 CHAPTER XII. There is Bible for that doctrine, too. Where? Flossy asked, turning quickly to Marion. In this verse, if meat maketh my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world stands. Don't you see you never can know which brother may be made to offend? And it is even about so useful a thing as food, said Flossy, looking her amazement. She had never heard that verse before in her life, about just that thing, and nothing so really unnecessary to a complete life as card-playing may be. Colonel Baker sneers at the inconsistency of people who have nothing to do with cards and who play croquet. Yuri said this with cheeks a little heightened in color. She had come in contact with Colonel Baker on this very question. Ruth looked up quickly from the paper on which she was scribbling. I think myself, she said, that if it should seem necessary to me to give up cards entirely, consistency would oblige me to include croquet and all other games of that sort. I shouldn't feel obliged to do any such thing, Marion said promptly, at least not until I had become convinced that people played croquet late into the night in rooms smelling of tobacco and liquor and were tempted to drink freely of the latter and pawn their coats, if necessary, to get money enough to carry out the game. You see, there is a difference. Yet people can gamble in playing croquet, Yuri said thoughtfully. Oh yes, and people can gamble with pins or in tossing up pennies. The point is, they are not in the habit of doing it and pins suggest no such thing to people in general, nor do croquet balls, while the fact remains that the ordinary use of cards is to gamble with them and comparatively few of those who use them habitually can find themselves to quiet home games. People are in danger of making their brothers offend by their use. We all know that. If that is true, then just that one verse from the Bible ought to settle the whole question. There was no mistaking the quiet meaning in Flossie's voice. It was as good as saying that the whole question was settled for her. Marion regarded her with evident satisfaction. Her manner was all the more fascinating because she was so entirely unconscious that this way of looking at questions, rather than this firm manner of settling questions, was not common even among Christians. Can you show me the verse in your Bible? She presently asked. I can do that same with the greatest pleasure, Marion said, bringing forward a new and shining concordance. I really meant to have a new dress this fall. I say that, Ruthie, for your special comfort. But the truth is, there was an army of Bible verses that I learned in my youth troubbing up to me, and I had such a desire to see the connection and find out what they were all about that I was actually obliged to sacrifice the dress and get a concordance. I have lots of comfort with it. Here is the verse, Flossie. Flossie drew the Bible toward her with a little sigh. I wish I knew an army of verses, she said. Seems to me I don't know any at all. Then she went to reading. I know verses enough, Yuri said, but they seem to be in a great muddle in my brain. I can't remember that any of them were ever explained to me, and it isn't very often that I find a place where any of them will fit in. They do fit in, though, and with astonishing closeness you will find, as you grow used to them. I have been amazed at that feature of the Bible. Some of the verses that occur in the selections for parsing are just wonderful. They seem aimed directly at me. What have you found, Flossie? Wonderful things, said Flossie, flushing and smiling. You are reading backward, aren't you? I know those verses. Just you let me read them, substituting the object about which we are talking, and see how they will fit. You see, girls, this astonishing man, Paul by name, do you happen to know his history? More wonderful things happen to him than to any other mortal, I barely believe. Well, he was talking about idols, and advising his Christian friends not to eat the food that had been offered to idols, not that it would hurt them, but because, well, you'll see the because as I read. I'll just put in our word for an illustration instead of meat. But cards commended us not to God, for neither if we play are we the better, neither if we play not are we the worse. But take heed, lest any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak, for if any man see thee which haste knowledge, sit at cards, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to sit at cards also, and through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died, but when ye sin so against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ, wherefore if cards make my brother to offend, I will play no more cards while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend. Doesn't that fit? Let me look at that, said Yuri suddenly, drawing the Bible to her. After all, she said after a moment, what right have you to substitute the word cards? It is talking about another matter. Now Yuri Mitchell, you are too bright to make such a remark as that. If the Bible is for our help as well as for Paul's, we have surely the right to substitute the noun that fits our present needs. We have no idols nowadays, at least they are not made out of wood and stone, and the logic of the question is as clear as sunlight. We have only to understand that the matter of playing cards is a snare and a danger to some people, and we see our duty clearly enough, because how are we ever to be sure that the very person who will be tempted is not within the reach of our influence? What do you think, Flossie, is the question any clearer to you? Why, yes, Flossie said slowly, that eighth verse settles it, for meat commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse. It certainly can do no one any harm if I let cards alone, and it is equally certain that it may do harm if I play them. I should think my duty was clear. I wonder what Colonel Baker will say to that duty, queried Yuri, thinking aloud rather than speaking to anyone. He is very much given over to the amusement if I am not mistaken. She raised her eyes and fixed them thoughtfully on Yuri's face, while a flush spread all over her own pretty one. Was it possible that she had helped to foster this taste in Colonel Baker? How many evenings had she spent with him in this way? Was he very much addicted to the use of cards, she wondered, that is, outside of their own parlor? Yuri seems to know something about it. What makes you think so? She asked at last. Because I know so, he has a great deal to do with Nell's infatuation. He was the very first one with whom Nell ever played for anything but fun. Flossy Shipley, you surely know that he derives a good deal of his income in that way. I certainly did not know it, Flossy said, with an increasing glow on her cheeks. The glow was caused by wondering how far her own brother, Charlie, had been led by this man. Girls, said Marion, concluding that a change of subject would be wise. Wouldn't a Bible reading evening be nice? What kind of an evening can that be? Marion laughed. Why, a reading together out of the Bible about a certain subject or subjects that interested us and about which we wanted to inform ourselves? Like this, for instance, I presume there are dozens of texts that bear on this very question. It would be nice to go over them together and talk them up. Flossy's eyes brightened. I would like that exceedingly, she said. I need the help of you all. I know so very little about the Bible. We have musical evenings and literary evenings. Why not Bible evenings? Let's do it. At propos of the subject at hand, before we take up a new one, what do you think of this by way of illustration? Ruth asked, as she threw down on the table a daintily written epistle. There was an eager grasping after it by this merry trio, and Yuri securing it read aloud. It was an invitation for the next evening to a select gathering of choice spirits for the purpose of enjoying a social evening at cards. What do you propose to do with it? Marion asked, as Yuri balanced the note on her hand with an amused face, the illustration fitted so remarkably into the talk. Decline it, Ruth said briefly, and then added, as an afterthought, I never gave the subject any attention in my life. I am perhaps not entirely convinced now, only I see as Flossy does, that I shall certainly do no harm by declining, whereas it seems I may possibly do some by accepting, therefore, of course, the way is clear. She said it with the utmost composure, and it was evident that the idea of such a course being disagreeable to her, or of her considering it across to decline, had not occurred to her. She cared nothing at all about these matters, and had only been involved in them as a sort of necessity belonging to society. She was more than willing to be counted out. As for Flossy, she drew a little sigh of envy. She would have given much to have been constituted like Ruth Erskine. She knew that the same like invitation would probably come to her, and she knew that she would decline it. But aside from loss of the pleasure and excitement of the pretty toilet and the pleasant evening among her friends, she foresaw long and weary some discussions with Colonel Baker, with Charlie, with her father. Sarcastic remarks from Kitty and her lover, and a long train of annoyances. She dreaded them all. It was so easy to slip along with the current, it was so hard to stem it and insist on going the other way. As for Marion Wilbur, she envied them both, a chance for them to dash out into a new channel and make some headway, not the everlasting humdrum sameness that filled her life. Flossy was fascinated with the Bible words that were so new and fresh to her. Those verses cover a great deal of ground, she said, slowly reading them over again. I can think of a good many things which we call right enough that, measured by that test, would have to be changed or given up. But Marion, you spoke of dancing and theater going. I can't quite see what the verses have to do with either of those amusements. I mean not as we and the people in our set have to do with such things. Do you think every form of dancing is wicked? What wholesale questions you ask, my morsel, and do you ask them precisely as though I had been made umpire and you must abide by my decisions, whatever they are. Now, do you know I never believed in dancing? I had some queer, perhaps old-fashioned, notions about it all my life. Even before there was any such thing as a conscientious scruple about it, I should not have danced if I had had a hundred chances to mingle in just the set that you do. So perhaps I am not the one of whom to ask that question. I should think you were just the one, if you have examined it, and know why you think so, you can surely tell me and give me a chance to see whether I ought to think as you do or not. I need posting decidedly on that question, Yuri said, throwing off her earnestness and looking amused. If there is any one thing above another that I do thoroughly enjoy, it is dancing, and I give you all fair warning, I don't mean to be coaxed out of it very easily. I will fight hard for that bit of fun. Marian don't know anything about it, for she never danced, but the rest of you know just what a delicious exercise it is. And I don't believe, when it is indulged in reasonably and at proper places, there is any harm at all in it. If I am to give it up, you will have to show me strong reasons why I should. All this fits right in with my idea, Marian said. Nothing could be more suitable for our first Bible reading. Let us take an evening for it, and prepare ourselves as well as we can beforehand, and examine into the Bible view of it. Yuri, you will be expected to be armed with all the scriptural arguments in its favor. I'll try for the other side. Now Ruth and Flossie, which side will you choose? Neither, Ruth said promptly, I am interested in the subject and shall be glad to be informed as to what the Bible says about it, if any of you are smart enough to find anything that will bear on the subject, but I believe the Bible left that as well as some other things, to our common sense, and that each of us have to decide the matter for ourselves. All right, said Marian, we'll accept you as the noncommittal side. Only remember you are to try to prove from the Bible that it has left us to decide this matter for ourselves. I shall take every side that I find, Flossie said. What I want to know is the truth about things. Without regard as to whether the truth is so fortunate as to agree with your opinion or not, said Marian, you will probably be quite as likely to find the truth as any of us. Well, I like the plan. There is work in it, and it will amount to something. When shall it be? Next Friday, said Flossie. No, said Ruth. Friday is the night of Mrs. Garland's lawn party. A dancing party, said Urie. Good, let us come together on Thursday evening. If there is a dancing party just ahead, it will make us all more zealous to prove our sides. I shall be at least, for I want to go to Mrs. Garland's. End of Chapter 12, Recording by Tricia G. Chapter 13 of the Chautauqua Girls at Home. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Chautauqua Girls at Home by Pansy. Chapter 13, Looking for Work. Dr. Dennis had just gone into his study to make ready for the evening prayer meeting when he heard his doorbell ring. He remembered with a shade of anxiety that his daughter was not yet out of school and that his sister and housekeeper was not at home. It was more than likely that he would be interrupted. What is it, Hannah? He asked, as that person appeared at his door. It is Miss Erskine, sir. I told her that Miss Dennis was out of town, and Miss Grace was at school. And she said it was of no consequence. She wanted to see the minister himself. Will I tell her that you are engaged? No, said Dr. Dennis promptly. The sensation was still very new, this desire on the part of any of the name of Erskine to see him. His preparation could afford to wait. Two minutes more and Ruth was in the study. It was a place in which she felt as nearly embarrassed as she ever approached to that feeling. She had a specific purpose in calling and words arranged wherewith to commence her topic. But they fled from her as if she had been a schoolgirl instead of a finished young lady in society. And she answered the doctor's kind inquiries as to the health of her father and herself in an absent and constrained manner. At last this good man concluded to help her. Is there anything special that I can do for you today? He asked, with a kindly interest in his tone, that suggested the feeling that he was interested in her plans, whatever they were, and would be glad to help. Yes, she said, surprised into frankness by his straightforward way of doing things. Or at least I hope you can, Dr. Dennis, ought not every Christian to be at work? Our great example said, I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day. I know it, that very verse set me to thinking about it. That is what I want help about. There is no work for me to do, at least I can't find any. I am doing just nothing at all, and I don't in the least know which way to turn. I am not satisfied with the state of things. I can't settle back to my books and my music as I did before I went away. I don't enjoy them as I used to. I mean they don't absorb me. They seem to be of no earthly use to anyone but myself, and I don't feel absolutely certain that they are of any use to me. Anyway, they are not Christian work. As to that, you are not to be too certain about it. Wonderful things can be done with music, and when one is given a marked talent for it, as I hear has been the case with you, it is not to be hidden in a napkin. I don't know what I can do with music, I am sure, Ruth said skeptically. I suppose I must have a good deal of talent in that direction. I have been told so ever since I can remember, but beyond entertaining my friends, I see no other special use for it. Do you remember telling me about the songs which Mr. Bliss sang at Chautauqua and the effect on the audience? Yes, said Ruth, speaking heartily, and her cheeks glowing at the recollection, but he was wonderful. The same work can be done in a smaller way, Dr. Dennis said, smiling. I hope to show you something of what you may do to help in that way before another winter passes. But in the meantime, mere entertainment of friends is not a bad motive for keeping up one's music. Then there is the uncertain future ever before us. What if you should be called upon to teach music someday? A vision of herself toiling wearily from house to house in all weathers and at all hours of the day as she had seen music teachers do, hovered over Ruth Erskine's brain and so utterly improbable and absurd did the picture scene when she imagined it as having any reference to her that she laughed outright. I don't believe I shall ever teach music, she said positively. Perhaps not, and yet stranger things than that have happened in this changeful life. But Dr. Dennis, she said with sudden energy and showing a touch of annoyance at the turn which the talk was taking, my trouble is not in an inability to employ my time. I do not belong to the class of young ladies who are afflicted with ennui. And a sarcastic curve of her handsome lip made Ruth look very like the Miss Erskine that Dr. Dennis had always known. She despised people who had no resources within themselves. I can find plenty to do and I enjoy doing it, but the point is I seem to be living only for myself and that doesn't seem right. I want Christian work. To tell the truth Dr. Dennis was puzzled. There was so much work to do, his hands and heart were always so full and running over that it seemed strange to him for anyone to come looking for Christian work. The world was teeming with it. On the other hand he confessed to himself that he was utterly unaccustomed to hearing people ask for work or if the facts be told to having anyone do any work. Years ago he had tried to set the people of the first church to work but they had stared at him and misunderstood him and he confessed to himself that he had given over trying to get work out of most of them. While this experience was refreshing it was new and left him for the moment to be willed. I understand you, he said rallying. There is plenty of Christian work. Do you want to take a class in the Sunday school? There is a vacancy. Ruth shook her head with decision. That is not at all my forte. I have no faculty for teaching children. I am entirely unused to them and have no special interest in them and no sort of idea how they are to be managed. Some people are specially fitted for such work. I know I am not. Often we find our work much nearer home than we had planned. Dr. Dennis said, regarding her with a thoughtful air. How is it with your father, Miss Erskine? My father, she repeated, and she could hardly have looked more bewildered if her pastor had asked after the welfare of the man in the moon. Are you trying to win him over to the Lord's side? Out of silence and surprise on Miss Erskine's part, at last she said, I hardly ever see my father. We are never alone except when we are on our way to dinner or to pay formal calls on very formal people. Then we are always in a hurry. I cannot reach my father, Dr. Dennis. He is immersed in business and has no time nor heart for such matters. I should not in the least know how to approach him if I had a chance. And indeed I am sure I could do no good for he would esteem it in impertinence to be questioned by his daughter as to his thoughts on these matters. Yet you have an earnest desire to see him a Christian. Yes, she said, speaking slowly and hesitatingly. Of course I have that. To be very frank, Mr. Dennis, it is a hopeless sort of desire. I don't expect it in the least. My father is peculiarly unapproachable. I know he considers himself sufficient unto himself if you will allow the expression. In thinking of him, I have felt that a great many years from now when he is old and when business cares and responsibilities have in a measure fallen off and given him time to think of himself, he might then feel his need of a friend and be one. But I don't even hope for it before that time. My dear friend, you have really no right to set a different time from the one that your master has set, her pastor said earnestly. Don't you know that his time is always now? How can you be sure that he will choose to give your father a long life and leisure in old age to help him to think? Isn't that a terrible risk? Ruth Erskine shook her decided head. I feel sure that my work is not in that direction, she said, I could not do it. You do not know my father as well as I do. He would never allow me to approach him. The most I can hope to do will be to hold what he calls my new views so far into the background that he will not positively forbid them to me. He is the only person I think of whom I stand absolutely in awe. Then I couldn't talk with him. His life is a pure spotless one convincing by its very morality. So he thinks that there is no need of a savior. I do pray for him. I mean to as long as he and I live, but I know I can do nothing else, at least not for many a year. How was Dr. Dennis to set to work a lady who knew so much that she could not work? This was the thought that puzzled him, but he knew how difficult it was for people to work in channels marked out by others. So he said, encouragingly, I can conceive of some of your difficulties in that direction, but you have other friends who are not Christians? This being said inquiringly, Ruth, after a moment of hesitation, answered it. I have one friend to whom I have tried to talk about this matter, but I have had no success. He is very peculiar in his views and feelings. He agrees to everything that I say and admits the wisdom and reasonableness of it all, but he goes no further. There are a great many such people, Dr. Dennis said with a quick sigh. He met many of them himself. They are the hardest class to reach. Does your friend believe in the power of prayer? I have generally found the safest and shortest way with such to be to use my influence in inducing them to begin to pray. If they admit its power and its reasonableness, it is such a very simple thing to do for a friend that they can hardly refuse. I don't think he ever prays, Ruth said, and I don't believe he would. He would think it hypocritical. He says as much as that half the praying must be mockery. Granting that to be the case, does he think he should therefore not offer real prayer? That would be a sad state because I have many hypocrites in my family whose words to me are mockery, therefore no one must be a true friend. I know, said Ruth, interrupting, but I don't know how to reach such people. Perhaps he may be your work, Dr. Dennis, but I don't think he is mine. I don't, in the least, know what to say to him. I refer to Mr. Wayne. I know him, Dr. Dennis said, but he is not inclined to talk with me. I have not the intimacy with him that would lead him to be familiar. I should be very certain if I were you that my work did not lie in that direction before I turned from it. I am certain, Ruth said with a little laugh. I don't know how to talk to such people. I should feel sure of doing more harm than good. But, my dear Miss Erskine, I beg your pardon for the reminder, but since you are thrown much into his society, will it not be necessary for you as a Christian to talk more or less about this matter? Should not your talk be shaped in such a way as to influence him if you can? I don't think I understand, Ruth said doubtfully. Do you mean that people should talk about religion all the time they are together? During this question, Dr. Dennis had drawn his Bible toward him and been turning over the leaves. Just let me read to you a word from the guidebook on this subject. Only let your conversation be as becomeeth the gospel of Christ. As he which hath called you was holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of person, i.e. to be, in all holy conversation and godliness? What would you conclude as to Christian duty in the matter of daily conversation? Ruth made no answer to this question, but sat with earnest, thoughtful look fixed on her pastor's face. Who follows that pattern, she asked at last? My dear friend, is not our concern rather to decide whether you and I shall try to do it in the future? Some way this brought the talk to a sudden lull. Ruth seemed to have no more to say. There is another way of work that I have been intending to suggest to some of you young ladies, Dr. Dennis said, after a thoughtful silence, it is something very much neglected in our church. That is the social question. Do you know that we have many members who complain that they are never called on, never spoken with, never noticed in any way? I don't know anything about the members, Ruth said. I don't think I have a personal acquaintance with 20 of them, a calling acquaintance, I mean. That is the case with a great many, and it is a state of things that should not exist. The family ought to know each other. I begin to see your work clearer. It is the young ladies to a large extent who must remedy this evil. Suppose you take up some of that work, not neglecting the other, of course. These IE to have done and not to have left the other undone, I am afraid will be said to a good many of us. But this is certainly work needing to be done and work for which you have leisure. He hoped to see her face brighten, but it did not. Instead, she said, I hate calling. I dare say, calling that is aimless and in a sense useless, it must be hateful work. But if you start out with an object in view, a something to accomplish that is worth your while, will it not make a great difference? Ruth only sighed, I have so many calls to make with father, she said wearily, it is the worst work I do. They are upon fashionable frivolous people who cannot talk about anything. It is worse martyrdom now than it used to be. I think I am peculiarly unfitted for such work, Dr. Dennis. But I want you to try a different style of calls. Go alone, not with your father or with anyone who will trample your tongue and go among a class of people who do not expect you and will be surprised and pleased and helped perhaps. Come, let me give you a list of persons whom I would like to have you call on at your earliest opportunity. This is work that I am really longing to see done. A prisoner about to receive sentence could hardly have looked more gloomy than did Ruth. She was still for a few minutes, then she said, Dr. Dennis, do you really think that it is a person's duty to do that sort of work for which he or she feels least qualified and which is the most distasteful? No, said Dr. Dennis promptly. My dear Miss Erskine, will you be so kind to tell me the work for which you feel qualified and for which you have no distaste? Again, Ruth hesitated, looked confused, and then laughed. She began to see that she was making a very difficult task for her pastor. I don't feel qualified for anything, she said at last, and I feel afraid to undertake anything, but at the same time, I think I ought to be at work. Now we begin to see the way clearer, he said, smiling and with encouragement in his voice. It may seem a strange thing to you, but a sense of unfitness is sometimes one of the very best qualifications for such work. If it is strong enough to drive us to the blessed friend who has promised to make perfect our weakness in this and in all other efforts, and if we go out armed in his strength, we are sure to conquer. Try it, take this for your motto, as you have opportunity. And by the way, do you know the rest of that verse? Especially to them who are of the household of faith. It is members of the household that I want you to call on, remember? Ruth laughed again and shook her head, but she took her list and went away. She had no more that she wanted to say just then, but she felt that she had food for thought. I may try it, she said as she went out holding up her list, but I feel that I shall blunder and do more harm than good. Dr. Dennis looked after her with a face on which there was no smile. There goes one, he said to himself, who thinks she is willing to be led, but on the contrary, she wants to lead. She is saved, but not subdued. I wonder what means the great master will have to use to lead her to rest in his hands, knowing no way but his. End of Chapter 13, Recording by Tricia G. Chapter 14 of the Chautauqua Girls at Home. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Chautauqua Girls at Home by Pansy. Chapter 14. An Unarmed Soldier Many things intervened to keep Ruth Erskine from having much to do with that list which her pastor had given her. She read it over indeed and realized that she was not familiar with a single name. What an idea it will be for me to go blundering through the city, hunting up people whom I shall not know when I find. This she said as she read it over, then she laid it aside and made ready to go out to dinner with her father to meet two judges and their wives and daughters who were stopping in town. During that day she thought many times of the sentences that had been read to her out of that plain-looking, much-worn Bible on Dr. Dennis's study table. The only effect they had on her was to make her smile at the thought of the impossibility of anything like a religious conversation in such society as that. How they would stare, she said to herself. If I should ask them about a prayer meeting, I have half a mind to try it. If father were not within hearing I would, just to see what these finished young ladies would say. But she did not try it, and the evening passed as so many evenings had, without an attempt on her part to carry out any of the thoughts which troubled her. She looked forward to one bit of work which she expected to fall to her share, at least she liked to call it work. That card-party to which she had been invited, she would be expected to attend in company with Mr. Wayne. She meant to decline, and her father would be surprised and a trifle annoyed, for it was at a place where, not liking the people well enough himself to be social, he desired his daughter to atone for his deficiency. But she would steadily refuse. She did not shrink from this effort as Flossie did. On the contrary, she half enjoyed the thought of being a calm and composed martyr. But, quite to her discomfort, the martyrdom was not permitted, at least it took a different form. Mr. Wayne was obliged to be out of town and sent profuse regrets, assuming that, of course, it would be a sore disappointment to her. Her father took sufficient notice of it to make one or two efforts to agreeably supply his place, and, failing in that, assured his daughter that rather than have her disappointed, he would have planned to accompany her himself if he had known of Mr. Wayne's absence in time. The actual cross that it would have been to explain to her father that she did not desire to go, and the reasons therefore she did not take up, but the occurrence served to annoy her. Two days afterward she was busy all the morning with her dressmaker, getting a special dress ready for a wedding among the upper circles. She had been hurried and worried, and was as nearly out of patience as her calmness ever allowed her to be. Still she remembered that it was the prayer meeting evening that she should see Dr. Dennis, and that he would be likely to ask her about the people on that list. She ought to go that afternoon and try what she could do. Once since her call on Dr. Dennis, she had met him as he was going down Clinton Street, and he had turned and joined her for a few steps while he said, I have been thinking about another friend of yours that I should be very glad to see influenced in the right direction. His sister is trying, I presume. But other people's sisters sometimes have an influence. Young Mitchell, the doctor's son, is a young man of real promise. He ought to be on the Lord's side. You are mistaken in supposing him to be a friend of mine, Ruth said with promptness and emphasis. We have the most distant speaking acquaintance only, and I have a dislike for him amounting to absolute aversion. There was that in Ruth Erskine's voice when she chose to let it appear that said, my aversion is a very serious and disagreeable thing. Yes, the doctor said quietly, as one in no degree surprised or disturbed. Yet he has a soul to be saved, and the Lord Jesus Christ died to save him. There was no denying this, and certainly it would not look well in her to say that she had no desire to have pardoned his salvation, so she kept silence. But there followed her a disagreeable remembrance of having negative every proposition whereby the doctor had hoped to set her at work. She decided, disagreeable as it was, to make a vigorous assault on those families, thereby showing him what she could do. To this end she arrayed herself in immaculate calling attire, with a rustle of silk and a softness of ruffle, and a daintiness of glove that none but the wealthy can assume, and in short, with that unmistakable air about everything pertaining to her that marks the lady of fashion. These things were as much a part of Ruth Erskine as her hair and eyes were. Once ready, her dress, perhaps, gave her as little thought as her eyes or hair did. But she looked as though that must have been the sole object of thought and study in order to produce such perfect results. Her preparation for her new and untried work had been none of the best. As I said, the morning had been given to the cares of the dressmaker and the deceitfulness of trimmings, so much that her Bible reading had even been omitted, and only the briefest and most hurried of prayers, worthy of the days when prayer was nothing to her but a formal bowing of the head on proper occasions, had marked her need of help from the Almighty Hand. These thoughts troubled her as she went down the street. She paused irresolutely before one of the principal bookstores. I ought to have some tracks, she said doubtfully to herself. They always take tracks when they go district visiting. I know that from hearing Mrs. Whipple talk. What is this but a district visiting? Only Dr. Dennis has put my district all over the city. I wonder if he could have scattered the streets more if he had tried. Respectable streets, though, all of them. Better than any Mrs. Whipple ever told about. Then she tried to select her tracks. But when one has utter ignorance of such literature and a few minutes at a crowded counter in which to make a selection, it is not likely to be very select. She finally gave up any attempted choice beyond a few whose titles seemed inviting, chose a package at random, and hastened on her way. Mrs. C. Y. Sullivan was the first name on her list, and following her directions, she came presently to the street and number. A neat brick house with a modern air about it and its surroundings, a bird singing in a cage before the open window, and pots of flowers blooming behind tastefully looped white curtains, not at all the sort of a house that Ruth had imagined she would see. It did not suit her ideas of district visiting, crude though those ideas were. However, she rang the bell. Having commenced the task, she was not one to draw back, though she admitted to herself that she never felt more embarrassed in her life. Nor did the embarrassment lessen when she was shown into the pretty tasteful parlor, where presently Mrs. Sullivan joined her. I am Ms. Erskine, Ruth said, rising as Mrs. Sullivan, a tall woman of some degree of dignity after a slight bow, waited as if she would know her errand. Unfortunately, Ruth had no errand, save that she had come out to do her duty and make the sort of call that Dr. Dennis expected her to make. Her embarrassment was excessive. What could she do or say next? Why did not Mrs. Sullivan take a chair instead of standing there and looking at her like an idiot? Do you get out to church every Sabbath? She asked suddenly, feeling the need of saying something. Mrs. Sullivan looked as though she thought she had suddenly come in contact with a lunatic. Do I get out to church? She repeated. That depends on whether I decide to go or not. May I ask why you are interested? What had become of Ruth's common sense? Why couldn't she have said, in as natural a way as she would have talked about going to a concert, that she was interested to know whether she enjoyed such a privilege? Why couldn't she have been herself in talking about these matters, as well as at any other time? Does anyone know why such a sense of horrible embarrassment creeps over some people when their conversation takes the least tinge of religion? People who are wonderfully self-possessed on all other themes? Well, said Ruth, in hasten confusion, I'm merely inquired. I mean no offense, certainly. Will you have a tract? And she hastily seized one from her package, which happened to be entitled. Why are you not a Christian? Thank you, Mrs. Sullivan said, drawing back. I am not in special need of reading matter. We keep ourselves supplied with religious literature of a kind that suits our tastes. As to tracts, I always keep a package by me to distribute when I go among the poor. This one would not be particularly appropriate to me, as I trust I am a Christian. Dear me, how stiff and proper they both were, and in their hearts, and in their hearts, how indignant they both felt. What about, could either of them have told? I wonder what earthly good that Call did, Ruth asked herself, as with glowing cheeks and rapid steps, she made her way down the street. What could have been Dr. Dennis's object in sending me there to Call? I thought I was to Call on the poor. He didn't say anything about whether they were poor or not, now that I think of it. But I supposed, of course, that was what he meant. Why need she to have been so disagreeable anyway? I am sure I didn't insult her. And I tell you truly that Ms. Erskine did not know that she had seemed disagreeable in the extreme to Mrs. Sullivan, and that she was at that moment bridging over it in her heart. Extremely disgusted with her first attempt, and almost ready to declare that it should be the last, Ruth still decided to make one more venture, that inborn dislike which she had for giving up what had once been undertaken, coming to her aid in this matter. Another pretty little house, white and green blinds, and plant in bloom, the name on the door and on her list was Smith. That told her very little. She was ushered into what was evidently the family sitting-room, and a pretty enough room it was, occupied just now by three merry girls who hushed their laugh as she entered. And by a matronly lady whom one of them called mother. Ruth had never made calls before when she had the least tinge of embarrassment. If she could have divested herself of the idea that she was a district visitor out distributing tracks, she would not have felt so now. But as it was, the feeling grew upon her every instant. Pretty little Ms. Smith had decidedly the advantage of her, and she said promptly, Good afternoon, Ms. Erskine. Mother, this is Judge Erskine's daughter, and then proceeded to introduce her friends. Now if Ruth could have become unprofessional, all might have been well, but she had gone out with a sincere desire to do her duty, so she took the offered seat near Mrs. Smith and said, I called this afternoon at Dr. Dennis's request to see if there was anything that I could do for you. Mrs. Smith looked politely amazed. I don't think I quite understand, she said slowly, while in the daughter's bright eyes there gleamed mirth and mischief. I do, she said quickly. Dr. Dennis is very kind. Ms. Erskine, I am very anxious to have a blue silk dress trimmed in white lace to wear to the party next week. Could you manage it for me, do you think? Caroline, spoke Mrs. Smith in a surprised and reproving tone, while Ruth looked her indignant astonishment. Well, mother, she said she called to see if we wanted anything, and I certainly want that. There is some mistake, Mrs. Smith said, speaking kindly and evidently pitying Ruth's dreadful embarrassment. You have mistaken the house, I presume, our name is such a common one. You are out on an errand of charity, I presume? We are glad to see you, of course, but we are not in need of anything but friends. I believe you attend the same church with ourselves. We ought to know each other, of course, so we shall profit by the mistake after all. My daughter is a wild little girl and lets her sense of fun get the better of her politeness sometimes. I hope you will excuse her. What was to be said? Why could not Ruth get rid of her horrible embarrassment and rally to meet this kind and frank greeting? In vain she tried to command her tongue to think of something to say that would be proper under these strange circumstances. How had she misunderstood Dr. Dennis? Why should these people be called on? Why should they feel that they were being neglected when they were in need of nothing? It was all a mystery to her, and the world is full of people who do not understand a sense of loneliness whose lives are so full of friendships and engagements and society that they imagine all other people are like themselves except that class known as the poor who need clothes and cold pieces and tracks. This was all that Ruth Erskine knew. She could not recover from her astonishment and confusion. She made her stay very short indeed apologizing in what she was conscious was an awkward way for her intrusion and then went directly toward home resolving in great firmness that she had made her last calls on people selected from that horrible list. She was more than embarrassed. She was utterly dismayed and disheartened. Was there then nothing for her to do? It had been a real honest desire to be up and doing which had sent her to Dr. Dennis. It had been a real cross and one keenly felt to take up this work about which she had started. What an utter failure. What could he have meant? How was she expected to help these people? They needed nothing. They were Christian people. They were pleasantly circumstanced in every way. She had not the least idea how to be of any help to them. There was nothing for her to do. She felt humbled and sad. Yet that young lady was joined in a few minutes by Nellis Mitchell, who cordially volunteered to shield her dainty summer toilet from certain drops of rain that began to fall, and so walked six entire blocks by her side, pleasant and genial as usual, and not a word said she to him about the great topic to which her life was consecrated. He even helped her by himself referring to the evening meeting and saying that he should have to escort Yuri as far as the door if this rain continued, and she did not so much as think to ask him to come farther and enjoy the meeting with them. She did not like Nellis Mitchell, you will remember. Also, that same evening she spent an hour after prayer meeting in conversation with her friend Mr. Wayne, and she said not a single word to him about this matter. She could not talk with him, she told herself. He did not understand her, and it did no good. Sometime, when he was in a less complacent mood, she could do something for him but not now. She was not very companionable, however, her mind was dwelling on her afternoon disappointment. It was the most horrid time I ever had in my life, she told Marion, after going over an account of the experience, I shall not be caught in that way again. And Marion, unsympathetic girl that she was, laughed much and long. What a creature you are, she said at last. I declare it is funny that people can live in the world and know so little about their fellow mortals as you and Flossie do. She knows no more about them than a kitten does, and you know no more than the moon. You sail right above all their feelings and ideas. It served you right, I declare. What earthly right had you to go sailing down on people in that majestic fashion and asking questions as if they were Roman Catholics and you were the priest? I don't see what in the world you mean, Ruth said, feeling exceedingly annoyed. Well, my dear young woman, you ought to see. You can't expect to get through the Christian world even without having a due regard for common sense. Just suppose the president's wife should come sweeping into your parlor, asking if you went to church and if you would have a tract. I am afraid you would be tempted to tell her it was none of her business. The cases are not at all parallel, Ruth said, flushing deeply. I consider myself on quite an equal footing with the president's wife or any other lady, whereupon Marion laughed with more abandon than before. Now, Ruth Erskine, she said, don't be a goose. Do use your common sense. You have some, I am sure. Wherein are these people whom you went to see on a lower footing than yourself, granting that they have less money than you do, or even perhaps less than I have, are you ready to admit that money is the question that settles positions in society? Miss Wilbur, Miss Wilbur, can't we go in Miss Lily's class today? Our teacher isn't here. Miss Wilbur, they are crowding us off the seat. There isn't room for no more in this class. Miss Wilbur, sister Nelly can't come today. She has the toothache. Can I go in Kitty's class? Every one of these little voices spoke at once. Two of the owners thereof twitched at her dress and another of them nudged her elbow. In the midst of this little babble of confusion, the door opened softly and Dr. Dennis came in. Marion turned toward him and laughed, a perplexed laugh that might mean something besides amusement. What is it? he asked, answering the look instead of the laugh. It is everything, she said quickly. You mustn't stay a minute, Dr. Dennis. We are not in company trim today at all. Unless you will do the work, we can't have you. I came to hear not to work, he said, smiling, and at the same time looking troubled. You will hear very little that will interest you for the next ten minutes at least, but I don't know but you would better stay. It would be a good introduction to the talk that I want to have with you early in the week. I am coming tomorrow after school if I may. Dr. Dennis gave the ascent promptly, named the hour that he would be at leisure, and went away wondering what they were accomplishing in the primary class. This was the introduction to Marion's talk in the study with Dr. Dennis. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but had hardly seated herself before the subject on her mind was brought forward. It is all about that class, Dr. Dennis. I am going to prove a failure. Don't, he said, smiling at her words, but looking his disturbance. We have had failures enough in that class to shipwreck it. It is quite time we had a change for the better. What is the trouble? The trouble is we do nothing. Two-thirds of our time is occupied in getting ready to do, and even then we can't half-accomplish it. Then we don't stay ready and have to begin the work all over again. Yesterday, for instance, there were three absences among the teachers. That means confusion, for each of those teachers have seven children who are thus thrown loose on the world. Think how much time we must consume in getting them seated somewhere and under someone's care. And then imagine, if you can, the amount of time that they consume in saying, Our teacher doesn't do so, she does so. What is the reason that the teachers in that room are so very irregular? Why, they are not irregular. That is, as Sunday school teachers rate regularity. To be sure, it would never do to be teaching a graded school, for instance, and be as careless as some of them are about regularity. But that is a different matter, of course. This is only a Sunday school. But for all that, I think they do as well as the average. You see, Dr. Dennis, there are twenty of them, and if each one of them is present every Sunday in the year, say, three, that makes a good deal of regularity on their part, and yet averages absences every Sabbath to be looked after. Don't you see? I see, he said, smiling. That is a mathematical way of putting it. There is reason in it, too. How in the world do you manage when there are vacancies? Which is always, Marian said quickly. There has not been a Sabbath since I have had charge when all the teachers were present and I have taken pains to inquire of the former superintendent, who reports very much the same. Isn't it so in all schools, Dr. Dennis? Of course, there must of necessity be some detentions, but not so many probably as there actually are if we are in the habit of being very conscientious about these matters. Still, I don't know that we are worse than others, but you haven't told me how you manage. I manage every way. There is no set way to do it. I stand around in much the same state of perplexity in which you found me yesterday. The children each have their special friends who have been put in other classes, and they are on the kivive to be with them, which adds not a little to the general confusion. Sometimes we have a regular whirl about of seats, in large two or three classes, and crowd some seats most uncomfortably, leaving others empty. Sometimes we go out to the Bible classes for volunteers, and by the way it is nearly impossible to find any. I wish you would preach a sermon on that subject. It is so easy to say, oh, please excuse me. It requires so little courage to do it, and is such a comfortable and unanswerable way of disposing of the whole matter. At the same time there is some degree of excuse for the refusals. Think of the folly of setting a young girl who knows nothing about little children, and has made no preparation to teach them, beside half a dozen little restless mortals, and bidding her interest them in the lesson for ten minutes. She doesn't know how to interest them, and she knows she doesn't, and the fact embarrasses her. Before she has fairly found out what she is expected to do, her time is gone, for it takes a wonderful amount of time to get ready to work. But these young girls have only to teach certain scripture verses, and a prayer or a hymn, or something of that sort, have they not? One would think they might be equal to that without preparation. Do you think so? Marian asked, a gleam of fun in her keen eyes. I should like to see you try it, provided you have no better mental caliber to assist you than some of the volunteers have. Why, there is a right and wrong way of teaching even a Bible verse. Do you know, sir, that you may repeat over words to children, like a list from a spelling lesson, and they will get no more idea of it than if it were a French sentence, and will be able to commit it about as readily? If I had children, I should rebel at their being taught even Bible verses by novices. Why, it isn't allowed in public schools. The days have gone by when anybody is supposed to be smart enough to teach children to draw through the alphabet. We have the best of trained teachers even for that work. Why should the Sunday school not need them even more, infinitely more? Now that reminds me of a difficulty which is present even when the teachers are all there. They are not the right sort of teachers, many of them. They do just such work as would not be tolerated on weekdays by any board of trustees. They whisper to each other, sometimes about the music which they are practicing, sometimes about the party that is to come off tomorrow. These are the exceptions I know, but there are such exceptions in our school, and human nature is much the same the world over. I presume they are everywhere. At any rate, we have to deal just now with our school, and I know they are there. Dr. Dennis, there are at least seven of those twenty teachers in my room, who ought to be in good, solid, earnest working Bible classes, getting faith for help every Sunday, getting ideas that shall make them of use in the world, instead of frittering their time away on what at best seems to them but a very mechanical work, teaching some little children to repeat the twenty-third Psalm or to say the Lord's Prayer. The very fact that they do not recognize the dignity of such work unfits them for it, and the fact that they have no lesson to teach, I mean no lesson which they have to prepare carefully, excuses them from any attempt at Bible study. I believe you would make an excellent lecturer if you were to take the field on a subject that interested you. This was Dr. Dennis' most irrelevant answer to Marion's eager words. She was not to be thrown off her theme. Then I shall try it perhaps on this very subject, for it certainly interests me wonderfully. Indeed, I am practicing now with you for my audience. Don't think I am not interested, for I am, he said, returning to gravity and anxiety on the instant. I see the subject to be full of perplexities. The class has seemed to be wildering one. The idea of putting the babies away alone in their own room fitted up for the purpose, and feeding them with milk until they are old enough to bear strong meat, has been something of a hobby with me. I like it theoretically, but I confess to you that I have never been able to enjoy its practical workings in our school. I don't wonder, Marion said with energy. It works most distressingly. I am coming to the very pith of my lecture now, which is this. I have been teaching school for more than seven years. I have taught all sorts and sizes of pupils. I had a fancy that I could manage almost anything in that line, believing that I had been through experiences varied enough to serve me in whatever line I could need. But I have found myself mistaken. I have found a work now that I can't accomplish. Mind you, I don't say that no one can do it. I am not quite so egotistic as that. If I do lecture, I have only to say that my teaching in that room is a failure. I can't do it, and I mean to give it up. Don't, Dr. Dennis said nervously, you will be the third one in a year's time. I don't wonder, I wonder that they are alive. But Ms. Wilbur, you are a dark and gloomy lecturer. When you demolish air castles, have you nothing to build up in their places? Would you send the babies back into the main room again to be worn out with quiet and lack of motion? Not a bit of it. I like the baby room plan as well as any mortal, and I have a remedy which it seems to me would arrange the whole thing. Of course it seems so to me. We always like our own ways. The truth is, Dr. Dennis, I like nurseries and think they ought to be maintained, but I don't like the idea of too many mothers there. Just what, in plain English, would you do, my friend, if you were Commander-in-Chief of the whole matter, and all we had to do was to obey you? It isn't at all modest to tell, Miriam said laughing, but it is true, I would banish every one of those twenty teachers and reign alone in my glory. No, I wouldn't either. I would pick out the very best one among them and train her for an assistant. And manage the whole number yourself. Why not? There are only a hundred of them, and I have managed that number for six hours a day, five days in a week, without difficulty. Well, now, let me see just what you think you gain. It would take too long to tell. In my own opinion, I gain almost everything, but in the first place, let me suppose a case. We have one good teacher, we will say, in that class, who knows just what she is about, and comes prepared to be about it. She has, say, two assistants, each carefully trained to a certain work, each understanding that in the event of the detention of the leader, one of them will be called on to teach the class, each pledging herself to notify the other of necessary absences. Don't you see that it will rarely, if ever, happen that one of the three cannot be at her post? The very sense of importance and responsibility attached to their office will lessen the chance of absence, while one teacher in twenty is almost sure to be away. Then we have those young girls in their places in the Bible class learning to be teachers, indeed. But Miss Wilbur would not such a work be very hard for the leader? Why harder than the present system in our school? I think, mind you, that it wouldn't be nearly so hard. But for the sake of argument, I will say, why any harder? Why cannot her one assistant relieve her in just the same way that the other twenty are supposed to do now? Is there any known reason why a hundred children cannot repeat the Lord's prayer together, as well as have a lesson taught them together? Children like it, I assure you, there is an enthusiasm in numbers. They would much rather speak aloud and in beautiful unison, as they can be trained to do, than to speak so low that the recitation loses half its beauty, because they must not disturb others. Then I don't know how it is with other teachers, but theoretically, you may plan out the work of these young teachers as much as you please, and practically, they will do very much as they please. And it is a great deal harder for me to sit listening to a sort of teaching that I don't like, and know that I am obliged to be still and endure it, than it is to do it myself. The idea that one hour of work on the Sabbath is so fearfully wearing is, in my humble opinion, all nonsense. Those who think so have never been teachers of graded schools six hours a day, five days in the week, I don't believe. However, that is my opinion, you know. I may be quite as mistaken as to the theory, but I know as much as this. I am sure I could do the teaching alone, and I am sure that I can't do it with twenty helpers, so I just want to give it up. Don't give up the subject yet, please. I am interested. There is an argument on the other side that is very strong, I think. You haven't touched upon it. I have heard a good deal said, and thought at a point well taken, about the personal influence of each teacher. A sense of ownership the teachers of large classes can hardly call out because of their inability to visit their scholars and to be intimate with their little plans and with their home life. Marian did a very rude thing at this point. She sat back in her rocking chair and laughed, then she said, We are dealing, you remember, with our school. Now you know the young ladies in that class. What proportion of them should you imagine without knowing anything about the facts? Do really visit their pupils during the week and keep themselves posted as to the family life of any of them. A faint attempt at a smile hovered over Dr. Dennis's face as he said, Not many I am afraid. Indeed, to be very truthful, I don't believe there are five. I know there are not, Marian said decidedly, and my supposition is that our school will average as well as others. There are exceptions, of course, but we are talking about the average. Now that item sounds real well in a lecture or on paper, but when you come to the practical part, they simply don't do it. Some of them know no more how to do it than kittens would, or then Ruth Erskine knows how to call on the second stratum of society in her own church. Whereupon both pastor and visitor laughed, Dr. Dennis had heard of Ruth's attempt in that line. We have to deal with very commonplace human beings instead of with angels. I think that is the trouble, Marian said, returning to the charge. We can make nice rules, and they look well and sound beautifully. Then if we can carry them out, they are delightful no doubt. But if we can't, why what are we going to do about it? If the ladies in question were salaried teachers in the day school, a board of trustees could come together and dismiss them if they did not obey the laws. Who thinks of such a thing in the Sunday school? It is like calling all these teachers together for a teacher's meeting. You can call them to your hearts content. I know you can, for I have tried it. And if there is not a concert or a tea party or a lecture or a toothache on the evening in question, some of them will come and the others won't. End of Chapter 15, Recording by Tricia G. Chapter 16 of the Chautauqua Girls at Home. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Chautauqua Girls at Home by Pansy. Chapter 16 Theory vs. Practice Dr. Dennis sat regarding his collar with a thoughtful air, while she sat back in the rocker and fanned herself, trying to cool off her eagerness somewhat, and feeling that she was exhibiting herself as a very eager person indeed, and this calm man probably thought her impetuous. She resolved that the next remark he called forth should be made very quietly and in as indifferent a manner as possible. Why should not the primary room be classified as well as the main department? He asked at last. To Marion there was so much that was absurd involved in the question that it put her in difference to flight at once. Why should there be a separate room at all if they are to be so classified? Why not keep them in the regular department under the superintendent's eye, and where they can have the benefit of the pastor's remarks? Because while they are so young they need more freedom than can be given them in the main room. They need to be allowed to talk aloud and to sing frequently and to repeat in concert. Precisely, and they do not need to be set down in corners to be whispered at for a few minutes. Besides, Dr. Dennis, don't you think that if in the school proper the scholars were all of nearly the same age and the same mental abilities, I mean if they averaged in that way, it would be wiser to have very large classes and very few teachers? There are reasons in favor of that and reasons against it, he said thoughtfully. I am inclined, however, to think that the arguments in favor overbalance the objections. Still, the serious objection is that a faithful teacher wants little personal talks with her pupils and will contrive to be personal in a way that she cannot do so well in a large class. That is true, Marianne said, as one yields a point that is new to her and that strikes her as being sensible. But the same objection cannot be made in the primary classes, because little children are innocent and full of faith and frankness. There is no need of special privacy when you speak with them on religious topics. They would just as soon have all the world know that they want to love and serve Jesus as not. They are not a bit ashamed of it. It is not until they grow older and the influences of silent tongues on that subject all around them have had their effect that they need to be approached with such caution. How is it that you are so much at home in these matters, Ms. Wilbur? For one who has been a Christian but a few weeks, you amaze me. Marianne laughed and flushed and felt the first tinge of embarrassment that had troubled her since the talk began. Why, she said hesitatingly, I suppose perhaps I have common sense and see no reason why it should be smothered when one is talking about such matters. People's brains are not made over when they are converted. The same class of rules apply to them, I suppose, that applied before. I shouldn't wonder if a majority of people thought that common sense had nothing to do with religion, he said, laughing. And that is what makes us silly and sentimental when we try to talk about it. In our effort to be solemn and suit our words to the theme, we are unnatural. But your statement with regard to the little children is true. I have often observed it. That other point about visiting was the one that troubled me, Marianne said. It doesn't annihilate it to say that teachers don't visit. They don't, to be sure, with here and there a delightful exception. My experience on this matter, as well as on several other matters connected with the subject, reaches beyond these few weeks of personal experience. I have had my eyes very wide open. I was alive to inconsistencies wherever I found them. The world and the church, and especially the Sunday school, seemed to me to be full of professions without any practice. I rather enjoyed finding such flaws. Why I thought the thin spots in other people's garments would keep me any warmer, I am sure I don't know. But I was fond of bringing them to the surface. Still, because a duty isn't done, is no sign that it cannot be. Of course, a teacher with six pupils could visit them frequently, while one with a hundred could do it but rarely. And yet, systematic effort would accomplish a great deal in that direction, it seems to me. I don't know why we should have more than fifty people in our churches. Certainly the pastor could visit them much more frequently, and keep a better oversight than when he had eight hundred as you have. Yet we don't think it the best way after all. We recognize the enthusiasm of numbers and the necessity for economizing good workers so long as the field for work is so large. But I know a way in which a strong personal influence could be kept over even a hundred children, by keeping watch for the sick and sorrowing in their homes, and establishing an intimacy there, and by making a gathering of some sort, say twice a year or oftener if a person could, and giving the day to them. And, well, in a hundred different ways that I will not take your time to speak of, only we teachers of day schools know that we can make our influence far reaching, even when our numbers are large. And we know that there is such an influence in numbers and in disciplined action that, other things being equal, we can teach mathematics to a class of fifty better than we can to a class of five. And if mathematics, why not the Lord's Prayer? Now I have relieved my mind on this subject, she added, laughing as she arose, and I feel a good deal better. Mind, I haven't said at all that the present system cannot be carried out successfully. I only say that I can't do it. I have tried it and failed. It is not according to my way of working. But the remedy, my dear friend, in our class, for instance, suppose we wanted to reorganize, what would we do with the teachers in rule at present? Marian dropped back again into her chair with a dismayed little laugh and an expressive shrug of her shapely shoulders. Now you have touched a vital difficulty, she said. I don't pretend to be able to help people out of a scrape like that. Having gotten themselves in, they must get out the best way they can, if there is any way. I am surprised you do not suggest that they be unceremoniously informed that their services are not needed and advise them to join a Bible class, Dr. Dennis said dryly. That is the practical and helpful way that the subject is often disposed of in our conventions. I often wonder if those who so suggest would like to be the pastor of the church where such advice was adopted and undertake to heal all the source that would be the result. So long as human nature is made of the queer stuff that it is, I offer no such remedy, Marian said decidedly. It is very odd that the people who do the least work in this world are the most sensitive as to position, etc. No, I see the trouble in the way. It could be partly disposed of in time by sending all these subclasses out into the other school and organizing a new primary class out of the babies who have not yet come in. But there would be an injustice there. It would send out many babies who ought to have the privileges of the primary room for some time yet. And there is another difficulty. It would send out those young girls as teachers of the children and they are not fit to teach. They should be studying. After all, he said going back to his own thoughts instead of answering her last remark, wouldn't the style of teaching that you suggest for this one woman and her assistant involve an unusual degree of talent and consecration and abnegation? Yes, Marian said quickly and earnestly. I think it would. And I believe that there is no teaching done in our Sabbath school that is worthy of the name that does not involve all of these requirements. Especially is it the case in teaching little children divine truths. One might teach them the alphabet without positive mental injury if they were not fully in sympathy. Yet I doubt that. But one cannot teach the sermon on the Mount in a way to reach the child heart unless one is thoroughly and solemnly in earnest and loves the souls of the little children so much that she can give up her very self for them. This is my theory. I want to work toward it. That is one of the strong reasons why I think two or three teachers are better for a primary class than twenty. Because a church can generally furnish that number of really consecrated workers that she can spare for the primary class, while to find twenty who can be spared for that room, one would need to go to paradise I am afraid. Now I know, Dr. Dennis, that such talk sounds as if I were insufferably conceited. But I don't believe I am. I simply know what I am willing to try to do. And, to a certain extent, I know what I can do. Why should I not? I have tried it a long time. If you are conceited, Dr. Dennis said smiling, it is a real refreshing form for it to appear in. I am almost a convert to your theory, at least so far as I need converting. If I should tell you that something like your idea has always been mine, you would not consider me a hypocrite, would you? If you think so, why have we the present system in our school? My dear friend, I did not manufacture the school. It is as I found it. And there are those young ladies who, however unfaithful they are, and a few of them are just that, do not reach the only point where they could give positive help, that of resigning and giving us a chance to do better. Besides, they are, as you say, sensitive. They do not like to be called to account for occasional absences. In fact, they do not like being controlled in any way. That is one of the marked difficulties, Marianne said eagerly. Now I have heard people talk who led you to infer that it was the easiest thing in life to mold these young teachers into the required shape and form, that you had only to sweetly suggest and advise and direct, and they sweetly succumbed. Now, don't their mothers know that young ladies naturally do no such thing? It is very difficult for them to yield their opinions to one whose authority they do not recognize, and they are not fond of admitting authority even where family life sanctions it. Oh, the whole subject is just teeming with difficulties. Put it in any form you will, it seems to me to be a mistake. Where you give these young ladies the lesson to teach, the diverse minds that are brought to bear on it make it almost impossible for the leader to give an intelligence summing up. How is she to discover what special point has been taken up by each teacher? As a bit of private experience, I think she will be a fortunate woman if she finds that any point at all has been reached in many of the classes. There is only now and then a teacher who believes that little children are capable of understanding the application of a story. I cannot understand why, if that is the best method of managing a primary class, people take the trouble to have a separate room and another superintendent. Why don't they stay in the main department? I always thought that one of the special values of a separate room was that the lesson may be given in a distinct and natural tone of voice and with illustrations and accompaniments that cannot be used where many classes are together without disturbing some of them. If, on the other hand, the subteachers are not expected to give the lesson but only to teach certain opening recitations, then you have the spectacle of employing a dozen or twenty persons to do the work of one. Then there is another thing. Our room is not suited to the plan of subdivision and there is only occasionally a room that has been built to order, which is, on the whole, you do not at all believe in the plan of subdivision, Dr. Dennis said laughing, and then collars came and Marion took her leave. I am not quite sure whether I like him or dislike him or whether I am afraid of him just a trifle. This she said to the girls as they went home from prayer meeting. He has a queer way of branching off from the subject entirely, just when you suppose that you have interested him. Sometimes he interrupts with a sentence that sounds wonderfully as if he might be quizzing you. He is a trifle queer anyway. I don't believe I love him with all the zeal that a person should be stow on a pastor. I am loyal on that subject theoretically, but practically I stand in awe. I don't see how you can think him sarcastic, Flossie said. There is not the least hinge of that element in his nature, I think. At least I have never seen it. I don't feel afraid of him either, once I thought I should, but he is so gentle and pleasant and meets one half way and understands what one wants to tell better than they understand themselves. Oh, I like him ever so much. He is not sarcastic to me. Marion looked down upon the fair little girl at her side with a smile that had a sort of almost motherly tenderness in it, as she said gently. One would be a very bear to think of quizzing a hummingbird, you know. It would be very silly in him to be sarcastic to you. Urie interrupted the talk. What is the matter with the prayer meetings? She asked. Do any of you know? I do wish we could do something to make them less forlorn. I am almost homesick every time I go. If there were more people there, the room wouldn't look so desolate. Why on earth don't the people come? Constitutionally opposed to prayer meetings, where it is too warm or too damp or too something for most of them to go out, Marion said. And Ruth added, It is not wonderful that you find sarcastic people in the world, Marion. The habit grows on you. Does it, Marion asked, speaking with sadness? I am sorry to hear that. I really thought I was improving. The question is, can we do anything to improve matters? Urie said. Can't we manage to smuggle some more people into that chapel on Wednesday evenings? Invite them to go, do you mean? Flossie said, and her eyes brightened. I never thought of that. We might get our friends to go. Who knows what good might be done in that way? What if we try it? Ruth looked gloomy. This way of working was wonderfully distasteful to her. She specially disliked what she called thrusting unpopular subjects on people's attention. But she reflected that she had never yet found a way to work which she did like. So she was silent. Flossie, according to her usual custom, persistently followed up the new idea. Let us try it, she said. Suppose we pledge ourselves each to bring another to the meeting next week? If we can, Marian said significantly. Well, of course some of us can, Urie answered. You ought to be able to anyway. There you are in a school room surrounded by hundreds of people who ought to go, and in a boarding house coming in contact with dozens of another stamp who are in equal need. I should think you had opportunities enough. I know it, Marian said promptly. If I were only situated as you are, with nobody but a father and mother and a brother and a couple of sisters to ask, people who are of no special consequence to you, and about whom it will make no personal difference to you whether they go to church or not, it would be some excuse for not bringing anybody but a boarding house full of men and women and a room full of school girls. Consider your privileges, Marian Wilbur. Urie laughed. Oh, I can get Nell to go, she said. He nearly always does what I want him to, but I was thinking how many you have to work among. Six people are as good to work among as sixty until you get them all, Marian answered quickly. As for Ruth, it was only the darkness that hid her curling lip. She someway could not help disliking people who, like Nellis Mitchell, always did what they were asked to do just to oblige. Also she dreaded this new plan. She had no one to ask, no one to influence, so she said to herself gloomily, although knowing it was untrue, she did not venture to say it aloud. She gave consent, of course, to the proposition to try by personal effort to increase the number at prayer meeting. It would be absurd to object to it. She did not care to own that she shrunk from personal effort of this sort. It was a grief to her very soul that she did so shrink. Remember, we stand pledged to try for one new face at the prayer meeting, Yuri said, as she bade them good night. Pledge to try, you understand, Marian. We can at least do that, even if we don't succeed. In the meantime, remember that we have our Bible evening tomorrow. Marian returned. You are to come bristling with texts from your standpoint. It will not do to forget that. End of Chapter 16 Recording by Tricia G. Chapter 17 Of The Shatakwa Girls at Home This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Shatakwa Girls at Home by Pansy. Chapter 17 The Discussion Marian went about her dingy room brushing off a bit of dust here, setting a chair straight there, trying in what way she might to brighten its homeliness. She was a trifle sore sometimes over the contrast between that room and the homes of her three friends. Sometimes she thought it a wonder that they could endure to leave the brightness and cheer that surrounded their home lives and seek her out. There were times when she was very much tempted to spend a large portion of her not-too-large salary in bestowing little home-looking things on this corner of the second-rate boarding house, a rocking chair, a cozy-looking, bright-covered old-fashioned lounge, a tiny center table instead of the square boxy-looking thing that she had. Not very extravagant her notions were, just a suggestion of comfort and a touch of brightness for her beauty-loving eyes to dwell on. But these home things and these bright things cost money, more money than she felt at liberty to spend. When her necessary expenses of books and dress and a dozen apparently trifling incidentals were met, there was little enough left to send to that far-away struggling uncle and aunt who needed her help sadly enough and who had shared their little with her in earlier days. There was no special love about this offering of hers. It was just a matter of hard duty. They had taken care of her in her orphanhood, a grave preoccupied sort of care bestowing little time and no love on her that she could discover. At the same time they had never either of them been unkind and they had fed and clothed her and never said in her presence that they grudged it. They had never asked her for any return, never seemed to expect any, and they were regularly surprised every half year when the remittance came. But so far as that was concerned Marian did not know it. They were a very undemonstrative people. Uncle Rubin had told her once that she need not do it, that they had not expected it of her, and Aunt Hannah had said, no more they didn't. But Marian had hushed them both by a decided sentence to the effect that it was nothing more than ordinary justice and decency, and she did not know even now that the gratitude they might have expressed was hushed back by her cold business-like words. Still the remittances always went. It had required some special scrimping to make the check the same as usual and yet bring in Chautauqua. It had been delayed beyond its usual time by these new departures, and it was on this particular evening that she was getting it ready for the mail. For seven years, twice a year, she had regularly written her note. Aunt Hannah, I am closing this letter a check for her playing. I hope you are as well as usual. In haste, M. J. Wilbur. This or a kindred sentence as brief and as much to the point. Tonight her fingers had played with the pen instead of writing, and at last, with a curious smile hovering around her lip, she wrote the unaccustomed words. Dear Aunt. It would have taken very little to have made the smile into a quiver. It seemed just then so strange that she should have no one to write that word dear to, that she should use it so rarely that it actually looked like a stranger to her. Then the writing went on thus. I hope I have not caused you discomfort by being somewhat later than usual with your check. Matters shaped themselves in such a way that I could not send it before. I hope it will be of a little help and comfort to you. I wish it were larger. Give my re love to Uncle Rubin. The re was the beginning of the word regards, but she thought better of it and wrote love. He was her father's brother, and the only relative she had. Then the pen paused again, and the writer nodded at the painted holder, and mused, and looked sober first, then bright faced, and finally she dashed down this line. Dear Aunt Hannah, I have found my father's friend, even the Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed mighty to save as father used to say that he was. I have proved it, for he has saved me. I wish you and Uncle Rubin knew him. Yours truly, Marian. I suppose Marian would have been very much surprised had she known what I know that Aunt Hannah and Uncle Rubin shed tears over that letter and put it in the family Bible, and some way they felt more thankful for the check than they had ever done before. Marian did not know this, but she knew that her own heart felt lighter than usual as she hurried about her room. The girls came before she was fairly through with her preparations, a bright trio with enough of beauty and grace and elegance about them to fairly make her room glow. Here we are, said Urie. We have run the gauntlet of five calls and a concert, and I don't know how many other things in perspective for the sake of getting to you. Did you come alone? No, my blessed now came with us to the door, and most dreadfully did he want to come in. I should have let him in, only I knew by roof space she thought it awful, but he would have enjoyed the evening, now does enjoy new things. There is no special sensation about Bible verses. I presume they would have piled on him before the evening was over. This was said in Ruth's coldest tomes. You are mistaken in that, my Lady Ruth. I have found several verses in my search that have given me a real sensation, besides which I have proved my side beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, and I am very anxious to begin. Mary and laughed. I daresay we have each proved our sides to our entire satisfaction, she said. The question is, which side will bear the test of our combined intellects being brought to bear on it? Did you bring your Bibles, girls? Oh yes, you are armed. Flossy, your Bible is splendid. When the millennium dawns, I am going to have just such a one. By the way, won't it be a blissful time? Don't you want to live to see it? Urie, in as much as you are so anxious to begin, you may do so. Let us carry on our investigations in a scientific way, as Professor Easton says. Give us your unanswerable argument, and I will answer it with my unanswerable one on the other side. Then if Ruth can prove to us that we are both mistaken, and each can follow her own judgment in the matter, we will be quenched, you see, unless Flossy can give a balancing vote. Well, in the first place, Urie said, I found to my infinite astonishment, and of course to my delight, that the Bible actually stated that there was a time to dance. Now, if there is a time for it, of course it is the proper thing to do. That just settles the whole question. How absurd would it be to put in the Bible a statement that there was a time to dance, and then to tell us that it was wrong to dance? Urie, are you an earnest or in sport? Marian asked at last, looking at her with a puzzled air, and not sure whether to laugh or be disgusted. A little of both, Urie said, breaking into a laugh, but now to be serious, there really is such a verse. Did you know it? I am sure I didn't. I was very much astonished, and I think it does prove something. It indicates that dancing is a legitimate amusement, and one that was indulged in during those times. Do you advocate its use under the same circumstances in which it was used in those times? I'm sure I don't know. Was there anything peculiar in its use? Didn't you follow out the references as to dancing? No indeed I didn't. I wish I had. Does it give an account of it? That would have been better yet. It would have enlightened you somewhat, Marian said laughing. If you had been on the other side now, you would have been sure to have followed out the connection as I did. Then you would have found that to be true to your Bible, you must dance in prayer meeting, or in church on the Sabbath, or at some time when you desired to express religious joy. Who, said Urie, now is that so? Of course it's so. Just amuse yourself by looking up the references to the word in the concordance, and I will read them for our enlightenment. Well, said Urie after several readings, I admit that I am rather glad that form of worship is done away with. I am fond of dancing, but I don't care to indulge when I go to prayer meeting. But after all, that doesn't prove that dancing is wrong. Nor right, Ruth said questioningly. Doesn't it simply prove nothing at all? That is just as I said. We have to decide these questions for ourselves. But, Urie, did you content yourself with just one text? I thought you were to have an army of them. What is the use in that? Ruth asked. One text is as good as a dozen if it proves one's position. A multitude of witnesses, Marian said significantly, and added, Girls, Ruth has but one text in support of her position. See if she has. Well, I have another, said Urie. The wisest man who ever lived, said, A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. Now I am sure that advocates bright, cheerful, merry times, just such as one has in dancing. And there are dozens of such verses, indicating that it is a duty we owe to society to have happy and merry times together. And a simpler way of doing it than any I know is to dance. We are not gossiping nor saying sensorious things when we are dancing, and we are having a very pleasant time for our friends. Is any merry let him sing Psalms, quoted Marian? Would you like to indulge in that entertainment at the same time you were dancing, or do you think the same state of mind would be expressed as well by either dancing or Psalm singing as one chose? Urie Mitchell, you're just being nonsensical, Ruth said, speaking in a half-annoyed tone. You are not absurd enough to suppose that either of those verses are arguments in favor of dancing or against dancing, or indeed have anything to do with the subject. What is the use in trying to make people think you are a simpleton when you aren't? Dreadful, said Urie. Is that what I am doing? Now I thought I was proving the subtle nature of my argumentative powers. See here, I will be as sober as a judge. No, I don't think those verses have to do with it. At least the latter hasn't. I admit that I thought the fact that a time to dance was mentioned in the Bible was an item in its favor as far as it went. But it seems I should rather have said as far as I went, for it went farther as Marian has made me prove with that dreadful concordance of hers. We don't own such a terrible book as that, and I have to go skimming over the whole Bible in a distracting manner. I just happened on the verse that says there is a time to dance, and I didn't know but there might be a special providence in it. But now frankly, I am on the side that Ruth has taken. It seems to be a question that is left to individual judgment. There is no thus sayeth the Lord about it, any more than there is about having company and going out to tea and a dozen other things. We are to do in these matters what we think is right, and that, in my opinion, is all there is about it. Then you retire from the lists, Marian asked. Not a bit of it. I am just as emphatically of the opinion that there is no harm in dancing as I ever was. What I say is that the Bible is silent on that subject, leaving each to judge for herself. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he, quoted Ruth, that is my verse, one of them, and I think it is unanswerable. If you, Marian, think it is wicked to dance, then you would be doing a wrong thing to dance, but Urie, believing it to be right and proper, has a right to dance, each person as he thinks in his heart. Then, if I think in my heart that it is right to go skating on Sunday, it will be quite right for me to go. Is that the reasoning, Ruth? No, of course, because in that instance you have the direct command, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. But who is going to prove to me in what way I should keep it holy? I may skate with very good thoughts in my heart and feel that I am keeping the spirit of the command. And if I think so in my heart, why isn't it so? You know that isn't a parallel case, Ruth said, slightly nettled. Flossie, would you speak for a dollar? Urie asked, suddenly turning to her. She had been utterly graven silent during this war of words, but, to judge from her face, by no means uninterested. She shook her head now with a quiet smile. I know what I think, she said, but I don't want to speak yet. Only I want to know, Ruth, about that verse. I found it and thought about it. I couldn't see that it means what you think it does. I used to think in my very heart that going to church and trying to do about right was all there was of religion, but I have found that I was wonderfully mistaken. Can't persons be honest and yet be very much in the dark because they have not informed themselves? Why, dear me, said Marian, only see, Ruth, where your doctrine would lead you. What about the heathen women who think in their hearts that they do a good deed when they give their babies to the crocodiles? I found the verse about Paul persecuting all who called on the name of Jesus, and he says he barely thought he was doing God's service. This was Flossie's added word. See here, said Urie, we are not getting added at all. I haven't any verses and you have demolished Ruth's. The way is for you and Flossie to open your batteries on us and let us prove to you that they don't any of them mean a single word they say, or you say, or something, anything, so that we win the argument. What I want to know is, what earthly harm do people see in dancing? I don't mean, of course, going to balls and mingling with all sorts of people and dancing in decent figures. I mean the way we girls have been in the habit of it, Ruth and Flossie and I. We never went to a ball in our lives, and we were never injured by dancing so far as I can discover, and yet we have done a good deal of it. Now I love to dance. It is the very pleasantest amusement I can think of, and yet I honestly want to get at the truth of this matter. I want to learn. I don't in the least know why churches and Christians think such dancing is wrong. I couldn't find a thing in the Bible that showed me the reason. To be sure I had a very little time to look, and a very ignorant brain to do it with, and no helps, but I am ready to be convinced if anybody has anything that will convince me. Just let me ask you a question, Marianne said. Why did you think, before you were converted, that it was wrong for Christian people to dance? How do you know I did? asked Urie, flushing and laughing. Never mind how I know, though you must have forgotten some of the remarks I have heard you make about others to ask me, but please tell me. Honestly then I don't know, and it is that thought, or rather that remembrance, which disturbs me now. I had a feeling that some way it was an inconsistent thing to do, and that if I was converted I should have to give it up, and it was a real stumbling block in my way for some days. But I don't this minute know a single definite reason why I, in common with the rest of the girls and the young men in our set, felt amused whenever we saw dancing church members. I have thought perhaps it was prejudice, or a misunderstanding of the Christian life.