The Girl and Her Religion

, a glorious land of opportunity, the girl has her rights-the right to work, the right to play, the right to secure an education and to enter the professions, the right to marry or to refu

the stupendous fact is impressed upon him that g

light steals what oxygen there may chance to be in the heavy air, take their first steps in foul alleys, find their first toys in garbage cans and gutters. They have been denied their rights at the start. In a Christian land, they grow weak, anemic, yield to the white specter and in a few yea

a, they return numb with cold after a dinner of more bread and tea and they go home to a supper of the same with a piece of stale cake or a cookie to help out. Nature calls aloud for nourishment and there is no answer. The girl enters her teens, fin

clean, honest and efficient living. Yet every year sees hundreds of girls turned out into the world wholly unequipped fo

er daily bread, at least until she shall reach the age of sixteen. Yet every year sees a long process

is is absolutely impossible. What has religion to offer to a girl denied an education which will fit her for the life she must live, compelled to enter into a fierce struggle for daily bread

factories, offices and kitchens and at night sit friendless and alone until the loneliness becomes unendurable and

understand, and when the time comes accept the privileges and responsibilities of motherhood. Every year sees thousands of girls enter the teens whose only knowledge of self and motherhood is gained through the h

ience from those too young to choose for themselves is the right of every girl. Yet thousands of girls every year are left to decide life's most important questions, while

ead her in the spirit of the Author of the Golden Rule into service for her fellows. Yet thousands of girls are without definite moral and religious instruction and

ust live; when laws for the regulation of labor for girls are made in the interest of the girl herself; when the community makes it possible for its girls to play in safety and makes provision for friendless and lonely girlhood; when mothers inst

never and wherever religion concerns itself with the rights of a girl it becomes a girl's religion to whic