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Let all those that seek thee be joyful and glad in thee, and let such as love thee and thy salvation say always, The Lord be praised." Again, "The Lord loveth a cheerful giver." But it is not always in giving alone that He loves cheerfulness. Real love and trust in God—which is religion, mind you—makes the heart feather light, opens the eye to beauty, the heart to sympathy, the ear to harmony, and all the merriment and joy of life is but the sweeter for the reverent gratitude one returns to the Divine Giver.
One evening, in a greenroom chatter, the word "religious" had in some way been applied to me, and a certain actress of "small parts," whose life had been of the bitterness of gall, suddenly broke out with: "What—what's that? religious—you? Well, I guess not! Why, you've more spirits in a minute than the rest of us have in a week, and you are as full of capers as a puppy. I guess I know religion when I see
it. It makes children loathe the Bible by forcing them to learn a hundred of its verses for punishment. It pulls down the shades on Sundays, eats cold meat and pickles, locks up bookcase and piano, and discharges the girl for walking with her beau. Oh, no! my dear, you're not religious."
Poor abused word; no wonder it terrifies people.
How many thousand women, I wonder, are kept from church by their inability to dress up to the standard of extravagance raised by those who are more wealthy than thoughtful. Even if the poor woman plucks up her courage and enters the church, the magnificence of her fortunate sisters distracts her attention from the service, and fills her with longing, too often with envy, and surely with humiliation.
Some years ago a party of ultra-high churchwomen decided to wear only black during Lent. One of these ladies condescended to know me, and in speaking of
the matter, she said: "Oh, I think this black garb is more than a fad, it really operates for good. It is so appropriate, you know, and—and a constant reminder of that first great fast—the origin of Lent; and as I walk about in trailing black, I know I look devout, and that makes me feel devout, and so I pray often, and you're always the better for praying, even if your dress is at the bottom of it—and, oh, well, I feel that I am in the picture, when I wear black during Lent."
But the important thing is that before the Lenten season was half over, female New York was walking the streets in gentle, black-robed dignity, and evidently enjoying the keeping of Lent because, to use a theatrical expression, "it knew it looked the part."
So much influence do these petted, beloved daughters of the rich exercise over the many, that I have often wished that, for the sake of the poorer women, the wealthy ones would set a fashion of extreme simplicity of costume