[Illustration: The Village of the Seven Palms]
The Indian Girl's Religion.
To the Indian schoolgirl religion is the natural atmosphere of life. She discusses her faith with as little self-consciousness as if she were choosing the ingredients for the next day's curry. She knows nothing of those Western conventions that make it "good form" for us to hide all our emotions, all our depth of feeling, under the mask of not caring at all. She has none of that inverted hypocrisy which causes us to take infinite pains to assure our world that we are vastly worse than we are. What Lotus feels she expresses simply, naturally, be it her interest in biology, her friendship for you, or her response to the love of the All-Father. And that response is deep and genuine. There is a spiritual quality, an answering vibration, which one seldom finds outside the Orient. You lead morning prayers and to pray is easy, because in those schoolgirl worshippers you feel the mystic quality of the East leaping up in response. You teach a Bible class and the girls' eager questions run ahead so fast that you lose your breath as you try to keep pace.
The following letter was written by a girl just after her first experience of a mountain climb with a vacation camp at the top. "Now we are on Kylasa, enjoying our 'mountain top experience.' This morning Miss —— gave a beautiful and inspiring talk on visions. She showed us that the climbing up Kylasa could be a parable of our journey through this world. In places where it was steep and where we were tired, the curiosity we had to see the full vision on the top kept us courageous to go forward and not sit long in any place. She compared this with our difficulties and dark times and this impressed me most, I think.
"When we came up it was dark and I was supposed to come in the chair, but I did not wait for it, because I was very curious to go up. When I came to a place very dark, with bushes and trees very thick on both sides, I had to give up and wait until the others came. When I was waiting I saw the big, almost red moon coming, stealing its way through the dark clouds little by little. It was really glorious. I thought of this when Miss —— talked to us, and it made it easier to understand her feeling about that.
"So much of that, and now I want to tell you about the steep rocks I am climbing these days," and then follows the application to the big "Hill Difficulty" that was blocking up her own life path.
God in Nature.
Love of nature is not as spontaneous in the Indian girl as in the Japanese. Yet with but a little training of the seeing eye and understanding heart, there develops a deep love of beauty that includes alike flowers and birds, sunsets and stars. A High School senior thus expressed her thoughts about it at the final Y.W.C.A. meeting of the year.
"Nature stands before our eyes to make us feel God's presence. I feel God's presence very close when I happen to see the glorious sunset and bright moonlight night when everybody around me is sleeping. I think Nature gives a much greater and more glorious impression about God than any sermon.
"Whenever I felt troubled or worried, I did not often read the Bible or prayer book, but I wanted to go alone to some quiet place from where I could see the broad, bright blue sky with all its mysteries and green trees and gray mountains with fields and forests around them.