"I think Nature is the best comforter and preacher of God. When we are too tired to learn our lessons or to do our duty, we can go alone for a safe distance where God waits for us to strengthen us. It is hard for me to sit and think about God in the class room, where everybody is speaking, and the class books and sums on the board attract my attention, or make me feel useless because I was not able to do them as nicely as others in my class. But, if we go away from all these, our friend Nature jumps up and greets us with new greetings. The cool wind and the pretty birds and wonderful little flowers and giant-like rocks help us to feel the presence of God. We cannot appreciate all these when we are walking with the crowd and talking and playing, but, if we are left alone when we go out to see God, then even the stones and tiny flowers which we often see look like a mystery to us. In thinking about them we can feel the wisdom of God."
Crude as the English may be, the spiritual perception is not so different from that of the English lad who cried,
"My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky."
Religion Made Practical.
Religious feeling and expression may be natural to the Indian mind, but how about its transfer to the affairs of the common day? It is a hard enough proposition for any of us, be we from the East or the West; to make the difficulty even greater, the Indian girl is heir to a religious system in which religion and morals may be kept in water-tight compartments. Where the temples shelter "protected" prostitution and the wandering "holy man" may break all the Ten Commandments with impunity, it is hard to learn that the worship of God means right living. Harder than irregular verbs or English idioms is the fundamental lesson that the Bible class on Sunday has a vital connection with honest work in arithmetic on Monday, the settling of a quarrel on Tuesday, and the thorough sweeping of the schoolroom on Wednesday. Right here it is that we see "the grace of God" at work in the hearts of big girls and middle-sized girls and little children from the villages. When classes can be left to take examinations unsupervised, a big step forward is marked. When before Communion Sunday the "queens" of their own initiative settle up the school quarrels and "make peace," one has the glad feeling that a little bit of the Kingdom of God has come in one small corner of the earth.
[Illustration: BASKETBALL AT ISABELLA THOBURN COLLEGE, LUCKNOW]
"Among you as He that serveth."
Religious emotion may find one of its normal outlets in personal right-living. That is good as far as it goes, but yet not enough. It must seek expression also in making life better for other people. The Indian schoolgirl lives in the midst of a vast social laboratory, surrounded by problems that are overwhelmingly intricate. What is her education worth? Nothing, if it leads to a cloistered seclusion; everything, if it brings her into vital healing touch with even one of its needs.
The spirit of Christian social service opens many doors. There are Sunday afternoons to be spent with the shy pupils of the High Caste Girls' Schools at the opposite end of town. In the outcaste village beside the rice fields we may find the other end of the social scale—twenty or thirty little barbarians whose opening exercises must start off with a compulsory bath at the well.
Vacation weeks at home are bristling with opportunity—the woman next door whose forgotten art of reading may be revived; the bride in the next street who longs to learn crochet work; the little troop of neighbor children who crowd the house to learn the haunting strains of a Christian lyric. A cholera epidemic breaks out, and, instead of blind fear of a demon-goddess to be placated, there is practical knowledge as to methods of guarding food and drinking water. The baby of the house is ill and, instead of exorcisms and branding with hot irons, there is a visit to the nearest hospital and enough knowledge of hygienic laws to follow out the doctor's directions.