Class B J" 1 b5l. Book* L^'gfe: Gpfyright'N?— COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. A GIRL'S IDEALS By MRS. ARMEL O'CONNOR Author of " The Idea of Mary* s Meadow" "Mary's Meadow Papers," "The Door," "Thoughts for Betty from the Holy Land" etc. 3± MAGNIFICAT PUBLISHING CO. MANCHESTER, N. H. 1919 3 s^ Copyright 1919 By Magnificat Publishing Co. Manchester, N. H. MAK ! 6 1920 \ o 1 ^n §)C!.A565225 TO YOU, DEAR GIRL OF THE NOBLE SOUL, TENDER HEART AND VIGOROUS INTELLECT, THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED, AS AN AID IN THE CHOICE OF YOUR IDEALS AND A PRAYER THAT THOSE IDEALS MAY BE BEAUTI- FUL AND WOMANLY. CONTENTS A Girl's Ideals Mrs. Armel O'Connor I. The Lover I II. The Home 19 III. Children... 38 IV. Motherhood 54 V. Work 65 VI. Prayer 74 Catholic Girlhood Rev. William Kitchin, Ph.D. 85 The Ideal of Womanhood Rev. P. J. Scott 1 10 These essays first appeared in The Magnificat and are now re- printed from its pages. A GIRL'S IDEALS MRS. ARMEL O'CONNOR I The Lover Later on will come ideals of home and children and motherhood and work and prayer, but I think the lover must come first. Until I re- membered the reveries of my own girlhood I was a little puzzled in deciding exactly the order in which to arrange these six ideals; then, looking back, I realized that I had better begin with Prince Charming, because whether I placed him first or not, you would do so. It is only natural that your hopeful, happy thoughts should run to meet the man whose coming into your life will help 2 A Girl's Ideals or hinder all the journey of your after-years towards Heaven. Let us take it for granted that to every affectionate, impulsive, right-prin- cipled girl, every girl of a gentle and lovable nature, there must come sooner or later the conception of an exquisite ideal of human love — something so transcendently imag- ined that it will survive throughout her whole life, serving as a model to which she will return with a final constancy after whatever aberra- tions. Of course the subject is likely to assume great varieties of form and manner according to the habit of mind, character and disposition of each individual ; but, on the whole, the important thing is that your heart-strings should be in tune be- fore you attempt to play that melody — the melody of true love. It is not possible to state precisely A Giri/s Ideals 3 the age at which you will begin to form your definite ideal. Meg March in " Little Women" was sev- enteen when she said, "I do not want to have anything to do with lovers for a long while — perhaps never. " And her younger sister Jo exclaimed, with a funny mixture of interest and contempt, "I don't know anything about such nonsense ! Romantic rubbish, I call it." Yet not long afterwards we find Meg making her wedding dress herself, sewing into it the tender hopes and innocent romances of a girlish heart ; while Jo, who had gone out shopping one rainy day without an umbrella, " suddenly found herself walking away arm in arm with her Professor, feeling as if the sun had burst out with uncommon brilliancy, that the world was all right again, and that one thoroughly happy young woman 4 A Girl's Ideals was paddling through the wet that day!" And when the Professor asked, "Can you make a little place in your heart for me?" she said, "Oh, yes!" folded both hands over his arm, and looked up at him with an expression that plainly showed how happy she would be to walk through life beside him even though she had no better shelter than his old umbrella — if he carried it. Perhaps, with you, it may not be till late in your teens that some account of knightly chivalry stirs your imagination and you exclaim enthusiastically, "Quentin Durward is the man for me!" Or perhaps some gentle, domestic situation will appeal to your fancy or touch your heart, and you may say with Meg, after Demi had been so very naughty, "I need never fear that a husband like John Brooke will be too harsh A Girl's Ideals 5 with my babies !" And until that moment the possibility of a love affair in connection with yourself may never have occurred to your mind. Yet again, it may be that ever since your nursery days, when at the end of the fairy-tales you read how "they lived happily ever after, " you have known that the ideal of married life is a beautiful and possible condition. In any case, by the time you read this it will not be the handsome, dashing hero of Ouida's novels who will steal away your heart, nor the adventurous young prince in the fairy-tale. On your journey through life in the twentieth century both Captain Dashwood and Prince Ride- through-the-Forest are soon left be- hind. It is rather your own need of sympathy and understanding of which you are conscious now; the 6 A Girl's Ideals desire to share your ideas with some- one who is all your own; an intense longing for a kindred soul. Little Dorrit's Clenham might do, so ten- der, chivalrous and protecting; or Ur- sula's John Halifax, so much at one with her in his high standard of conduct, his toleration of the views of others, and his unselfish devotion to the best interests of his family, that he and she were able to read one another's minds. You want a perfect lover, like the finest heroes in the best books. I understand. And you shall have him, dear. Why not? If " none but the brave deserve the fair," it is also true that the fair deserve the brave. Marriages are made in Heaven. Mine was: so I know. You will not have to look out for your future husband. Just pray, and he will come. Pray as much as ever you A Girl's Ideals 7 like, as much as ever you can; but for at least ten minutes a day. It would not be reasonable to expect a Heaven-sent lover if you devoted to the thought of him less time than that. So, however much occupied you are, however many claims there may be upon your time, although your days may be filled up with the fatigues of work or the far worse rush and distraction of fashionable pleasure, set apart ten minutes of your fresh, bright, morning thoughts for the man who is on his way to bless your life with his admiration, his reverence, and his love. When you want to make a satis- factory cake you take care to use the right ingredients and follow an approved recipe, and I think if you want to make a happy marriage in this present age, in this wicked world where so many clever men and 8 A Girl's Ideals women who ought to know far bet- ter are doing all they can to establish easier methods of divorce, you must take a little trouble about it while you are still young. Join hands with me across the Atlantic Ocean, please, and let us set ourselves to make happy marriages easier. Then we shall really be a blessing to the world. Now the recipe for a good husband is simply this: a girl's good thoughts. And during those ten minutes which you are going to devote to your future lover let half be for his quali- ties and half be for your own. First think out all his noble attributes, his upright principles, his Heavenly- mindedness, and thank God that there are such men on the earth and plenty of them. Nothing you can imagine will exceed the greatness of that splendid personality whom you will be privileged to meet some day. A Girl's Ideals 9 If you are fond of making scrap- books, as I am, do cut out or copy every account you come across of noble conduct, high principle, and tender pity. Keep pictures of every strong and open countenance, of every intellectual and resolute ex- pression — these eyes, this chin, that forehead. Paste them in "My Lover's Book" and spend five min- utes in such company each morning. Your heart will never go out to any- one less worthy than the sort of man for whom you have been daily form- ing your taste in turning the pages of these treasured notes. "His Lady-love' ' will be the com- panion volume: a scrap-book of beautiful, happy, innocent faces, womanly clothes, and resolutions for your own interior life. These are some notes on beauty which I col- lected for my own guidance long ago : io A Girl's Ideals "The most beautiful faces are those which suggest the most lovable qualities. A girl's real and lasting charm lies in the beauty of good deeds, of ennobling thoughts, of a happy outlook on life. This is a beauty which the plain may all acquire and the pretty may easily miss. "The greatest beautifier of the face is character. If the intentions, motives and aspirations are lofty and noble, the plainest face takes on a beauty and an interest which would be quite lacking in one whose title to good looks rested solely on deli- cacy of complexion and regularity of feature. "Let each one seek to make of her- self a picture such as the old masters loved, in which all the colors tell of forbearance, patience, courage, aspir- ation, sanctity, and in which, over A Girl's Ideals ii all, there is the lustre of a Heavenly hope." How your Angel Guardian, and his Angel Guardian, will delight over these lily-books! The lily knows how to grow, how to achieve per- fection — it grows from within. And because it does not desire anything from the outside world, it gives all the colors back. Just so, if you ask nothing from the world of pleasure and sensation you will be fair in the eyes of your beloved; and you may confidently look forward with rap- turous expectation to a state of married bliss, alas! too little be- lieved in, and too little known. The girl who covets a good man's respect, values his esteem, and en- deavors to be worthy of his admi- ration and preference, will get them. But you can't get them if you don't seek them, seek them in singleness of mind and purity of heart. 12 A Girl's Ideals It has been cynically remarked that a man's worst rival is his wife's ideal of what he ought to be. But if she also has a stringent ideal for her own conduct and character, that saves the situation. Be like Ursula Hal- ifax, who was not a woman to be led blindfolded even by her husband. Sometimes they differed on minor points and talked their differences lovingly out; but on any great question she had always this safe trust in him "that if one was right and the other wrong the erring one was much more likely to be herself than John. " Please take this advice very carefully to heart and you, some day, will be as happy as they. It is just this attitude of mind towards "your husband's rival" which will secure your husband's peace of mind. "It is easier to make the world trust one when one is trusted by A Girl's Ideals 13 one's own household," said John Halifax; and any man, I feel certain, will agree with that. Do not think of yourself, do not speak of yourself; just live in your ideal of what the woman he could love must be. You will not flirt, you will not try to attract his attention; if you behave in such a way as to de- serve his admiration, he will bestow it upon you. If a girl is nice, a nice man is likely to fall in love with her. It is not always realized by good women that they are just as apt to win delightful husbands. Don't let it trouble you if some silly acquaint- ance remarks that you are trying "to be superior. " Your superiority will be proved by your being fallen in love with by a better man. Believe me, the highest charm is the " ever- womanly, " and her husband's lasting devotion is the ever-wo- manly woman's reward. 14 A Girl's Ideals The world needs happy marriages — Catholic marriages. Never for a moment let the thought of running away dwell in your mind. Never imagine yourself content with a reg- istry-office affair. Remember that right-thinking is a science and an art. Consider every idle thought of this kind as a stumbling block which you are wilfully putting in the way of the true happiness which Almighty God has destined for you. In all your reveries your marriage must be a Sacrament. Imagine a satin dress, a lovely bouquet, a huge cake, bridesmaids and wedding guests if you like: all very well in their way, pretty and suitable ; but what you simply must keep ever present in your thoughts for your Nuptial Mass is the presence of the King of Heaven and the Queen of all the Angels. A Girl's Ideals 15 It is in your imagining of your marriage-guests that I fear you may make some mistake. Ladies and gentlemen of rank and position are doubtless pleasant company for such an occasion; but to that Sacrament which is to give you grace you must, first and foremost, invite that dear Woman who was filled with it, and her Divine Son Who at her bidding will be willing to work a miracle on your behalf. If He has been with you from the start, looking to your husband "as to the Lord" will follow easily; and you will always consider yourself as the altar upon which his homage is laid — an offering to the God of Love. Your husband will praise, honor and love God in you, and your holy con- versation will be an evident proof that God is ever present in your heart. 1 6 A Girl's Ideals What more shall I say? What you have already guessed: that you may have to wait. And it helps one to remember that though five min- utes of boiling water will turn the centre of a liquid egg into a golden ball of yolk, the same amount of warmth extended over four weeks by a mother hen is necessary to convert the same material into a real, live chicken. I have taken it for granted that your ideals are the good, the true, the beautiful — the real things. And I who have realized my ideal can promise you that you will realize yours. I have good reason for unlimited faith in the efficacy of right thoughts and prayers. Your lover will be drawn to you, I know, no less by the weight of your own personal character than by the influence of adventitious circum- stances. A Girl's Ideals 17 Don't say, " Perhaps I shall find my kindred soul, but maybe he will be married to someone else. " No. Don't think like that. Choose your thoughts. That is not a right thought. Such a state of things would not be an ideal at all. Those are the wrong thoughts which if entertained necessitate, or appear to necessitate, cheap divorce. The right thought is that God rules the world and that all things work together for good to those who utterly love Him. And the very fact that He has filled your heart and soul with a longing for a good hus- band may be taken as a sign that He intends to give you one. So go on hopefully and happily, dear girl, making your lily-books, and the rest will follow in due course. The King- dom of Love is at hand. Have no doubts lest a longing for 1 8 A Girl's Ideals the ideal husband is a thing to be ashamed of; nor is it even necessarily a subject to make a secret about. Yet I. think you will be wiser than I was if, without referring to the pearls and swine, you treasure your hopes in silence for a while. I told every- body that I was waiting for my kindred soul, and got unmercifully chaffed, as I deserved. But that afforded my playfellows considerable amusement and in no way really hurt me ; and when at last he came — well, let those laugh who win! But you are going to be wiser than I was ; so, just for the present, shall we keep your hopes a secret — a beautiful secret between you and me? A Girl's Ideals 19 II The Home It is only natural that any girl who thinks at all should think some- times of the kind of home which she would like to have; and if, as years go by, you find your ideas of what constitutes a perfect environment undergoing considerable modifica- tion — well, that is natural too. A child of eleven once told me that when she married and had a house of her own she would want " French windows, so as to be able to run out easily into the garden; lots of barns and out-houses to play in on wet days; a huge kitchen and an orchard. During the following year, when she talked the subject over with me again, I was surprised to find how rapidly her views were expanding. 20 A Girl's Ideals She now wanted: "a bigger house, with the kitchen further away; a large hall with a huge fireplace and great blazing logs of wood; and stags' horns and foxes' heads and lots of spears and pistols and helmets and old armor; and long corridors with soft carpets, and all the china ornaments on either side shaking as you go along (I must say I should never have thought this last an attraction, should you?) and a great wide staircase, and a large porch, and very high oak-paneled rooms — splendid rooms to give Christmas parties in,— and leading off them strange cupboards and priests' hiding places, and wandering cellars under- neath. And out-of-doors a terrace walk, a paved terrace with urns on the wall ; and broad steps going down into the garden; and lovely sundials and paved walks with little rock A Girl's Ideals 21 plants growing between the stones; and wide borders with every kind of old-fashioned herbaceous flowers; and fountains; and clipped hedges, cut into shapes — birds and things; and quantities of lovely green lawns kept beautifully short — croquet lawns; and two or three jolly sum- mer-houses; and big trees, tall pop- lars and old elms, and dark cedars and weeping trees, with lovely little glades between; and gravel walks and a long drive up an avenue, and very pretty iron front gates. " Not bad, that, for a girl of twelve, was it? In a few more years she will be wanting an Italian castle, k la Henry Harland. You remember the impression made on Peter Marchdale when he went to dine with his Duch- essa: "The wide marble staircase, up which he was shown, with its crimson carpet, and the big mellow 22 A Girl's Ideals painting, looking as if it might be a Titian, at the top; the great saloon, with its polished mosaic floor, its frescoed ceiling, its white iand gold paneling, its hangings and uphol- steries of yellow brocade, its satin- wood chairs and tables, its bronzes, porcelaines, embroideries, its screens and mirrors; the long dining hall, with its high pointed windows, its slender marble columns supporting a vaulted roof, its twinkling candles in chandeliers and sconces of cloudy Venetian glass, its brilliant table, its flowers and their colors and their scents/ ' It might seem rather a come-down for the young person with these magnificent ideas to find herself actually doomed to live for many years yet in a small square house, just like every other small square house in the row, with an entrance A Girl's Ideals 23 passage so narrow that it is a squeeze to get past the umbrella stand. But when you saw the notebook in which she jots down her plans you would realize that, no matter what her present surroundings may be, this little lady already has a castle in the air. A pocket notebook is a capital companion for a girl with enthusiasm and a seeing eye ; she will soon fill it with notes and sketches of bookcases, over-mantels, fireplaces, larder shelves or bathroom taps. When once your interest is thor- oughly aroused there seems no end to the things which you find yourself admiring, appreciating, choosing for your own home some day. The owner of a pocket notebook pauses to study a fireplace shop or a wall- paper shop which many another girl in walking along the same street 24 A Girl's Ideals would have totally ignored. In friends' houses the same rule applies. And having cultivated your taste for the beautiful your remarks on their treasures will be sure to win recognition, and other locked up gems which otherwise would never have been shown to you will be brought forth for your delight. But all this concerns the outside of a house, the mere body of it, and of course the spirit of the home is the real thing. Writing this in 191 7, I think a woman's ideal must be to provide a place which will form a sweet, pure, happy memory for some man in the trenches on the other side of the sea. Perhaps as yet your share in the management of your parents' home does not go beyond the arrangement of the flowers, but even so your loving heart will find many a pretty A Girl's Ideals 25 way of expressing sympathy: a fresh rose in a little vase beside the snapshot of the young cousin recently killed in action; a bunch of violets beside the miniature of his broken- hearted mother; some lilies of the valley around the stiff group photo- graph of the family now known to be in great anxiety. These are the touches which add grace to a home, and which are so thankfully remem- bered by those who are fighting for you thousands of miles away. And if as yet you are not quite in a position to give free expression to all your ideas, I imagine that you will be allowed to do pretty much as you like in your own bedroom. The place where you fall asleep at night and awake in the morning must be your own especial environment of beauty and repose, so planned that it may form a powerful aid to your 26 A Girl's Ideals character, your happiness and your faith. In a sleeping apartment the first requirement is, I think, a badge of the Sacred Heart. (Let me, please, try to be as persistent as was dear St. John the Evangelist, when he kept repeating " Little children, love one another. ' ' ) You must above all things be most careful about your good heart, so always, the first thing on awaking, salute that of our Lord and offer Him your own. A holy water font, you will of course put near the door, and your crucifix will hang in a quiet corner specially set apart for prayer and meditation. Our Lady's statue will be well in evidence as a reminder that you have resolved nothing shall ever enter your room of which She would not approve. Every time your eyes turn Her way you will remember that you have constituted our Lord's Mother your censor. A Girl's Ideals .27 Then there comes your dressing table where you turn to the glass now and then to see if you are look- ing like the sort of girl you want to look like. I take it for granted that you will do your hair becom- ingly and brush it well, and if it is not quite so plentiful as you would like ask the assistance of St. Mary Magdalen. Your teeth and nails demand particular and regular atten- tion: the temple of the Holy Spirit must be kept exquisitely clean — it is an act of reverence to respect your body. Let the clothes which cover it be as simple as possible and chosen to suit you ; you cannot help having discovered that the prettier you are the better you look in quite simple attire. But you must put your things on well, and fold them up carefully when you take them off: in this lies more than half the art of always appearing well dressed. 28 A Girl's Ideals A chest of drawers crammed full of things, all topsy turvy with nothing to be found when it is needed, will form no part of your ideal of a charm- ing girl's surroundings. You know that it does require a constant effort to be tidy, to have a place for every thing and every thing in its place; this is not a small matter, and you learn and practise much self-control over keeping your garments neatly folded and your shelves and drawers well ordered. When people see your room they will exclaim: "This is the sort of girl our men are fighting for! This is the sort of home which a man looks forward to coming back to--— and the kind of home which a brave man deserves." To enjoy possessions they must be nicely kept, and the fewer you have the more you will enjoy them. For- tunately you dust your room your- A Girl's Ideals 29 self, which is so much more sensible than paying somebody else to take care of a host of little knick-knacks for you. I must admit that in the days when the under-housemaid dusted my bedroom I used to have crowds of silly little meaningless ornaments stuck about in every direction. Thank goodness, poverty of spirit has changed all that! You belong to a wiser generation and your aim is to have only that which you know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. The three things about which I thought perhaps I might help you are your pictures, your books and your writing-table. We all love pictures in our rooms. A house does not seem like a home without them. One of the first things to do in new surroundings, when you want to feel comfortably settled, is to put up the pictures. 30 A Girl's Ideals Certain pictures accompany you all your life through, carrying with them, no matter on what strange wall they hang, the tender memories of the days when they were first chosen. That is the secret of a picture's worth — that it should be deliberately chosen. I do not advise you to have many, but I do suggest your taking much time and trouble to decide on those you do have. You need something to elevate your thoughts, to raise your heart, to refresh your mind. Pictures are meant to help our lives and each must be placed in its position with a definite intention. In choosing you will remember that art is a matter of reciprocity: the artist has done his work the beholder must also do his. Let us say that you decide on three: one to hang opposite your A Girl's Ideals 31 bed, one over the mantel-piece and one to pass as you go to the door: just enough to meet your eye as you enter your room, so that one glance around the walls may renew your ambitions and resolutions; just enough to enable anyone else to see the keynote of your life — what you stand for. These are your colors and you hoist them up because you mean to fight for them. Your three pictures might be men- tally classified as My Master, My Best Self, My Work. And when you have saved up enough money to make your first purchase I should advise a reproduction of Ruben's masterpiece, "The Descent from the Cross. " No one can fail to be struck with the boldness of the composition, the energy of the characters and the effects of the grouping; but to you it will appeal more as a symbol of 32 A Girl's Ideals Success — what the world calls failure. Humanly speaking, when our Lord's dead Body was lifted down from the Cross, His mission appeared to be ended, His friends disillusioned, and His own Heart broken. But you know better; and if in serving this dear Master you fail to win the world's applause, what matter! If you aim high and do good work you will have succeeded, and you will know it when He says, "Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." In the meantime your picture will assure you that it is of no consequence if while you live on earth your enter- prises appear to come to nothing, if your friends fail you and if your acquaintances hold your ideals up to ridicule. To encourage you in spite of adverse criticism, to help you to A Girl's Ideals 33 always aim at being your best self, you could not do better than choose Raphael's "Sistine Madonna " for the companion of your pilgrimage. I think this picture should have a place of honor in every Catholic home. When the great artist Watts was asked which he considered the finest picture in the world he said that this successfully embodies the best and noblest ideas which can be associated with the personality of the Madonna. It has the highest intel- lectual qualities as well as artistic genius. Then as an incentive and inspira- tion for your daily work you will want a picture of the dignity of labor, something to remind you that real greatness does not lie in doing extraordinary things but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. A few years ago I might have been 34 A Girl's Ideals misunderstood had I set forth Mil- let's " Gleaners' ' as exemplifying the noblest ambition, the highest form of service. Now I need say only that I expect you are working unusu- ally hard, doing all sorts of humble little tasks to help others, and you will often be very tired, often leave off with a backache; and Mil- let's beautiful " Gleaners" — even his "Angelus" is hardly more religious in feeling — will both encourage you when you leave your room in the morning and strengthen your resolu- tions when you retire to rest. Then just a word about books. If pictures are your lifelong companions, so indeed are books. Choose them carefully, read them thoroughly and mark them well. It took me many years to decide whether one should or should not mark the passages which particularly appeal to one, A Girl's Ideals 35 and I have decided that one should — especially in spiritual books. In times of dryness the parts which have impressed you before will be just what you need to refresh your mem- ory and reawaken your interest in Heavenly truths. So please mark well all your devotional books, making them ready to turn to when your dull, dry, cold times come and your spirit flags. Alas ! these times come to us all and we need a rem- edy in our bookcases. Have also a poetry shelf and read a little poetry every day. Have any other books of interest that you like, in any line that especially appeals to you, but keep one corner for bright, pleasant, happy, amusing books and make a point of collecting a few of those too rare, delightful ones which you can take out when you have a cold and laugh over again and again. Also, 36 A Girl's Ideals in a home, when other people feel dumpy it is a splendid plan to read a funny book aloud. And as a home generally implies a family and a family must be bound and drawn together by the love and sympathy of the mistress of the household, I want you to pay partic- ular attention to your writing table. Correspondence, as yet, may not seem to form a very important part of your daily routine, but I think every girl should prepare for the time when as a woman she will sit before a large sheet of white paper and with the magic of her pen call forth memories of happiness and peace for the absent members of her family circle. The pen is the only weapon I know of which can utterly break down the barriers of distance. Lines of ink form a strong net in which to draw together a scattered family. A Girl's Ideals 37 Ah, those letters from home! "It sounds like Heaven !" should be the exclamation of the recipient on the other side of the world. But it is not easy to write them, or perhaps I should say to think them out. You have to practise for years what not to commit to paper; there must be no record of what is unkind, unpleasant, or ugly or wrong. You must learn to treasure up every scrap of good news : a friendly act, a neighborly kindness, a providential escape, someone's good fortune, some delightful story, some amusing little incident. Writing a good letter is not an easy thing to do, so please make a few rules now for your guidance and never swerve from them. The most beautiful home is that where the mistress herself wants very little; only, in fact, opportunities for generosity and hospitality, a 38 A Girl's Ideals reposeful background for a gracious presence, a presence which suggests to her guests, " Behold the hand- maid of the Lord." Some day, dear, you will have such an ideal home of your own, and I hope you will ask me to come to see it. Of course I shall not be able to come, but I shall be pleased to think that you want to show it to me. Ill Children It is difficult for me to write this article for you as I had intended. Quite suddenly a young mother and her four tiny children have fled to me from North London, terrified by air-raids. Such lovely children! aged two and three and four and five. Baby, just able to stand without A Girl's Ideals 39 assistance and walk across the room, instantly lost her heart to Ludlow's famous white terrier toy; and had anyone ever doubted whether it was worth while to establish a local toy- factory this little visitor's early morn- ing shout for " Doggie" would have been sufficient assurance that the work turned out is a success. Twinkle — whose pet name every- body understands directly they see him smile — is absolutely happy marching round and round the table where I write, dressed up in a cocked hat made out of an old newspaper and beating a tin can for a drum. Sonny builds me a railway station with bricks upon the window ledge, and blows his whistle and runs trains up and down incessantly in the most obliging manner until such time as I shall be ready to catch one. Dear little Sister, feeling very 40 A Girl's Ideals nearly grown up at the tremendous age of five, clears away tea-things, dries cups and saucers and plates without breaking them, and puts them away most conscientiously in their right places. She also helps me by stirring the soup which is boiling over the fire and seeing that it does not burn. She whips the eggs for custard and grates nutmeg on the top of the milk pudding. So far the domestic arrangements are felt to be safe in her hands. The rest of the nursery party evince no interest in the cooking until it comes to the opening of the oven door and the going in of the dinner. Then, so charmed are all the children by the last item of our recipe, that each in turn comes up to make the sign of the cross over the dish and say, "God bless our little pudding !" Twinkle insists that even Baby must put A Girl's Ideals 41 down her Doggie for a moment and toddle up to perform her share in this mystic rite. No, it isn't difficult to prepare a meal when surrounded by such sweet, happy children, beautiful alike in face and character — though it may be a little difficult to write. Only occasionally difficulties over third helpings and not quite enough jam to go all round again lead to a flow of tears. But then, what can you expect when the united ages of the four diners total fourteen ! As an infallible remedy for greedi- ness the Crucifix which hangs oppo- site my own place at table greatly interests the children. They take it in turns to sit beside me at meals and have a little crust of bread broken into five pieces, while they meditate upon the "Book of the Saints' ' before them. Even Twinkle 42 A Girl's Ideals eats slowly, wonderingly, while that great mystery is explained : " Think of the dear right Hand stretched out to bless, the Hand that blessed little children. Always remember that He will bless your food if you ask Him ; and no matter whether it is particularly nice or not, if He blesses it it is certain to do you good. You don't like it! Look at His left Hand; see the cruel nail. Could He have liked to bear such dreadful pain? Was it pleasant to have His flesh pierced? Think, when you see His bleeding Hands, what His suffering must have been, and then you will be ashamed ever to say that you don't like the taste of cabbage. "And then look at His dear Feet nailed to the wood of the Cross. Did He want to be so still ? Wouldn' t He have preferred to move freely A Girl's Ideals 43 about? Surely you will not fidget in your chair and kick your feet against the table leg and try to get down before the proper time. " And look at His Heart. He gave everything, all that He had. He kept nothing at all for Himself. That is why you are going to give up the best bits to other people, because you want to try to be like Him; because you do so very much admire and love Our Lord." This is the way the children are learning to read "The Book of the Saints/ ' None of them, I am glad to say, have yet learned to read from any other book. As for tumbles in the garden, bruises and bumps and scratches, they are instantly remedied by run- ning to Our Lady's Bower. The pleasure of picking huge sprays of Michaelmas daisies on the way and 44 A Girl's Ideals arranging them in two vases on either side the statue as an offering to Mother Mary, completely obliter- ates the memory of some slight disas- ter. I almost think the children are getting to tumble down for the fun of the thing and the hurried joy of the remedy. None of us are perfect, and if some- times on wet days quick tempers are aroused during an over-hasty exchange of playthings, peace is restored by the mother's making each struggling, howling child pause a moment to repeat the Name of Jesus. Perhaps the nuns who taught her to control her own tempes- tuous nature, not so many years ago, may have adopted the same expedient. Already the beneficent effects of the Holy Name have become a fixed tradition in her own small family. And if, as they say A Girl's Ideals 45 they hope, there should be a new arrival every twelve months for the next ten years, and should there be many a childish altercation over desirable acquisitions, Sister will al- ways know at once how to admin- ister relief and calm the storms of nursery passion. But to desire ten more babies! Isn't it wonderful? Only seven years ago I had known this lady as a listless, delicate girl, not expected to live and certainly not expected to become the mother of happy, rosy, shock- headed children. It was not even observed in those days that she was particularly interested in little people. I got her to tell me, just to satisfy my curiosity, how it was that the thought of life and vigor and the joy of child- hood had come to her. " Quite suddenly," she said, "one glorious, sunny day early in spring, — 46 A Girl's Ideals the sort of day that makes you feel like that. I was staying in a small, picturesque town on the South Coast. The sea was like a mill-pond, and as I walked along the Front I noticed a little knot of children on the beach throwing stones into the water, seeing which could make the biggest whirl. That was what first made me think of children. Then my eye was caught by a bright blue jumper dress, white socks with blue tops to match the jumper, and strap shoes flying like the wind — a little thing was tearing towards me at a breakneck pace, bowling a hoop much larger than herself. She was laughing. She had glittering eyes and very rosy cheeks and a little dumpling, round face, no hat, and a shock — oh! but a shock of hair — which bobbed up and down as she ran. "With a shriek of laughter she A Girl's Ideals 47 dashed into me and the hoop went over the edge of the parade, down onto the beach. To save her from falling I had to lift her up in my arms and a thrill went through me at the feel of this little enthusiastic creature. The joy of living seemed to pass from her into me. I longed to possess anything so filled with innocent vitality and happiness. She gasped when I put her down. She was a real darling. I felt that if I had a child, this sort of child would be a life-long happiness to me. Soon afterwards my lover proposed and I accepted him. So that is the story of Sister, and Sonny, and Twinkle and Baby, and that is the reason why I want ten more.'' I said I understood. If four are so delightful what would fourteen be! And I hope you understand how it is. I have not quite had time to write 48 A Girl's Ideals what I intended. I meant to ask you, while you are still in your teens, to think out for yourself the whole subject of children's education and management. It would be wise, I think, if every girl planned out a system of bringing up before she has forgotten what it feels like to be twelve years old. Judging by my own experience I should say that for every ten women who can satisfac- torily bring up little children, there is scarcely one who makes a success of her management of the girl of twelve. A very loose rein indeed is my own idea, after a very tight, strict, even narrow early preparation. For a year or two the twelve-year-old may feel intensely important, inven- tive, intolerant, difficult to herself and difficult to everybody else; but if her up-bringing till twelve has been thoroughly sound, give her her head, A Girl's Ideals 49 say I, and she will carry the whole thing through with flying colors. Map out her hours, if you like — nine to ten, Latin and French; ten to eleven, drawing and composition; eleven to twelve, piano and violin. But leave her absolutely free to choose which French or Latin exer- cise she is going to translate that day ; let her decide for herself what she will draw and what is to be the subject of her composition; let her search amongst her music for the composer whose work she will like to study. This system (which of course applies to home lessons and especially to the case of an only child), enables a girl to take more interest in her work besides inculcat- ing a sense of personal responsibility which will be valuable in after life. Once upon a time I knew some delightful, motherless girls, brought 50 A Girl's Ideals up by a governess at home in the old- fashioned way, who used to dress up when they went to bed and try to look like third-rate actresses. It seemed so funny at the time that I used to sit and laugh and laugh until remonstrances were sent up from the drawing-room: "The children ought to be in bed and asleep.' ' But when these three girls grew up and came out and chose their own clothes, the old ambition still dominated them — they still tried to look like third-rate actresses, and it was admitted by everybody who knew them that they succeeded uncommonly well; but it no longer made anybody laugh, and it made me cry. However, this is only by the way and just to prove that you should provide a healthy outlet for the spirit and energy of young people. If those motherless girls had been A Girl's Ideals 51 allowed to give their fancy free play over their lessons and other desirable subjects, their powers of imagination would not have been lavished upon dressing up after the day was done. What do you think? I must admit I did not imitate this snaffle-bridle plan. It was a girl of twelve, her- self, who vehemently explained it to me as the only right one. (She had had no opportunity of going to school.) Every other arrangement, she declared, fretted and worried her and made her lose her temper — she is a bit of a genius — and having been "let alone' ' myself when I was young I sympathized. It struck me as an excellent plan to study the question of how children should be managed while you are yourself a child, so I asked her to jot down a few of her impressions for me. 11 Let girls run wild as much as pos- 52 A Girl's Ideals sible. Don't keep them as nurses do, forcing them to wear gloves in summer. Let them go about bare- foot in the garden and eat as many blackberries as they like. It won't give them any pain, as the nurse imagines. Let them have a cer- tain amount of unripe gooseberries and green apples, because children think them delicious. They don't taste acid to them. Let them climb trees and paddle in the river through the summer — paddle and bathe. They won't catch cold. Never let them be idle, not knowing what to do. On wet days teach them to cut out pictures and color them and stick them on brown paper and make scrap-books. Encourage them to draw. "When they are older, boys and girls very often get a craving for making things; well, let them, A Girl's Ideals 53 whether it be a cubby-house in the garden or a doll's house made out of old boxes, with match-box furniture. Don't have too many carpets and nice things about the room and then scold if anything gets soiled. Teach them to take a pleasure in keeping the house nice and the garden neat. Make their lessons pleasant and easy. While they are young ten minutes for each subject is quite enough. Let the whole of the day be mapped out — certain times for everything. Always take care what sort of books you give your child; and choose for playmates children with nice, open faces. That's about all, I think." What do you think? Perhaps you will jot down your ideas also and compare notes. 54 A Girl's Ideals IV Motherhood Perhaps not until you have a child of your own can you really appreciate your own mother — her unselfishness, her patience. It is as she bends over the cradle of her first baby that a woman begins to realize all that motherhood implies: its power, its responsibility. She no longer then regards her own mother as "old- fashioned"; she forgets the restric- tions which she used to find so irk- some; every other consideration and remembrance is overwhelmed in the thought that her mother once held her in her arms as a baby — as she is now holding her own child. And she exclaims, half involuntarily, "What a good woman my mother was!" A Girl's Ideals 55 Napoleon is often credited with saying, "What France wants is good mothers/ ' What every country wants is good mothers. If there were more Saint Monicas there would be more Saint Augustines. Much as one admires Monica's philosoph- ical argument and her great tact with her friends, one cannot fail to see that her maternal heart was her greatest talent and the one which was most splendidly used. People often wonder how it was — humanly speaking — that Saint Augustine be- came a Catholic. I have no doubt that it was due to his very early training, to the bias which his baby mind received at his mother's knee. You must never forget that the forming of a child's character begins in its mother's arms and that the first duty of a mother is a religious one — to give love. It might almost 56 A Girl's Ideals be said that her duty begins and ends there, that all other duties are in- cluded in that. Yet hope is also truly said to be a mother's special gift, persevering beyond all patience, beyond all reason, believing in the impossible and so obtaining the impossible; a hope which can fasten on the slightest sign of good and develop it, which expects something from every one and finds the results are in proportion to the expectations. I remember a mother of seven daughters, of whom it was said that all their lives she believed her geese were swans! But wasn't it brave of her to go on hoping for them and believing in them after they had all grown up? For though it may be easy to credit little children with all sorts of lovely possibilities, it is a hard task to go on believing in them, in spite of all appearances to A Girl's Ideals 57 the contrary, when a family has finished passing through its teens. Yet the joyous faith of the mother must win in the end. So let her start out hopefully, with the fixed belief that there is nothing more delightful than religion. A jolly young mother who can tell funny little stories concerning Heavenly things — which is easy enough if one really believes in God — will find her children sitting around her, listening entranced to spiritual instruction. Even a few moments spent in silence, with closed eyes and folded arms, is not toa difficult to manage, provided the children are started off upon their spiritual adventure with some such story as that of the silly little fish who could not find the sea. After its wanderings and its question- ings it came at last upon a wise old fish who knew the answer; and the 58 A Girl's Ideals answer was, " You are in it!" Of course this is an Eastern story. I believe we could learn a good deal from the Eastern system of religious education. Why should all the im- pressions received by our young people come to them through the senses? Why should not we also have rows of little children sitting quietly, for a quarter of an hour at a time, meditating on the Ocean of God's Love? Perhaps we sometimes forget that the material world does not mean in the least the same thing to children that it does to us. They are living in a world apart. In their self- arranged games they always leave more than half to the imagination. Their choice of an environment would be some sort of lovely, ethe- real place where fancy could dance freely to and fro. That is their A Girl's Ideals 59 natural heritage. Don't let us rob them of it. Each newcomer into this world of ours might do it so much more good if only custom did not at once step in and steal away the wisdom which had just been brought down. In early life the capacity for belief is very strong. " Children are living poems/ ' sings the poet. And the first stanza belongs to their mother, say I, a stanza of three short lines: look up; go on; think about our Lord — the epitome of everything which in after life anyone is likely to need: inspiration for action, per- severance in effort, consolation in time of trouble. During its very earliest days I would have the mother set herself deliberately to teach her baby where to look, where to go, and what to think about; encour- aging from the start the happy bias of the infant's mind. 60 A Girl's Ideals "Look up," she will say. "There is a lark singing its praises at Heav- en's gate! Look up! There is a poplar tree, so tall, so tall, and far below, hidden in the earth, the roots go down to keep it safe and steady; we cannot see them, but they give the tree its strength. Look up! There are the telegraph-posts with wires taking kind messages to people far away. Daddy sends his love to Baby along those wires and Baby can stand still, shut eyes, draw a deep breath, and send off love to Daddy without any wires; the ether waves will carry it; see the pattern of their lines and dots! Those are our very own to use to make other people happy." A child loves to trace in the air that kingdom of beauty and power and wonderful design. For "Go on," the mother herself will be always looking forward, treat- A Girl's Ideals 6i ing hope as a duty, noticing the roads, the hedges, the walls, the rail- way lines; explaining to her child that if one wishes to reach a given point the best way is to go straight there. She will not waste time find- ing fault with her servants, or talking disparagingly about her friends; she will go straight on to God, the God who is Love, and her whole household will march not far behind. The way in which she thinks about Our Lord will be such that no one can be long in her company and fail to interpret humanity as she does: Christ "means your neighbor, not the poor only, but any one you meet who can be helped by you. To the cottage-hospital, the work-house in- firmary, the hovel and the hall, she will take her children, carrying some extra fine fruit or some very special flowers. And following her example 62 A Girl's Ideals they will soon learn to sacrifice a treasured toy in gratitude to the dear Lord Who during His earthly life suffered so much for them. Later on, with vigor and con- stancy, the mother can develop these life-lessons both in herself and in the little souls which have been en- trusted to her care, knowing that it is useless to try to inculcate lofty aspirations in others unless she has first made them her own. Her joyous, elevated mind will give the right tone to the nursery on wet days, to the windy, perambulator walks, and to the sunny picnics in the bluebell wood. "It's the nice rain making the grass grow for the cows to eat!" and "It's the good, strong wind blowing the measles away and making the whole earth sweet and clean!" Reverently, tenderly, the mother A Girl's Ideals 63 can unfold the mysteries of life and death, showing the poppy folded in the bud; drawing attention to the baby chickens under the old hen's wing; remembering that even (ac- cording to Pat Howard) an earwig may be regarded as a mother. She can inculcate an appreciation of life while speaking freely and hap- pily about death and the dead. She will treat her children's bodies with respect and exact from these chil- dren a respect for all living things. The character of a child may be formed, I believe, entirely by the intention of the mother. What she expects it to be, it will be; or if not, I am inclined to ask, was her will sufficiently supported by her prayers? Oh, those prayers beside the little cot at night when on one side of the bars lies an apparently unconscious baby, rosy, fat and warm, and on the other 64 A Girl's Ideals side kneels a tired woman, loving, silent and absorbed ! No wonder it is said that great men had good mothers ! A holy man from the north of India tells me how in his country the mothers trust almost entirely to the effect of prayers said over their sleeping children during the night. For correcting faults, for overcoming hereditary difficulties and troubles, for obtaining needful qualities, prayer is their one weapon, their sole rem- edy — prayer while the child sleeps and the world is still. Some day, dear, if you have the happiness to become a mother let this happy so- licitude be yours also. A Girl's Ideals 65 V Work "Get a hustle on," is what many people will say to you when you are about to undertake some important work, but your own ideal of deliber- ation, love and the glory of God is the right one. It is the only certain way in which to ensure your work becoming a real and lasting success. Brother John Ximenes is a safe com- panion with whom to climb the ladder of life. When worldly people tell you that you will never succeed unless you hurry, just turn to that excellent religious and listen to what he says about haste. Another lay- Brother, noted for his incessant bustle and want of recollection, ridiculed the leisurely way in which Brother Ximenes went about his 66 A Girl's Ideals employment, saying, "I can run up and down stairs half a dozen times while you are going only once." "But, dearest Brother," answered Ximenes, "when I go up stairs I go in company with Our Lord on His flight into Egypt; and when I come down I accompany the Holy Family back to Nazareth. I do this that I may serve them on their way, and I never found my work hindered by my leisurely way of walking." This means, I take it, that it matters so very much more what you are than what you do. Being is an interior way of doing, and a far more certain method of accomplishing good work. You do quite as much, probably more, only you do it without any anxiety or strain or doubts or fuss. When you begin to retire within yourself, push and vim lose their dazzling qualities. After all, they A Girl's Ideals 67 are only so much energy of the flesh, with a corresponding diminution of spiritual power. No power is com- parable to that of a soul unified in the vision, love and seeking of God. The soul which is dispersed and divided amid the thousand anxieties of the senses consumes its powers in detail and wastes them. It is be- cause you realize this that you have set your face towards duty and per- fection. In impetuosity and hurry there is always much of nature and conse- quently of self. Without a certain degree of deliberateness in your ac- tions you cannot infuse into them either love or purity of intention. Yet if in spite of all your good resolutions (because you are human), sometimes you do get troubled and distressed and lose your peace of mind when employed in corporal 68 A Girl's Ideals exercise, don't be too eager to go on or strive too hard to get the work finished in a set time. Just proceed calmly and moderately, reflecting that it is your principal affair to have God always with great tranquility before your eyes, with little regard to give content to any but Him. If you allow any other consideration to mingle and insinuate itself, you will soon perceive the storm and disquiet it will raise in your soul. The ideal worker is absolutely indifferent as to herself and to all creatures and events, so that her soul may transcend all and live in God alone, not being concerned with any other thing besides. After deliberation comes magnan- imity, generosity, the love which envieth not. This is love in compe- tition with others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find A Girl's Ideals 69 other people doing the same kind of work, and possibly doing it better that you can. But you must not envy them. Envy is described as a feeling of ill-will towards those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. You will find, alas! that even Chris- tian work is no guarantee against un-Christian feelings. On the thresh- old of every noble work this most ignoble mood will assuredly await you unless you are fortified with the grace of magnanimity. Remember, there is only one thing you need envy: the large, rich, generous soul which envieth not. It is the doctrine of the Saints that the more painful and laborious any office, the more generous are the virtues which it produces in the soul. Seneca taught that the heart renders little services great and the meanest 70 A Girl's Ideals illustrious, when they are not merely well done but done out of love and with pleasure. It is the personal qualities which your career displays which will render the condition of your career heroic. It is not nec- essary that the cause for which you strive and suffer should be one raised high in the sight of others ; nor need your outward efforts be on a scale from which ordinary girls might shrink; nor need your actions come under the full blaze of the sun at noonday. It is the mind which must show itself strenuous, the soul which must prove itself strong. Integrity, thoroughness, honesty, accuracy, conscientiousness, faithful- ness, patience: these are the unseen things which go to make your char- acter and which are woven into it by work. If you are strong, vigorous, hopeful, A Girl's Ideals 71 joyous, then you will be disseminat- ing strength and vigor, hope and joy, wherever you go. But if, on the contrary, you were to allow yourself to become depressed and timid, anx- ious and morbid, then you would be infecting the moral atmosphere with insidious germs of fear and misery and doubt and despair. Think of your thoughts as seeds scattered broadcast, and make certain they are flower seeds — not weeds. Be pleasant, amiable, adaptable. Become proficient in the art of cour- tesy and gentle yielding. Have a gracious and a charming manner towards your fellow workers, a ready and sympathetic tact. On this the happiness of those with whom you come in daily contact will so very much depend. Perhaps one of the hardest things about work is to do it in somebody 72 A Girl's Ideals else's way. However difficult a thing may be you feel you can manage it in your own fashion; but it tries your temper and quenches your enthu- siasm and seems certain to end in disaster, if you are obliged to carry it out according to the rules which another — perhaps less qualified — per- son has laid down. But you will do it, I know, and in conquering your pride — justifiable pride, very likely — you will add such a merit and a lustre to the work in hand that even you will be surprised at the way in which it turns out. You succeed with prayers and kind thoughts and little acts of humilia- tion not merely in the taking of a thing from one place and putting it in another. After all, from the mere material point of view, that is what all work amounts to — just moving things from one place to another! A Girl's Ideals 73 So it does not really matter what it is. Whatever it is, you can undertake it with hopeful effort and try to do it well. If you do well whatever work your hands find to do, you will be offering Almighty God an agree- able sacrifice of praise. Of course none of this is original. These are all just ideas on the spirit of work which I have been collecting for many years, mostly from the writings of the Saints; but I repeat it for your benefit because we are all in danger, especially nowadays, of attempting to do too much and of getting too eager and anxious about the mere result of our undertakings; whereas we must try to remember that it does not matter where our work is or what our work is. The only really important thing is the spirit in which it is done. It is possible to drop into merely 74 A Girl's Ideals material preoccupation in the strug- gle for existence; but it is also pos- sible not to do so. The difference lies in having an ideal. VI Prayer Although I have called your other five ideals by five other names, you will have noticed that whether it be a lover, or home, or children, or mother, or work, everything in your whole life really amounts to the same thing: the raising up of your heart and mind to God. I call this last paper, " Prayer' ' — meaning the happy mystic state of union with Our Lord — because I think that, having begun with the earthly lover, you will like me to end with the Heavenly Bridegroom. A Girl's Ideals 75 As you grow older, perhaps at special times when your soul is with- drawn from the world, there will come moments and periods of prayer in which you will entirely forget yourself have no self-interest, ask for nothing, and cling to God purely for His own sake. The business and pleasures of this world may no longer seem worthy to engross your atten- tion, and a developing sense of unity with Our Lord, of complete surrender to His Holy Will, may give to your soul that repose which is the basis of all true activity — a repose which forms the foundation for new expend- iture of power and is also the oppor- tunity for Our Lord to give you a greater increase of His Divine Grace : like a kind of rhythmic measure, a flow and return of desire and bless- ing — the indication of your Master's wishes and your own unhesitating response. 76 A Girl's Ideals Whether as an isolated experience or as one which lasts over a long period, this is a blessed time, a state of great and unutterable calm. It is then that you may hear in your heart a Voice calling you: "If you will be perfect, come." The gift of a religious vocation, with all that it implies, may seem clear before you: an opportunity to live upon a higher level, to correspond to a special grace, to become more dear to the loving Heart of Christ. To be His Spouse in a special sense you are ready to sacrifice all — even yourself — for Him. You do indeed desire to be "blessed, consecrated and affianced to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High God," to be numbered among those stately, stainless lilies in the garden of the Beloved, lilies whose only aim is to delight their King with their beauty and their sweetness. A Girl's Ideals 77 Worldly people may tell you that such flowers serve no useful purpose. Our lot is cast with a generation that idolizes physical action and activity, but spiritual activity and enterprise are never popular. You have to pass over all creatures, with a further tendence to God. At first your will is obliged with violence to untwine and withdraw its adhesion from creatures that it may elevate itself and become firmly fixed on its only good. There is no doubt that prayer is a spiritual discipline — but oh, what joy when your soul is once fully intent on God, gazing and loving ! "To speak heart to heart with God, you must delight to be with Him alone/ ' saint St. Peter Celes- tine. I hope you love "San Celes- tino." It is one of my favorite books. And do you remember Guito, 78 A Girl's Ideals his friend who at first so loved the visible world of mountains and plains and valleys, of sapphire sea and opal cloud, of secret- telling woods and sedgy meadows by flat streams, of flowers and winds, sun- rise and noon, sunset and sweet night? Who, in a way, loved God for making all these things, but not for Himself, — prizing the lesser gifts more than the greater Giver? Then suddenly the detail of crea- tion no longer contented him. He aimed at a loftier possession and he knew, at last, that he would be satisfied with nothing short of the Creator. The outward beauty of God's intimations of Himself would never again feed his hunger for love- liness; he must have the inward and infinite beauty of which these things only hinted. He perceived that even the sense can never be satisfied with A Girl's Ideals 79 that which appeals to it: "the eye is not filled with seeing, nor the ear with hearing,' ' the sense being only a small part of awakened apprehen- sion. That which lies behind crea- tion must be infinitely more lovely than any item or all the items of creation: its loveliness is not un- veiled or appreciable by the easy channels of sense. In order to pos- sess God, Guito at length under- stood that he must cease to possess himself; or rather, that until he had finally arrived at the possession of God, he would never, in fact, possess himself. I quote from memory. He felt, as you do, as all the saints have done, "except Jesus, and all that comes from Him or leads to Him, I wish for nothing on earth." What a wonderful thing is the loving soul's indifference to all the world, except in direct reference to 80 A Girl's Ideals the love of God ! You realize experi- mentally that this infinite ocean of love is pressing all around your heart to break into it and make it su- premely happy. In such a state of mental prayer, you dispense to a very great extent with the use of sensible images or pictures in the mind. Instead of pictures, your soul seems over-shadowed by a spreading, silent sense as of something near at hand, vague in outline, colorless and dim ; such a sense as might fall upon one who watches intently some dark curtain which hides a marvelous presence. Long ago you may have had times of spiritual anguish when you cried, 4 'Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" Now you are no longer searching for the Divine Lover. You have found Him, and you know where you may always find Him! A Girl's Ideals 8i on the cross. You often say to your- self, " Jesus, my Love, is crucified.' ' And your only real desire is to be nailed to the cross with Him. Hence- forth you intend your life to be one long sacrifice for His sake — one long restraint. Your hands are vowed to His service, to be occupied only with work for Him. Your feet are bound to go only on His errands, errands of mercy and faith. Your heart is allowed to love no one except for His sake, and for His sake it must love everybody. Your supreme resolution is to give yourself unreservedly to God, and like St. Gerard Majella you endeavor to have continually before your eyes this motto, "Be thou deaf, blind, and mute." Circumstances may or may not enable you to enter some religious order, but wherever you dwell you are determined to be your 82 A Girl's Ideals Master's faithful companion, even to watch and wait with Him, a prisoner of love. Let us end with the beautiful prayer which was recited daily by a royal prisoner and was long supposed to have been composed by her, until in a manuscript book belonging to the Duchess de la Rochefoucauld a copy was discovered, inscribed, " Prayer composed by the Bishop of Beauvais, and which Madame Eliza- beth, sister of Louis XVI, recited every day." "I do not know what will happen to me today, O my God. All I know is that nothing will happen to me but what You have foreseen from all eternity. That is sufficient, O my God, to keep me in peace. I adore Your infinite designs. I sub- mit to them with all my heart. I desire them all: I accept them all. A Girl's Ideals 83 I make the sacrifice to You of every- thing. I unite this sacrifice to that of Your dear Son, my Saviour, beg- ging You by His Sacred Heart and by His infinite merits for the patience in my troubles and the perfect sub- mission which is due to You in all that You wish and permit. Amen." May such a holy life and happy death — you remember the odor of roses which was diffused over the Place Louis X V at the moment of her execution, and the little silver medal of the Immaculate Conception, and the small key which she wore round her neck on a silk cord? — may such a happy death, I say, be yours, as that of the gentle, loving, patient and resigned Madame Elizabeth of France. And may we all meet before long in the Kingdom of God, where our poor faltering ideals will have become His glorious realities, and 84 A Girl's Ideals where a great reward will be meted out to us for having cherished them — no matter how faultily we managed to live up to our ideals. Then all the little trials and tribula- tions we may be going through now will be entirely forgotten, and we shall find ourselves safe, happy, laved, for all Eternity in that Heart where our thoughts and desires al- ready find their resting place — the Sacred Heart of Christ. CATHOLIC GIRLHOOD Rev. William Kitchin, Ph.D. At the close of each scholastic year pupils return home from a thousand convent schools to begin life's work. A few, blessed by God with a religious vocation, go back to their Alma Mater after an interval to impart to others the lessons they themselves learned, or they devote themselves in hospitals to soothing the pillows of suffering humanity, or in perpetual cloister they pray with- out ceasing for that world which prays not for itself. All these are special vocations to which only the smaller number may aspire. By far the majority of girls are called upon to live their lives in the world, to hold high amidst the temptations, distractions and heavy 86 Catholic Girlhood cares of worldly life, the ideals they were taught at school ; to be apostles within their own little circle, showing by their excellent example, to the hos- tility of the bigoted and to the in- difference of the careless observer, what the Catholic Church expects of her children and what innocence she presumes in those to whom she offers the Mother of our Redeemer as a model. The Fathers of the Church tell us that in ancient times the women of the Christians were a standing object of wonder and jealousy to their unconverted neighbors. The pagans could not realize the purifying force of the new religion. The non-Catho- lic of today ought to experience a similar emotion on considering our Catholic girls; and he certainly can- not fail to do so if these latter hold fast to their convent traditions and Catholic Girlhood 87 put into practice the advice so earnestly given them at school. When young people return home after a brilliant course, they rarely err on the side of self-diffidence. They fancy, as a rule, that the world and the fulness thereof is theirs for the asking, that there is no success to which they may not attain. They have some grand object in view, towards which all their aspirations tend. It is some dream of bliss, some prize they think worthy of their efforts — something that will give them the happiness they crave. Years dissolve these fancies as mists recede before the sun ; our lives never resem- ble our early aspirations, never square with the programs we first mapped out. The day-dreams of youth are harmless things enough — gossamer threads of fancy and senti- ment which the relentless logic of 88 Catholic Girlhood circumstances soon tears to shreds. But there is one ideal which every Catholic girl should put before her- self on leaving school, an ideal she should ponder over, that each day may bring it into bolder mental relief: the ideal of a Catholic, true, , come what may, proud of her faith, up- holding her Church loyally, living a life that will do credit to the creed she professes. Now let us glance at some of the practical ways in which a Catholic girl who has just left school, without ever setting aside the modesty of budding womanhood, may strive to realize this ideal. A Catholic girl living in the world ought to be first and always a Catho- lic; not a Catholic merely in the seclusion of the church or the privacy of the home, but a Catholic on the street, in society, everywhere. With us Catholics, religion is not some- Catholic Girlhood 89 thing for use only on state occasions, something which we put on with our Sunday clothes then lay aside care- fully for the rest of the week. Oh, no! With us religion is an influence ever with us, a mentor with a word of praise or blame for every act. If, then, we are to be Catholics at all, we must be Catholics all along the line. Our Lord wants no divided allegiance, nor does the Church want half-hearted children. Oh, she is glorious, our Church, she is worthy of our love and our pride! She is not of yesterday, but has already lasted two thousand years! She is holy, that Church founded by Christ on His Apostles, watered by the blood of martyrs, propagated by the purest and best of mankind. She is apostolic, that Church which aspires only to do good, that Church which in saving men's souls has also 90 Catholic Girlhood healed their bodies ! She is ours, that Church whose doctrines, held by our ancestors through dark days of perse- cution, we learned at our mother's knee; whose sacraments sanctify us, whose holy rites comforted the last moments of those we held dear and placed them in that bliss where one day we hope to rejoin them. We need never blush for her but glory in the faith which has such a splendid history, and we should be ready at all times to fulfill its requirements. Hence, we should never hesitate when among strangers, in hotels or elsewhere, to say grace before meals, to observe Friday abstinence, to perform our customary devotions. It is a matter of simple duty; that thought should be sufficient to enable us to overcome any sickly human respect. And we shall never lose anything, even from a worldly point Catholic Girlhood 91 of view, by such legitimate exer- cise of our independence. Everyone respects one who has the courage of his convictions, everyone despises a time-server. Next, if at home we are in the habit of wearing some religious em- blem, such as a badge of the Sacred Heart or a medal of the Blessed Vir- gin, we should not lay it aside when we go abroad. This would be mild treason, entirely unworthy of a loyal Catholic. Let us nail our colors to the mast and make everyone respect them. "Utilitarianism," the thing that suits, is the religion of the day. In the absence of settled convictions the mind is the prey of every fancy vagrant fashion commands. Let us then have convictions and uphold them; let us have principles and be true to them; let us have ambitions and strive to realize them ; let us have 92 Catholic Girlhood ideals and make sacrifices for them! Our flag is the flag of the Catholic Church. Let us rally around it in spite of ten thousand bristling antag- onisms. It has waved in triumph over countless stricken fields; it has withstood the battle shocks of twenty centuries. For those who persevere, Heaven lies hidden in its folds. Loyalty to her faith is, then, the foundation of a Catholic girl's life, and this dominant note naturally modulates into one of anxiety to serve the grand old Church to which she belongs. Every Catholic girl ought to be an apostle within her own circle — one who has ideas and tries to spread them, who sees where there is good to be done and endeavors to do it; who observes that cooperation is necessary and proffers her services without waiting to be asked. But this apostleship that a girl Catholic Girlhood 93 may fittingly undertake, in what does it consist? Does it mean that, for- getting maidenly reserve, she must air her " views' ' on the public plat- form on matters concerning which she is incompetent to express an opinion? By no means. Does it mean that in and out of season she must buttonhole her friends and those who are not her friends, and inquire after the health of their souls? Still less. The Catholic Church has never looked with favor on noisy, self-assertive, spectacular methods of doing good. It means simply this : that wherever and whenever Catholic interests are at stake, our girl is ready to give not her money only, but her time, her talents, her energy, her young enthusiasm, to make the proj- ect a success. Saint Paul speaks highly of Pris- cilla, his " fellow-helper in Christ 94 Catholic Girlhood Jesus/ ' sends greetings to Mary, "who hath labored much among you," to Tryphena and Traphosa, "who labor in the Lord," to Rufus, "elect in the Lord and his mother and mineT He commends to the Christians of Rome "Phebe our sister," and praises the "unfeigned faith" taught to his disciple Timothy by Timothy's grandmother, Lois, and his mother, Eunice. Many of the most remarkable saints of the early Church were women — young girls at that. Saint Agnes, Saint Cecilia, Saint Lucy and Saint Agatha were all rich young ladies of high family, having all the world had to offer, yet they won the martyr's crown. Saint Cecilia found means to convert her husband and her husband's brother before her death. Nor was the martyr's crown the only glory the women of these Catholic Girlhood 95 times won for themselves. There was Saint Catherine of Alexandria, patroness of philosophers, herself deeply versed in the learning of her day; there was Saint Fabiola, who built the first hospital at Rome and devoted her vast wealth to the service of the unfortunate — an early Sister of Charity. There was Pul- cheria, empress of Constantinople, the loveliest woman of her day, who on ascending the throne at the age of sixteen had to protect a distracted Empire and a younger brother. When her enemies crowded around to rend her kingdom, they thought they would have an easy triumph when a girl reputed a saint held the sceptre. Attila, self -named scourge of God, as a preliminary to hostilities, sent a demand for an annual tribute; but he reckoned without his host. Pul- cheria with imperial pride answered 96 Catholic Girlhood straightway that "for her friends indeed she had gold, but for her enemies only the cold steel." And so ably did she back up her dauntless words with armed legions, so mas- terfully did she handle the reins of government, that while she lived no successful freebooter dared lift a finger against the country over which she ruled. A girl of education and refinement has a certain position awaiting her in every parish. It depends entirely on herself whether or not she will accomplish the good work awaiting her. The first step in this direction, the negative part of the program, consists in attending all the religious exercises the parish affords. Some girls think that if they hear Mass on Sundays and say their prayers three times a week they are exemplary, but convent training should have Catholic Girlhood 97 better results. In the positive part of the program, our girl can teach catechism, or sew for the poor, or assist about the altar, sacristy, or parish library, or lend her talents to train an embryo choir, or teach the little altar boys to serve Mass and to pronounce the Latin properly, or take a prominent part in picnics and out- ings and all the innocent ways by which societies and sodalities show their present prosperity and gain a new lease of life. A girl of truly Catholic spirit ought to consider it a wonderful privilege to be allowed to contribute, in how- ever small a degree, to the adorn- ment of God's House. To repair altar linen and vestments, to make a surplice, alb, or tabernacle veil, to give lights or flowers for the altar on great feast days, ought to be for her a labor of love. Any service gains 98 Catholic Girlhood distinction from the eminence of the person to whom it is rendered. At royal courts comparatively menial duties are proudly discharged by the highest in the land, and if noblemen and high born ladies consider them- selves honored by a service to their king, how ought not we esteem the humblest duty to the King of kings! Here are simple, sensible, everyday ways in which a girl can exercise an apostleship, and render incalculable service to her pastor. A priest can- not do everything himself. He is fre- quently obliged to accept incompetent assistance gratefully, because nothing better is forthcoming. Surely he has a right to expect generous co- operation from those who are most qualified to give it; and who can do this better than the girls just home from school, who have as yet no family cares to absorb their atten- Catholic Girlhood 99 tion, who often, indeed, lack occupa- tion. These considerations seem obvious, yet many never think of them. Others who do think of them go on dreaming of what they might and could do in some impossible case, and neglect the humble but necessary tasks that lie at their doors. "We shall do so much in years to come, But what have we done today? We shall give our gold in a princely sum, But what did we give today? We shall lift the heart and dry the tear, We shall plant a hope in the place of fear, We shall speak the words of love and cheer; But what did we speak today? 11 ioo Catholic Girlhood There are innumerable forms of apostleship; the way to do good will never be lacking provided only we have the will. Let us not adjourn our efforts to some phantom future, but begin here and now. In order to encourage ourselves by example, let us glance at some of the Church's women. Let us think of Our Lady's part during the tragic days of Christ's Passion, and of how she subsequently consoled and strengthened the infant Church. When the apostles, with one excep- tion, fled, Mary stood undaunted at the foot of the cross, and the holy women followed "afar off." In a different sphere the Church produced those mothers who, having given great sons to the faith, share largely in the glory of their offspring. There is Saint Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine; Anathusa, the Catholic Girlhood ioi mother of Saint John Chrysostom; Nonna, the mother of Saint Gregory — women who really made these extraordinary men, and whose mem- ories will, therefore; ever be cherished. Other women took a prominent part in far-reaching reforms; thus, Saint Clare stood beside Francis Assisi, Saint Theresa beside Saint John of the Cross, Saint Jeanne de Chantal beside Saint Francis de Sales. And in the galaxy of great women sprung from the Catholic Church we dare not omit Joan of Arc, the marvelous peasant girl with the heart of a Pala- din and the soul of a saint. In mod- ern times, the shrine of Lourdes with all its wonders owed its inception to another peasant maid of France, Ber- nadette Soubirous; while the annals of charity beam with such a galaxy of bright names that we shall point only to the luster of Margaret Haughery of 102 Catholic Girlhood New Orleans. Such are some of the women produced by the Catholic Church, and that Church has the power of working similar wonders in the women of the twentieth century. Truly there is much for girls to do ! But we have considered only the public side of the duties of a Catholic girl. Her private duties are within the home. Home! It is a magic word, thrilling with tender and sac- red associations. True home life is entirely a product of Christianity. Before Christ came, lives were spent in court or camp or public assemblies. Home life was a secondary considera- tion. The entrancing memories of childhood on which modern poets love to linger were then unknown. Scholars have remarked that Cicero, Vergil and Horace, the most domestic of the ancient writers, never allude to their mothers. The revolution in Catholic Girlhood 103 ideals began with the little home at Nazareth. From the example of the Lord of the universe, Who was con- tent to be subject to His parents for thirty years of His life, men first learned what happiness is to be found in the home circle, what Christian duties are centered there, what vir- tues are there acquired and preserved. Never was there a holier spot than that humble home where Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, grew in age and grace, and Mary the Immaculate and Joseph the Just spent their mortal years. The little cottage on the Nazareth hill differed not out- wardly from those surrounding it; within it was a true home, radiant with happiness, for there not only God's blessing lingered but God Himself dwelt. The presence of even one loving, even-tempered, unselfish person in any home is a source of 104 Catholic Girlhood constant happiness — no cloud of unkindness, jealousy or misunder- standing can long abide in such an amiable presence. But the home at Nazareth had Joseph to guide and Mary to sweeten and Jesus to shed around it the very light of Heaven. Old legends tell us that about it shone an unearthly radiance — not a shechinah or glory-cloud, perhaps, but the beauty of perfect holiness, the unspeakable peace of God! And from that little home at Naza- reth there went forth grace to sanctify all the Christian homes of the ages. That homelife at Nazareth is the pattern every Christian family is to copy. Home is the sanctuary where God would have young people offi- ciate. He would have them homely persons, spending the best time, using talents and accomplishments to render home attractive. The amuse- Catholic Girlhood 105 ments of youth are to be enjoyed but they should not be allowed to encroach unduly on homelife. A girl who longs to be away from home, who has no sooner returned from one friend's house than she is planning to be off to another's, a girl who is on the street constantly and refuses to do her share of household duties, whose home is in short merely a con- venient boarding-house for her — that girl decidedly is not what a Catholic girl should be. Let no girl imagine that, because she happens to be dainty and clever, obscure duties are beneath her; let none foolishly fancy that there is something lowering in commonplace toil. It is idleness, not work, that dishonors. Readiness to perform the most menial tasks at need is one of the best proofs of moral beauty. Lacordaire, at the height of his fame, 106 Catholic Girlhood often helped the lay-brother in the kitchen of the Dominican convent in which he happened to be staying — a single instance where innumerable in- stances might be cited. The ages of faith illustrated this truth by legends of the angels. Gabriel, one story runs, was once sent by God to serve in place of a poor shoemaker lad. *"Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, Spread his wings and sank to earth; Entered in flesh the empty cell Lived there, and played the craftman well; . . . "And ever o'er the trade he bent, And ever lived on earth content. He did God's will, to him all one If on the earth or in the sun." But if it is reprehensible to neglect home through thoughtlessness or friv- olity, it is baser still to use educa- tional advantages to appear superior * Browning: "The Boy and the Angel." Catholic Girlhood 107 to the parents whose gift they are. The child who is not grateful for the trouble, worry and self-denial — per- haps even for the patient penury and dull years of unremitting labor, — which her advantages cost her par- ents, has reason to fear well-m'erited retribution. Nor should a girl, once she has left school, allow her talents to lie fallow. The music, drawing, paint- ing, languages, acquired with so much toil, were intended to be a source of pleasure and profit in maturer years, when some one of these carefully cultivated accomplishments may be of incalculable value. A facility in literary expression, a pretty knack in verse, an artist's dainty pencil, an aptitude for languages or math- ematics — these or any other excep- tional endowments are too good to be allowed to perish for want of exer- 108 Catholic Girlhood cise. Knowledge is no burden; God has given us our glorious faculties for use. Many a weary hour of pain, isolation or despondency may be wiled away usefully with such re- sources. Those who have no mental resources must seek for outside dis- tractions; their lives are a continual strain after empty pleasures. Such purposeless lives, devoid of ennobling ambition, are deplorable even from a natural point of view. But to the Christian they are a criminal waste of infinite possibilities and abounding heavenly graces. " Finally, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever just, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good report . . . think of these things," and strive to realize them. We are all soldiers of Christ, to whom some post has been confided; we have all some destined task, which we alone Catholic Girlhood 109 can accomplish, to perform for our Master. It will be our happiness here and our salvation hereafter to discharge that duty well, to toil faithfully at our post until our Gen- eral calls us Home. THE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD Rev. P. J. Scott To be convinced that the Church has the wisdom of ages in her man- agement as well as the wisdom of eternal truth in her doctrine, one need go no further than the printed calendar of her feasts. The round of mysteries commemorated in the course of a single year furnishes a complete system of religion, account- ing for man's origin, pointing out his destiny and proclaiming the law by which that duty is to be accomplished. And the doctrine thus expounded is set anew each day in the light of concrete reality by the life story of some great Christian character, some sainted man or woman whose years on earth were ruled by the Church's teaching. The plan meets a double The Ideal of Womanhood hi want of our human nature. We need ideals, and we need individual pat- terns in our efforts to reach our ideals. A man's whole life story is one con- tinued effort, or a succession of re- peated efforts, to reach the ideal which he has set up as the proper standard of his conduct. Consciously or otherwise, that ideal appeals to him in the concrete form of some par- ticular person upon whose actions and character he strives to model his own. That the ideal should always be lofty and the model noble proves only our inborn longing towards the great and the good. True, there are individuals who set up false ideals and bad patterns, but they are the victims of stunted or perverted vi- sion. Pernicious teachings, the wiles of the devil or the promptings of pas- sions unrestrained, have given them false viewpoints and clouded their ii2 The Ideal of Womanhood horizons: where the poor victims thought to look up they have really and sadly looked down. Moral fail- ure and eternal ruin lurk in the low places where false ideals are en- throned. To warn us from these by- paths, the Church proclaims to all the great eternal principles of truth and justice and purity. Pointing to her heroes and heroines, she bids us learn how grand and unselfish are these principles in actual experience and how well they may be applied to the conduct of everyday life. These heroes and heroines of the Church are her saints, the unquestioned evi- dences of her holiness. Pointing proudly to their conduct she bids us in the words of her Divine Founder "Go thou and do in like manner." It is a varied and inspiring com- pany to which we are thus intro- duced, a company of friends among The Ideal of Womanhood 113 whom each of us, according to age or position or inclination, may choose a special favorite and form a particular friendship. Be our station what it may, we can each find among the saints some creature of flesh and blood who, under conditions akin to those which surround us, has followed the high ideals of Christ's teaching and merited the Master's " Well-done, good and faithful servant/ ' To admire the saints only from a great distance, to regard them as beings far removed from us — crea- tures so grand and perfect that they could have had nothing in common with ourselves — is to miss the real meaning of the Communion of Saints. Many of them had unusual lives and followed extraordinary vocations, but many more became saints in situations which differed little from our own. Even those raised up by God for special missions had in their ii4 The Ideal of Womanhood lives much of that which the world calls commonplace. Nowhere is this more evident than in the greatest of all saints, God's own Blessed Mother. None other ever had or can have a dignity or a mission to be compared to hers; to no other was given a thousandth part of the graces with which she was endowed. She alone mirrored back to Heaven, without spot or shadow, the holiness of God her Creator. She was the "Woman above all women glorified, Our tainted nature's solitary boast.' ' Yet with all this incomparable dig- nity, how much of her life was given to cares and occupations which we call ordinary! Let us study Our Lady in the cere- mony of the Purification — her con- duct there shows the regular trend of her life. According to the Mosaic law a woman who had borne a male The Ideal of Womanhood 115 child to her husband should come to the temple forty days after her deliv- ery and there offer two sacrifices, a lamb for a burnt-offering and a pigeon as a sin offering or, in case of poverty, two pigeons or turtle-doves; and having made these offerings, she should receive the blessing of the priest and be declared free from legal uncleanness. Mary performed the ceremony just as other women of her race were wont to do. In the intent of the law she was not at all bound. She had borne her Divine Son not to a husband, but by "the power of the Most High." Her virginity was a glory she might justly have pro- claimed before all. But glory before the world had no allurements for her; rather would she walk perfectly the way of common obedience, thank- ing God for His favors and trusting God for her reward. n6 The Ideal of Womanhood This conduct expresses the consist- ent attitude of the life of the Mother of Christ. To the world about her she was simply a child of the people, performing successively the duties of a maiden and a mother in Israel. Born of God-fearing parents she grew up among her neighbors, simply a well-favored child who with the pass- ing years ripened into usefulness and was marked for gentleness and obe- dience. At a tender age she was given in marriage to a just man named Joseph, who took her to his humble home at Nazareth; and for all that her neighbors knew, this fair creature whom God's angels acknowl- edged their Queen was simply the wife of a poor and honest carpenter. In no way did she seek to place her- self above the women of her class, and in outward demeanor she differed from them only by her perfect sweet- The Ideal of Womanhood 117 ness of disposition and her unfailing charity in word and work. It is not difficult to picture her dwelling place as a model of neatness and thrift, a fireside brightened with the thousand resourceful activities by which the true woman knows how to make home an earthly paradise even for the poor. For full thirty years the history of the Blessed Mother is told in the simple story of domestic life. That Mary must be to all future ages, as she has been for time past, the highest ideal of Christian woman- hood, is a truth which cannot be too strongly emphasized in our days. Shifting theories are the fashion of the hour, and nearly all of these have something to say about woman's posi- tion in the economic scheme. Much of what is thus advanced is unsound and some of it is positively unclean. But passing over the grosser theories n8 The Ideal of Womanhood which carry their own condemnation, there are other conditions which for the time, at least, tend to set up ideals far removed from the charms of the family circle. On all sides we find women engaged in occupations and professions which were closed fields to their grandmothers, occupa- tions which, though honorable and lucrative, are little calculated to develop the best side of woman's nature or to satisfy the highest long- ings of woman's heart. One cause for the situation is late marriage; and this in towns is due to the growing selfishness of men and the nonsense of fashionable weddings with preten- tious homes for the newlywed. Woman's true kingdom is the home, there alone can she create her own atmosphere and exercise her highest and best activity. Bereft of those ties which keep woman's heart tender The Ideal of Womanhood 119 and her speech gentle, some may for a time lure their sisters on with high- sounding phrases about purifying politics and uplifting the race, but the emptiness of it all must soon appear. The crowd will come back to lift their eyes with fonder rever- ence to the Madonna and Child, and to give their hearts anew to the ideal which that picture represents. It is worthy of note that the Gos- pel writers who tell us all we know about Our Blessed Lady confine her activities to the duties of domestic life. When they narrate the birth of Our Saviour and the vicissitudes of His infancy, Mary is in the fore- ground of the picture. During the long quiet years at Nazareth, she is still the dominant figure; for " Jesus went down with them . . . and was subject to them." Come the stirring years of Christ's public life, 120 The Ideal of Womanhood and Mary disappears in the back- ground. Jesus had a Kingdom to found, laws to proclaim and officers to choose; and in none of these did His great Mother have any part. But He had a cross to bear; and when that burden pressed heavily upon Him and Calvary loomed far and high in the distance, Mary comes again upon the scene and turns to Him a countenance full of sorrow but fuller still of that mother love which shines never so brightly as through tears. No arms but hers must receive that dead form from the cross, as no eyes but hers should first feast upon its glory in the Resurrection. Following Mary's pattern, true Christian women of all ages have sought and found their highest sphere in the home. There they have exer- cised a power they could never use elsewhere; there they have wielded The Ideal of Womanhood 121 an influence more far-reaching than the enactments of legislatures or the decrees of law-courts or the mandates of states' executives. Many a man who would have snapped his fingers at all the laws of the land and laughed to scorn the fear of a judge's sentence and prison bars, has halted on the verge of crime and slunk back cowed and repentant before the pained face of wife or daughter which rose like a guardian angel to stay his uplifted hand, to stifle the deadly purpose in his heart. When at the last j udgment God's angels shall spread before assembled mankind the full story of the great deeds which history calls heroic, the inspiration of the best of them shall be written in the simple words, mother, wife, daughter. Even when home holds but the commonplace, it still affords to the Christian woman a mission truly sublime. Hers is the privilege of nur- 122 The Ideal of Womanhood turing and caring for the dependence of infancy, of safeguarding youth's unfolding, which opens under her loving care like flowers under God's sunshine. Love, holy and unselfish, fills her life. During all her wakeful hours it finds constant expression in the thousand little cares and precau- tions which she employs to train the heart and the affection of the chil- dren whom God has sent to bless her. At night it peoples her dreams with visions of glory that shall be hers only because it shall first have come to her children. Mother love is ever young. When the youth, full grown and no longer in need of its tender ministrations, goes forth as a man to do his share in life's work and bear his part of the world's strife, the influence and in- spiration of home are still with him, strengthening and purifying his am- bition, stimulating continued effort, The Ideal of Womanhood 123 making doubly sweet the hope of final success. If, perchance, sorrow or illness visit that life, the mother comes again to claim her place as the ministering angel at his bedside, to smooth from the fevered brow the wrinkles of pain, to buoy up the op- pressed soul with that fulness of ten- der hope and patience which wells so deep in a good woman's heart. Whatever the new theories may offer, they cannot promise to banish pain and sorrow from woman's life. They can give her only selfish inter- ests, and no good woman who has loved and suffered the joys and sor- rows of home would change her lot for the fullest measure of selfish glory. Home is woman's dream of a Heaven on earth. * "O Christian women, wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, look up *Rev. Robert Kane, S. J.: The Plain Gold Ring. 124 The Ideal of Womanhood to that glorious ideal and try to make it true on earth. Home should be a human heaven and you are the angels who can make it so. Dream your dream of happy home. Dream till your very dream born within your fancy shall yet grow into real fact. Think not that all your influence is lost because you see no sign of actual happiness, no proof of actual holiness. Be still an angel of light and loveliness and love. When you are dead and over your cold heart the green grass grows and even your name is being washed away from the tombstone by the rain or the sleet or the snow, your voice will still echo like music to a living ear, your face will be still present before living eyes, you will yourself be still living by your living influence within the living memory of him who can never forget you — and to husband, brother or son you will The Ideal of Womanhood 125 still be all the years of his life in his living, loving heart what you were to him once in his home, an angel of light and loveliness and love."