And must I back to darkness go
Because I cannot say a creed?
I know not what I think! I know
Only that _Thou_ art what I need."
The fact is not enough. John Kendrick Bangs says it forcibly--
"A mere acceptance of the fact of love of God above,
Of all the vast omnipotence of Him our Maker and Defence
Is not believing."
Slowly we are getting back to the recognition of the proper place of
fact, of its power as the background and basis against which and upon
which Personality must stand. Our eyes are opening to see that if the
girl is to gain a religion which shall mean life, she must gain it
through a person who reveals a _Person_.
Here is Mary D----, a girl of fifteen, a worker in a mill employing a
very cheap grade of help. Her face was hard, there was no light of
anticipation in her eyes--she had nothing to anticipate. She toiled
through the long hours, for there was no limit to her day in the state
where she lives. Her home was not a home but a place where she could
stay nights--when her father was not so quarrelsome through cheap
drink that he drove her out. One day a woman at a noon service in the
factory shocked at a profane remark of Mary's said reprovingly, "Don't
you believe there is a God?" "Sure I do," said Mary, "but I don't see's
it makes no difference to me.
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