the loneliness becomes unendurable and they seek companionship of the unfit and the refuge of the street. Has religion anything to do with lonely girlhood?
It is the right of every girl to receive such instruction regarding her own physical life and development as shall serve to protect her from the pitfalls laid for the thoughtless and ignorant, and shall fit her to understand, and when the time comes accept the privileges and responsibilities of motherhood. Every year sees thousands of girls enter the teens whose only knowledge of self and motherhood is gained through the half truths revealed by companions, the suggestions of patent medicine and kindred advertisements, or the falsehoods of those who seek to corrupt. What has a girl's religion to do with these simple undeniable facts?
It is the right of every girl to receive the protection of wise parental authority. The guidance of parents who earnestly, wisely and with the highest motives require obedience from those too young to choose for themselves is the right of every girl. Yet thousands of girls every year are left to decide life's most important questions, while parents, weak, indifferent or careless sleep until it is too late. Has religion anything to offer to girls whose parents have laid down their task and neglected their duty?
It is the right of every girl to receive such moral and religious instruction as shall develop and strengthen her higher nature, fortify her against temptation and lead her in the spirit of the Author of the Golden Rule into service for her fellows. Yet thousands of girls are without definite moral and religious instruction and unconscious of the fact that it is their right, and thousands more receive moral and religious training in haphazard fashion and from sources inadequate to the task.
When the community awakens to the necessity for sanitary conditions in the environment of every girl and honestly seeks the solution of the problems of economic injustice; when the educational system seeks to prepare its girls for the life they must live; when laws for the regulation of labor for girls are made in the interest of the girl herself; when the community makes it possible for its girls to play in safety and makes provision for friendless and lonely girlhood; when mothers instruct their daughters in the most important facts of life, parents exercise protective authority and the church provides adequate assistance in the task of moral and religious instruction, then, and not till then, will the girl receive her rights.
And the girl's religion? The girl is naturally religious. Without religion no girl comes into her own. Whenever and wherever religion concerns itself with the rights of a girl it becomes a girl's religion to which she can pledge body, mind and soul. For the coming of that religion the world of girlhood eagerly waits.

II
THE HANDICAPPED GIRL
They were both handicapped, as a careful observer could tell at a glance. One stood behind the counter, the other in front of it examining the toys she was about to purchase for a Christmas box for some young cousins in the country. She had not been able to find just