At twenty she is a truthful and truth-loving
girl, she has been able to say "no" to the things which proved the
downfall of brother and sister; she is a useful, self-supporting,
thoroughly respectable member of society and an earnest Christian. She
has been able to lead her younger brother safely past the dangerous
places and is helping him through school. What the church, through its
religious instruction, has been able to do for this girl and many others
it might do in far larger measure were it equipped with a regular
teaching force adequate to its need, if its preachers could come into
real contact with the children and youth of the community and present to
them with power the _thou shalt not_ which shall give them at least an
opportunity to strive to obey.
If the girl herself is reading this chapter I know she will agree with
me when I say that a girl respects and honors in her heart the teacher
who presents to her, fearlessly and honestly, the things which she
believes a girl cannot do with safety, which lead into dangerous places
and which make it hard for her to keep pure, true, unselfish in thought
and deed; and she respects even more highly the teacher who can give
her broad sane reasons for finding substitutes for these things. She
may, as she grows older, come to the conclusion that her teacher was
mistaken but she respects her for her honest effort to help.
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