, V - - roc
 
 The University of Chicago Publications 
 IN Religious Education 
 
 EDITtD BY 
 
 ERNEST D. BURTON SHAILER MATHEWS 
 
 THEODORE G. SOARES 
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE STUDIES
 
 LIVES WORTH LIVING
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
 THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 
 
 TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAl 
 
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 SUANQHAl
 
 ^IVES WORTH 
 LIVING 
 
 STUDIES OF WOMEN, BIBLICAL AND MODERN, 
 
 ESPECIALLY ADAPTED lOR GROUPS OF YOUNG 
 
 WOMEN IN CHURCHES AND CLUBS 
 
 By 
 
 Emily Clough Peabody 
 W 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
 
 l.tC5rU/q<;/
 
 Copyright 1915 By 
 The University of Chicago 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Published August 1915 
 
 Second Impression November 1915 
 
 Third Impression September 1916 
 
 Fourth Impression June 191 9 
 
 Fifth Impression August 1920 
 
 The Bible quotations used in this volume are 
 taken from the American Standard Edition o 
 the Revised Bible, copyright, 1901 by Thomas 
 Nelson & Sons, and used by permission. 
 
 Composed and Printed By 
 
 The University of Chicago Press 
 
 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
 
 TO THE 
 
 SUNDAY-SCHOOL CLASS OF YOUNG WOMEN 
 
 Of South Congregational Church, Chicago 
 
 who first used these lessons
 
 EDITORS' PREFACE 
 
 The present volume is a departure in some 
 respects from the type represented by most of the 
 •books of this series, but in a direction already in 
 part forecast by Mr. Johnson's Problems of Boy- 
 hood. It finds its motive and unity, not in that it 
 deals with a single book of the Bible or a certain 
 period of biblical history, but in that, like Mr. 
 Johnson's book, it seeks to meet the needs of a 
 special class in the community. It draws the 
 material with which to meet these needs partly 
 from the Bible, but partly also from the expe- 
 riences of those who have lived in later than biblical 
 times. It is based on the belief that God is the 
 God of all ages and lands, and that all human 
 experience has lessons of wisdom to teach those 
 who have eyes to perceive them. 
 
 But it is especially characteristic of the book 
 that it aims to bring the young women who study 
 it face to face with the actual conditions of the 
 present-day world in which they live, and to help 
 them to think through some of the pressing ques- 
 tions with which they and their sisters have to 
 deal today. This it does, not simply by way of 
 illustration or incidental application of biblical 
 teaching, but as a vital and central part of the
 
 X Editors' Preface 
 
 study. It recognizes the transcendent value of our 
 sacred Scriptures for instruction and inspiration, 
 but it also takes account of the necessity that we 
 should know the world in which we live in order to 
 know how to conduct ourselves in it. Ignorance, 
 not simply of biblical teachings and moral prin-^ 
 ciples, but of present-day facts, is the mother of 
 much suffering on our part, and of much cruelty 
 to others. 
 
 If ever we have half-consciously cherished the 
 thought that such studies are fitted for the mas- 
 culine but not for the feminine mind, we can 
 think so no longer. The world is woman's as truly 
 as man's, and women are claiming their undoubted 
 right to think as earnestly and seriously about 
 that world and its problems as their brothers. 
 
 Mrs. Peabody has put her book to the practical 
 test of actual use with a class of young women in a 
 city Sunday school. It is confidently believed 
 that it will be found adapted to use by teachers 
 in other schools and by leaders of other groups of 
 young women. The attention of all such teachers 
 and leaders is called to the "Suggestions to Teach- 
 ers" contained in the appendix.
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 
 
 The lack of suitable material for use in young 
 women's classes in Sunday schools and clubs has 
 prompted the publishing of these lessons which the 
 author has used with success in her own classes of 
 young women. 
 
 The growing sense of personal responsibility and 
 the vision of a world-wide need supply to older 
 young people the motive for a life of service and 
 create the demand for wise teaching along these 
 lines. Our young women are ready to devote them- 
 selves to Christian service when the meaning of true 
 Christian womanhood in the home, the church, and 
 the community is revealed to them. For this pur- 
 pose the study of biography makes the strongest 
 appeal. We are all influenced more by "living, 
 concrete models than by abstract principles of vir- 
 tue," and by what Professor Francis Peabody, of 
 Harvard, has called "the contagion of personality 
 which draws a little soul toward a great soul as a 
 planet is drawn in its orbit round the sun," 
 
 In these days when one hears so much about the 
 rights of woman, it seems fitting to recall some of 
 the privileges and opportunities that have always 
 been hers. At a time when friendship and the 
 home are so easily robbed of their idealism, and
 
 xii Author's Foreword 
 
 when public life reveals so much selfishness and dis- 
 honesty, we need to show our young people that 
 the life that is worth living is the one lived for the 
 betterment of someone else. In the hope that the 
 significance of lives that are worth living may lead 
 other lives into noble and ennobling service, these 
 lessons offer their message to the young women who 
 shall study them. 
 
 Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to 
 Thomas Nelson & Sons, of New York, for permis- 
 sion to use the Standard American Edition of the 
 Revised Version in the quotations from the Bible; 
 to George P. Brown & Co., of Beverly, Massachu- 
 setts; to Underwood & Underwood, of New York, 
 and others for the use of illustrative material. 
 Emily Clough Peabody
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 LESSON PAGE 
 
 I. Mary of Bethany — The True Friend . . i 
 II. Woman's Opportunity in Friendship . . 13 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 III. Hannah — A Noble Mother 24 
 
 IV. Woman's Privilege in the Homi: • • • 37 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 V. Deborah — A Champion of Israel ... 48 
 VI. Woman's Public Influence 61 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 VII. Ruth — The Immigrant 72 
 
 VIII. Women Immigrants in America .... 84 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IX. Lydia — A Christian Business Woman . . 100 
 X. Woman's Place in Industry 11 1 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 XI. CORINNA ShATTUCK — MISSIONARY HeROINE 
 
 OF OORFA 130 
 
 XII. Florence Nightingale — Pioneer in a Pro- 
 fession 145 
 
 XIII. Woman AS AN Interpreter OF the Faith . 157 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 169 
 
 xiii
 
 CHAPTER I— LESSON I 
 
 MARY OF BETHANY— THE TRUE FRIEND 
 
 The Bible Story 
 
 Now as they [Jesus and his disciples] went on their 
 way, he [Jesus] entered into a certain village: and a cer- 
 tain woman named Martha received him 
 The Home at . a i i i i 
 
 Bethany and Its mto her house. And she had a sister 
 
 Distinguished called Mary, who also sat at the Lord's 
 feet, and heard his word. But Martha 
 was cumbered about much serving; and she came up 
 to him, and said. Lord, dost thou not care that my sister 
 did leave me to serve alone ? bid her therefore that she 
 help me. But the Lord answered and said unto her, 
 Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about 
 many things; but one thing is needful: for Mary hath 
 chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away 
 from her (Luke 10:38-42). 
 
 Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen 
 
 furlongs ofif ; and many of the Jews had come to Martha 
 
 and Mary, to console them concern- 
 Mary Meets . 1 • 1 1 
 Jesus after the mg their brother. Martha therefore, 
 
 Death of when she heard that Jesus was coming, 
 
 Lazarus 
 
 went and met him: but Mary still sat 
 
 in the house. 
 
 Martha therefore said tin to Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst 
 
 been here, my brother had not died. And even now I
 
 Mary of Bethany — The True Friend 3 
 
 know that, whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will 
 give thee. 
 
 Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 
 
 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise 
 again in the resurrection at the last day. 
 
 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the 
 life: he that believeth on me, tliough he die, yet shall 
 he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall 
 never die. Believest thou this ? 
 
 She saith unto him. Yea, Lord! I have believed that 
 thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even he that Com- 
 eth into the world. 
 
 And when she had said this, she went away, and 
 called Mary her sister secretly, saying. The Teacher is 
 here, and calleth thee. And she, when she heard it, 
 arose quickly, and went unto him. (Now Jesus was 
 not yet come into the village, but was still in the place 
 where Martha met him.) 
 
 The Jews then who were with her in the house, and 
 were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose 
 up quickly and went out, followed her, supposing that 
 she was going unto the tomb to weep there. Mary 
 therefore, when she came where Jesus was, and saw him, 
 fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst 
 been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus there- 
 fore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping who 
 came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 
 and said, Where have ye laid him ? They say unto him. 
 Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. The Jews therefore 
 said, Behold how he loved him! (John 11:18-36).
 
 4 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Jesus therefore six days before the Passover came to 
 
 Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus raised from 
 
 the dead. So they made him a supper 
 
 Mary and Her j-j^g^-g. and Martha served; but Lazarus 
 Alabaster Box 
 
 was one of them that sat at meat with 
 
 him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of pure 
 nard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and 
 wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled 
 with the odor of the ointment. But Judas Iscariot, one 
 of his disciples, that should betray him, saith. Why was 
 not this ointment sold for three hundred shillings, and 
 given to the poor ? Now this he said, not because he 
 cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and hav- 
 ing the bag took away what was put therein. Jesus 
 therefore said. Suffer her to keep it against the day of 
 my burying. For the poor ye have always with you; 
 but me ye have not always (John 12 : 1-8). 
 
 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall 
 be preached in the whole world, that also which this 
 woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of 
 her (Matt. 26:13; cf. Mark 14:3-9). 
 
 An Interpretation of the Story 
 
 In the hill country, two miles east of Jerusalem 
 on the road to Jericho, was the quiet little village of 
 Bethany, with its flat-roofed houses 
 and terraced walls. Surrounded by 
 olive groves and fig gardens and the graceful date 
 palms, which probably gave the place its name, the 
 village nestled among the rugged slopes of the 
 Mount of Olives on the southeastern side. Bethany
 
 Mary of Bethany — The True Friend 5 
 
 was never remarkable, either for its wealth or 
 beauty; but it has become memorable as the place 
 where Jesus loved to visit his three friends, Lazarus 
 and Mary and Martha. 
 
 By courtesy of i / 
 
 tiiny utris, L 
 
 BETHANY 
 
 Our first glimpse of this home is when the sisters 
 are preparing a dinner for their friend Jesus of 
 „, „ , Nazareth. We are not told how this 
 
 The Home of . 
 
 the Three acquaintance began, but it ripened 
 
 Friends j^^^ strong friendship, for Jesus loved 
 
 Martha and her sister and Lazarus (John 11:5). 
 Therefore it must have been a home where the best
 
 6 Lives Worth Living 
 
 things were cherished and the affairs of the King- 
 dom of God were considered of highest importance. 
 Some have said that this was a home of wealth. 
 However that may be, we know that riches of char- 
 acter and abundance of sympathy were to be found 
 there, gladdening and satisfying the lonely man of 
 sorrows who often had not where to lay his head 
 (Luke 9:58). 
 
 No longer able to make his home in Nazareth and 
 also driven out of GaHlee and Samaria, the home- 
 less man, who had less than the foxes 
 ?I".**^,^'' and the birds of the air (Matt. 8:20), 
 
 Ministry ; _ / ^ 
 
 always found a welcome in this family 
 circle at Bethany. 
 
 On this particular occasion Martha, the elder sis- 
 ter, sought to show her loyalty and devotion by 
 arranging an elaborate dinner. Her gift as house- 
 keeper suggested her way of ministering to Jesus, 
 and he gratefully accepted it, the affection of her 
 heart expressing itself in the good things on her 
 table. But, anxious as to the success of the feast, 
 Martha wanted to make it Mary's way of minister- 
 ing also, and was annoyed that her sister should 
 leave her to serve alone: so she appealed to Jesus 
 for his aid in securing Mary's assistance. Martha 
 had not yet learned that Jesus had never meant his 
 coming to bring burden and anxiety to anyone. 
 
 But Mary, as she assisted in the preparations, 
 heard words of Jesus that made her forget her serv-
 
 Mary of Bethany — The True Friend 7 
 
 ing, and she stood and listened and finally sat down 
 at his feet. Perhaps Jesus was repeating those 
 
 words spoken first to his disciples at 
 Devotfon Jacob's well at Sychar, "My meat is 
 
 to do the will of him that sent me and 
 to accomplish his work " (John 4:34). Or possibly 
 he was asking again that searching question, "Is 
 not the life more than the food ?" (Matt. 6: 25). 
 
 We are not told just what he was saying ; we only 
 know that Mary as she listened began to realize that 
 although food was necessary for the body, even 
 more the soul needed to be nourished; and that 
 while Jesus would enjoy the feast spread before him, 
 even more did his spirit crave companionship and 
 sympathy; and that to be able to satisfy the soul- 
 hunger was the highest form of hospitality. So 
 Mary tried to look within the veil of outward things 
 and understand what was deepest and most sacred 
 to Jesus, as she sat at his feet listening to his words 
 about the Kingdom. 
 
 Now Mary, we may believe, fully appreciated 
 that Jesus was a guest in her home, but to Martha 
 
 she did not seem to be taking her 
 
 Jesus' Blessing • . 
 
 share m his entertamment. 1 o Jesus, 
 however, her part was the richest memory of the 
 feast, and he called it the good part — the part that 
 lasts (Luke 10:42; John 6:27). 
 
 What is said of Mary, in the eleventh chapter of 
 John presents a character similar to that which
 
 8 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Luke's story ascribes to her, Martha, the energetic, 
 capable Martha, was the one who first heard of 
 
 the arrival of Jesus after the death of 
 ChYr^acter Lazarus and hurried out to meet him ; 
 
 but Mary, the meditative Mary, still 
 sat in the house. In response to the same words 
 spoken by both sisters, but at different times 
 ("Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had 
 not died"), Jesus gave to Martha assurances of the 
 life everlasting, but with Mary he wept. 
 
 The affection of the Jewish friends who came 
 from Jerusalem to comfort the sisters gives us the 
 same impression of the loving influence of Mary 
 upon them. They linger with her in the house; 
 they follow as she goes to meet Jesus; they weep 
 as she weeps ; and some even come to believe in him 
 whom she adores. These friends were not the com- 
 mon paid mourners frequently found at homes of 
 mourning in those days. They were family friends 
 from among the ruling class of the Jews. 
 
 Again we meet Mary at a feast. It is at Simon's 
 house after Lazarus was restored to his home, and 
 
 it is given as an expression of the sis- 
 A Later Visit ^ > gratitude for what Jesus had 
 
 to Bethany ° •' ^ 
 
 done for their brother. Jesus and his 
 disciples were there and his disciples sat with 
 them. 
 
 It was the time of the Passover, and while many 
 were eagerly questioning whether or not Jesus
 
 Mary of Bethany — The True Friend g 
 
 would appear at Jerusalem (John 11:55-57), he 
 
 went to Bethany for a quiet Sabbath in preparation 
 
 for the coming week, which promised 
 
 orPrLSp ^° ^^ ^^^ ^"^^^ o^ ^^^ ^^^^- Recent 
 events had elated the disciples and 
 
 assured them of the triumph of his Kingdom. But 
 
 Jesus knew the hatred of the Pharisees, which 
 
 would be satisfied with nothing but his death 
 
 (John 11:45-53). 
 
 Once again Mary looked within the veil of out- 
 ward things and saw what no one else realized. 
 Although rejoicing in her brother's presence with 
 them, she felt the pain and sorrow in the heart of 
 her friend. Again she chose that good part and 
 sought to comfort Jesus with an act which might 
 symbolize the power of his life and the everlasting- 
 ness of love. 
 
 Kneeling at his feet Mary broke her alabaster 
 
 box of precious ointment, anointing him. The 
 
 breaking of the box set free the won- 
 Mary's Gift • 
 
 derful fragrance which spread until it 
 
 filled the house. So this act of Mary reminded 
 
 Jesus that even if men could destroy his body 
 
 they had no power over his spirit, which like the 
 
 fragrant ointment would spread abroad until it 
 
 filled the world. 
 
 "Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and 
 
 die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it bear- 
 
 eth much fruit" (John 12:24), he told his disciples
 
 lo Lives Worth Living 
 
 a few days later. So Jesus understood Mary, and 
 her act comforted him, for he said of her, "She 
 hath wrought a good work upon me. Wheresoever 
 this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, 
 that also which this woman hath done shall be 
 spoken of for a memorial of her" (Matt. 26: 
 10-14). 
 
 There is a real fascination about that Bethany 
 home. And the reason for it is the picture it gives 
 
 us of the best thing in the world — 
 f^rFdendsmp'* t^^e friendship. Mary's life has the 
 
 charm of one who forgets self in 
 thought for another. Her gift "was not so much 
 sympathy as the power to detect in those whom she 
 met what was the main thing to be sympathized 
 with" (Matheson). Of all that company of dis- 
 ciples she, more than anyone else, appreciated the 
 deepest longings of Jesus. Her power may well be 
 called an instinct for friendship, for she understood 
 whether an unburdening of heart or an alabaster 
 box was needed. 
 
 The world today needs its Marys to help teach 
 the lesson of friendship. Long after the menu has 
 
 been forgotten, the companionship 
 Our Opportunity ^I^Q^^ the table remains the richest 
 
 in Friendship 
 
 part of any feast. This is always true 
 if there is present some Mary able to detect and 
 satisfy what is deepest in the life of the guest. 
 It is no new thought that the Christian life is
 
 Mary of Bethany — The True Friend ii 
 
 fundamentally a deepening friendship with God 
 and man. 
 
 Central Idea of the Story 
 
 Mary's ability as a true friend to enter into sym- 
 pathy with what was deepest and most sacred to 
 Jesus. 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 Questions marked with an asterisii (*) arc intended to give the 
 pupil opportunity for special thought and investigation, in the 
 week following the lesson. 
 
 1. Locate and describe the village of Bethany and its 
 surroundings. 
 
 2. Picture the probable home hfe of Lazarus and his ^V/^ , 
 sisters. 
 
 3. What must it have meant in those days to be one 
 of the prominent families in a suburb of Jerusalem ? 
 
 4. Describe the several visits of Jesus to Bethany. '- V*/<) ■^Xtc«(^,. 
 
 5. What differing forms of ministry did the Bethany 
 home offer ? ' . . 
 
 6. What circumstances in Jesus' life at that time 
 made the joys of such a home ajipeal especially 
 to him? 
 
 7. What action of the Sanhedrin was occasioned by 
 an incident in the Bethany home? (John 11:45-53.) 
 
 8. Why was it that Mary understood the imminent 
 danger of the Master better than any of " the Twelve " ? 
 
 / 9. Analyze the character of Mary and decide 
 whether or not she had special gifts. How did Jesus 
 feel about it ?
 
 12 Lives Worth Living 
 
 lo. Was anything necessary on the part of Jesus 
 before Mary could offer her friendship ? "YAuc^ 71 > 
 V II. What has Jesus said in regard to his friends? 
 
 (John 15:13-17.) ,: • . 'J 
 > 12. Is Mary's ministry one that is needed today? 
 If so, how may it be cultivated? V,- .>„i /,' ^ 
 
 V' 13. What are the qualities of true friendship ? 
 •»r*i4. How sacred a thing is friendship to us? 
 
 15. Why is it that often the most elaborate enter- 
 tainment fails to satisfy ? 
 
 *i6. How large is our world when measured by our 
 friendships ? 
 
 *i'j. Note the opportunities for friendship that come 
 to you in your daily life this week, and in what ways 
 they are an enrichment. 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 Books marked with an asterisk (*) should be read by as 
 many of the class as possible. Books marked with a dagger (f) 
 are in pamphlet form. This statement refers not only to this 
 but to all succeeding lists. 
 
 Bird, Robert, Jesus, the Carpenter of Nazareth. 
 
 Burton, Henry, The Expositor's Bible, "Luke," chap. xx. 
 *Dawson, George W., The Life of Christ. 
 
 tDungan, Irvine L., The Master's Bethany. Bethany Depart- 
 ment, Winona Assembly, 4009 Lake Park Ave., Chicago. 
 
 Hastings, James, Dictionary of the Bible, article "Mary." 
 
 Kent, Charles F., Biblical Geography and History. 
 
 Matheson, George, Representative Women of the Bible, chap. xi. 
 
 Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, The Story of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Smith, George Adam, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land.
 
 Woman's Opportunity in Friendship 13 
 
 CHAPTER I— LESSON II 
 Woman's Opportunity in Friendship 
 
 "The problem of life is the problem of friendship."' 
 
 All that I know 
 
 Of a certain star 
 Is, it can throw 
 
 (Like the angled spar) 
 Now a dart of red, 
 
 Now a dart of blue: 
 TUl my friends have said 
 
 They would fain see, too. 
 My star that dartles the red and the blue ! 
 
 Then it stops like a bird; like a flower hangs furled; 
 They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. 
 
 What matter to me if their star is a world ? 
 Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore, I love it.' 
 
 Aspects of the Subject 
 
 The enlargement of our world by intimacy with: 
 (i) nature; (2) literature; (3) art; (4) music. 
 
 Cultivation of opportunities for friendship with 
 people in: (i) our work; (2) our recreation; (3) our 
 homes; (4) our church; (5) our conamunity. 
 
 Being a "friend of God" (John 15:1-27; Exod. 
 33:11). 
 
 ' Henry Churchill King, Greatness and Simplicity of the Chris- 
 tian Faith, p. 84. 
 
 ' Robert Browning, "My Star."
 
 14 Lives Worth Living 
 
 General Survey^ 
 
 The preceding lesson revealed through IMary of 
 Bethany the meaning of true friendship, and sug- 
 gested that our lives may be measured by our friend- 
 ships. The purpose of today's lesson is to help us 
 broaden and enrich our lives, so that we may be 
 able to recognize the varying opportunities for 
 friendship as they come through the routine of 
 daily living. 
 
 Therefore, this lesson is the practical apphcation 
 of the spirit of Mary of Bethany to our own lives, 
 in our homes, our work, our recreation, our church, 
 and our community. Mary's gift appeared in the 
 simple, unplanned-for events in her own home and 
 that of a neighbor; but wherever the gospel is 
 preached today her spirit of friendship is known. 
 So our daily lives, "the product of the infinite 
 ingenuity of God," may open to us at the most 
 unexpected moments opportunities for priceless 
 friendships with the world about us. This is likely 
 to be true in proportion as our own lives are deep 
 and rich and we are capable of appreciating the deep 
 and sacred things in others. Therefore, we should 
 strive for the largest possible enrichment of our own 
 personality through an acquaintance with the world 
 of nature, literature, art, God, and his children. 
 
 • To be read or reviewed in the class as a basis for questions 
 and discussions.
 
 Woman's Opportunity in Friendship 15 
 
 Let us begin with nature and consider how things 
 ioved cease to be mere things and seem to possess 
 almost a personal character. One who can count 
 among his friends the birds, the sky, the trees, and 
 flowers looks out upon a very different world from 
 the person who has given no thought to these things. 
 "The value of an education is not to make us seem 
 to be greater to the world, but that the world and 
 all life may seem greater to us." "The man or 
 woman who sees that the fossil fern is a letter in the 
 alphabet of God's great book of nature; who hears 
 with his own ears the morning stars singing to- 
 gether, may not appear to those about him any 
 better off or any more fortunate than the man who 
 has never heard that these things exist, but he is 
 richer, he is more fortunate, a thousand fold." 
 
 Hast thou named all the birds without a gun ? 
 Loved the wood rose and left it on its stalk ? 
 Oh, be my friend and teach me to be thine!' 
 
 Two travelers went into the Swiss mountains foi 
 their holiday. On their return their friends gath- 
 ered about them and the poet tells us — 
 
 'Twas a buzz of questions on every side, 
 "What have you seen? Do tell!" they cried. 
 
 The one with yawning made reply, 
 "What have we seen ? Not much have I. 
 
 Trees, mountains, meadows, groves and streams, 
 
 Blue sky and clouds and sunny gleams." 
 
 ' Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Forbearance."
 
 1 6 Lives Worth Living 
 
 The other, smiling, said the same, 
 But with face transfigured and eye of flame. 
 " Trees, mountains, meadows, groves and streams, 
 Blue sky and clotids and sunny gleams. ^^ 
 
 For those living in the country, nature may 
 speak in a thousand different tongues, while the 
 city dweller has parks and parkways, roof gardens 
 and window boxes, with occasional trips beyond the 
 city limits. These, together with the clouds, the 
 stars, and the trees, render humble but suggestive 
 service to those who have the eyes to see, the ears 
 to hear, and the heart to appreciate. 
 
 The beauties of nature which you crave and fail 
 to find in the world about you may be appreciated 
 through hterature. Cultivate a friendship with 
 books and let your heart dance with Wordsworth's 
 "Daffodils" and sing with his "Skylark." Brown- 
 ing's "My Star," Whittier's ."Snowbound," and 
 Sidney Lanier's "Song of the Chattahoochee" give 
 us entrance to that world of nature where 
 
 One moment now may give us more 
 Than fifty years of reason; 
 Our minds shall drink at every pore 
 The spirit of the season.' 
 
 Establish friendships with the philosophers and 
 the sages as well as with the poets. " I love to lose 
 myself in other men's minds," wrote Charles Lamb, 
 and Anthony Trollope said : " Booklore, my friends, 
 
 ' William Wordsworth, "To My Sister."
 
 Woman's Opportunity in Friendship 17 
 
 is your pass to one of the greatest, the purest, and 
 the most perfect pleasures that God has prepared 
 for his creatures." "Literature presents the ideal 
 of human Hfe as it has expressed itself in the great 
 institutions of family, state, church, and society. 
 To feed the mind on ideals of a noble, elevated 
 human life ; to win fidelity to one's family through 
 sweet pictures of pure household joys; to secure 
 loyalty by thrilling accounts of the deeds of brave 
 men and heroic women; to make righteousness 
 attractive by pointed fable or pithy proverb or strik- 
 ing tale of self-sacrificing fidelity to the costly right 
 against the profitable wrong; to inflame with the 
 desire to emulate the example of patriot, martyr, 
 and philanthropist — this is the social mission of 
 good literature."' 
 
 Consider also the delight that comes through 
 familiarity with the world of art and music. If you 
 are so fortunate as to have access to an art gallery 
 or to S3anphony concerts make every use of these 
 opportunities to enrich your life. For those denied 
 these privileges the inexpensive copies of the pic- 
 tures by the old masters and the numerous musical 
 inventions by which the power of Wagner, the 
 sweetness of Mendelssohn, and even the expressive 
 interpretation of a Schumann-Heink are a worthy 
 substitute. To be able to recognize the genius and 
 spirit of a Corot; to hum a theme from a Beethoven 
 
 ' W. DeW. Hyde.
 
 1 8 Lives Worth Living 
 
 symphony or a MacDowell music-poem helps 
 make the world of music and art a friendly place 
 in which to live. For by all these experiences 
 one is entering into fellowship with noble and 
 gifted souls. 
 
 But good as are nature and books and art, our 
 sources of greatest happiness are found in our direct 
 relations with living persons; for most experiences 
 of life come through others. He who opens his 
 heart in sympathy with art and nature is the one 
 who appreciates most truly their hidden meaning. 
 So with persons: we become the ideal friend when, 
 like Mary of Bethany, we are able to enter into 
 sympathy with what is deepest and most sacred in 
 the. life of another. 
 
 Therefore, consider the questions: "What is my 
 relation to those about me, from the grocer's boy 
 who comes every morning, to the new family just 
 around the corner whom I have met but once ? " 
 "Have I earned the privilege to be a true friend to 
 anyone and do I leave a feeling of friendliness in the 
 hearts of others when I have spoken with them ?" 
 "Am I able to meet the smile, the tear, or the ges- 
 ture which may be their means of self-revelation, 
 with an answering sympathy and friendliness?" 
 
 The following are Alice Freeman Palmer's sug- 
 gestions for enriching one's life: "(i) Commit 
 something to memory every day. (2) Look for 
 something beautiful every day. (3) Do something
 
 Woman's Opportunity in Friendship 19 
 
 for somebody every day." What new worlds we 
 should enter if we followed these suggestions! 
 
 The saleswoman in a department store felt a 
 sense of personal loss when the minister's wife, who 
 had been a customer, moved away. The only 
 means of acquaintance had been the occasional fit- 
 ting of a suit, but it gave the opportunity for 
 friendly courtesy and consideration. There is a 
 big, hungry world all about us, eager, not so much 
 for the delicacies from Martha's table, as for the 
 joys of Mary's feast. 
 
 Recall the incidents of yesterday in your own life 
 and consider whether there is a kindly feeling in 
 someone's heart today because your life touched 
 theirs; also whether your life has been made richer 
 by someone's friendly word or smile. 
 
 Let me live in my house by the side of the road 
 
 Where the race of men go by — 
 They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, 
 
 Wise, foolish — so am I. 
 Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat 
 
 Or hurl the cynic's ban ? 
 Let me live in my house by the side of the road 
 
 And be a friend to man.' 
 
 Analyze the friendship of Mary, the Mother of 
 Jesus, and her cousin Elizabeth; Robert Browning 
 and his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Maggie 
 and Tom Tulliver in George Eliot's Mill on the 
 Floss; also some heroine of a modern novel. 
 
 ' Samuel W. Foss, "The House by the Side of the Road."
 
 20 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Consider your own friendship for your "chum," 
 your teacher, your neighbor, your favorite character 
 in history, and try to decide what is the basis of 
 friendship in each particular case. Think of others 
 whose friendship would ennoble your life and of 
 still others whom your friendship would gladden, 
 and consider ways in which the revelation of one's 
 deepest interest and sympathies may be met by the 
 genuine trust and appreciation of others. 
 
 Review your own life or any other that you know 
 intimately, and prove the statement of President 
 King at the beginning of the lesson, "The problem 
 of life is the problem of friendship." 
 
 The highest satisfaction in our friendship with 
 others depends upon that greatest friendship of all 
 — our friendship with God. Nothing less than the 
 culmination of all our friendships in him can satisfy 
 the deepest needs of our life. Hence the cup of 
 cold water given in the name of Christ becomes the 
 symbol of discipleship ; while Christ's own words, 
 " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my breth- 
 ren, even these least, ye did it unto me," are our 
 trumpet call to a life of service. But, as Washing- 
 ton Gladden says, "Religion is friendship — friend- 
 ship first with the Great Companion, of whom Jesus 
 told us, who is always nearer to us than we are to 
 ourselves, and whose inspiration and help is the 
 greatest fact of human experience. To be in har- 
 mony with his purposes, to be open to his sugges-
 
 Woman's Opportunity in Friendship 21 
 
 tions, to be in conscious fellowship with him — this 
 is religion on its Godward side. Then turning man- 
 ward, friendship sums it all up. To be friends with 
 everybody; to fill every human relation with the 
 spirit of friendship; is there anything more than 
 this that the wisest and best of men can hope to 
 do ? " For "every genuine love is both an evidence 
 of the divine love and a preparation for it. If the 
 true life is the life of love, we must learn it, not 
 apart from men but among them. We draw near 
 to God as we draw near to others. Our religious 
 life is simply a deepening acquaintance or friendship 
 with God.'" 
 
 For Continued Thought 
 
 How may you and I enrich our lives and those of 
 others by cultivating a "gift for friendship"? 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 I. Recall the gift for friendship of Mary of Bethany 
 and the different ways in which it found expression. 
 i 2. Are friendships a fundamental element of life? 
 If you think so, why ? 
 •/ 3. What is the basis of any true friendship? 
 
 4. Are our deepest friendships usually within the 
 home? 
 
 ^ 5. What do we confess when we say we have but few 
 friends ? 
 
 ' H. C. King, Greatness and Simplicity of the Christian Faith.
 
 22 Lives Worth Living 
 
 6. What relation does friendship with God bear to 
 all other friendships of life ? 
 
 '' 7. Compare the beginning of the Christian life with 
 the beginning of the highest type of friendship. 
 /^ 8. Give examples from history and literature of 
 women as ideal friends. 
 
 I J 9. Do you think that opportunities in friendship 
 come more naturally to women than to men, or that 
 women have a greater gift for true friendship ? What 
 of the friendship of David and Jonathan? (I Sam., 
 chaps. 18-20.) 
 
 10. What opportunities have you to enrich your life 
 by sympathetic appreciation of nature, art, literature, 
 and music? 
 
 *ii. How rich a personality are you able to offer to 
 your friends ? 
 
 *i2. Someone has said that "the purpose of educa- 
 tion is not to make a living, but to make a life." How 
 may this thought ennoble our friendships? In what 
 way may it broaden them ? 
 
 *i3. Trace the symbolical meaning in the scenery 
 and circumstances of Robert Browning's poem, "By 
 . the Fireside," a monologue addressed by " a happy hus- 
 band to his perfect wife." 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 Black, Hugh, Friendship. 
 
 Browning, Robert, Life and Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Essay on Friendship. 
 Emory, Sarah M., How to Enjoy Pictures. 
 
 *King, Henry Churchill, Friendship; and The Greatness and Sim- 
 plicity of the Christian Faith.
 
 Woman's Opportunity in Friendship 23 
 
 Mathews, W. S. B., How to Understand Music. 
 
 McKinley, Charles E., Educational Evangelism, chap. x. 
 *Palmer, George Herbert, Life of Alice Freeman Palmer. 
 
 Parsons, Frances, How to Know the Wild Flowers. Also other 
 nature books. 
 
 Poems of Robert Browning, Lowell, Riley, Wordsworth, and 
 others. 
 
 The Bible: Mary's Visit to Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-57). 
 
 Van Dyke, John C, The Meaning of Pictures. 
 
 Works of Dickens, George Eliot, Hawthorne, Kipling, Shake- 
 speare, and others.
 
 CHAPTER II— LESSON III 
 
 HANNAH— A NOBLE MOTHER 
 
 The Bible Story 
 
 Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim- 
 
 zophim, of the hill-country of Ephraim, and his name 
 
 was Elkanah .... and he had two 
 Hannah's Home 
 
 Wives; the name oi the one was Hannah, 
 
 and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah 
 
 had children, but Hannah had no children. And 
 
 this man went up out of his city from year to year to 
 
 worship and to sacrifice unto Jehovah of hosts in Shiloh. 
 
 And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, priests 
 
 unto Jehovah, were there (I Sam. 1:1-3). 
 
 And when the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, 
 
 he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and 
 
 her daughters, portions: but unto 
 
 Hannah s Hannah he gave a double portion ; for 
 
 he loved Hannah [although she had no 
 
 children]. And her rival provoked her sore, to make 
 
 her fret, because [she had no children]. And .... 
 
 year by year, when she went up to the house of 
 
 Jehovah, so she [Peninnah] provoked her; therefore 
 
 she [Hannah] wept, and did not eat. And Elkanah 
 
 her husband said unto her, Hannah, why weepest 
 
 thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy 
 
 heart grieved ? am not I better to thee than ten sons ? 
 
 (I Sam. 1:4-8.) 
 
 24
 
 Hannah — A Noble Mother 
 
 25 
 
 So Hannah rose uj) after they had eaten in Shiloh, 
 and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest was 
 Hannah's sitting upon his seat by the door-post 
 
 Prayer and the of the temple of Jehovah. And she 
 IS a e 1 ^^,^g jj^ bitterness of soul, and prayed 
 unto Jeho\'ah, and wept sore. And she \'0wed a \'ow, 
 
 Broiiii's Pictures— Miiuiiture—joi upic 
 
 CHILD SAMUEL PRESENTED TO ELI 
 
 and said, O Jehovah of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look 
 on the affliction of thy handmaid, and remember me, 
 and not forget thy handmaid, but wilt give unto thy 
 handmaid a man-child, then I will give him unto 
 Jehovah all the days of his life, and there shall no 
 razor come upon his head.
 
 26 Lives Worth Living 
 
 And it came to pass, as she continued praying before 
 Jehovah, that Eli marked her mouth. Now Hannah, 
 she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her 
 voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had 
 been drunken. And Eli said unto her. How long wilt 
 thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee. 
 And Hannah answered and said. No, my lord, I am a 
 woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine 
 nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before 
 Jehovah. Count not thy handmaid for a wicked 
 woman; for out of the abundance of my complaint 
 and my provocation have I spoken hitherto. Then 
 Eli answered and said, Go in peace; and the God 
 of Israel grant thy petition that thou hast asked 
 of him. And she said, Let thy handmaid find favor 
 in thy sight. So the woman went her way, and 
 did eat; and her countenance was no more sad 
 (I Sam. 1:9-18). 
 
 And they rose up in the morning early, and wor- 
 shipped before Jehovah, and returned, and came to 
 their house to Ramah: .... And 
 Jehovah remembered [Hannah]. And 
 it came to pass, when the time was come about, 
 that Hannah .... bare a son; and called his 
 name Samuel, saying. Because I have asked him of 
 Jehovah. 
 
 And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up 
 to offer unto Jehovah the yearly sacrifice, and his vow. 
 But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her hus- 
 band, I will not go up until the child be weaned; and 
 then I will bring him, that he may appear before
 
 Hannah — A Noble Mother 27 
 
 Jehovah, and there abide forever. And Elkanah her 
 husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good; 
 tarry until thou have weaned him; only Jehovah 
 establish his word. So the woman tarried and gave 
 her son suck, until she weaned him (I Sam. 1:19-23). 
 
 And when she had weaned him, she took him up 
 with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of meal, 
 and a bottle of wine, and brought him 
 Her vl)V"^^' unto the house of Jehovah in Shiloh: 
 and the child was young. And they 
 slew the bullock, and brought the child to Eli. And 
 she said, Oh, my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I 
 am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto 
 Jehovah. For this child I prayed; and Jehovah hath 
 given me my petition which I asked of him: therefore 
 also I have granted him to Jehovah; as long as he 
 liveth he is granted to Jehovah, And he [Elkanah and 
 his household] worshipped Jehovah there (I Sam. 
 1:24-28), 
 
 But Samuel ministered before Jehovah, being a child, 
 girded with a linen ephod. Moreover his mother made 
 Hannah's ^^"^ ^ little robe, and brought it to him 
 
 Devotion and from year to year, when she came up 
 Its Reward ^^^^ ^^^ husband to ofifer the yearly 
 sacrifice. And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and 
 said, Jehovah give thee seed of this woman for the 
 petition which was asked of Jehovah. And they went 
 unto their own home. And Jehovah visited Hannah 
 and she .... bare three sons and two daughters. 
 And the child Samuel grew before Jehovah (I Sam. 
 2:18-21).
 
 28 Lives Worth Living 
 
 An Interpretation of the Story 
 
 Hannah was one of the two wives of a wealthy 
 
 Hebrew of an honorable family. Their home 
 
 amoner the heights of Ramathaim- 
 
 Hannah's Home . . . 
 
 zophnn was religious in so far as the 
 outward observance of feasts and ceremonies was 
 concerned, but its inner life was full of bitterness 
 and discord. This was due, in large measure, to 
 the jealous rivalries of polygamy, a practice which 
 the Hebrews at this time shared in common with 
 other ancient nations. 
 
 That Peninnah, the second wife, was the 
 mother of several children, while Hannah had none, 
 was the occasion of constant taunts and reproaches. 
 To those early Hebrews motherhood was the crown 
 of womanhood, while "a woman's kingdom was 
 the woman's family; her empire was her mother- 
 hood ; her metropolis was her nursery ; her colonies 
 were her children's children" (George Matheson). 
 The ambition of many a Jewish woman was to be 
 the mother of a prophet or a judge in Israel, and 
 to have no share in the "coming generation" 
 seemed a sign of one's unworthiness in God's sight. 
 Knowing this to be true, Peninnah aimed all her 
 blows at this open wound in Hannah's heart, choos- 
 ing even the sacred time of the religious festivals 
 at Shiloh for her heartless words. 
 
 Elkanah seemed not to appreciate either tho 
 disappointment of Hannah or the cruelty of Penin
 
 Hannah — A Noble Mother 29 
 
 nah, and tried to bring about peace and happiness 
 in his home by gifts and assurances of affection. 
 But his kindness only increased the jealousy of 
 Peninnah whose bitter tongue continued to taunt 
 Hannah with her childlessness. Year by year this 
 went on until at last Hannah's wounded heart 
 could bear it no longer. The climax came at the 
 time of the yearly festival at Shiloh which Elkanah 
 attended with all his family. As head of the house- 
 hold he followed the custom of offering a sacrifice, a 
 part of which was kept by the priests and the rest 
 was given back to the worshiper that he and his 
 family might feast on it as a part of their worship.^ 
 The distribution of the portions of this feast so 
 roused the jealous hatred of Peninnah that she 
 poured forth on Hannah words of anger and deri- 
 sion, seemingly forgetful that this was a most 
 solemn season. So overcome with grief was 
 Hannah that she left the sacred feast untasted, 
 and wept bitterly. Elkanah, kind but failing to 
 understand, tried to comfort her: "Hannah, why 
 weepest thou ? and why eatest thou not ? and 
 why is thy heart grieved ? Am I not better to 
 thee than ten sons?" But Hannah found no 
 comfort until, like many another godly Hebrew, 
 she found it in prayer. The very intensity of her 
 grief sent her to the "temple of Jehovah." We 
 
 ' Consult Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, under the word 
 "Sacrifice." Elkanah's offering was evidently a peace-offering.
 
 30 Lives Worth Living 
 
 are drawn to this woman whose love of home and 
 of children was so strong. Our hearts are moved 
 as we behold her, kneeling alone and with tears, 
 pouring out her soul. Her distress deceives the 
 priest, Eli, who makes an accusation which a 
 woman of her sensitive nature would resent. Her 
 self-restraint under the taunts of Peninnah has 
 taught her self-control, and she replies with 
 womanly dignity and courtesy, ''I am a woman of a 
 sorrowful spirit. I have poured out my soul 
 before Jehovah; for out of the abundance of my 
 complaint and my provocation have I spoken." 
 
 And this was Hannah's prayer: "0 Jehovah 
 of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look upon the aflQiction 
 of thy handmaid and remember me 
 Prayer'^'^ .... [and] wilt give unto thy hand- 
 
 maid a man-child, then I will give 
 him unto Jehovah all the days of his life, and there 
 shall no razor come upon his head." Notice in this 
 prayer that Hannah did not ask for this child simply 
 for her own gratification. Neither did she ask 
 for it in order to silence the taunts of Peninnah. 
 In her exaltation she leaves far behind her own 
 personal desires as she catches a glimpse of God's 
 claim upon her and her child. Satisfied with 
 nothing less than his complete consecration to a 
 life-long service in the sanctuary as a Nazirite, she 
 sacrifices all her motherly claim upon him, that 
 he may serve Jehovah forever.
 
 Hannah — A Noble Mother 31 
 
 The benediction of the high priest strength- 
 ened her faith, and Hannah "went her way 
 and did eat; and her countenance was no 
 more sad." 
 
 And Jehovah remembered Hannah and gave 
 
 her a son; and she called his name Samuel, i.e., 
 
 "heard of Jehovah," as a memorial 
 
 Hannah's Son . r i • i • i 
 
 of the circumstances of his birth. 
 But there is more to the story. A baby boy with 
 his smiles transforms the home. Hannah's sadness 
 has turned to joy as, caressing her child, she recalls 
 the experiences before his birth and dreams of what 
 the future may bring to him. The provoking 
 slurs of Peninnah are forever silenced, while 
 Elkanah willingly recognizes the right of Hannah 
 to direct the training of the God-given child toward 
 the fulfilment of her vow. Samuel was regarded 
 as a divine gift in answer to prayer. His mother 
 in caring for his physical needs was his nurse and 
 also his teacher as she directed his earliest thoughts 
 toward tlie worship of Jehovah. Think of them 
 sitting together in the Syrian twiUght, the one tell- 
 ing, the other listening to, those wonderful events 
 in early Hebrew history: the story of Joseph; the 
 passing of the Red Sea; and the finding of the 
 baby Moses. "Who is best taught?" asks the 
 Talmud. "He that is taught of his mother." 
 And so faithfully did Hannah fulfil her trust that 
 she would not leave the child even to go to the
 
 32 Lives Worth Living 
 
 sanctuary at Shiloh until he was old enough to go 
 with her.^ 
 
 One has said: "A mother's teachings have a 
 marvelous vitality in them; there is a strange 
 living power in that good seed which is sown by 
 a mother's hand in her child's heart in the early 
 dawn of a child's being, when they two are alone 
 together, and the mother's soul gushes forth on 
 her child and the child listens to his mother as a 
 God; and there is a deathless potency in a mother's 
 prayers and tears for those she hath borne which 
 only God can estimate."^ 
 
 When the child Samuel was about three years 
 old, Hannah returned to the well-remembered spot 
 where she had offered her prayer, 
 Fumued ^ °^ ^^^ with an offering of three bullocks, 
 an ephah of meal, and a bottle of 
 wine (the size of the offering showing this to be a 
 special occasion) she gave back to God the sacred 
 gift intrusted to her care. "Noble in her spirit 
 of endurance in the time of trial, Hannah is still 
 more noble in the spirit of self-denial in the time 
 of prosperity. It was no common grace that could 
 so completely sacrifice all her personal feelings 
 and so thoroughly honor God."^ 
 
 ■ For an example of similar devotion consult Allen, Life oj 
 Phillips Brooks, II, 380. 
 
 ' W. L. Alexander. 
 
 3 Blaikie, Expositor's Bible.
 
 Hannah— A Noble Mother 33 
 
 The boy was vowed 
 Unto the temple service. By the hand 
 She led him, and her silent soul the while, 
 
 Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye 
 Devotion ^^^^ ^^^ sweet serious glance, rejoiced to 
 
 think 
 That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers, 
 To bring before her God. 
 
 "I give thee to thy God — the God that gave thee 
 A well-spring of deep gladness to my heart! 
 And precious as thou art, 
 
 And pure as dew of Hermon, he shall have thee, 
 My own, my beautiful, my undefiled! 
 And thou shalt be His child. 
 
 Therefore, farewell! I go, my soul may fail me, 
 As the stag panteth for the water brooks, 
 Yearning for thy sweet looks, — 
 But thou, my first-born, droop not, nor bewail me! 
 Thou in the shadow of the Rock shalt dwell. 
 The Rock of Strength. Farewell!'" 
 
 "And they slew the bullock and brought the 
 child to Eli." Hannah alone speaks, reminding 
 Eli that she is the woman who stood in this very 
 place praying in deep distress and that God had 
 answered her prayer and given her this son; 
 "therefore also I have granted him to Jehovah; 
 as long as he liveth he is granted to Jehovah." 
 
 We are not told what response Eli made or what 
 arrangements he had for caring for this young 
 
 ' Mrs. Felicia Hemans.
 
 34 Lives Worth Living 
 
 child. Eli was now such a feeble old man and his 
 sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were such wicked 
 men, that Shiloh does not seem to have been a 
 very safe place for him. But Hannah, doubtless, 
 recalled the stories she had told her boy of God's 
 care of Joseph and of Moses when they were chil- 
 dren, and knew that Samuel was as truly God's 
 child and would have his care. That Hannah 
 returned to her house with a deep, abiding joy 
 in her heart none can doubt. Whether it found 
 expression in the literary form of I Sam. 2:1-10, 
 the critics are not agreed; many say that this song 
 is wholly unsuited to Hannah's position and cir- 
 cumstances, and was composed much later in 
 celebration of some national event. In any case, 
 the spirit of it is hers as she tries to express thank- 
 fulness for "answer to prayer, deliverance, from 
 trial, and fulfilment of hopes." 
 
 One beautiful last picture we have of the mother- 
 love of Hannah carrying to Samuel a little robe 
 as she goes each year with the family to the sacri- 
 fice at Shiloh. How much this annual reunion 
 must have meant to them all! What were 
 Hannah's thoughts as she fashioned the little 
 garment, making it larger year by year! What a 
 reminder to Samuel of an absent mother's love! 
 
 "Hannah's faith found its largest fulfilment, not 
 in the birth and infancy of her son, but in the 
 purity and strength of the prophet-judge and his
 
 Hannah — A Noble Mother 35 
 
 illustrious career. The answer to Hannah's prayer 
 was the prayerfulness of Samuel. And when God 
 awards the honors for noble service, the crown will 
 go to Hannah as well as to Samuel." 
 
 Central Idea of the Story 
 
 Each child, a giitfrom God, should be a gift to 
 God. It is the mother's task to teach the child to 
 regard every place of service a house of God. 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. Picture the life of Hannah in her home, and 
 explain why the lack of children was such a grief. 
 
 2. What do you think of the character of Elkanah ? 
 
 3. If Hannah had been the only wife, what condi- 
 tions would probably have been different ? 
 
 4. What indications are there in this lesson that the 
 Hebrews practiced a family as well as a national 
 religion ? 
 
 5. How did they regard Jehovah ? What was their 
 attitude toward the gods of other peoples ? 
 
 6. Put into simpler form the prayer of Hannah and 
 tell what came of it. 
 
 7. Was Hannah's vow a bargain with God? If so, 
 what considerations explain it? Is it right for us 
 today to make such bargains between ourselves and 
 God? 
 
 8. Explain how the very cause of Hannah's distress 
 became a means of good to her. What converted a 
 trial into a blessing?
 
 36 Lives Worth Living 
 
 9. What fundamental virtues of the home are 
 emphasized in the story of Hannah ? Can we apply 
 these to the complex life of today ? 
 
 ID. What was Hannah's ideal of motherhood? 
 Compare it with that of the present day. 
 
 II. What was Hannah's ideal for her child? Have 
 the parents of today a similar ideal for their children ? 
 
 *i2. What obligations has a mother (a) to herself; 
 (b) to her child; (c) to the world ? 
 
 *i3. Compare Hannah and other notable mothers, 
 such as Susanna Wesley, Abigail Adams, Mary Brooks ; 
 also Mrs. Paget in Mother, by Kathleen Norris, and 
 any mother of your acquaintance. 
 
 *i4. Make a study of mothers during the week, both 
 in real life and in literature. 
 
 *i5. How may we all have a spiritual motherhood 
 which will give us a share in the coming generation ? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 ♦Allen, A. V. G., Life a)id Letters of Phillips Brooks, II, 379-92 
 
 Barrie, J. M., Margaret Ogilvy. 
 
 Cheney, Mary Bushnell, Life and Letters of Horace Bitshnell, 
 chaps, i and ii. 
 
 Familiar letters of John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams. 
 
 Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, article "Hannah." 
 
 Martin, E. S., The Luxury of Children. 
 *Norris, Kathleen, Mother. 
 
 Wesley, John, The Heart of John Wesley's Journal, pp. 90-101.
 
 Woman's Privilege in the Home 37 
 
 CHAPTER II— LESSON IV 
 Woman's Privilege in the Home 
 
 "To raise a great man you must first raise a great 
 mother." 
 
 "Let us call our house-work home-work; for home- 
 work is privilege, not drudgery."' 
 
 Aspects of the Subject 
 
 The present-day qualifications of the home-maker 
 An ideal home-maker of the olden time (Prov. 
 
 31:1-31)- 
 
 Fundamental principles for the health, happiness, 
 and service of an efficient home. 
 
 The care and training of children, socially; intel- 
 lectually; spiritually; and the preparation for their 
 life-work. 
 
 The home and the modern city. 
 
 The family budget. 
 
 Problems and difficulties. 
 
 General Survey 
 
 The ancient world gives us but few glimpses of 
 woman except as the slave of man and valued only 
 as a possession to be bargained for according to his 
 fancy. Later, Christianity gave to motherhood 
 the inspiration of perfect childhood, and elevated 
 both the position and the service of woman. To- 
 day, the power and responsibility of woman is most 
 
 ' "A Fable for Home- Workers," The Congregationalist.
 
 38 Lives Worth Living 
 
 potent, for life is manifold and woman's work is 
 complex. 
 
 When man ceased to think of himself as a mere 
 member of a tribe and began to plan a home, he 
 took a great step in the upward path of evolution. 
 The home rests primarily on marriage. " Marriage 
 has been evolved by necessity, tested by experience, 
 and blessed by religion." It has been proved to 
 be the best, indeed the only good solution of the 
 problem of the perpetuation of the race. But like 
 every human institution it has in its actual existing 
 examples its weakness and perversions. The basis 
 of any true home must be a relation of mutual trust 
 and affection. As a rule, those homes are happiest 
 where both the husband and the wife are of the 
 same nationality and religious faith, and have 
 similar ideals. 
 
 Family life is strengthened by the love and care 
 of children, and, if the home develops normally, 
 parenthood naturally follows marriage, and a little 
 child is sent forth into the world to conquer or be 
 conquered. In the words of G. Stanley Hall, 
 ''There is one thing in nature fit to inspire all true 
 men and women with reverence and awe, and that 
 is the soul and body of a healthy young child. 
 Heredity has freighted it with all the results of 
 parental well- and ill-doing, and filled it with 
 reverberations from the past more vast than science 
 can explore, and on its right development depends
 
 Woman's Privilege in the Home 39 
 
 the entire future of civilization, decades hence. 
 Simple as childhood seems, there is nothing harder 
 to know ; and responsive as it is to every influence 
 about it, "there is nothing harder to guide. To 
 develop childhood to virtue, power, and true 
 freedom is the supreme end of education." 
 
 What a tremendous responsibility is parenthood 
 when considered in the light of this statement! 
 What a great responsibility upon the mother, who 
 is largely the determining factor in the child's life! 
 "It is not a theory but a scientific law that the 
 more intimately and the more variously the mother 
 joins the child to its great multiple environment 
 the more effective and manifold must be his life. 
 It is difiicult to conceive a more complicated task 
 than that given to the mother; To open the capa- 
 cities of body, mind, and spirit, so that life may 
 flow in upon this young soul — what greater task, 
 what holier mission can be assigned to any human 
 being !"^ 
 
 Mothers are sometimes tempted to feel that their 
 lives are narrow and confined. But the fact is quite 
 the contrary. Expressed concisely, the home- 
 maker must be (i) a practical dietician; (2) an 
 instructor and inspirer of youth ; (3) a competent 
 accountant; (4) a person of wisdom, invention, 
 sympathy, and sound sense; (5) a wise business 
 manager in securing full value for money, time, and 
 
 'J. H. Ecob, Studies in Christianity.
 
 40 Lives Worth Living 
 
 effort expended; (6). a just employer of labor. 
 Could mothers ask for a broader field ? Rather 
 let them ask, "Who is sufhcient for these 
 things?" 
 
 While it is no easy task to be the mother of a 
 noble child, yet God assigns high honors to mother- 
 hood, and many of the good things of life pass into 
 insignificance when compared with the wealth of 
 life that comes to the men and women who in 
 purity and devotion preside over their homes. 
 
 No one can see what work for God and humanity 
 that child in your home may some day undertake. 
 "Your clearness of intellect, your purity of purpose, 
 your integrity of conscience will pass into that boy 
 or that girl and some of the work for God you 
 dreamed of doing they will do. In other words, 
 you will do it through them." As was said in 
 the previous lesson, "Hannah's faith found its 
 largest fulfilment, not in the birth and infancy 
 of her son, but in the purity and strength of the 
 prophet-judge and his illustrious career. The 
 answer to Hannah's prayer was the prayerfulness 
 of Samuel." 
 
 It should be fully appreciated that one does not 
 need to have a home of her own to be a real home- 
 maker. Consider that noble army of unmarried 
 or widowed women who create in other women's 
 homes the helpful home atmosphere; who, going 
 up and down other people's stairs, transform them
 
 Woman's Privilege in the Home 41 
 
 into ladders which connect earth and heaven, as 
 they try to hold together families which perhaps 
 death has broken. 
 
 We have in the Book of Proverbs (chap. 31) a 
 most attractive picture of the efficient woman of 
 the olden time. The fundamental virtues were the 
 same then as now, and there were the same great 
 needs, but the methods for meeting these needs 
 have changed. Formerly woman was the pro- 
 ducer; now she is the consumer. Invention has 
 relieved her of much of the work previously done 
 in the home, giving greater freedom to some women 
 while laying heavier burdens upon others. But in 
 the place of physical labor has come the demand for 
 greater skill and judgment, greater responsibility 
 for the welfare of others. 
 
 The woman spoken of in Proverbs knew the 
 sanitary conditions under which her garments were 
 spun, woven, and made; her children were not 
 dependent upon public playgrounds or moving- 
 picture theaters for their amusements, nor were 
 they imprisoned in factories nor crowded in dark 
 tenements. 
 
 We cannot imagine this worthy woman keeping 
 house in a modern apartment with its disappearing 
 furniture and kitchenette. Those were the days 
 of neighborly hospitalities, when calls were made in 
 person and not over a telephone; when children 
 were considered "a heritage of the Lord," and their
 
 42 Lives Worth Living 
 
 place was not usurped by the poodle dog or the 
 Persian kitten. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin once wrote of his wife : 
 
 In peace and good order my household she guides, 
 
 Right careful to save what I gain; 
 Yet cheerfully spends and smiles on the friends 
 
 I've the pleasure to entertain. 
 Some faults have we all, and so has my Joan, 
 
 But then, they're exceedingly small, 
 And now I've grown used to them, so like my own 
 
 I scarcely can see them at all. 
 
 Because in the home women have been given 
 more leisure by changes in the commercial world, 
 they are now called upon to enlarge the boundaries 
 of their interest to include the community and the 
 world. This aspect of the subject will be consid- 
 ered more fully in a later lesson on ''Woman's 
 Public Influence." 
 
 Housing conditions, industrial changes, immi- 
 gration, divorce, the extremes of wealth and 
 poverty, amusements, factory conditions, these 
 and many more are the problems and difi&culties 
 that confront the modern home. 
 
 In our English language the word "house" is 
 not synonymous with the word "home." People 
 may live in a "house" which could not by any 
 stretch of imagination be called a "home." Per- 
 haps there is no greater menace to our homes today 
 than lack of peace or harmony. Even where there
 
 Woman's Privilege in the Home 43 
 
 is wealth and culture, there is often friction, 
 perpetual fault-finding, and even angry quarrels. 
 Naturally, in such an atmosphere all sorts of 
 miseries may be found, and we are not surprised 
 when they culminate in separation and divorce. 
 
 On the other hand, what a blessing in any home 
 is the person who radiates peace and contentment ! 
 In many a home this is the saintly grandmother 
 who has leisure to hear or tell a story, sew on a 
 button, nurse a bruised finger or an injured spirit. 
 
 Surely to be adequate for her task woman re- 
 quires the highest development of her whole being. 
 "Many women with aspirations outside the home 
 begrudge the time and routine of household cares. 
 But the charm of the home usually diminishes just 
 in proportion as the personal interest is withdrawn ; 
 for in this greatest profession open to women it 
 is true that she who loses her life is the one who 
 ands it." 
 
 The home as far as possible should reflect the 
 beauty and the art of the world. Good books, 
 good pictures, good music make it attractive and 
 stimulating, while they fashion memories which 
 last as long as life itself. The companionship of 
 parents and children in games and music strengthen 
 the home ties and keep the children in the home in 
 spite of counter-attractions elsewhere. "When 
 is the best time to lead water out of the spring and 
 music out of the heart ? Before other things begin
 
 44 Lives Worth Living 
 
 to cover it; in the early days, in childhood time." 
 The home that thus brings the imagination into 
 its work and play is given an additional power to 
 lighten the burdens and increase the joys. 
 
 "Now I know what makes you so different from 
 other women," said John Tenison. "It's having 
 that wonderful mother! It's something to thank 
 God for, a mother like that; it's a privilege to 
 know her. I've been watching her all day, and 
 I've been wondering what she gets out of it — that 
 was what puzzled me; but now, just now, I've 
 found out ! This morning, thinking what her life is, 
 I couldn't see what repaid her, do you see ? What 
 made up to her for the unending, unending effort 
 and sacrifice, the pouring out of love and sympathy 
 and help — year after year after year ? You know," 
 he went on musingly, "in these days, when 
 women just serenely ignore the question of chil- 
 dren, or at most, as a special concession, bring 
 up one or two — just the one or two whose expenses 
 can be comfortably met! — there's something mag- 
 nificent in a woman like your mother, who begins 
 eight destinies instead of one. She doesn't strain 
 and chafe to express herself through the medium of 
 poetry or music or the stage, but she puts her 
 whole splendid philosophy into her nursery — • 
 launches sound little bodies and minds that have 
 their first growth cleanly and purely about her 
 knees.
 
 Woman's Privilege in the Home 45 
 
 **Why, what good is learning, or elegance of 
 manner, or painfully acquired fineness of speech 
 and taste and point of view, if you are not going 
 to distil it into the growing plants, the only real 
 hope we have in the world! You know, Miss 
 Paget, there's a higher tribunal than the social 
 tribunal of this world after all ; and it seems to me 
 that a woman who stands there, as your mother 
 will, with a forest of new lives about her, will — will 
 find she has a friend at court !"^ 
 
 For Continued Thought 
 
 "The home must keep the members of the family 
 in a state of body and mind and happiness that 
 will make it possible for them to work at their 
 highest capacity for the greatest number of years; 
 it must give to the community children that are 
 well fitted for citizenship and equipped to push 
 civilization along; and it must turn out this pro- 
 duct on an economical expenditure, not of money 
 only, but of brain and muscle as well."* 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. What are die fundamental virtues of a home? 
 
 2. What conditions today make ideal home life 
 difficult (a) in the city; (b) in the country? 
 
 » Kathleen Norris, Mother. 
 
 •M. B. and R. W. Bruere, Increasing Home Efficiency.
 
 46 Lives Worth Living 
 
 3. Is the piety of Hannah now to be found in our 
 homes ? 
 
 4. Study carefully the chapter referred to in 
 Proverbs, noting the character, ability, and rewards 
 in the life and service of this woman. 
 
 5. What is the greatest difference you notice between 
 the home of the woman described in Proverbs and 
 the home of the present day? Is anything less re- 
 quired of the home-maker of today ? . or anything 
 more? 
 
 6. What is meant by the "home atmosphere"? 
 
 7. How may our houses become our homes? 
 
 8. What are the marks of an inefficient home? 
 What do you think is the greatest menace to the home 
 today ? 
 
 9. Should woman limit her activities to the home ? 
 
 10. What are the causes that induce or compel so 
 many women to seek occupations in store, shop, or 
 office? 
 
 11. What are some essential features of an adequate 
 plan for financing one's home ? 
 
 *i2. What system of family accounts would be most 
 satisfactory ? What are your pet economies ? What 
 are your little extravagances? 
 
 13. Is the so-called bargain counter a foe or an ally 
 of the home ? 
 
 *i4. What are your earliest memories of your 
 childhood home ? 
 
 *i5. Picture to your imagination the home you 
 would like your home to be. What is your part toward 
 making it such a home ?
 
 Woman's Privilege in the Home 47 
 
 *i6. What do you think of the advice of William 
 Morris to have nothing in our homes that we do not 
 know to be useful and believe to be beautiful ? 
 
 *i7. What place should the domestic arts hold in 
 the college curriculum ? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 *Bru^re, M. B. and R. W., Increasing Home Efficiency. 
 
 Comer, Cornelia A. P., "The Vanishing Lady," Atlantic Monthly, 
 December, 191 1. 
 
 Cope, H. F., Religious Education in the Family. 
 
 Hillis, Mrs. N. D., The American Wotnan and Her Home. 
 
 Mathews, Shailer, The Social and Ethical Teachings of Jesus. 
 
 Peabody, Francis G., Jesus Christ and the Social Question, chap, 
 on "The Family." 
 
 Richards, Ellen, The Art of Right Living. 
 *Talbot and Breckinridge, The Modern Household.
 
 CHAPTER III— LESSON V 
 DEBORAH— A CHAMPION OF ISRAEL 
 
 "For that the leaders took the lead in Israel, 
 For that the people offered themselves willingly, 
 Bless ye Jehovah."' 
 
 The Bible Story 
 
 And it came to pass after the death of Joshua, that 
 the children of Israel asked of Jehovah, saying. Who 
 Beginning of a ^hall go up for US first against the 
 National Life Canaanites, to fight against them ? And 
 for the Israelites jghovah said, Judah shall go up: behold, 
 
 I have delivered the land into his hand And 
 
 Judah went up ; and Jehovah delivered the Canaanites 
 and the Perizzites into their hand 
 
 And the children of Judah fought against Jerusa- 
 lem, and took it And afterward the children of 
 
 Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites that 
 dwelt in the hill-country, and in the South, and in the 
 
 lowland And Jehovah was with Judah; and 
 
 he drove out the inhabitants of the hill-country; for 
 he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, 
 
 because they had chariots of iron And the 
 
 children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites 
 that inhabited Jerusalem ; but the Jebusites dwell with 
 the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day. 
 
 ' Judg. s : 2. 
 
 48
 
 Deborah — A Champion of Israel 49 
 
 And the house of Joseph, they also went up against 
 Beth-el; and Jehovah was with them 
 
 And Manasseh .... and Ephraim .... [and] 
 Zebulun .... [and] Asher .... [and] Naphtali 
 drove not out the inhabitants .... but .... 
 dwelt among the Canaanites, .... [and] the in- 
 habitants .... became subject to taskwork 
 
 And the angel of Jehovah .... said, I made you 
 to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the 
 land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I 
 will never break my covenant with you: and ye shall 
 make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; 
 ye shall break down their altars. But ye have not 
 hearkened unto my voice: why have ye done this? 
 Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from 
 before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, 
 and their gods shall be a snare unto you. And it came 
 to pass, when the angel of Jehovah spake these words 
 unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up 
 
 their voice and wept And the people served 
 
 Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the 
 elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great 
 
 work of Jehovah, that he had wrought for Israel 
 
 And .... all that generation were gathered unto 
 their fathers: and there arose another generation after 
 them, that knew not Jehovah, nor yet the work which 
 he had wrought for Israel .... and they forsook 
 Jehovah, the God of their fathers, who brought them 
 out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of 
 the gods of the peoples that were round about them; 
 and bowed themselves down unto them: and they
 
 50 Lives Worth Living 
 
 provoked Jehovah to anger .... and he delivered 
 them into the hands of spoilers that despoiled them; 
 and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round 
 about, so that they could not any longer stand before 
 
 their enemies 
 
 And Jehovah raised up judges, who saved them out 
 of the hand of those that despoiled them. And yet 
 
 they hearkened not unto their judges But it 
 
 came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they 
 turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their 
 fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to 
 bow down unto them (Judg., chaps, i and 2, abridged). 
 
 And the children of Israel again did that which was 
 
 evil in the sight of Jehovah And Jehovah sold 
 
 them into the hand of Jabin king of 
 Deborah the Canaan, .... the captain of whose 
 
 Prophet- Judge ' ^ 
 
 host was Sisera And the chil- 
 dren of Israel cried unto Jehovah : for .... he [Jabin] 
 mightily oppressed the children of Israel. 
 
 Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, 
 she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under 
 the palm-tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el 
 in the hill-country of Ephraim: and the children of 
 Israel came up to her for judgment. And she sent and 
 called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh- 
 naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not Jehovah, the 
 God of Israel, commanded, saying, Go and draw unto 
 mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of 
 the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebu- 
 lun ? And I will draw unto thee, to the river Kishon,
 
 Deborah — A Champion of Israel 51 
 
 Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots 
 and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thy 
 hand. And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with 
 me, then I will go; but if thou wilt not go with me, I 
 will not go. And she said, I will surely go with thee: 
 notwithstanding, the journey that thou takest shall 
 not be for thine honor; for Jehovah will sell Sisera into 
 the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose and went 
 with Barak to Kedesh. And Barak called Zebulun and 
 Naphtali together to Kedesh; and there went up ten 
 thousand men at his feet; and Deborah went up with 
 him. 
 
 Now Heber the Kenite had separated himself from 
 the Kenites, even from the children of Hobab the 
 brother-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as 
 far as the oak in Zaanannim, which is by Kedesh. 
 
 And they told Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam 
 
 was gone up to mount Tabor. And Sisera gathered 
 
 together all his chariots, even nine 
 
 Battle of the hundred chariots of iron, and all the 
 
 Plain ' 
 
 people that were with him, from Haro- 
 
 sheth of the Gentiles, unto the river Kishon. And 
 
 Deborah said unto Barak, Up; for this is the day in 
 
 which Jehovah hath delivered Sisera into thy hand: 
 
 is not Jehovah gone out before thee ? So Barak went 
 
 down from mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after 
 
 him. And Jehovah discomfited Sisera, and all his 
 
 chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword 
 
 before Barak; and Sisera alighted from his chariot, 
 
 and fled away on his feet. But Barak pursued after 
 
 the chariots and after the host, unto Harosheth of the
 
 52 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Gentiles: and all the host of Sisera fell by the edge of 
 
 the sword; there was not a man left. 
 
 Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of 
 
 Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace 
 
 between Tabin the kins of Hazor and the 
 Death of Sisera , . 
 
 house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael 
 
 went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, 
 
 my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And he turned in 
 
 unto her into the tent and she covered him with a' rug. 
 
 And he said unto her. Give me, I pray thee, a little 
 
 water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a 
 
 bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. 
 
 And he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and 
 
 it shall be, when any man doth come and inquire 
 
 of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou 
 
 shalt say, No. Then Jael Heber 's wife took a tent. -pin 
 
 and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto 
 
 him, and smote the pin into his temples, and it pierced 
 
 through into the ground; for he was in a deep sleep; 
 
 so he swooned and died. 
 
 And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came 
 out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will 
 show thee the man whom thou seekest. And he 
 came unto her, and, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the 
 tent-pin was in his temples. 
 
 So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of 
 Canaan before the children of Israel. And the hand 
 of the children of Israel prevailed more and more 
 against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had 
 destroyed Jabin king of Canaan (Judg., chap. 4, 
 abridged).
 
 Deborah — A Champion of Israel 53 
 
 Read also tlie Song of Deborah for a poetic narra- 
 tive of the same event (Judg. chap. 5). 
 
 An Interpretation of the Story 
 
 The history of Israel during the time of the 
 
 Judges pictures the experience of a people in the 
 
 process of change from the wander- 
 Conditions in . . • !•■ P .1 1 1 
 
 Israel at the mg, uncertam lite 01 the herdsmen 
 Time of the ^f ^j^g desert to the more settled life 
 
 Judges .... 
 
 of farmers hvmg in towns and vil- 
 lages. That this was a forward step in their 
 national life is shown by the fact that it helped to 
 consolidate the various tribes and to bring them 
 into contact with the more advanced civilization 
 of the Canaanites. It is not long before we find 
 them intermarrying and even erecting altars to 
 Baal, thus mingling idolatry with the worship of 
 Jehovah. In this respect the entrance into Canaan 
 would seem to indicate a backward step, yet with 
 all the backslidings which are given such a promi- 
 nence in the story of the Judges, a closer study of 
 the same events reveals the fact that Israel's settle- 
 ment in Canaan resulted in an advance even in 
 religion, for "community religion was better than 
 camping religion,"' as the former involved a per- 
 manence in its relations and duties, and required 
 the mutual helpfulness of many kinds of people. 
 
 ' F. K. Sanders, History of the Hebrews, p. 82.
 
 54 Lives Worth Living 
 
 The leaders of the Israelites at this time were 
 called judges. This was somewhat of a misnomer 
 according to the modern meaning of the word, as 
 they were simply leaders who directed affairs in 
 times of crisis. 
 
 And times of crisis were frequent at this stage 
 of Israel's development. Although entering Ca- 
 naan at a time when its defensive power was 
 weakest, Israel was kept in a constant state of 
 petty warfare and oppression in which one of the 
 culminating points was a decisive battle on the 
 plains of Esdraelon. In these experiences Israel 
 looked upon her judges as deliverers, who would 
 direct her affairs until the danger was over. 
 
 Among the thirteen judges of whom we have 
 
 mention was a woman, Deborah by name, whose 
 
 religious patriotism and qualities of 
 
 Deborah's Call leadership roused the nation. The 
 
 to Service ^ ^ 
 
 narrative says she was the wife of 
 Lappidoth, and, although apparently denied chil- 
 dren of her own, she became in a real sense "a. 
 mother in Israel." 
 
 "It was a time of miserable thraldom in Israel 
 when Deborah became aware of her destiny and 
 began the sacred enterprise of her life. From 
 Hazor in the north near the waters of Merom, Israel 
 was ruled by Jabin, king of the Canaanites, while 
 defenseless and crushed, the Israelites lay crying 
 to gods that could not save.
 
 Deborah — A Champion of Israel 55 
 
 "Deborah's childhood was probably s]:)ent in 
 some village of Issachar, her home a rude hut 
 covered with brushwood and clay. Her parents, 
 we must believe, had more religious feeling than 
 was common among Hebrews of the time, and 
 often spoke to her of the name and law of Jehovah. 
 
 "But with the exception of brief, oral traditions 
 fitfully repeated and an example of reverence for 
 sacred things, a mere girl would have no advan- 
 tages. She, with the others, doubtless felt the 
 tyranny and the shame of the Canaanite oppression; 
 for the soldiers of Jabin came and lived in free 
 quarters among the villagers, wasting their prop- 
 erty. The people turned thriftless and sullen. 
 Now and again there might be a riot. Maddened 
 by insults and extortion, the men of the village 
 would make a stand. But without weapons, with- 
 out a leader, what could they effect? The Ca- 
 naanite troops were upon them ; some were killed, 
 others carried away, and things became worse than 
 before. 
 
 "Then it was that Deborah's soul must have 
 gone forth to her people, and their sad state moved 
 her to something more than a woman's grief and 
 rebellion. As the years went by, traditions of the 
 past revealed their meaning to her. Once her 
 people had swept victoriously through the land 
 and triumphed by the help and in the name of 
 Jehovah. Clearly the need was for a new covenant
 
 56 Lives Worth Living 
 
 with him; the people must repent and turn to 
 Jehovah. As she spoke more and more eagerly, 
 as she ventured to urge the men of her village to 
 bestir themselves, doubtless a few were moved, 
 but more derided her. In vain she looked for a 
 man of Jehovah to rekindle a flame in the nation's 
 heart. It was only in her own soul; she might 
 wake it in other souls; Jehovah helping her, she 
 would."^ 
 
 In a quiet, retired place between Ramah and 
 Beth-el, "under the palm-tree" Deborah chose her 
 dwelling-place, and to this spot came 
 DeUvere;*^^ those who Still kept their faith in 
 Jehovah and longed for deliverance 
 from their enemies. It must have been a strange 
 experience for Israel to have heard a woman plead- 
 ing for the freedom of her people. The Israelites 
 could but feel that a spirit so fearless as hers, and a 
 vision so prophetic, must be inspired by Jehovah; 
 so she became to them a prophetess pointing out 
 anew the path to power. 
 
 In the song which tradition attributes to her 
 Deborah herself says, "By the watercourses of 
 Reuben there were great resolves of heart," when 
 the strong men of the tribes took solemn vows 
 to redeem Israel. Ephraim and Zebulun and 
 Benjamin and Naphtali and "the princes of 
 Issachar were with Deborah." But Judah and 
 
 ' Expositor's Bible, "Book of Judges," chap. vii.
 
 Deb(jrah — ^A Champion of Israel 57 
 
 Simeon and Reuben and Manasseh and Asher failed 
 to respond, and Dan was absorbed in his own 
 local affairs. 
 
 The weeks and the months passed, and the plan 
 of campaign needed only a leader. At this crisis 
 Deborah turned to Barak of Kedesh-naphtali, in 
 whom she doubtless recognized the ability to lead. 
 She ordered him to go to mount Tabor with ten 
 thousand men where he would meet Sisera, and, 
 with the help of Jehovah, overcome him. But 
 Barak lacked the religious enthusiasm of Deborah. 
 "If thou wilt go with me, then I will go; but if 
 thou wilt not go with me, I will not go," was his 
 unheroic reply. But Deborah had no fear. She 
 went with him; she pointed out the enemy; she 
 inspired Barak with courage until the hosts of 
 Sisera were routed and Sisera himself was obliged 
 to escape on foot. At the hand of a woman named 
 Jael he met the death from which he thought he 
 had escaped. 
 
 Deborah's war poem is the poetical account of 
 
 these historical events, and is probably older 
 
 than the prose narrative, as it was 
 
 Deborah's Song . 
 
 these national songs that became the 
 nucleus of much of the history of that early 
 time. 
 
 It is a dramatic story of a great crisis in the 
 affairs of the Israelites, and pictures the gathering 
 of the tribes, the battle on the Esdraelon plain, the
 
 58 Lives Worth Living 
 
 death of the enemy Sisera, and the anxious mother 
 watching for his return. 
 
 Deborah rejoiced because her people were 
 again free and because Jehovah was all-powerful. 
 According to Deborah's thought and that of the 
 time, this victory over the enemies of Israel was a 
 victory of Jehovah over the Canaanitish gods, and 
 in that sense a basis for a great religious revival. 
 
 In the midst of the song she enumerates the 
 faithful tribes who shared the labor and thus 
 have a place among the victors. Then she recalls 
 one town, Meroz, that had hung back: ''Curse ye 
 Meroz; curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; 
 because they came not to the help of Jehovah, 
 to the help of Jehovah against the mighty." This 
 vindictive outburst is an expression of indigna- 
 tion against those who enjoyed the results of a 
 victory which they did nothing to secure. 
 
 Thus while Deborah sings her song of battle 
 there is in her heart great adoration of Jehovah 
 which finds expression in the closing lines, "So 
 let all thine enemies perish, O Jehovah: but let 
 them that love him be as the sun when he goeth 
 forth in his might." 
 
 Central Idea of the Story 
 
 The moral energy and spiritual enthusiasm of 
 Deborah delivered a nation.
 
 Deborah — A Champion of Israel 59 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. Recall the important events in the history of 
 Israel from the death of Joshua to the time of 
 Deborah. 
 
 2. What did the judges do toward establishing the 
 national life of Israel? How were they chosen? 
 
 3. How do you account for a woman filling the {posi- 
 tion of judge in ancient Israel ? 
 
 4. Who was Deborah ? How was she influenced by 
 the oppression of her people? What was the con- 
 trolling passion of her life? Notice the progress in 
 her public influence. 
 
 5. What qualities of leadership did she possess? 
 What was she able to accomplish ? 
 
 6. Compare the championship of Deborah with that 
 of David fighting Goliath, to get the true meaning of 
 the word "champion" as applied to Deborah. 
 
 7. What characteristics of Deborah are similar to 
 those of Joan of Arc ? 
 
 8. Does the narrative reveal those characteristics 
 of Barak that justify his position as commander-in- 
 chief of the army? What did Barak recognize in 
 Deborah's leadership ? 
 
 *g. The song attributed to Deborah is one of the 
 most \'igorous as well as one of the most ancient He- 
 brew poems. Study it from the point of view of its 
 literary quality, from the point of view of its religious 
 spirit, and as a revelation of national conditions. 
 To whom is it addressed ? Find in it the war- 
 cry that roused the people to action and the sense of 
 Jehovah's presence with his people. How does
 
 6o Lives Worth Living 
 
 Deborah describe the assembling of the tribes ? Make 
 yourself hear the tramp of the horse-hoofs, the clash 
 of arms, and the march of the people. What sug- 
 gestion of a great storm do you find in the chapter? 
 What is the meaning of the expression, "the stars 
 in their courses fought against Sisera"? What lines 
 in the poem tell us the result of the battle ? Name the 
 principal characters mentioned and describe the part 
 which each took in the story. Memorize the sections 
 from this poem which appeal to you most strongly. 
 
 *io. Compare Deborah's song and Julia Ward 
 Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic." 
 
 11. Why was Deborah so angry with Meroz ? Why 
 was she so exultant over the deed of Jael ? 
 
 1 2. In what different ways does the sin of Meroz find 
 expression in our national life ? 
 
 *i3. What Canaanites are abroad in our land today ? 
 What Deborahs are working against them ? In what 
 respects are their qualities of leadership similar ? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, The Candle of the Lord, chap, xvii, "The Curse 
 of Meroz." 
 
 Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, "Book of Judges." 
 *Expositor's Bible, "Book of Judges." 
 
 Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, article "Deborah." 
 
 Moulton, R. G., The Modern Reader's Bible, "Deborah's Song," 
 p. 223. 
 
 Sanders, Frank K., History of the Hebrews, chap, v, "The Con- 
 quest and Settlement of Canaan."
 
 Woman's Public Influence 6r 
 
 CHAPTER III— LESSON VI 
 Woman's Public Influence 
 
 "Every individual is in real danger who fails to 
 establish some sort of genuine relation with the people 
 about him."' 
 
 "It has been shown that women can be both wise 
 and womanly; can speak in public without sacrificing 
 their dignity; can be graduated from a coeducational 
 institution without becoming masculine; that they 
 can interest themselves in making possible 'the right 
 to childhood' for the children of less fortunate women, 
 without neglecting their own; and be better home- 
 makers and home-lovers because their interests are not 
 confined within their own four walls. "^ 
 
 Aspects of the Subject 
 
 Woman's public influence through the home as wife, 
 mother, or woman of leisure. 
 
 Woman's public influence through organization in 
 clubs, churches, settlements, labor unions, welfare 
 stations, playground associations, civic and social 
 centers, schools, and, in many places, the ballot. 
 
 General Survey 
 
 We recently considered woman's privilege in 
 her home (chap, ii, lesson iv), and realized that 
 the responsibilities of the home-maker were 
 
 ' Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House. 
 ^ Mary E. Woolley, "The Prejudice of Yesterday," Woman's 
 Journal, April, 19 14.
 
 62 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Used by permission 
 
 JANE ADDAMS, OF HULL HOUSE
 
 Woman's Public Influence 63 
 
 manifold and most fundamental. But no con- 
 ception of a woman's influence in the world of to- 
 day is complete unless her public as well as her 
 home influence is considered. Indeed, so inti- 
 mately have these come to be related that woman's 
 public influence helps to make her home purer 
 and safer, while by means of her home she is often 
 able to exert a public influence. 
 
 As wife and mother, woman is shaping public 
 opinion, and it is public opinion largely which 
 establishes the morals of a community. "The 
 morals of a country are what public opinion makes 
 them, and public opinion is, for the most part, 
 formed in the home. Around the breakfast table 
 and before the fireside are set in motion those 
 influences which nominate presidents, create laws, 
 establish justice, or enthrone vice. If individuals 
 mold the state, and if environment molds the 
 individual, the mother is the world's most potent 
 influence, for she is literally the environment of the 
 child in his most plastic period."' 
 
 In the complexity of our life today, we have 
 become so dependent upon the life of others that 
 no longer is a mother's responsibility bounded by 
 the walls of her own nursery or confined to the 
 members of her own household. The art of the 
 world has enthroned woman with a child in her 
 arms, and in so far as the figure of the child 
 
 ' Josiah Strong,
 
 64 Lives Worth Living 
 
 represents universal childhood the syrrrbol is a true 
 one. Like Deborah, who became "a mother in 
 Israel," the motherhood of today must include 
 the community; and woman's work does not end 
 until life is safe and beautiful for everybody's 
 child. 
 
 Although a woman's public influence as a 
 mother may be greater than her public influence 
 as a wife, yet many a public service may be traced 
 to a wife's sympathy, counsel, and conscience; 
 while those words of primitive man, "The woman 
 whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of 
 the tree, and I did eat" (Gen. 3:12), have proved 
 for man in every age a convenient shield. 
 
 But what of the large number of women who are 
 neither wives nor mothers ? Invention and social 
 conditions have forced many women out of their 
 homes, and we find them in increasing numbers in 
 almost every occupation. Our mothers tell us 
 that in their day there were but few opportunities 
 for woman to offer any public service. If a woman 
 failed to marry, she could be either a school-teacher 
 or a dressmaker, and once in a great while a 
 woman would write a book of poems or of intro- 
 spective essays. But today there is an army of 
 office women and clerks competing with men for 
 positions of responsibility and service. There are 
 also large numbers of women in factories who do 
 work formerly done in the home, thus giving to
 
 Woman's Public Influence 65 
 
 another large company of women leisure and free- 
 dom from labor. That so many women of wealth 
 and leisure are devoting themselves to the relief 
 and betterment of others, rather than to lavish 
 display and self-indulgence, indicates a growing 
 sense of responsibility and a desire to fulfil any 
 obligation they may have to others less favored. 
 From the day Mary Lyon uttered those notable 
 words, "There is nothing in all the universe that 
 I fear but that I shall not know all my duty or 
 shall fail to do it," to the recent remark of Jane 
 Addams, with which this study opens, woman's 
 loyalty and unselfishness have been bringing about 
 her emancipation. 
 
 It is less than a hundred years since women in 
 this country have been allowed the highest educa- 
 tional opportunities. The agitation against slavery 
 in i860 forced them to think and read and 
 speak, and helped to strike off the fetters that had 
 previously bound them. From that time an 
 entire readjustment of woman's relation to life 
 began to take place, and she sought opportunities 
 for self-expression along cultural lines. Countless 
 culture clubs sprang into existence which gave 
 women a new and larger outlook upon life. These, 
 in many instances, became training schools where 
 the women learned to think clearly, to speak 
 intelligently, and to work in organization. But 
 true culture is always unselfish, and these clubs soon
 
 66 Lives Worth Living 
 
 broadened by adding departments of philanthropy 
 and social service, until now almost every phase 
 of human welfare has its department under the 
 General Federation of Women's Clubs with its 
 membership of more than a million and a half 
 of American women. These clubs emphasize the 
 idea that "woman's place is home, but home is the 
 community, and woman's work is race preserva- 
 tion and race improvement."' 
 
 But woman's quickest response has always been 
 to spiritual needs, and in the work of the church 
 she has taken a large share. Ever since those 
 noble New England women gave their slowly 
 accumulating butter and egg money, together 
 with their hearts, for the then doubtful cause of 
 missions, up to the present day with its deaconesses 
 and pastor's assistants, the women of the church 
 have led in its activities. As the different organi- 
 zations have arisen within the church in response 
 to some need at home or abroad, women teachers 
 and missionaries have been commissioned and are 
 working today in all parts of the world. 
 
 One cannot fail to realize that the public iriflu- 
 ence of woman through her church activities is not 
 only an intellectual stimulus and spiritual develop- 
 ment for the woman herself, but also a splendid 
 record of service rendered. The truest, strongest 
 v/omen of which any community may boast are, 
 
 • Rheta Childe Dorr.
 
 Woman's Public Influence 67 
 
 for the most part, those who give to the church 
 self-sacrificing thought and time and effort in 
 service of others. The social settlements, play- 
 ground associations, and other agencies for the 
 welfare of those living in crowded industrial centers 
 of our large cities have given women many oppor- 
 tunities to render devoted public service. Miss 
 Addams of Hull House, who has frequently been 
 called Chicago's most eminent citizen, is an ex- 
 ample of the influence one woman may have in 
 improving conditions in the midst of a large 
 foreign population. 
 
 It is being said today that women cannot meet 
 their full public duty without suffrage. Those who 
 favor this plead that it is a legitimate outcome of 
 the spirit of democracy, and that for woman to be 
 denied suffrage is as unjust as it was for our fathers 
 to be taxed without representation. They also 
 claim that the vote is needed by women wage- 
 earners, taxpayers, and home-makers, in order to 
 protect their property rights; to defend themselves 
 against injustice and incompetence; to improve 
 politics; to secure hygienic conditions in the pro- 
 duction of food and clothing and all forms of 
 public sanitation. 
 
 On the other hand, those who oppose woman's, 
 suffrage contend that woman has greater influence 
 for the betterment of others without the ballot, 
 as she is independent of every party; that women
 
 68 Lives Worth Living 
 
 are not using the opportunities for public service 
 they already have, and that only a comparatively 
 small percentage of the women desire suffrage ; that 
 to woman belongs the life of the home and to man the 
 outside political life, and that if woman entered pub- 
 lic life she might lose some of her womanly graces. 
 
 The whole matter may be condensed into this 
 question: Granting that men and women are 
 equal before God, can woman exert an equal 
 influence with men without the ballot? Those 
 who desire suffrage claim she cannot, while those 
 opposed to suffrage say she can. 
 
 Women have the franchise in Finland, Norway, 
 Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia. Even 
 China allows women to vote subject to an educa- 
 tional qualification. In England, the women have 
 demanded full suffrage by violent and somewhat 
 questionable methods, while in our own country, 
 Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, 
 California, and Illinois have given women the 
 franchise, and several other states are to vote upon 
 it within a year. 
 
 Miss Sophonisba Breckinridge, assistant pro- 
 fessor of social economy at the University of 
 Chicago, wrote of the first Chicago election in 
 which women voters had a part: "In this quick- 
 ened sense of power and responsibility on the part 
 of the women, in this conscious awakening of a new 
 interest on the part of the men. in this new com-
 
 Woman's Public Influence 6y 
 
 munity of interest in the family group, in the new 
 neighborliness, as well as in the presence of a 
 number of good men elected on party tickets and 
 an added group elected on a non-partisan basis, are 
 to be found a few of the results obvious to any 
 honest and intelligent observer of the women voters 
 of Chicago at their first election." 
 
 Professor Dallas L. Sharp of Boston University 
 declares that suffrage is as rational as any other 
 process of evolution. He believes that "a man's 
 instinctive attitude toward equal suffrage is largely 
 a matter of the women he has had for mother, sister, 
 wife, and daughter. He is pro or anti according as 
 they have made themselves one with him, or have 
 made him the end of their being.'.' 
 
 The influence of women in industry must be left 
 to a later lesson (chap, v, lesson x), yet when we 
 realize that in 1900 America had six million working 
 women and that 59 per cent of all American young 
 women were earning their living, the influence 
 upon our public life is important enough to demand 
 attention. That such women as Mrs. Florence 
 Kelley, of New York, and Mrs. Raymond Robins, 
 of Chicago, have given their thought and energy 
 toward the betterment of these working women 
 and endeavored through trade unions and the 
 press to secure for them better legislation and 
 safer working conditions reveals another form of 
 woman's public influence.
 
 70 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Martha Bensley Bruere says: "We housewives 
 must subordinate the work of keeping house to 
 the business of living. It is time that we under- 
 take the woman's job of seeing that all the race is 
 well born, well fed, well trained, and happy. To 
 do this, we must learn to work together to socialize 
 housekeeping, as men are learning to work together 
 to socialize business, and it will be a great shame to 
 us if we let love of ease, or ignorance, or needless 
 work keep us from standing shoulder to shoulder 
 with our men in their fight to create the world 
 anew." 
 
 For Continued Thought 
 
 Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these 
 my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me 
 (Matt. 25:40). 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. Why has the nineteenth century been called the 
 woman's century ? 
 
 2. Upon what problems of our American life is 
 woman's influence especially needed ? 
 
 3. In what ways are women already exerting public 
 influence? Compare this with their influence in the 
 home. 
 
 4. Does the spirit of Deborah exist today ? 
 
 5. Do you think that woman lessens her influence 
 in the home by undertaking various activities outside 
 the home ?
 
 Woman's Public Influence 71 
 
 6. Who are the "women of leisure"? What are 
 their special opportunities for service? What are 
 their special temptations ? 
 
 7. What has woman accomplished by organization ? 
 
 8. What gains have come to woman through legis- 
 lation ? 
 
 9. What opportunities has woman in the church ? 
 
 10. What are the arguments for and against woman 
 suffrage ? 
 
 11. Is it possible for woman without the ballot to 
 exert an equal influence with man? 
 
 12. Describe the work of Jane Addams at Hull 
 House, 
 
 *i3. Mention several other women of our own and 
 other countries who have exerted a large influence in 
 public affairs. Describe the work of at least one of them. 
 14, Compare the outlook upon life of Elizabeth 
 Bennett in Pride and Prejudice with that of Alison 
 Parr in The Inside of the Cup. 
 
 *i$. Is one's influence commensurate with one's 
 efficiency ? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 *Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House. 
 
 Dorr, Rheta Childe, What Eight Million Women Want. 
 \Hull House Year Book, Chicago. Pamphlet, lo cents. 
 
 Montgomery, Helen B., Western Women in Eastern Lands. 
 fNational American Woman Suffrage Association, 505 Fifth Ave., 
 
 New York. Pamphlets, 
 i" National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, 29 W. Thirty- 
 ninth St., New York. Pamphlets. 
 
 Raymond, Maud W., The Kings Business. 
 
 Schreimer, Olive, Woman and Labor. 
 
 Stetson, Charlotte Perkins, Women and Economics,
 
 CHAPTER IV— LESSON VII 
 
 RUTH— THE IMMIGRANT 
 Introduction 
 
 The Book of Ruth is an extremely interesting short 
 story. Most of its scenes occur in the out-of-door life 
 of a farming community, and follow one another with 
 the swift movement of a drama. While it pictures the 
 life and customs of a primitive people, its chief interest 
 is the romantic love story, the heroine of which has all 
 the grace and charm of noble young womanhood. 
 
 This idyl has a permanent place in Hebrew literature 
 and there is no more beautiful expression of devotion 
 in any language than that found in the opening chapter. 
 
 An opportunity is thus given to read a whole book 
 of the Bible at one sitting, and for that reason no 
 Scripture text is given in this lesson. The entire Book 
 of Ruth should be read from the Bible before the read- 
 ing of the interpretation as given in the lesson, while 
 the earnest pupil will follow this with a second reading 
 of the Bible story to gain a stronger appreciation of its 
 beauty and meaning, and to discover its message in 
 regard to the intermingling of nations. 
 
 An Interpretation of the Story 
 
 The story of Ruth comes as a delightful inter- 
 ruption in the long history of conflict and war which 
 
 72
 
 Ruth — The Immigrant 
 
 73 
 
 characterized Israel under the judges. It takes 
 us from the noise and commotion of battle to 
 
 the problems and tasks of a simple 
 Ruth °° ° Hebrew home, and replaces deeds of 
 
 treachery and violence with acts of 
 pure, unselfish affection. 
 
 — ^60 Bruck-Lajos 
 
 RUTH 
 
 It is also a picture of domestic affection between 
 members of different nations. Its author prob- 
 ably Hved long after the date of the incidents he 
 recorded, perhaps some time after the exile, when 
 feeling against the foreigner was strong. Whether 
 he presents the fact that the ancestry of King
 
 74 Lives Worth Living 
 
 David included a Moabitish strain as an argument 
 in favor of Israel's cultivating political alliance 
 with alien peoples, is not certain; but it is clear that 
 he believes in the possibility of friendly relations, 
 even the tenderest ties, between Israelites and 
 non-Israelites, and in welcoming the latter to the 
 enjoyment of Israel's religion. 
 
 "The narrator manifestly takes delight in the 
 graceful and attractive details of his picture. His 
 principal characters are amiable. God-fearing, 
 courteous, unassuming; and all, in different ways, 
 show how a religious spirit may be carried un- 
 ostentatiously into the conduct of daily life." 
 
 The story begins at a time of famine in the 
 Bethlehem valley which lasted long enough to 
 make it necessary that a certain 
 hem^to Moab Hebrew family leave the land of their 
 ancestors and seek a home elsewhere. 
 Journeying toward the east and beyond the Dead 
 Sea, they came to the highlands of Moab, where 
 they decided to make their dwelling. Here they 
 found a people speaking a language similar to their 
 own, while most of them owned and cultivated 
 large fields of grain and raised great flocks and 
 herds. It was comparatively but a short distance 
 in miles from Bethlehem to the "Field of Moab," 
 but the people of Moab worshiped Chemoth instead 
 of Jehovah, and that difference in religion to a 
 Hebrew meant immeasurable distance.
 
 Ruth — The Immigrant 75 
 
 During the next few years, joys and sorrows were 
 strangely mingled. Sounds of wedding festivities 
 were changed to grief and mourning, 
 the^H^o^me" ^^^ Elimelech and both his sons died, 
 leaving Naomi alone with her two 
 Moabitish daughters-in-law. How natural that 
 Naomi should feel that she could no longer "sing 
 the Lord's song in a strange land," and that she 
 should turn longingly to her own country. And 
 so great was the affection and sympathy that 
 Ruth and Orpah felt for Naomi, they determined 
 to return with her to the land of Judah. 
 
 With the memory of a common happiness and 
 a common sorrow the daughters-in-law accom- 
 panied her on her journey. For 
 for BetWehem Naomi, there was now no tie to bind 
 her to Moab. She had heard of the 
 large crops in her own land, and, alone and sad, 
 she was anxious to be with her own people again. 
 But what future was there for Ruth and Orpah 
 in Judah, where they had no friends except Naomi, 
 and where they would be treated like aliens because 
 of their religion? In their own country, they 
 might return to their father's house, and perhaps 
 later marry again. 
 
 Naomi fully reaUzed that she had but little to 
 offer them if they went with her. Much as she 
 needed their help and companionship, she put aside 
 all thought of personal gain, and, after talking the
 
 76 Lives Worth Living 
 
 matter over with them, thanked them for their 
 kindness and affection and, with her richest blessing 
 for the future, urged them to return to their own 
 people. Naomi's words were kind and persuasive. 
 Orpah found in them reasons for returning to her 
 childhood home; but for Ruth they cemented an 
 affection which found expression in the words which 
 we have just read in the Bible story. 
 
 "The simple dignity of the iteration in varying 
 phrase till the climax is reached beyond which no 
 promise could go; the quiet fervor of the feeling; 
 the thought which seems to have almost a Chris- 
 tian depth — all are beautiful, pathetic, noble. 
 From this moment, a charm lingers about Ruth and 
 she becomes dearer to us than any woman of whom 
 the Hebrew records tell."' 
 
 "Ruth's love for Naomi is a wonderful love for 
 an ancient world. It is the love of a woman for a 
 woman. Male suitors are passed by, ignored, 
 neglected. It is a love involving deep privation, 
 for she gives up everything, her country, her social 
 caste, her relations, her chances, and her associa- 
 tions of worship."^ 
 
 After Ruth's appeal there was no longer any 
 thought of turning back. Together they journeyed 
 to Bethlehem, reaching there at the beginning of 
 the barley harvest. The news of Naomi's return 
 
 ' Expositor's Bible, "Book of Ruth," chap. ii. 
 
 ' Matheson, Representative Women of the Bible, p. 182.
 
 Ruth — The Immigrant 77 
 
 spread quickly from home to home, and neighbors 
 and friends added their welcome and listened to 
 
 all that had happened during the 
 panics Na^i ^^^ ycars sincc shc left Bethlehem. 
 
 "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara; 
 for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. 
 I went out full, and Jehovah hath brought me 
 home again empty," was her lament as she greeted 
 them. 
 
 And now in a strange land, among a strange 
 people, Ruth sought to provide for herself and 
 
 Naomi. There was a Mosaic law 
 Gleaner^ which Commanded that the fruits of 
 
 the fields and vineyards should not 
 be wholly removed, but that a portion always be 
 left "for the sojourner, for the fatherless, and for 
 the widow."' So Ruth, with Naomi's permission, 
 went to the barley fields to glean, and followed 
 the reapers of a man named Boaz, who proved to 
 be a kinsman of Naomi. 
 
 On the very day that Ruth began to glean, 
 Boaz visited his harvest field. The narrative shows 
 
 him to be a man of influence, gener- 
 Kinsman ^^^ ^^^ courteous to his workers. 
 
 His greetings to his laborers and their 
 
 friendly response revealed a kindly spirit on both 
 
 sides, while his custom of personally inspecting his 
 
 harvest fields showed him to be a wise and careful 
 
 'Lev. 19:9; Deut. 24:19.
 
 78 Lives Worth Living 
 
 husbandman. Thus it was that he noticed the 
 stranger and inquired who she might be. Learning 
 that she was the Moabitish woman who had 
 returned with Naomi, Boaz spoke to Ruth herself, 
 telhng her to remain in his fields, keeping with the 
 other young women, and also directing the reapers 
 not to disturb but to allow her to drink from their 
 water jars whenever she was thirsty. It is a far 
 cry from the water jars in the barley field of Boaz 
 to the one brought to King David, three genera- 
 tions later, when as an exile he cried, "Oh, that 
 one would give me to drink of the well of Beth- 
 lehem which is by the gate " ;' yet in all probability 
 both were refreshed from the same well. 
 
 Because of her character and her kindness to 
 Naomi, Boaz gladly gave her a place among his 
 gleaners; his friendly benediction, *' Jehovah 
 recompense thy work, and a full reward be given 
 thee of Jehovah, the God of Israel, under whose 
 wings thou art come to take refuge," made her 
 feel that she was no longer an alien and a stranger, 
 and Ruth continued to glean until the end of the 
 harvest, dwelling with her mother-in-law. 
 
 There seems to be a long lapse of time between 
 the events given thus far and those that follow. 
 Naomi, evidently disappointed that the kindly 
 attentions of Boaz had not resulted in his taking 
 the part of kinsman and providing for the future 
 
 ' II Sam. 23:14-15.
 
 Ruth — The Immigrant 79 
 
 of Ruth, determined to take matters into her own 
 hands. She reminded Ruth of an old law that no 
 Ruth at the Hebrew family should be allowed to 
 Threshing- die out, but that it was the duty 
 of the nearest kinsman to buy the 
 property and marry the widow that the name of the 
 family might be preserved.' Whereupon Naomi 
 proposed a plan by which Ruth was to claim 
 Boaz as the kinsman whose duty it was to marry 
 her and become her protector. Accordingly Ruth 
 was to go to the threshing-floor on the night of the 
 winnowing of the harvest, and when Boaz had 
 lain him down to sleep, Ruth was to place herself 
 at his feet as a reminder of a kinsman's duty. 
 
 To us the plan seems most hazardous and ques- 
 tionable, although there may have been some cus- 
 tom of the time which sanctioned it. Ruth's 
 confidence in Naomi was sufficient to enable her 
 to agree to the plan, while her own strength of 
 character was met by the strong sense of honor 
 for womanhood which Boaz displayed as he 
 accepted the responsibility which she suggested. 
 
 The interest which Naomi felt for Ruth's future 
 may be measured by the joy which she expressed 
 at Ruth's success, while the fact that Boaz was 
 not entirely indifferent may be gathered from the 
 promptness with he sought to bring about the ful- 
 filment of his promise. 
 
 • Deut. 25:5.
 
 8o Lives Worth Living 
 
 But Naomi has a nearer kinsman than Boaz. 
 
 This kinsman Boaz meets at the city gate (the 
 
 place where pubHc business was 
 
 Boaz at the ■, . i. j\ j -ii. 
 
 City Gate always transacted), and with a jury 
 
 of elders, the matter of redeeming 
 the land that was Elimelech's is presented. Al- 
 though the relative will buy the land, he is unwilling 
 to take Ruth as his wife, so, according to ancient 
 custom, he removes his shoe and gives it to Boaz, 
 thus renouncing his right of redemption. Here 
 is another ancient custom, as little known to us as 
 the gleaning of grain, or the duty of a kinsman. 
 To hand one's shoe to another in the presence of 
 one's neighbors was, for the people of that time, a 
 solemn contract, while the tribunal of ten elders 
 of the city was as truly a court of justice as our 
 Supreme Court of today. 
 
 The decision of the near kinsman made it 
 
 possible for Boaz to fulfil his promise to Ruth. 
 
 Naomi's solicitation was at an end. 
 
 Boaz Marries j^^^j^,^ faithfulness had its reward. 
 
 Later history distinguished her, for 
 her son became the grandfather of King David; 
 while a later descendant was none other than Jesus, 
 the son of Mary. 
 
 Thus it is that ''the eyes of Jehovah are toward 
 the righteous," and the story ends with an attract- 
 ive picture of simple family life of which Naomi 
 is the center, with little Obed in her arms.
 
 Ruth — The Immigrant 8i 
 
 Central Idea of the Story 
 
 The land and religion of Israel were not for her- 
 self alone, but also for the stranger within her gates. 
 
 "In every nation he that feareth him [God], and 
 worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him" 
 
 (Acts 10:35). 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. When was the story of Ruth probably written 
 and what was the object of the author in writing it ? 
 
 2. Mention some features of the agricultural life 
 which forms the background of the story, and name 
 the principal characters. 
 
 3. What reason had Elimelech and his family for 
 leaving their Bethlehem home ? Mention other occa- 
 sions where a similar exigency has changed the history of 
 a people. 
 
 4. What place became Elimelech 's new home and 
 what important events occurred within the next 
 few years in his family ? 
 
 5. What influenced Ruth the Moabitess to become 
 an inhabitant of Judah ? What did it mean to Naomi 
 to have Ruth return with her ? What did it mean to 
 Ruth? 
 
 6. What must have been the character of Ruth to 
 call out such courtesy and consideration from every'one ? 
 What beautiful expression of her love did she offer to 
 Naomi ? Memorize this. 
 
 7. Who was Boaz ? How did he become acquainted 
 with Ruth ? What strong qualities do you find in his
 
 82 ■ Lives Worth Living 
 
 character? In what ways did he show his regard for 
 Ruth? 
 
 8. What Hebrew custom did Naomi depend upon in 
 her plan for Ruth's future ? What other ancient cus- 
 toms are spoken of in the narrative ?' 
 
 9. What elements of character in both Ruth and 
 Boaz are to be found in the scene at the threshing- 
 floor? 
 
 10. Give in your own words the story of what 
 happened at the "gate of the city," and tell how the 
 future of both Ruth and Naomi was affected by it. 
 
 11. Mention several instances of family affection 
 revealed in this lesson, also several incidents which 
 emphasize the finer side of early Hebrew life. 
 
 12. Compare the picture of Naomi at the beginning 
 of the story and the picture with which the story ends. 
 
 13. What decisions prompted by affection shaped 
 the future career of the different persons in the 
 story ? 
 
 *i4i Mention several modern instances in which 
 one's affections have been decisive in shaping one's 
 career. 
 
 15. How does this story illustrate the value of the 
 religious life in everyday affairs ? 
 
 16. What great king was a descendant of Ruth three 
 generations later ? Do you find in him any qualities 
 he might have inherited from his great-grandmother ? 
 
 *i7. In what respects was the arrival of Ruth in a 
 strange land similar to that of immigrant women com- 
 ing to our land today ? What consideration did Ruth 
 
 ' Consult Deut., chaps. 24 and 25; also Le.'., chaps. 19 and 25.
 
 Ruth — The Immigrant 83 
 
 receive that most of our young immigrants do not ? 
 What sacrifice did she make ? 
 
 *i8. What value has the story with reference to our 
 attitude toward the foreigner? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 *Exposiior's Bible, "The Book of Ruth." 
 Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible. 
 
 Matheson, George, Representative Women oj the Bible, chap, viii, 
 "Ruth the Decided."
 
 CHAPTER IV— LESSON VIII 
 Women Immigrants in America 
 
 America the Beautiful' 
 
 O beautiful for spacious skies, 
 
 For amber waves of grain, 
 For purple mountain majesties 
 
 Above the fruited plain! 
 America! America! 
 
 God shed His grace on thee 
 And crown thy good with brotherhood 
 
 From sea to shining sea! 
 
 O beautiful for pilgrim feet, 
 
 Whose stern, impassioned stress 
 A thoroughfare for freedom beat 
 
 Across the wilderness! 
 America! America! 
 
 God mend thine every flaw, 
 Confirm thy soul in self-control 
 
 Thy liberty in law ! 
 
 beautiful for heroes proved 
 
 In liberating strife, 
 Who more than self their country loved, 
 
 And mercy more than life! 
 America! America! 
 
 May God thy gold refine, 
 Till all success be nobleness. 
 
 And every gain divine! 
 
 O beautiful for patriot dream 
 
 That sees beyond the years 
 Thine alabaster cities gleam 
 Undimmed by human tears! 
 
 America! America! 
 God shed His grace on thee 
 And crown thy good with brotherhood 
 From sea to shining sea! 
 
 — Katharine Lee Bates 
 ' Reprinted by permission. 
 
 84
 
 Women Immigrants in America 
 
 85
 
 86 Lives Worth Living 
 
 "To the Christian the immigrant is not a problem, 
 but an opportunity. He will be a problem only as 
 we fail to grasp our opportunity." — Professor E. A. 
 Steiner. 
 
 Aspects of the Subject 
 
 The important migratory movements of history. 
 
 The conditions that cause immigration. Immigra- 
 tion laws. 
 
 The national life and customs of the immigrant; 
 also their leaders and heroes. 
 
 National ideals in America and woman's share in 
 their preservation. 
 
 Ellis Island— the gateway of the nation. 
 
 Women immigrants: their occupation; needs; diffi- 
 culties; privileges; dangers. 
 
 A survey of the immigrant women of one's own 
 city or community. 
 
 The opportunity of the church for work among im- 
 migrant women. Their response. The difficulty of 
 the task. 
 
 Other uplifting agencies. 
 
 General Survey 
 
 There is no great nation of ancient or modern 
 times but can tell its own story of migration. The 
 twelfth chapter of Exodus tells of a great company 
 of Israelites passing out of Egypt across the Red 
 Sea into the wilderness. Why did they go ? Why 
 was it that the Goths left their homes for the plains 
 of Italy? What drove those Protestant families
 
 Women Immigrants in America 87 
 
 from their beloved France into an England which 
 they helped to make famous with their arts and 
 crafts ? What turned the great tide of Irish toward 
 the land of plenty across the Atlantic? What 
 caused the first migration of the Chinese to 
 America ? All of these events, and many like them, 
 had their beginnings in oppression, persecution, 
 famine, war, or desire for material betterment. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the earliest immi- 
 grants to America were Christian, at least in 
 name. Colonists then came to this country for 
 the sake of freedom to worship God according to 
 their own conscience, while today most of them 
 come for political or economic reasons. Hard times 
 in Europe lead the people to think of America, and 
 the news of high wages, building enterprises, and 
 opportunity for their children are a few of the 
 factors that increase immigration. 
 
 A knowledge of the national life and customs of 
 the immigrant is, therefore, quite necessary for 
 a just understanding of the real character of these 
 strangers who come to our shores. Men and 
 women everywhere have a desire for the respect 
 of others, whatever their nationality. They do 
 not feel justly treated when they are judged by the 
 worst characteristics of their race. We are better 
 able to emphasize the qualities of Lincoln and 
 Washington when we can interpret them through 
 the life and character of their Mazzini, Garibaldi,
 
 88 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Tzeckeny, or Kossuth. We are proud of our 
 national ideals. Do we forget that a Pulaski 
 and a Kosciusko and many another "Pole" 
 helped us win our independence ? We repeat the 
 names of our famous men with just pride, and they 
 match them with those of Michelangelo, Luther, 
 Dante, Savonarola, Chopin, and Marconi. 
 
 National ideals for Christian citizenship in 
 America center around the home, the school, the 
 church, and the state. Many of these ideals our 
 Puritan foremothers brought with them when they 
 came as immigrants to the shores of America. In 
 the words of the hymn, 
 
 Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God 
 Came with those exiles o'er the waves; 
 
 And where their pilgrim feet have trod, 
 
 The God they trusted guards their graves.' 
 
 In those early days women's ideals were largely 
 measured by their individual and family responsi- 
 bilities. Then as the years passed and as the 
 spirit of freedom enlarged their opportunities, 
 and as transportation gradually brought the more 
 remote parts of the country together, women saw 
 that they could help to build an intelligent Chris- 
 tian nation and they accepted this enlarged service 
 and added those of the state to the ideals for which 
 they were already striving. The women of this 
 nation have always believed that ignorance is the 
 cause of degradation and that only "in righteous- 
 
 ' Dr. Leonard Bacon.
 
 Women Immigrants in America 89 
 
 ness shalt thou [the nation] be established" (Isa. 
 54:14). The history of their self-sacrificing devo- 
 tion through many years reveals a noble attempt 
 to establish these ideals and to make and keep the 
 nation Christian. 
 
 Women began by helping in the reHgious and 
 educational problems of their own community, 
 which before long became as an ever-widening 
 frontier stretching finally across the entire North- 
 west. This already great task was further en- 
 larged at the time of the Civil War, when the new 
 and almost appalling needs of the colored race 
 were presented. In conjunction with various 
 organizations, schools were established, churches 
 built, home-making taught, and after men had 
 emancipated their bodies, women joined with men 
 in the emancipation of their souls. Naturally the 
 next call for help came from the negroes' nearest 
 neighbors, the mountain whites of the Southland. 
 Then, jealous for the homes of the nation, Christian 
 womanhood exposed the dangerous teaching of 
 Mormonism and the evils of intemperance. Mean- 
 while, through all these years, there were pouring 
 into the country the thousands to whom, in some 
 way, America represented the Promised Land. 
 
 No limit has yet been reached by the various 
 ministries of the American Christian women on 
 behalf of their needy sisters of unfamiliar dress 
 and speech, poor, oppressed, and ignorant though 
 they be. Through the schools, churches, libraries,
 
 90 Lives Worth Living 
 
 immigrant homes, leagues, labor unions, settle- 
 ments, and many other such agencies, the women of 
 America are endeavoring to ojffer a Christian wel- 
 come and to speak to the immigrant woman in a 
 language which she can understand. 
 
 One has only to stand on the pier at Ellis Island 
 and watch the landing of thousands of immigrants 
 to have the question arise, "What do these people 
 seek in America, and what ideals do they bring 
 with them?" Unacquainted with our language 
 and customs, and with all their possessions on their 
 backs, these people will develop a loyalty to the 
 country that is to be their new home which will 
 be largely determined by the friendly hand that 
 welcomes them. If unscrupulous agencies initiate 
 them into our American life, they will make 
 undesirable citizens. It is good to know that men 
 and women of true Christian character, supported 
 by our churches, stand at this gateway of the nation 
 to extend to these strangers the hand of neighborli- 
 ness, warning them of dangers, and pointing out 
 the uplifting agencies all about them. 
 
 Although in this lesson we wish to give special 
 thought to the woman immigrant, it is quite 
 impossible in most cases to separate her from the 
 others of her family. As Mary Antin has said in 
 her autobiography. The Promised Land, "solitary 
 success is imperfect success in the unmigrant's 
 eyes. He must take his family with him as he 
 rises."
 
 Women Immigrants in America 91 
 
 According to the report of the United States 
 Immigration Commission, over fifty-five thousand 
 girls landed at Ellis Island in 191 2. Of these, 
 the largest proportion came from Polish, Slovak, 
 Bohemian, and German villages. Most of these 
 came from the peasant class and were ambitious 
 and industrious. After a year in this country, 
 they were better off financially than when they 
 came, yet they showed but little improvement in 
 other ways. Their difficulties in the way of self- 
 improvement were great. Take the case of one 
 of them as an example. "A girl seventeen years of 
 age left a farm in Galicia for Chicago, Illinois. 
 Her first work was scrubbing in a hotel from nine 
 in the morning until nine at night for six dollars a 
 week. She found this so hard that she sacrificed 
 a dollar a week for the privilege of beginning at 
 seven and quitting at seven. A year later, she 
 had the same hours with every other Sunday off, 
 but was getting a dollar a week more. Financially 
 she is better off than when she began. But al- 
 though she has been in Chicago nearly two years, 
 she can speak no English, because she gets home 
 from work too late to attend night school and no 
 one speaks to her during the day. She is not so 
 robust as she was when she came." This in 
 general is the story of the four hundred and thirty 
 Polish girls visited by the workers of the Immi- 
 grants' Protective League of Chicago during the 
 past year. The League further reports regarding
 
 92 Lives Worth Living 
 
 this group of girls: "The long hours of work leave 
 no leisure for recreation of any sort. In their 
 own country the girls have been accustomed to 
 out-of-door dances and sports. In Chicago, when 
 Saturday night comes, the demand for some sort of 
 excitement after a hard and uneventful week is too 
 strong to be ignored. The danger is that because 
 of her physical and nervous exhaustion and her 
 demand for acute sense-stimulation, the girl will 
 become an easy victim for the unscrupulous. The 
 neighboring saloonkeeper, alert to the business side 
 of her needs and demands, is constantly seeking 
 to attract her to the dance hall which he conducts in 
 the rear of his saloon." 
 
 But dangers surround the immigrant girl as 
 soon as she lands in America. Every year large 
 numbers of girls are lost and never reach their 
 destination. Unable to speak our language, they 
 are lured away or fall a victim to immoral agents 
 or irresponsible employment agencies. Unsafe 
 conditions at railroad stations, dishonest express- 
 men, wrong addresses, incompetent interpreters 
 are only some of the dangers which beset the un- 
 suspecting immigrant. 
 
 Most of the Lithuanian and Polish girls make a 
 great change in their mode of life on coming to 
 America. If they locate in a large city, as New 
 York or Chicago, they find only the hard monoto- 
 nous work of scrubbing, dishwashing, and heavy
 
 Women Immigrants in America 93 
 
 factory work. Because they arc big and strong, 
 the heaviest of the work is put upon them, although 
 their outdoor life on the farm was no preparation 
 for a twelve-hour day in a sub-basement in a big 
 city. 
 
 The Jewish women are, for the most part, 
 employed in the sewing trades. They learn Eng- 
 lish readily, and soon become Americanized. 
 From Austria-Hungary there come every year 
 Bohemians, Slovaks, and women of half a dozen 
 other groups. Most of these find employment 
 as servants, or work in laundries or restaurants. 
 While these girls have a safer, better living than 
 most of the other groups, their greatest danger is 
 from too rapid Americanization, which often leads 
 them to think that all their Old World ideals are to 
 be abandoned, and that in America they can follow 
 even a different moral code from the one their 
 mothers taught them. 
 
 Of the Italian women many are already married 
 when they come to America. These are not often 
 allowed to do work outside the home, so they help 
 out the family income by sewing on piecework and 
 by taking boarders. 
 
 "To preserve and keep whatever of value the 
 past life of the immigrant contained, and to bring 
 each in contact with a better type of Americans" 
 is a guiding principle in the work at Hull 
 House, Chicago. Consequently the people of that
 
 94 Lives Worth Living 
 
 neighborhood are encouraged to keep their national 
 hohdays, preserve their national dress, and use 
 the arts and crafts of earlier times. Their 
 Labor Museum is an attempt to preserve a rever- 
 ence for the past which the children of the immi- 
 grant are likely to lose. 
 
 Those organizations which send workers into the 
 homes of the immigrant fmd not only large families 
 crowded into small, dark, unhealthful rooms, but 
 also several boarders, usually single men, who, 
 not infrequently, sleep during the day in rooms 
 the family occupy at night. In many of these 
 homes the mother is out at work all day, leaving 
 the children to care for themselves between school 
 hours. And why do they do this? "Those 
 mothers — some of them widowed — would say, 
 'I'm working to give the children a chance. I 
 want them to have more education than I had ' ; or, 
 'I dont want to spoil my boy's start, even though 
 his father is dead'; or another, 'It's different in 
 America. The boy gets left if he isn't educated.' 
 There was always a willingness, even among the 
 poorest women, to keep on with the hard night 
 scrubbing or the long days of working for the 
 children's sake."' 
 
 To receive into this country year by year 
 thousands of people differing in speech, custom, 
 and religion, and to blend them into one people, 
 
 ' Twenty Years at Hull House, p. 205.
 
 Women Immigrants in America 95 
 
 seems an impossible task, yet in many ways it is 
 being accomplished. The government regulations 
 in regard to the admission of approximately three 
 thousand a day through the entire year reveal the 
 importance of just and strict immigration laws. 
 At the chief gateway, Ellis Island, New York, 
 there are six hundred and fifty government officials, 
 and also representatives of missionary and phil- 
 anthropic societies. Nothing is more indicative 
 of America's open door than this welcome, coming 
 in their own language and proffering every kind of 
 human service. 
 
 Among the uplifting agencies that are grappling 
 with this great task, perhaps none is working more 
 effectively than the public schools. These help 
 to make different nationalities friendly and to 
 break down the barrier of race prejudice. It was 
 found in 191 2 that 57.8 per cent of the pupils in the 
 public schools were children of foreigners. As a 
 teacher in a New York school expressed it, " Chil- 
 dren of twenty-nine nationalities enter our school; 
 they go out one nationality." 
 
 Public libraries with special attendants for non- 
 English departments; bureaus of immigration 
 that care for property rights and personal liberty; 
 immigrants' protective leagues as generous helpers 
 of the confused and helpless stranger; national 
 societies that care for those of their particular 
 nation; the labor unions; Young Men's and
 
 96 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Young Women's Christian Associations; settle- 
 ments; churches — all are seeking to do their part 
 to make the immigrant a self-supporting, self- 
 respecting citizen. 
 
 Among these immigrants who come to us a large 
 number rigidly adhere to the Roman Catholic, 
 or Greek Orthodox, or Jewish faith. Of those 
 who belong to the various Protestant denomina- 
 tions many hold to their religious traditions, and 
 need only neighborly consideration and some 
 financial backing to establish their own religious 
 institutions. But, there are also many who have 
 renounced all religion, and have lapsed into indiffer- 
 ence and evil, while others are groping for a more 
 satisfying faith than they have as yet known. 
 Often, too, when the parents hold fast to their 
 ancestral and traditional faith, the children break 
 loose from the old traditions, and are in special 
 need of care and training. But, as Professor 
 E. A. Steiner says, "No matter from where the 
 immigrant has come appealing for a chance to earn 
 wages or respect, he is entitled to it, for he has 
 travelled far, has braved much, has suffered more. 
 He may be crude, illiterate, and unkempt, yet he 
 is a brother-man struggling upward, often blindly, 
 not knowing the way, thinking that the crooked is 
 straight and the ill good. Whoever, whatever he 
 is, he deserves our respect, if only for the spark of 
 the divine flame within him. We shall never win
 
 Women Immigrants in America 97 
 
 the stranger to us unless wc grant him that which 
 is often more precious than our bread or our wage." 
 
 Through its various missionary agencies, the 
 Protestant church is showing itself a friend to "the 
 stranger within our gates." Churches of every 
 denomination have various social ministries which 
 preach the gospel of brotherhood, and which reveal 
 to the indifferent and often prejudiced immigrant 
 that the church in America is the champion of the 
 weak. 
 
 Through personal evangelism and social ministry 
 the church is to win the immigrant. However well 
 organized our churches and organizations, yet 
 it is always personal work done hy and for the 
 individual that is of highest value. "There is no 
 larger service to be rendered to America, to human- 
 ity, and to our Lord, than for Christian men and 
 women to show by manner and by deed that they 
 count as brethren and welcome their new neighbors 
 from over the sea. Having first done this in a 
 general and unmistakable way, then to sit down 
 beside them, one by one, before an open Bible and 
 teach them at the same time the language which 
 they so much need, and, through the biblical 
 material, the ideas and spirit which have made the 
 best of the nation what it is, this is one of the most 
 God-like services in which any follower of Christ 
 can engage."^ 
 
 ' Lemuel C. Barnes.
 
 98 Lives Worth Living 
 
 For Continued Thought 
 
 "One is your Master, even the Christ, .... 
 and all ye are brethren" (Matt. 23:10, 8). 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. What are the sources of our national ideals? 
 How may these ideals be preserved ? 
 
 2. What nationalities were the earliest contributors 
 to our American life ? 
 
 3. Of what value is it to study the problems of later 
 immigration ? 
 
 4. What conditions cause immigration? Mention 
 three of the best things that America offers the immi- 
 grant. 
 
 5. What gifts and traits of character in the immi- 
 grants of today are a valuable asset in the national 
 life and broader culture of the American ? 
 
 6. What occupations are possible for women immi- 
 grants ? What changes do they find in their environ- 
 ment? 
 
 7. What agencies are at work for the betterment of 
 the woman immigrant? What dangers are to be 
 avoided? What is the most needed service that we 
 can render the immigrant? 
 
 8. What part may be taken by the church in the 
 guidance and training of the immigrant ? What may 
 be done by your own particular church ? What share 
 may you take ? 
 
 9. How important is this work ? What conditions 
 make it difficult ? How significant may be the results ?
 
 Women Immigrants in Ami:rica 99 
 
 *io. Make a study of immigrant conditions in your 
 nearest city or immediate community. 
 
 *ii. Study the work of at least one agency which 
 is doing effective service in character-building among 
 immigrants, such as the McCrum Slavonic Training 
 School at Uniontown, Pennsylvania; the Schauffler 
 Training School in Cleveland, Ohio; also the many 
 settlements and other agencies which may have come 
 to your personal attention. 
 
 *i2. It will be helpful in connection with this lesson 
 
 to trace at least one of the great migratory movements 
 
 of history. 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House, chap. xi. 
 *Antin, Mary, The Promised Land. 
 fBaptist Missionary Training School, Chicago. Leaflets. 
 Barnes, Mary C. and Lemuel C, The New America. 
 Barnes, Mary C, Early Stories and Songs for Neiv Students in 
 
 English. F. H. Revell Co. 60 cents. 
 Conservation of National Ideals (various authors). F. H. Revell 
 
 Co. 
 Craig, Laura G., America, God's Melting Pot. 
 fGovernment Reports of the Immigration Commission, Wash- 
 ington, D.C. 
 Grose, Howard B., Aliens or Americans, and The Incoming 
 
 Millions. 
 Hemans, Felicia D., "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New 
 
 England." 
 flmmigrants' Protective League, Chicago. Reports. 
 tMcCrum Slavonic Training School, Uniontown, Pa. Leaflet. 
 Priddly, Al., Through the Mill. 
 jSchauSier Missionary Training School, Cleveland, Ohio. Pam 
 
 phlets. 
 *Steiner, Professor E. A., The Trail of the Immigrant, and From 
 Alien to Citizen, An Autobiography.
 
 CHAPTER V— LESSON IX 
 LYDIA— A CHRISTIAN BUSINESS WOMAN 
 
 "If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, 
 come into my house, and abide there."' 
 
 "I thank my God upon all my remembrance of you, 
 always in every supplication of mine on behalf of you 
 all making my supplication with joy, for your fellowship 
 in furtherance of the gospel from the first day until now; 
 being confident of this very thing, that he who began a 
 good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus 
 Christ."^ 
 
 The Bible Story 
 
 And they [Paul and his companions] went through 
 the region of Phrygia and Galatia .... and passing 
 by Mysia, they came down to Troas. 
 Phiii^r^*^ And a vision appeared to Paul in the 
 night: There was a man of Macedonia 
 standing, beseeching him, and saying, Come over into 
 Macedonia, and help us. And when he [Paul] had seen 
 the vision, straightway we [Paul and'^his friends] sought 
 to go forth into Macedonia, concluding that God had 
 called us to preach the gospel unto them. 
 
 Setting sail therefore from Troas, we made a straight 
 course to Samothrace, and the day following to Neapo- 
 lis; and from thence to Philippi, which is a city of Mace- 
 
 ■ Acts 16:15. ' Phil. 1:3-6. 
 
 100
 
 Lydia — A Christian Business Woman ioi 
 
 donia, the first of the district, a Roman colony: and we 
 were in this city tarrying certain days (Acts 16:6-12). 
 And on the sabbath day we went forth without the 
 gate by a river side, where we supposed there was a 
 place of prayer; and we sat down, and 
 Conversion spake unto the women that were come 
 
 of Lydia ^ 
 
 together. And a certain woman named 
 Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one 
 that worshiped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord 
 opened to give heed unto the things which were spoken 
 by Paul. And when she was baptized, and her house- 
 hold, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to 
 be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide 
 there. And she constrained us (Acts 16:13-15). 
 
 And it came to pass, as we were going to the place of 
 prayer, that a certain maid having a spirit of divination 
 Paul Heals the ^^^ ^^' ^^° brought her masters much 
 Slave Girl and gain by soothsaying. The same foUow- 
 Is Imprisoned j^^g ^^^^^ p^^j^ _ _ [j^g| ^^^j^^g ^^^^ 
 
 troubled, turned and said to the spirit, I charge thee in 
 the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it 
 came out that very hour. 
 
 But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain 
 was gone, they laid hold on Paul and Silas, and dragged 
 them into the marketplace before the rulers, and when 
 they had brought them unto the magistrates, they said. 
 These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, 
 and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to 
 receive, or to observe, being Romans. And the multi- 
 tude rose up together against them: and the magis- 
 trates rent their garments off them, and commanded to
 
 I02 Lives Worth Livmc 
 
 beat them witli rods. And when tliey had laid many 
 stripes upon them, they cast them into prison (Acts 
 i6: 16-23). 
 
 But when it was day, the magistrates sent the ser- 
 geants, saying. Let those men go But Paul said 
 
 unto them. They have beaten us pub- 
 thTcit^*^*^ licly, uncondemned, men that are Ro- 
 mans, and have cast us into prison; .... 
 let them come themselves and bring us out .... and 
 when they [the magistrates] had brought them out, they 
 asked them to go away from the city. And they went 
 out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia: 
 and when they had seen the brethren, they comforted 
 them, and departed (Acts 16:35-40). 
 
 An Interpretation of the Story 
 
 The apostle Paul was easily the foremost among 
 the early missionaries of the Christian church. 
 Not content to preach to a single con- 
 Phiiippt' ^ °^ gregation, he visited new lands and 
 foreign cities, enduring many hard- 
 ships and meeting great dangers. Obedient to his 
 heavenly vision (Acts 9:3-9), he lived and 
 preached and worked to enkindle in others his 
 great passion for his master, Jesus the Christ. 
 
 Thus it was that he traveled much and in each 
 city that he visited gathered together those who 
 would listen to him, instructing them and estab- 
 lishing in them a faith which, like his own, was 
 strong enough to endure ridicule and persecution.
 
 Lydia— A Christian Business Woman 103 
 
 It was on one of these missionary journeys that 
 Paul, accompanied by his friends Silas and Timo- 
 thy, passed through the region of Phrygia and 
 Galatia in Western Asia Minor and finally reached 
 Troas located on the shore of the Aegean Sea. 
 Here he was joined by Luke, a physician, who was 
 ever afterward one of Paul's closest friends and 
 also his historian. 
 
 In response to a dream or a vision, in which a 
 man of Macedonia seemed to be beckoning for help, 
 Paul and his companions decided to go across the 
 Aegean Sea into Europe, and so set sail for Philippi, 
 a Roman city in Macedonia, nearly ten miles from 
 the coast. 
 
 Landing at Neapolis, the seaport of Philippi, 
 Paul and his friends followed the great Roman road 
 which led to the city itself. 
 
 Philippi of Macedonia had received its name 
 from Philip, father of Alexander the Great, and 
 with its gold mines and special privileges as a 
 Roman colony was an important center. The city 
 was also famous as the place at which Augustus 
 and Mark Antony overthrew Brutus and Cassius 
 in one of the important battles of the world. 
 
 The two days' journey across the Aegean Sea and 
 the walk from Neapolis to Philippi made the rest of 
 a few days very welcome to Paul and his friends, so 
 they found lodgings in the city and sought for a 
 synagogue in which they might speak.
 
 I04 Lives Worth Living 
 
 As Philippi was a military rather than a trading 
 
 city, but few Jews lived there. Indeed, although 
 
 only ten learned, influential Jews were 
 
 to the Women needed to establish a synagogue, 
 
 at the River there was none there. But the few 
 Side 
 
 Philippian Jews were not unfaithful 
 
 to their religion or neglectful of its observance. 
 When Paul and his companions on the Sabbath 
 went out beyond the city gate to a place by the 
 river side, where they supposed there was a place 
 of prayer, they found a group of worshipers honor- 
 ing the God of their fathers and keeping alive the 
 memory of the ways in which he had led them. We 
 are not told whether they met in a small room 
 or in an open space where something like a way- 
 side shrine may have marked the place. We 
 only know that it was a company of women who 
 gathered that Sabbath morning on the bank of 
 the river, to whom Paul preached the redeeming 
 love of Christ. 
 
 Although it was a small congregation, it must 
 have been a powerful sermon, in which Paul tried 
 to prove that Christianity was for the stranger 
 and the foreigner as well as for the Jew; and that 
 righteousness by the Law must give way before 
 righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. 
 
 Though Paul would quote largely from the He- 
 brew Scriptures to show that Jesus of Nazareth was 
 Israel's long expected Messiah, yet as he looked
 
 Lydia— A Christian Business Woman 105 
 
 into the faces of those Jewish women, he may well 
 have been reminded of certain events in the life of 
 Jesus which revealed his compassion for women and 
 little children. 
 
 The occasion promised nothing unusual or note- 
 worthy. No synagogue, no crowd, no great enthu- 
 siasm to greet the noble preacher Paul. Only a 
 simple prayer-meeting in a quiet, restful place out- 
 side the city gates. This might have presented a 
 discouraging contrast to several of Paul's brilliant 
 successes in Galatia, but it proved a great enough 
 occasion for God to use in carrying the gospel to a 
 new continent. 
 
 Among the women present who listened so in- 
 tently was Lydia, a native of Thyatira in Asia, 
 L dia Becomes ^^*^' ^^^ough not of Jcwish birth, wor- 
 a Christian shiped God. It would scem that she 
 was a widow, and must have been a 
 person of some prominence, for she had a house 
 large enough in which to entertain Paul and his 
 companions, and a business as a seller of purple 
 dyes or dyed cloths for which Thyatira was famous. 
 Paul's message found a response in her heart, 
 "whose heart the Lord opened to give heed unto 
 the things which were spoken," and, later, she and 
 all her household were baptized, Lydia thus becom- 
 ing Europe's first Christian convert. 
 
 We are assisted by only a few bold strokes 
 in our picture of Lydia; our own imagination and
 
 io6 Lives Worth Living 
 
 experience must fill in the details. History has 
 preserved but one sentence that she uttered, yet 
 that reveals much of her character. 
 Lydia *^ ^"^ ° "If ye havc judged me to be faith- 
 ful to the Lord, come into my house, 
 and abide there." 
 
 She spoke as a woman who was not only inde- 
 pendent of others, but as one who exercised over 
 them considerable control, for all her household 
 followed her in this acceptance of the new faith. 
 We gain the impression that she was not only a 
 business woman, but an efficient business woman, 
 "whose word was as good as her bond," whose dye- 
 stuffs would meet every requirement of her cus- 
 tomers, and whose employees were sure of just 
 treatment and personal consideration. Her new 
 religion seemed to carry with it the consecration of 
 all she possessed, as she opened her home so hos- 
 pitably to these Jewish strangers. 
 
 The suspicion with which these foreign preachers 
 were likely to be regarded and the prejudice which 
 .,.,,„ the more or less exaggerated accounts 
 
 Lydia's New ^ °o 
 
 Religion and of their doctrines would arouse may 
 very likely have interfered with the 
 business of their converts, and so have caused 
 Lydia considerable financial loss. That these 
 Christians often spoke of Jesus as the King over all 
 may easily have led to the belief on the part of 
 these Roman colonists as they heard of Paul's 
 teachings Sabbath by Sabbath outside the city gate
 
 Lydia — A Christian Business Woman 107 
 
 that he had some design against the Roman govern- 
 ment and was organizing a political revolt. 
 
 That Paul and his companions had left their 
 hired lodging and come to Lydia's home for the 
 remainder of their stay in Philippi fully identified 
 Lydia with their teachings, and it is quite probable 
 that the distrust which was felt for Paul touched 
 Lydia also, causing, possibly, the severing of some 
 friendships as well as a falling off in the sale of her 
 purple dyes. Later events proved that Lydia's 
 faith was not dependent upon personal gains and 
 that her courage in the face of grave dangers never 
 wavered. Suspicions and dislikes did not prevent 
 Paul and Silas from speaking boldly to the people 
 or meeting with Lydia and the other women at their 
 accustomed place of prayer, for it was these very 
 gatherings by the river side that were the begin- 
 nings of a church in Philippi, to whom Paul, some 
 years later, sent the most personal and aflfectionate 
 of all his letters. 
 
 It is probable that Lydia was an influential mem- 
 ber of the church at Philippi, and it is not improb- 
 able that her conversion had something to do with 
 the rise of the church in her native city of Thyatira, 
 of which we read in Rev. 2:18. 
 
 One day as Paul and Silas were going to the river 
 side for their service, they were met by a slave girl 
 who by some sort of fortune-telling earned much 
 money for her masters. Her cries greatly annoyed 
 Paul and his companions, and they finally healed
 
 io8 Lives Worth Living 
 
 the girl, thus ruining her masters' business. En- 
 raged at this, these men instigated a popular 
 Paul's Kindness Uprising against the apostles, so great 
 to the Slave that even the magistrates hastened to 
 
 Girl and Its . 
 
 Effect upon ally themselves with it, and had Paul 
 the People ^^^ gji^^g pubHcly scourged and im- 
 prisoned. After a remarkable deliverance, Lydia 
 hastened to welcome them again to her home, in 
 spite of the intense prejudice against them in 
 the city. Indeed, so strong was this prejudice 
 that the magistrates asked the apostles to leave 
 Philippi, which they promised to do after they 
 had seen their friends and assured them of their 
 safety. 
 
 Business interests, friends, position were all en- 
 dangered by Lydia as she took her place bravely 
 
 beside the apostles and made her 
 Lydia **^ "^°° home theirs as long as they were in 
 
 the city. Ridicule, ostracism, busi- 
 ness failure might all have to be endured for her 
 religious faith. But her final reward was the same 
 as that of Mary of Bethany, for "wheresoever this 
 gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that 
 also which this woman hath done shall be spoken 
 of for a memorial of her." And we of the present 
 day continue to do her honor. 
 
 Central Idea of the Story 
 
 A business woman of ancient Philippi was able 
 to be true to her faith amid difficulties.
 
 Lydia — A Christian Business Woman 109 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. What brought Paul to Philippi ? Locate the city 
 and describe it. 
 
 2. What friends did Paul have with him? What 
 welcome did they receive on their arrival ? 
 
 3. Who was Lydia? What was her occupation ? In 
 what ways did she reveal her strong interest in religion 
 before Paul's arrival ? 
 
 4. Describe Paul's first acquaintance with Lydia. 
 Why is that obscure prayer-meeting at the river side 
 considered a great event in church history ? 
 
 *5. In the light of the future history of the church, 
 how significant was the conversion of Lydia ? Mention 
 other examples of large results from small beginnings. 
 
 6. Of whom do you imagine Lydia's household may 
 have consisted? 
 
 7. What would lead you to think that Lydia was a 
 prominent resident of Philippi? What makes you 
 think that she was an efficient business woman ? 
 
 8. What hospitality was Lydia able to show her new 
 friends ? 
 
 9. Contrast with the business of Lydia the business 
 of the owners of the slave girl, who placed money values 
 above human values. 
 
 ID. Recall the accusation made by the masters of the 
 slave girl against Paul, and mention similar cases of 
 race prejudice. 
 
 11. Co.itrast the effect of Christianity upon Paul's 
 accusers and his hostess. 
 
 12. Would Lydia find difl&culty in maintaining her 
 Christian position ? Would her new faith interfere in 
 any way with her business ?
 
 no Lives Worth Living 
 
 13. Did it require more courage for Lydia to accept 
 Christianity in the first place or to maintain it after the 
 apostles left the city ? 
 
 *i4. What church was formed as a result of Paul's 
 preaching in this city? What affectionate letter did 
 he write to them? Read it in full. 
 
 15. Compare Lydia, the Christian business woman 
 of Philippi, and the Christian business woman of today ? 
 
 16. Mention the names of successful business women 
 of whom you have known or heard. What was the 
 effect of their religion upon their business ? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 Bird, Robert, Pajil of Tarsus, pp. 247-64. 
 Conybeare and Hawson, Life and Epistles' of the Apostle Paul. 
 Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, articles "Philippi" and "Lydia." 
 Ramsay, W. M., St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen.
 
 CHAPTER V— LESSON X 
 Woman's Place in Industry 
 
 "All that gives value to manufactured articles is their 
 relation to human life. When human life is sacrificed to 
 the production of things, it is obvious perversion."' 
 
 A Prayer for Women Who ToiP 
 
 " God, we pray Thee for our sisters who are leaving 
 the ancient shelter of the home to earn their wage in the 
 factory and the store amid the press of modern life. 
 Save them from the strain of unremitting toil that 
 would unfit them for the holy duties of home and 
 motherhood; which the future may lay upon them. 
 Give them grace to cherish under the new surroundings 
 the old sweetness and gentleness of womanhood and in 
 the rough mingling of life to keep their hearts pure and 
 their lives untarnished. Save them from the terrors of 
 utter want. Teach them to stand loyally by their sis- 
 ters, that by united action they may better their com- 
 mon lot. 
 
 "If it must be so that our women toil like men, help 
 us still to reverence in them the mothers of the future. 
 But make us determined to shield them from unequal 
 burdens, that the women of our nation be not drained 
 of strength and hope, for the enrichment of a few, lest 
 
 • J. H. Ecob, Work Versus the Worker. 
 ' Walter C. Rauschenbusch.
 
 112 
 
 Lives Worth Living
 
 Woman's Place in Industry 113 
 
 our homes grow poor in the wifely sweetness and 
 motherly love which have been the saving strength and 
 glory of our country. To such as yearn for the love 
 and sovereign freedom of their own home, grant in due 
 time the fulfilment of their sweet desires. By Mary, 
 the beloved, who bore the world's redemption in her 
 bosom; by the memory of our own dear mothers who 
 kissed our souls awake; by the little daughters who 
 must soon go out into the world which we are now 
 fashioning for others, we beseech Thee that we may deal 
 aright by all women." 
 
 Aspects of the Subject 
 
 A worthy conception of human labor. 
 The needs of the women who toil. 
 Conditions which surround women in industry. 
 The wage problem. 
 
 Women's organizations for industrial betterment. 
 Legislation for women in industry. 
 Welfare work and other agencies for the improve- 
 ment of the condition of working women. 
 
 General Survey 
 
 The large number of women seeking employment 
 in the industrial world today creates conditions that 
 every thoughtful person should consider. The 
 story of Lydia suggested how a woman in business, 
 herself an employer of others, lived righteously and 
 religiously. We have the same problem. Not 
 only do some women engage in manufacturing or
 
 114 Lives Worth Living 
 
 mercantile business as employers, but thousands of 
 householders employ other women in their homes. 
 But the aspect of the subject ''Women in Business" 
 which is most pressing today is, not how to induce 
 women employers to act righteously, but how we 
 shall bring it about that women who are employed, 
 often by corporations, shall be sure of righteous 
 and considerate treatment. 
 
 Work under healthful conditions is one of our 
 greatest blessings. But when the workman is 
 simply an attachment to a machine, with no 
 joy of creation, no chance for the development 
 of new plans in response to increased skill, then 
 work becomes drudgery and joy and ambition 
 disappear. 
 
 The many forms of industry transplanted from 
 the home to the factory; the large number of im- 
 migrant women and girls who come to this country 
 each year; the introduction of machinery, and the 
 increasing population in our cities are a few of the 
 many reasons for the presence of seven million 
 working women in the United States. 
 
 With the invention of power machinery, indus- 
 trial work in the home became economically im- 
 possible, and so was transferred to the factory, 
 where more and cheaper goods could be produced 
 by fewer people. And so the women who had in- 
 creased the family income by home production 
 could no longer do it in the same way, and were
 
 Woman's Place in Industry 115 
 
 obliged either to give up their work entirely or go 
 into the factories where the work was being done. 
 Here, driven by the force of competition and the 
 consumer's demand for cheap goods, the employee 
 was obliged to submit to low wages and long hours, 
 often under unsanitary conditions. 
 
 "What we need today is to get a clear view of the 
 beginning of this modern labor movement. How 
 did it come about that seven million women in the 
 United States are self-supporting and over three 
 million working for wages in factories, shops, and 
 stores — two hundred and fifty thousand wage- 
 earning girls being found in the state of Illinois 
 alone? The era of the machine was ushered in 
 about the beginning of our American republic, 
 when Watt's steam engine was applied to the power 
 loom and the manufacture of textiles became a 
 social industry owned by a few individuals. It 
 was in 1785 that the spinning wheel and the weav- 
 ing loom, which for centuries had been a part of the 
 household furniture, were transferred from the 
 cottages to the mill. The individual shuttle had 
 been taken out of the hand of the mother and 
 grandmother. It was multiplied a hundred fold and 
 run by a new power in a public place. This was 
 the first turn in the wheel that took much of 
 women's work out of the quiet privacy of the home 
 and placed it in the factory. In less than a century 
 and a half the clothes of the family, the household
 
 ii6 Lives Worth Living 
 
 furniture, the very house itself, became machine 
 made. The canning, sewing, washing and ironing, 
 and now even the house cleaning are done by steam 
 or electric power. We have seen how women and 
 children followed the family industries into the 
 larger world outside the home, and how every year 
 since, this has increased until we have millions of 
 this kind of cheap, unskilled, unorganized workers 
 doing an uneducational work."' 
 
 Work is the expenditure of both the mental and 
 physical force of the worker; hence all work upon 
 valueless objects, all unnecessary and meaningless 
 labor, should be avoided, while competition with 
 others should mean superior excellence in system, 
 method, and humane conditions, and not simply 
 the destruction of the competitors. 
 
 According to the industrial conditions of today, 
 the heaviest burden falls upon the woman wage- 
 earner, for she is the one who works the longest 
 hours for the lowest wages and assumes the great- 
 est risks. 
 
 Miss F. G. Ecob, secretary of the Joint Labor 
 Legislation Conference of New York, reports on 
 factory conditions in that city as follows: "There 
 is a system of speeding in many of our factories by 
 which the girls are driven mercilessly both by the 
 forelady and by the terrific velocity of the machines. 
 Some of the machines are geared up to 2,500 or 
 
 ' Mrs. Raymond Robins, Life and Labor.
 
 Woman's Place in Industry .117 
 
 3,000 stitches a minute, and where incessant con- 
 centration on the needle is absolutely necessary. 
 Often the strain is intensified by the fact that the 
 machines are so close together that the girls can 
 hardly stir without danger. In some industries the 
 danger is increased by the use of machines which 
 are operated largely by the weight of the worker. 
 In certain processes of the paper-box and laundry 
 trades, the worker throws her whole weight forward 
 onto a treadle as often as eighty times a minute. 
 Women who stand during a ten-hour day for any 
 considerable time develop broken arches, varicose 
 veins, and often more serious disorders. In certain 
 trades, such as artificial flower and feather making, 
 the fumes from the dyes are allowed to escape into 
 the room where the girls are working and the fine 
 fluff of the feathers fills the room like a haze. In 
 the human-hair-goods trade, the hair is imported 
 packed in a disinfecting powder and this is shaken 
 out in the room where the girls work, so that they 
 inhale it constantly." Surely this is not a picture 
 of the "joy of creation," or the working out of 
 ideals, or the expression of one's own personality, 
 but simply the "last attachment" to a machine! 
 
 In all our large cities, the army of young women 
 and girls who are employed in the large department 
 stores meet many dangers and difficulties. Long 
 hours and small pay make proper living conditions 
 almost impossible, except for the girl who lives at
 
 ii8 Lives Worth Living 
 
 home. Read the pamphlet issued by the Juvenile 
 Protective Association of Chicago entitled The 
 Department Store Girl, which is based upon inter- 
 views with two hundred girls, and you will realize 
 what it means to be a cash girl or a clerk who 
 simply exists but cannot. truly live. This pamphlet 
 will help us appreciate what the department store 
 girl has been through to give us a *' Merry Christ- 
 mas," and will convince us of the wisdom of shop- 
 ping early. 
 
 "In one of the big State Street department stores 
 of Chicago the horses work every other day. 
 Women work every day. The horses must be 
 given time to rest; they must be kept in a good 
 physical condition. Women are not given time for 
 rest; they need not be kept in good physical con- 
 dition. Why ? 
 
 "The new Shop Hours act is now a law in Eng- 
 land, and merchants have to carry out its provisions 
 or render themselves liable to severe penalties. It 
 gives every saleswoman, including those who work 
 in refreshment houses and 'public houses,' a half- 
 holiday every week beginning not later than one 
 o'clock. It also insists upon regular hours for 
 meals." 
 
 Saleswomen in our American cities object to 
 Sunday and evening work (as in stock-taking, 
 arranging stock, mail-order departments, etc.), no 
 half-holiday, excessive fines, compulsory vacations 
 without pay, compulsory benefit funds, different
 
 Woman's Place in Industry 119 
 
 wages for the same work, dismissal without warn- 
 ing. They want a fifty-four-hour week, with 
 double pay for Sundays and evenings, a half- 
 holiday each week the year around, a vacation 
 of a week on full pay, voluntary insurance, 
 equal pay for equal work, committee representa- 
 tion to present grievances to the firm, and a living 
 wage. 
 
 Twenty-five years ago the great steel works of 
 Frederick Krupp & Company, of Essen, Germany, 
 endeavored to improve the environment of their 
 employees and conceived the idea of colony hous- 
 ing. They built hundreds of houses to accommo- 
 date one, two, or six families of varying size. A 
 housekeeping school was opened and much impor- 
 tance was attached to the industrial training of the 
 girls. A library, hospital, gymnasium, eating- 
 houses, and supply stores were also provided. 
 
 The Bon Marche, that famous store in Paris, 
 owned and managed for many years by Madame 
 Boucicault, furnishes an example of the efficient 
 business woman who was not only successful her- 
 self, but made her business a means of enrichment 
 and well-being to her thousands of employees. 
 The free noon lunch, served in the big dining-room, 
 with its appetizing menu; the rest-rooms; free 
 language classes, and free medical attendance, are 
 but a few of the ways in which this noble woman 
 created and sustained an ideal relation between 
 capital and labor.
 
 I20 Lives Worth Living 
 
 For the last thirty years, here and there, both in 
 Europe and America, are found manufacturers who 
 have introduced into their factories improvements 
 conducive to the health, efficiency, and happiness 
 of their employees. Among these are the Lever 
 Brothers, of Port Sunlight, England; the Cadbury 
 Brothers, of Boumeville, England, while in this 
 country the National Cash Register Company, of 
 Dayton, Ohio, and the International Harvester 
 Company, of Chicago, have been pioneers in what 
 has now come to be known as welfare work and 
 which large corporations everywhere find worth 
 their while to establish and maintain. Thus the 
 business man is beginning to realize that such work 
 embodies the application of the same business 
 principles to his employees that he applies to the 
 rest of his business, and that he owes something 
 more than mere wages to those in his employ. 
 
 Woman's entrance into the industrial world has 
 given rise to many problems difficult to solve, of 
 which none is more perplexing or fundamental than 
 the question of wages. It is probably true that the 
 competition of the women workers has lowered the 
 wages of men, particularly the unskilled workman. 
 Many women who are in industry do not expect to 
 continue long as wage-earners. Anticipating a 
 home of their own later, they show less interest in 
 mastering their trade, while they let their own 
 private interests often interfere with those of their 
 employers. There are:also wholly self-supporting
 
 Woman's Place in Industry 121 
 
 women who are competing with those who are par- 
 tially supported by others. This is often found to 
 be true in the case of clerks and stenographers. 
 All of these conditions make the adjustment of 
 wages a difficult matter, and are a few of the rea- 
 sons for the low wages, especially of women. 
 
 A study of the woman in industry by the 
 Women's Trade Union League of Chicago led the 
 organization to issue the following statement: 
 "There are one hundred and twenty-five thousand 
 working women in Chicago. The average wage of 
 these women is under six dollars a week. Six 
 dollars a week means poor food, poor clothing, poor 
 shelter. Six dollars a week allows no margin for 
 illness, recreation, or education." 
 
 No one can have a strong, healthy body without 
 proper food, clothing, and shelter. If wages are so 
 low that these physical needs cannot be met, what 
 becomes of those higher instincts and affections of 
 the mind and soul? Jesus said, "Man shall not 
 live by bread alone" (Matt. 4:4), and "Is not the 
 life more than the food, and the body than the 
 raiment?" (Matt. 6:25). How can the woman 
 wage-earner have the time and opportunity to fol- 
 low these teachings of the Master when in some 
 industries women are kept at work for sixty, 
 seventy, and even eighty hours a week ? 
 
 Naturally the trades unions look to organization 
 as the remedy for all these difficulties. In an
 
 122 Lives Worth Living 
 
 article on ''Self-Government in the Workshop,"' 
 Mrs. Raymond Robins writes: "Having for cen- 
 turies, and rightly so, looked upon her problem as 
 a personal one to be met and solved through her 
 individual effort, it is not surprising that the woman 
 is slow to learn that her economic problem today 
 is a social one to be controlled by social and col- 
 lective action. Unorganized, she became the tragic 
 underbidder in the labor market and her own worst 
 competitor, putting the working mothers in the 
 sweatshop and the working fathers on the tramp. 
 Unorganized, she has to accept conditions as she 
 finds them — low wages, long hours, abusive lan- 
 guage, unsanitary conditions, locked doors, fire 
 dangers, work destructive of her moral and spiritual 
 development. Alone, she cannot change these con- 
 ditions. Alone, she cannot even protest against 
 these conditions, except at the ri^k of losing her job. 
 She has tried — she now knows. She loses her 
 job when she asserts her fundamental right to 
 have a voice as to the conditions under which she 
 works. Yet these conditions, if allowed to con- 
 tinue, will destroy the ideals and promise of our 
 individual and national life. Self-government is 
 essential to the making of a free people, and self- 
 government in the day's work can be had only by 
 the united action of the workers. 
 
 "The opposition to industrial democracy is 
 naturally great. It is, moreover, so determined 
 
 ' Life and Labor.
 
 Woman's Place in Industry 123 
 
 and so powerful that to organize or to join a trade 
 union means to face persecution. If it becomes 
 known that girls wish to organize, they are threat- 
 ened by their employers with the loss of their jobs. 
 Sometimes they are asked to sign pledges not to 
 join a union before they are given work. Petty but 
 endless is the persecution practiced by foremen, 
 under instructions, to union girls in a non-union 
 shop. Yet splendidly the girls have answered to 
 this call for courage and grit, and well may Walter 
 Rauschenbusch say, 'Employers may yet rue the 
 day when they filled their factories with women 
 because they were cheap. They can stand to- 
 gether for the common good, for they are capable 
 of great enthusiasm and self-sacrifice,'" 
 
 Organization changed the condition of waitresses 
 in Chicago, according to the statement of the 
 Women's Trade Union League of that city. 
 
 Before Organization After Organization 
 
 Worked 7 days a week W^ork 6 days a week 
 
 12 to 14 hours a day lo hours a day 
 
 For f 6 . 00 a week For $8 . 00 a week 
 
 Worked 4 hours a day at Work 3 hours a day at din- 
 dinner hour for $3 . 00 a ner hour for $4 . 00 a week 
 
 week 
 
 Furnished own apron and Employer furnishes apron 
 paid for laundering of all and launders all working 
 
 working linen linen
 
 124 
 
 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Also the hat trimmers in Massachusetts, Con- 
 necticut, New York, and Pennsylvania through 
 their organization remedied many wrongs. 
 
 Before Organization 
 
 Low wages 
 
 No limit to working hours 
 
 Home work 
 
 Discharge in dull season 
 
 No protection from insult 
 No pay for extra work 
 Worker had to provide silk 
 Worker provided cotton and 
 
 needles 
 Favorites received easy work 
 
 No heed given to workers' 
 
 grievances 
 Locked Doors and Barred 
 
 Windows and Had No 
 
 Fire Protection 
 
 After Organization 
 
 50 per cent increase in wages 
 
 Work 52 hours a week 
 
 No home work 
 
 No discharge; fair distribu- 
 tion of work 
 
 Worker respected 
 
 Extra pay for extra work 
 
 Employer provides silk 
 
 Employer provides cotton 
 and needles 
 
 No favorites ; fair division of 
 easy and hard work 
 
 Conferences held and griev- 
 ances adjusted 
 
 Unlocked Doors and Fire 
 Protection 
 
 In all probability the greatest need for the 
 women in the industrial world today is proper 
 legislation. We have seen how many advantages 
 may be provided by considerate and humane 
 employers, and also how women through their 
 organization may secure certain privileges. But 
 the two great fundamental questions as to hours 
 and wages can be changed only by nation-wide 
 legislation. After a long struggle an eight-hour 
 day for the working women of California and the
 
 Woman's Place in Industry 125 
 
 state of Washington has been declared constitu- 
 tional. In both states the law provides "that no 
 female shall be employed in any manufacturing, 
 mechanical, or mercantile establishment, laundry, 
 hotel, restaurant, telegraph or telephone establish- 
 ment or office, by any express or transportation 
 company for more than eight hours in any one day 
 or more than forty-eight hours in one week. "' 
 
 In Illinois a ten-hour law was secured for the 
 women workers in practically all trades and occu- 
 pations in the state. 
 
 But putting laws upon the statute books in itself 
 is not sufficient. They must be enforced. And the 
 enforcement of such laws depends largely upon a 
 knowledge of the conditions of the working woman ; 
 a knowledge sure to result in improved conditions. 
 Abraham Lincoln once said, "The strongest bond 
 of human sympathy outside of the family relation 
 should be the one uniting all working people of 
 all nations and tongues and kindreds." The 
 awakened conscience of the American people along 
 the line of social service promises much for the 
 working woman and her family. This first-hand 
 acquaintance with the actual conditions of the 
 women and girls in the stores and factories of one's 
 own community will demand improvements and 
 suggest practical ways for help. Here is a means 
 that the church may use in the interpretation to 
 the wage-earner of the community of its gospel of 
 
 ' Helen Marot.
 
 126 Lives Worth Living 
 
 "peace on earth, goodwill to men," The inter- 
 dependence of the human family grows more and 
 more complex, and we need only to consider the 
 number of persons often needed to complete a 
 single article (a pair of men's trousers, for instance, 
 passing through fifty-one hands) to appreciate that 
 after all, even as we have many members in one 
 body and all the members have not the same office, 
 so we who are many are one body in Christ, and 
 severally members one of another; and when one 
 member suffers all the other members suffer with 
 it (see I Cor. 12:12-27). If our churches through 
 their parish and community houses or different 
 organizations could provide for the social life of 
 some of those in their neighborhood who are prac- 
 tically homeless, many an honest working girl might 
 be helped and mistakes avoided. 
 
 Thus it seems our duty to make every effort to 
 acquaint ourselves with the conditions, and then 
 through our homes, our churches, and our civic life 
 to show to the woman who works in our shop, our 
 office, our mill, or our factory that behind her are 
 the interest and the influence of the women of this 
 country, who stand ready to help the woman in 
 industry. 
 
 For Continued Thought 
 
 "Our problem is not how shall we eliminate 
 woman from industry, but how shall we be humane
 
 Woman's Place in Industry 127 
 
 and just, so that her industry shall enrich her life, 
 not deplete it."' 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. When is work a blessing ? When does it become 
 drudgery ? 
 
 2. Mention several reasons for woman's entrance 
 into the industrial world of today. 
 
 3. What occupations are open to her ? Name those 
 most favorable to her welfare. 
 
 4. What difficulties confront the woman in industry 
 (a) physically, (b) intellectually, (c) socially? 
 
 5. What effect does the competition of women 
 workers have upon men's wages? What effect upon 
 the home life ? 
 
 6. What are some of the reasons for low wages for 
 women ? 
 
 7. What is meant by the minimum wage ? Reasons 
 for and against it. 
 
 8. What is an average wage of the working woman 
 in your vicinity? What would it mean if her wages 
 were advanced three dollars a week ? 
 
 9. What has legislation done for the working 
 woman ? 
 
 10. What are the laws in your state in regard to 
 working women? What is the next improvement to 
 work for? 
 
 11. What have women in industry gained by organi- 
 zation ? Are strikes a benefit or an abuse ? 
 
 ' J. A. Ecob, Studies in Social Christianity.
 
 128 Lives Worth Living 
 
 12. What bearing does woman's position in industry 
 have upon the question of woman's suffrage ? 
 
 13. Why is work in a factory often preferred to 
 domestic service ? 
 
 *i4. Under what conditions does the shop or factory 
 girl in your town or neighborhood live and work ? 
 
 *i5. Distinguish between the kind of competi- 
 tion that destroys and the competition in system, 
 method, and general excellence that upbuilds. Find 
 examples. 
 
 16. What is welfare work? Mention several cor- 
 porations who have done the most in this line. 
 
 *i7. Make a study of the welfare work of some busi- 
 ness corporation, preferably one in your own vicinity 
 that you can personally visit and report on to the class. 
 
 *i8. If woman competes successfully with man in 
 business, is he under the same obligation to be as chival- 
 rous as formerly? Illustrate with such concrete 
 examples as lifting one's hat in an elevator or giving up 
 a seat in the trolley car. 
 
 19. How may the church that is located in an indus- 
 trial community help the woman in industry ? What 
 can you do in your church ? 
 
 20. Do you think that the entrance of women into 
 industry has done harm or good ? 
 
 *2i. What do you imagine is likely to be the future 
 development of this movement of woman into the in- 
 dustrial world? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 *Abbott, Edith, Women in Industry, 
 Addams, Jane, Newer Ideals of Peace. 
 Ainslie and Wyatt, Making Both Ends Meet.
 
 Woman's Place in Industry 129 
 
 fOoss, Mary Lathrop, Welfare Work by Corporations, Pamphlet, 
 published by American Baptist Publishing Society, lo cents. 
 Hart and McLaughlin, New Encyclopedia on American Govern- 
 ment. 
 Henderson, Charles R., Social Duties. 
 ^International Harvester Company and Its Employes. Chicago. 
 
 Pamphlet. 
 Kelley, Florence, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. 
 MacLean, Annie M., Wage-earning Women. 
 Marot, Helen, American Labor Unions. 
 
 Rauschenbusch, Walter, Christianity and the Social Crisis. Con- 
 servation of National Ideals, chap, iv, "The Church and the 
 Social Question," by Rauschenbusch, is an excellent con- 
 densation of this larger book. 
 Robins, Margaret Dreier, Life and Labor. 
 \Studies in Social Christianity. American Institute of Social 
 
 Service, Bible House, New York, May, 191 2. 5 cents. 
 \The Department Store Girl. Pamphlet, published by the Juvenile 
 
 Protective Association, Chicago. 
 fUnited States Bureau of Labor Reports upon women and chil- 
 dren in industry. 
 fWomen's Trade Union League, 166 W. Washington St., Chicago. 
 Pamphlet.
 
 CHAPTER VI— LESSON XI 
 
 CORINNA SHATTUCK— MISSIONARY HEROINE 
 OF OORFA 
 
 And Jesus came to them [his disciples] and spake 
 unto ihem, saying, All authority hath been given unto 
 me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make 
 disciples of all the nations .... teaching them to 
 observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and 
 lo, I am with you always.' 
 
 "The Lord prospered my undertaking and I worked 
 faithfully to the very end."^ 
 
 1848 
 1852 
 
 1864 
 1869 
 
 1873 
 1876 
 1878 
 1879 
 
 1883 
 1802 
 
 Life Sketch 
 
 April 21, born in Louisville, Kentucky. 
 Left an orphan and brought up by her grandparents 
 in Acton, Massachusetts. 
 Became a teacher. 
 
 Entered normal school at Framingham, Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 August 27, sailed for Turkey. 
 First visit to Oorfa, Turkey. 
 Taught in Kessab and Adana, Turkey. 
 Returned to America, on account of her health, and 
 lived four years in Colorado. 
 Went back to Turkey, and taught at Marash. 
 Was transferred to Oorfa. 
 
 'Matt. 28:18-20. 
 
 ' Corinna Shattuck — Missionary Heroine, p. 19. 
 130
 
 CORINNA ShATTUCK — MISSIONARY 131 
 
 Courtesy of ll'onuin's Board 0/ AJisiwiis of the Interior 
 
 CORINNA SHATTUCK
 
 132 Lives Worth Living 
 
 1895-96. Massacre of Armenians at Oorfa. 
 1896. Organized industrial work for the orphans. 
 1899-1900. Visited Europe to find a market for the work 
 
 done in her industrial school. 
 1902. Opening of the Shattuck School for the Blind. 
 1908. Great political changes. 
 
 1910. April, left for America in search of a successor. 
 1910. May 22, died in Boston, Massachusetts. 
 
 Life Story 
 
 In the Mesopotamian plain of old Assyria — now 
 known as Asiatic Turkey — between the Euphrates 
 
 and Tigris rivers, is a walled city 
 oorfa'*^*'* called Oorfa, which has the same 
 
 location as the ancient city of Edessa, 
 a seat of culture and learning in the first centuries 
 of the Christian era, until destroyed by the Persians 
 in 489 A.D. Here lived Ephraim, the Syrian, a 
 famous commentator on the Scriptures and a 
 hymn-writer, who dwelt in a cave and was ven- 
 erated as a saint; also Jacob, bishop of Edessa, 
 theologian and translator of Greek works into the 
 Syriac, which won for him the honorable title of 
 "interpreter of books." At one time there were 
 three hundred monasteries and thirty Christian 
 churches in the city. But in 1144A.D. the city 
 was conquered by the Turks and the churches 
 were changed into mosques. 
 
 This great Mesopotamian plain is still very fertile 
 and with cultivation might become the granary of
 
 CORINNA ShATTUCK — MISSIONARY 1 33 
 
 a continent. Even in its present condition, great 
 quantities of wheat are harvested every year. 
 
 Oorfa is one of its principal cities and has a popu- 
 lation of fifty thousand, of which a large proportion 
 are Armenians, the remainder Turks and Kurds 
 with a few Syrians and Jews. But its most 
 distinguished citizen of modern times was an Ameri- 
 can woman who, by her heroic service through 
 long years, exemplified both by her words and by 
 her life the power of Christianity. 
 
 Corinna Shattuck was born in Louisville, Ken- 
 tucky, on April 21, 1848, of sterling New England 
 ancestry. Left an orphan at four 
 Eari^ life years of age, she was brought up by 
 
 her grandparents in Acton, Massa- 
 chusetts. Here she learned lessons of industry 
 and strict economy; also the value of high ideals 
 and an earnest Christian faith. She became a 
 teacher at sixteen years of age, but three years 
 later her pastor's wife awakened her interest in mis- 
 sions and she entered the state normal school at 
 Framingham in preparation for the life of a mis- 
 sionary. To interest her fellow-students in mis- 
 sionary work, she began correspondence with a 
 young woman who had charge of a boarding- 
 school for girls in Aintab. Her letters so impressed 
 the missionaries that she was asked to come to 
 Turkey as soon as possible after her graduation, 
 and she sailed on August 27, 1873.
 
 134 Lives Worth Living 
 
 The first years in Turkey were spent in learning 
 
 the language, teaching in the schools, and touring 
 
 with other missionaries. Those who 
 
 Begins Work ^ere her co-workers found her a most 
 in Turkey 
 
 devoted, courageous, and resourceful 
 woman. Almost by instinct she seemed to search 
 out the greatest need, and it was not long before 
 she asked permission to open a school for girls 
 at Oorfa. She writes from there a few weeks later: 
 *' Our school numbers thirteen girls and five women. 
 The women take only Bible lessons. They are 
 very regular in attendance, but Turkish is hard for 
 them. No four months can decide whether or not 
 our work is successful. Two years is short enough 
 time to fully inaugurate a system of schools. This 
 week we begin to teach sewing. The girls are very 
 anxious for it, and it will act as a bait and a diver- 
 sion. We get new pupils by visiting from house to 
 house. Our girls come to Sunday school, and I 
 have organized two classes for women. Pastor 
 Abonhayat is giving interesting sermons on Sunday 
 afternoons. Such close attention by the people and 
 such splendid teaching exercises by a native I have 
 seldom, if ever, seen. Today there were no less 
 than two hundered women and girls present, and 
 the men's side of the church was over-full. 
 
 "Yesterday the Pasha called and as he asked 
 especially for me, I was sent for. He talked of my 
 work here and expressed real interest. Indeed,
 
 CORINNA ShATTUCK — MISSIONARY 135 
 
 he was very agreeable — but how I did long for an 
 American man. Sometimes it is hard to feel 
 myself so alone. I do not want to be bold and 
 unladylike, neither do I want to ignore my Ameri- 
 can citizenship by putting myself on a level with 
 natives in everything." 
 
 At the beginning of the next year (1878) Miss 
 Shattuck went to Kessab, where she was thirty- 
 „. ., . . six miles from a post-ofi&ce and 
 
 Visits America _ ^ 
 
 to Recover far from her Aintab associates. The 
 
 Her Health r ■ • i.* r r^ 
 
 exposure from tourmg, which often 
 meant fording streams and riding for hours in 
 wet garments, had a serious effect on her health, 
 arid in 1879 she returned to America and went to 
 Colorado, where she spent four years trying to get 
 strong again. At length she became very restless, 
 and wrote to a friend, "How can I continue my 
 work here, which a dozen others might perform 
 much more skilfully, when I could be telling those 
 poor souls over in Syria of a Savior who has redeemed 
 them — telling them, too, in their own tongue, which 
 I have spent so much time to acquire." 
 
 At length she found a physician who thought she 
 would be as well in Turkey as in America, and she 
 
 was permitted to return for half- 
 TurkeT *° work as a missionary of the Woman's 
 
 Board of Missions of the Interior. 
 One lung was practically useless, but instead of 
 doing "half -work," she kept her hands so busy
 
 136 Lives Worth Living 
 
 and her mind so full of plans, she quite forgot 
 herself. Her first teaching after her return was 
 at Marash, but later she went to Oorfa, where the 
 work that was to distinguish her as a missionary 
 still lay in the future and covered a period of 
 eighteen years. 
 
 Early in 1895 rumors of political troubles reached 
 the city, and in the autumn Oorfa was devastated 
 
 by a mob and sixty people were 
 ?rmenians°^ killed. Miss Shattuck made every 
 
 effort to remove her household to 
 Aintab for safety, but the government would not 
 grant her a traveling permit. She writes at this 
 time, "No permit as yet. If I cannot leave I 
 accept in peace the will of God and remain. He 
 knows what he has planned for me." How little 
 she realized what "his plan" was to be! On 
 December 28, the attack came. Miss Shattuck 
 was the only missionary in the city, and her sole 
 helpers were native Armenians. Her letters de- 
 scribe those awful days. "From Saturday morn- 
 ing until Sunday night crowds of Moslems went 
 about, entering the houses, ferreting out its hidden 
 men, and butchering them like so many sheep. 
 Women and children were taken from their homes 
 and crowded into mosque and khan, while their 
 houses were robbed of everything. We were not 
 disturbed, as a guard stood outside my street door 
 calling, 'This is the house of a foreigner; it is
 
 CORINNA ShATTUCK — MISSIONARY 137 
 
 not permitted to enter here.' Neighbors rushed 
 in pell-mell over our walls, our servant being 
 unable to keep them out. By Saturday night I 
 found they were everywhere; in my private rooms, 
 the kitchen, and even in the stable, anywhere 
 to be under my shadow. Poor things! What was 
 I to do ? I need not say I slept none that night. 
 In the morning I persuaded the men to go to the 
 schoolroom of the Protestant church, and in a few 
 hours I had all the men off my premises, hidden 
 and under lock, the key with myself, and supplied 
 with bread and water for twenty-four hours. It 
 was a heavy responsibility I carried, but less risk 
 than to retain them in my home. 
 
 ''Sunday afternoon a grand procession of mili- 
 tary and civil officers appeared and requested 
 entrance to our yard, and asked that I appear on 
 the veranda. Peering into windows, they inquired 
 if we had men here. We could honestly say, 'No, 
 only women and children.' All day there was the 
 smell of burning wool and cotton in the houses 
 fired, and later the sickening odors from the great 
 holocaust in the Gregorian church where some 
 three thousand perished. 
 
 "Monday, the work was declared done, and 
 announcements made that people were safe. 
 Slowly they began to come out of their hiding- 
 holes — wells, vaults, drains, and all imaginable 
 places — some not having tasted food since Saturday.
 
 138 Lives Worth Living 
 
 The Protestant loss is one hundred and ten. 
 Our pastor and several leaders were killed. I have 
 the pastor's six children with me. Everybody's 
 house is empty. All are utterly crushed. We are 
 in a thick cloud, but God lives and we will trust 
 him." 
 
 Miss Shattuck's courage and resourcefulness 
 
 saved at least three hundred lives during those 
 
 awful days of massacre; but now she 
 
 Organized ^^^ confronted with a situation which 
 
 Industrial Work 
 
 taxed her abilities to the utmost. 
 After as many as possible of the orphans had been 
 placed with relatives and friends, over three thou- 
 sand remained unprovided for. From these Miss 
 Shattuck took one hundred and fifty, although 
 she took none whose mothers had been left with 
 less than four children. For all of these she had 
 a mother's heart, and it was the training of these 
 helpless women and children in different forms 
 of industrial work that revealed her tireless energy 
 and unusual ability as a business woman. 
 
 Work with the girls naturally began with wash- 
 ing, cooking, and sewing, which later developed 
 into silk embroidery and delicate work on hand- 
 kerchiefs and collars. There was not enough 
 demand for their work in Turkey, so Miss Shattuck 
 visited Europe and secured the McBride Company, 
 of Belfast, Ireland, and a German firm, as her 
 agents. From this time the embroidery work
 
 CORINNA ShATTUCK — MISSIONARY 139 
 
 was established on a firm financial basis. Over 
 two thousand women and girls were regularly 
 employed, and five hundred dozen embroidered 
 handkerchiefs were shipped every week. 
 
 Even in America the organizer of industry is one 
 of the greatest benefactors in a community. How 
 much more was this true in that desolated region 
 where the organizing genius was a frail woman, 
 without capital or competent assistants, and a 
 market three thousand miles away! 
 
 The boys of her orphanage learned to bake the 
 bread for the three homes, make shoes, and work 
 in the vineyards. It was four years later (1904) 
 that systematic work with the boys under Mr. 
 George Gracey, of Belfast, Ireland, was begun. A 
 tailor shop and shoe shop, together with carpentry 
 and iron work and farming, gave worthy occupation 
 to the boys. 
 
 As one of Miss Shattuck's associates once wrote 
 
 of her, "Miss Shattuck was a born leader and 
 
 organizer, and could endure more for 
 
 di3.rfl.ct eristics 
 
 a woman of her physique than anyone 
 I ever saw. Under a somewhat cold exterior was a 
 warm and sympathetic heart. With her a thing 
 was either right or wrong. She wanted nothing 
 half-way. Hers was a lonely, hard life, but she 
 did her work, and a grand one it was." 
 
 In a letter to a friend. Miss Shattuck revealed 
 the strong faith and wide vision which characterized
 
 I40 Lives Worth Living 
 
 her work. "I feel," wrote she, "the great need 
 of bringing forward the common people more, al- 
 though the thought of others is for educated, 
 strong leaders in school and pulpit work. I favor 
 that heartily, but feel we need also skilled workmen 
 to support such leaders and appreciate them. I 
 would like manual labor not to be so despised by 
 our graduates. I feel that our young fellows, as 
 they enter upon their trades, should have more 
 skilful fingers, more inventive power. Then they 
 would desire to do differently from their fathers 
 and grandfathers and become advanced workmen 
 instead of plodding forever through Hfe at a scanty 
 existence."' 
 
 Among Miss Shattuck's native teachers in the 
 
 day school was Mary Harootoonyan, who became 
 
 blind and who afterward, through 
 
 Shattuck School jy[-gg Shattuck's influence, went to the 
 
 for the Blind ' 
 
 Royal Normal College for the Blind 
 in London. On her return she gathered the blind 
 children of the neighborhood and taught them to 
 read. This work later developed into the Shattuck 
 School for the Blind, where mat-weaving and lace- 
 
 ' Miss Shattuck's presence commanded respect from every 
 class of people. The Turks especially were greatly impressed with 
 her masterfulness. See the booklet, Corinna Shattuck — Mission- 
 ary Heroine, printed by the Woman's Board of Missions of the 
 Interior, Chicago, for the several accounts of her dealings with the 
 Arabs and the Pasha of her neighborhood, and a picture of the 
 life and customs of the times, pp. 22-25.
 
 CORINNA ShATTUCK — MISSIONARY 141 
 
 making was added to the common-school studies 
 and the study of the Bible. Miss Shattuck never 
 forgot that she was first of all a missionary, and 
 that all her work was truly religious. At the be- 
 ginning of each day's work a passage from the Bible 
 was read and explained, and a prayer offered. 
 In 1908 occurred the political changes in Turkey 
 and the uprising of the Young Turk party, which 
 caused great restlessness among the 
 America to Find people. Then Came the saddening 
 
 a Successor t a j u 1 r 
 
 massacre at Adana, where several of 
 Miss Shattuck's friends were killed. These events, 
 together with the heavy financial responsibility 
 of the orphanages and the. industrial work, were 
 too heavy a burden for Miss Shattuck alone. Al- 
 though in very poor health, she determined to go 
 again to America in search of a helper, feeling sure 
 that if she could present the need, there would 
 be a response from some young man and his wife 
 to carry on her work. She also felt that the com- 
 plete change and rest would enable her to re- 
 cuperate as she had done before. So feeble was 
 she when she took the steamer, April 27, 1910, that 
 she went at once to her stateroom and did not 
 leave it during the entire voyage. However, 
 Christian friends discovered who the sick lady was, 
 and everything possible was done for her comfort. 
 On her arrival at Boston, she was given excellent 
 care and attention at the Cullis Home in one of the
 
 142 Lives Worth Living 
 
 suburbs of the city, where she wrote to a friend, 
 "I am at last hidden in a good place. I did not 
 fear the morning, I had no fear at noon, and shall 
 not be afraid of the evening. My work is nothing. 
 Anything I did was all for Him.^' 
 
 But the work of the frail, weary missionary was 
 
 done, and she died on Sunday morning, May 22, 
 
 loio. She once wrote to a friend, 
 
 Her Death cc-rr • 1 it it 1 i im 
 
 If It pleases the Lord, 1 would like 
 to die in the harness," and she had her wish. 
 Death overtook her while she was still on the march 
 in search of a successor, and even on the day of her 
 death she talked hopefully of future plans. 
 
 "If she had lived in the fifth century," writes a 
 fellow-missionary, " the ascetic simplicity of her life 
 would have surrounded her head with an aureole 
 and her memory with legends; only you cannot put 
 an aureole on a Puritan woman in a cotton frock." 
 
 The faithful Armenians of Oorfa have marked 
 her resting-place with a granite stone, but her 
 truest monument is in the noble Uves of those 
 orphans of Turkey, many of whom, in their own 
 country and in the United States, are perpetuating 
 her memory by self-sacrificing service for others. 
 
 Central Idea of the Lesson 
 
 A modern American woman found a life of 
 industrial missionary service so rewarding that she 
 could not abandon it even to save her own life.
 
 CORINNA ShATTUCK — MISSIONARY 143 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. What is the value of missionary biography? 
 
 2. By which are we more influenced, concrete 
 examples or abstract principles of virtuous living? 
 
 3. What seemingly insignificant events prepared 
 the way for Miss Shattuck's life-work? What effect 
 did her ancestry have upon her life ? 
 
 4. Locate and describe the country to which she 
 went. 
 
 5. How would her journey in 1873 compare with that 
 of the missionaries who go to Turkey-in-Asia tod'a.y? 
 
 6. Describe the beginning of her work at Oorfa 
 before she settled there permanently. 
 
 *7. What would you have found interesting in a 
 personal touring trip with Corinna Shattuck ? 
 
 8. What great disappointment came to her in 1879 ? 
 What remark while she was waiting in Colorado 
 revealed her great love for her work ? 
 
 9. What was her physical condition when she 
 returned to Turkey ? 
 
 10. Describe the terrible calamity that revealed her 
 heroism and placed her in the front rank of missionaries. 
 
 11. What unusual circumstances called out her 
 remarkable executive ability as an organizer of 
 industry ? 
 
 12. What great difficulties did she overcome later 
 in her industrial work, and with what success? 
 
 13. Illustrate her self-sacrifice, her tact, her vision, 
 her Christian faith, her heroism. What impression 
 does her personality make upon you ? 
 
 14. Describe her work for the blind.
 
 144 Lives Worth Living 
 
 15. What evidences of her work still remain? 
 
 *i6. Mention several especially important days in 
 Corinna Shattuck's life. 
 
 *i7. Did it require greater heroism to protect 
 hundreds of helpless Armenians on the day of the 
 massacre at Oorfa, or to work for over twenty-five 
 years with only one lung at a station three days' 
 journey from the nearest missionary? 
 
 18. What single idea permeated all her work? 
 
 19. What controlling impulses of her life may be 
 an inspiration to us ? 
 
 *2o. What effect does such a life have upon world- 
 wide missions? What effect ought it to have upon 
 young people today ? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 fClark, Joseph, The Smoke of a Thousand Villages. Leaflet pub- 
 lished by the Young People's Missionary Movement, New 
 York. 5 cents. 
 
 Greene, Frederick, The Armenian Crisis in Turkey. 
 
 Hubbard, Ethel D., Ann of Ava. 
 
 Mission Studies for 1895-96. Woman's Board of Missions of 
 the Interior, Chicago. 
 
 Montgomery, Helen B., Western Women in Eastern Lands, 
 chap. iv. 
 
 Oldham, W. F., Life of Isabella Thoburn. Booklet published by 
 the Methodist Book Concern, New York and Chicago. 
 25 cents. 
 
 fPeabody, Emily Clough, Corinna Shatluck — Missionary Heroine. 
 Booklet published by Woman's Board of Missions of the 
 Interior, Chicago. 10 cents. 
 
 The Missionary Herald for 1895-96. American Board of Foreign 
 Missions, Boston.
 
 CHAPTER VI— LESSON XII 
 
 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE— PIONEER IN A 
 PROFESSION 
 
 Lo ! in that house of misery 
 A lady with a lamp I see 
 
 Pass through the glimmering gloom, 
 
 And flit from room to room. 
 And slow, as in a dream of bliss, 
 The speechless sufferer turns to kiss 
 
 Her shadow, as it falls 
 
 Upon the darkening walls. 
 On England's annals, through the long 
 Hereafter of her speech and song. 
 
 That light its rays shall cast 
 
 From portals of the past. 
 A Lady with a Lamp shall stand 
 In the great history of the land, 
 
 A noble type of good, 
 
 Heroic womanhood.* 
 
 Life Sketch 
 
 1820. May 15, Born in Florence, Italy. 
 
 1849. Visits Institute of Protestant Nurses at Kaiserwerth, 
 
 Germany. 
 1854-56. Crimean War. 
 1854. November 4, arrived at Scutari. 
 1856. July, returned to Derbyshire, England. 
 1858. Published Noles on Nursing. 
 1910. August 13, died at London, England. 
 
 ' Henry W. Longfellow, "Santa Filomena." 
 
 145
 
 146 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Life Story 
 
 It is given to comparatively few people in the 
 world's history to enlarge the area of the life of the 
 human race. This is done sometimes in terms of 
 geography, and sometimes in the wider range or 
 higher power of human employments. Columbus, 
 it might be said, gave the race a new hemisphere; 
 Livingstone, a new continent; James Watt, with 
 his steam engine, gave men a new power over nature, 
 and, as has been said of Samuel Morse with his 
 telegraph, "he gave civilization a new set of 
 nerves." Florence Nightingale gave to England 
 a new profession. Her training school for nurses 
 in London was among the first of those now found 
 the world over, and was the dawn of a new day 
 for the homes and especially for the womanhood of 
 the world. 
 
 Florence Nightingale was born on May 15, 1820, 
 in the city of Florence, Italy, for which she was 
 named. Her father, William Night- 
 Earf Ufe ingale, was a wealthy English gentle- 
 
 man of unusual refinement and cul- 
 ture. Highly educated himself, and having no 
 sons, he made the education of his two daughters 
 his personal care. Though they studied at home, 
 they were in many ways as thoroughly and broadly 
 taught as if they had attended the University, 
 which was not open to English women at that
 
 Florence Nightingale — Pioneer 147 
 
 cime. This did much to give Miss Nightingale her 
 distinction among the women of England, and made 
 her a pioneer of that host of trained and efficient 
 women who now have such a large share in the 
 world's work. She had a great desire to be a nurse 
 from the time when, as a child, she preferred sick 
 dolls to well ones, curing them in the evening only 
 to stretch them on beds of pain the next morning, 
 that she might have the satisfaction of nursing 
 them. But in her day, nursing the sick, except 
 in one's own family, was not considered a suitable 
 occupation for a young woman of refinement and 
 social position, and she was not permitted to fulfil 
 her desire. Instead, she was taken to London and 
 presented at court, as her social position required, 
 but it is significant that she spent her leisure while 
 in town in inspecting hospitals. Her biographer^ 
 says that at this time she was tall and slight and 
 of a finely molded figure. Her face, of sweet and 
 delicate beauty, sensitively expressed the devout 
 and cultured soul within. 
 
 It was the custom in England for young gentle- 
 women to wait at home in leisure, if not in idleness, 
 until a proposal of marriage came to them. But 
 Florence Nightingale would have none of idleness. 
 She insisted that marriage was best for most women 
 yet she did not propose to wait passively for her 
 
 ^ Sarah A. Tooley, Life of Florence Nightingale.
 
 148 Lives Worth Living 
 
 English lord, if there were one, to appear. She 
 reckoned every year of her young womanhood as 
 precious, "and," she said to an elderly friend, 
 "you must show us how to be single." They did 
 not show her, but, on the other hand, she did show 
 hundreds of young English women both how to 
 be single and also how to do some of the happiest 
 and best work in the world. Here is the picture 
 of an educated, ambitious English girl, watching 
 to discover her appointed place of usefulness and 
 service. Unaware of the triumphs and the suffer- 
 ing before her, she was doing well day by day the 
 next thing that came to her. During this period 
 of waiting she gathered the factory girls of the 
 village at her home on Sunday afternoons for a 
 Bible class, and became a frequent visitor in every 
 home of pain and sorrow in all that region. 
 
 England had hardly raised the question of caring 
 adequately for its sick, nursing being a sort of 
 household occupation. Miss Nightingale lifted 
 it to a profession, where the most scientific methods 
 only were followed. She believed that women had 
 special gifts for service of this kind and that the 
 world would value, welcome, and pay for skilled 
 women as well as skilled men. Her success proved 
 that she was right, and by her providential popu- 
 larity she convinced the entire nation of it. We 
 say providential, because the Crimean War, with 
 its heavy loss of life, had roused England emo-
 
 Florence Nightestgale — Pioneer 149 
 
 tionally, until in her extremity she cried out for 
 a deliverer. 
 
 It was at this time that Miss Nightingale made 
 
 a personal tour of the hospitals of Great Britain. 
 
 She found that the nursing was in 
 
 Hospitals in the hands of the coarsest type of 
 
 England and on women, not Only untrained, but 
 
 the Continent ' . . -^ ' 
 
 callous in feeling and often drunken 
 and immoral, while dirt and disorder were rampant 
 in the wards. Later she carried on her investiga- 
 tions in other countries and found conditions much 
 better on the Continent than in England. The 
 Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy in France were 
 trained and doing admirable work in the care of the 
 sick poor, and Miss Nightingale learned much 
 from them. But Pastor Fleidner, of the little 
 German village of Kaiserwerth, in his small parish 
 hospital and training school for nurses, gave to 
 Miss Nightingale the vision which she transmuted 
 into deeds and institutions in later years. 
 
 In 1854 the Crimean War broke out between 
 England and Russia, and after the first battles the 
 
 war correspondent of the London 
 Srcrfmea Times published a series of articles 
 
 in regard to the gross neglect of the 
 wounded, stirring all England with indignation. 
 The staff of army doctors was insufficient, and there 
 were no competent nurses. The Times correspond- 
 ent appealed to the women of the nation. "Are
 
 150 Lives Worth Living 
 
 none of the daughters of England," cried he, "in 
 this extreme hour of need, able and willing to go 
 forth to minister to the sick in the hospitals at 
 Scutari?" 
 
 The articles in the Times raised the whole 
 question anew, and the head of the war department, 
 being a neighbor of Florence Nightingale, turned 
 to her for help. He promised to put all the re- 
 sources of the government at her disposal if she 
 would raise and direct a force of nurses; also 
 making her superintendent, with absolute author- 
 ity, of the nurses at all the hospitals at the seat of 
 war. Strange to relate, this ofhcial letter was 
 crossed in the mails by one from Miss Nightingale 
 offering her services to the government. 
 
 As soon as her acceptance was known, women 
 of all classes in large numbers volunteered to serve 
 under her. From the first. Miss Nightingale 
 displayed not only the highest technical knowledge, 
 but great executive ability. After selecting her 
 helpers, she thoroughly organized them, and in a 
 surprisingly short time was ready to start for the 
 East. Her journey was a continuous ovation. 
 The feeling for the suffering soldier-boys was very 
 tense, and she captured the imagination and affec- 
 tion of the nation. 
 
 She arrived at Scutari just as the great battle of 
 Inkerman was being fought. The British hospital 
 system was centered at Scutari, and Miss Nightin-
 
 Florence Nightingale — Pioneer 151 
 
 gale found there four miles of corridors in barracks 
 that were never intended for a hospital, with over- 
 whelming numbers of the wounded 
 Tcutarf* and dying. She found filth and dis- 
 
 order indescribable. Within a day 
 the wounded from the battle of Inkerman began 
 to arrive by the hundreds. She went to work with 
 tireless energy and amazing administrative ability. 
 Within twenty-four hours order and cleanliness 
 began to spread from her headquarters through 
 those miles of corridors. She used all her authority 
 against the inefhciency of "red-tape" officials, who 
 were letting soldiers die for lack of food which was 
 in sight but which could not be disturbed until 
 the coming of an inspector. These officials became 
 her enemies, but the soldiers she fed were devoted 
 to her. After the day's work was over, it was her 
 custom late at night to walk, lamp in hand, through 
 the corridors to see that the work had been properly 
 done.' The poor fellows, as she passed by, would 
 try to thank her with voices choked with sobs, while 
 others kissed her shadow as it fell on their pillow. 
 Gradually the effects of her measures were seen 
 in a lowered death-rate. "In February, 1855, it 
 was as high as 42 per cent, but before many months 
 it was reduced to 2 per cent."^ After estabhshing 
 order and efficiency at Scutari, Miss Nightingale 
 
 ' Consult poem at the beginning of this lesson. 
 
 ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Florence Nightingale."
 
 152 Lives Worth Living 
 
 crossed to the siege of Sebastopol, to inspect the 
 temporary hospitals on the field. While there she 
 was stricken with fever from which she recovered 
 slowly. During her convalescence, peace was 
 declared. She declined the offer of a man-of-war 
 to convey her to England, but returned quietly on 
 a French ship, and reached her country home in 
 Derbyshire before her arrival in England was 
 publicly known. 
 
 But thousands of homes in Britain united in the 
 desire to offer her special honor. She permitted 
 nothing except the raising of a fund 
 En*knd° which was to be used for the founding 
 
 of the Nightingale Training School 
 for Nurses in connection with the famous St. 
 Thomas Hospital in London. 
 
 It is easy to see how the unrivaled prestige that 
 had come to Miss Nightingale made her the patron, 
 almost the patron saint, of the profession of nursing. 
 It became, all at once, through this heroic and culti- 
 vated lady, a most honorable profession. In 
 1858 she published Notes on Nursing, a book which 
 greatly stimulated study along these lines. 
 
 But Miss Nightingale's constitution had been 
 undermined by the camp-fever, and she never 
 recovered from it, although for fifty years longer 
 her scientific mind and philanthropic spirit con- 
 tinued a most active, formative force in Enghsh 
 Hfe.
 
 Florence Nightingale^Pioneer 153 
 
 She gave her Training School for Nurses con- 
 stant care and direction, while from her sick room, 
 as from a throne of power, radiated counsel and 
 inspiration to the leaders of several world- 
 movements. She is said to have been oflEicially 
 consulted during the United States Civil War and 
 also the Franco-German War. Think of govern- 
 ments coming to her bedside for advice and counsel 
 in times of national uprising! She had much to 
 do with the founding of the now world-wide Red 
 Cross Society, and was also the steadfast champion 
 of the system of district nursing, insisting, not 
 only that the poor be nursed in their homes, but 
 that the women in these homes should be taught 
 how to prevent disease and how to care for 
 the sick. 
 
 Miss Nightingale died on August 13, 1910, at 
 
 the age of ninety years. A friend recently said 
 
 of her that she had been an over- 
 
 Her Death 
 
 worked mvalid for more than fifty 
 years. How significant that the woman who at 
 one time stood waiting and wondering whether 
 life held any real calling for her should be given 
 such great things to do. But God often breaks 
 new paths for those who have vision and courage. 
 Young women of today should be especially grate- 
 ful for the life and work of Florence Nightingale, as 
 she has made their life richer and safer, and their 
 opportunities for service more varied. She not
 
 154 Lives Worth Living 
 
 only used an opportunity, but she enlarged it, 
 and bridged the way from the old to the new voca- 
 tions for women. 
 
 While Florence Nightingale represented the 
 
 modern, scientific method in one profession, the 
 
 world of art and literature has been 
 
 Women"in distinguished by such names as Mrs. 
 
 other Pro- Siddons in the drama; George Eliot 
 
 fessions . . . 
 
 in the literature of fiction; Jennie 
 Lind in song; Rosa Bonheur in painting, and Mary 
 Lyon, the venerated teacher. 
 
 For many years teaching was the only pro 
 fession open to women, but now medicine, law, 
 science, and even the ministry, make no dis- 
 crimination against her. Each of these profes- 
 sions has many branches, and we find our 
 trained young women as journalists, pastors' 
 assistants, librarians, story-tellers, even college 
 professors. And there are today undiscovered 
 fields of service awaiting the young woman who 
 can discern in her own life capacities perhaps 
 unrealized before, and find in the world's life a 
 corresponding need. 
 
 Florence Nightingale made a distinct advance 
 for the Kingdom of God by bringing together the 
 capacity and the need. Her ability and efficiency 
 gave the true interpretation to her task, and she 
 became what she was frequently called, "the 
 Queen of Nurses."
 
 Florence Nightingale — Pioneer 155 
 
 For Continued Thought 
 
 The area of a woman's life and service is limited 
 only by her ability and the world's need. 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. What is meant by a professional life? What 
 motives should underlie the choice of a profession? 
 Mention the earliest professions open to women. Are 
 there any not open to women today ? 
 
 2. What influence did her home and early surround- 
 ings have upon the life of Florence Nightingale ? Why 
 was she not content simply to enjoy them ? 
 
 3. Did Florence Nightingale as a child reveal any 
 of the gifts that were to distinguish her as a woman ? 
 What difficulties did she have to overcome before she 
 could use her gift ? 
 
 4. Describe the condition of hospitals in England 
 when inspected by Miss Nightingale. How did those 
 of France and Germany compare with them ? 
 
 5. Mention the various periods of waiting in Miss 
 Nightingale's life. What occupied her at such times ? 
 
 6. Where did she get her first idea of trained nursing ? 
 
 7. What historical event made possible the use of 
 her gifts ? 
 
 8. How did she find conditions at Scutari, and what 
 did she do to remedy them? Mention various causes 
 that made her work a success. 
 
 9. How significant was the lowering of the death- 
 rate in the hospitals at Scutari after Miss Nightingale 
 had taken charge of the nursing?
 
 156 Lives Worth Living 
 
 10. Why was she known as "the Lady with the 
 Lamp"? What characteristics of hers does this 
 reveal ? 
 
 11. Describe her return to England. What was 
 her condition physically ? 
 
 12. How did England express its gratitude for 
 what Florence Nightingale had done ? 
 
 13. What did Florence Nightingale do for the pro- 
 fession of nursing in England ? 
 
 14. In what ways did her sick room become "a 
 throne of power" ? 
 
 15. What cause have we in America to be especially 
 grateful to her ? 
 
 *i6. What message hasher life for the trained young 
 woman today ? what for the young woman who sees no 
 opportunity to use her special gift ? 
 
 *i7. Find what women have been able to do in 
 some other of the professions, such as science, for 
 instance. 
 
 18. Are opportunities for service greater in the 
 professional or the industrial world ? Give the reasons 
 for your answer. 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 Cross, M. A., Life of George Eliot as Related in Her Letters. 
 Encyclopaedia Brilannica, article "Florence Nightingale." 
 Kennard, Nina H., Life of Mrs. Siddons. 
 
 fKeysor, Jennie Ellis, Rosa Bonhetir, "Great Artist Series," Edu- 
 cational Publishing Co., 50 Bromfield Street, Boston. 10 
 cents. 
 Palmer, George Herbert, Life of Alice Freeman Palmer. 
 *TooIey, Sarah A., Life oj Florence Nightingale. 
 Willis, Nathaniel P., Life of Jennie Lind Goldschmidt.
 
 CHAPTER VI— LESSON XIII 
 WOMAN AS AN INTERPRETER OF THE FAITH 
 
 The Lord giveth the word: the women that publish 
 the tidings are a great host.' 
 
 Aspects of the Subject 
 
 The field of the interpreter: The individual; the 
 home; the school and church; social and civic life; 
 missions and philanthropy. 
 
 The means used by the interpreter: Education, 
 service, and inspiration. 
 
 The achievement of the interpreter: "The blind 
 receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are 
 cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised 
 up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them" 
 (Matt. II :s). 
 
 General Survey 
 
 Woman's position in the world today is mainly 
 due to the emancipating power of Christianity. 
 The religion of Jesus lifted her from the place of 
 the slave and the plaything of man to that of 
 companion and co-worker. It opened the gates 
 into a "kingdom of usefulness and duty" of which 
 no one had ever dreamed until the Christ came. 
 Before this, "woman, beneath all her shame, felt 
 
 'Ps. 68:ii. 
 
 IS7
 
 By courtesy of the sculptor, Daniel C. Freiu h 
 
 ALICE FREEMAN PALMER MEMORIAL AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE 
 
 At one side of an altar with its flame stands a young girl who has just 
 lighted her lamp. In the center, a beautiful feminine form, with one hand rest- 
 ing on the girl's shoulder, directs her into the future — a fitting memorial of one 
 who lovingly and earnestly inspired the lives of those whom she touched as she 
 pointed out to them the path of service.
 
 Woman as Interpreter of the Faith 159 
 
 a law of being which she had no power to fulfil, 
 gleams of an ideal she could not reach, hints of an 
 immortal life which she had not thought to separate 
 from fear."^ Then the emancipation of those 
 words, "There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there 
 can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male 
 and female ; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus " 
 (Gal. 3:28), struck off the shackles from her soul, 
 and gave to woman ideals and motives that were di- 
 vine, and created for her a " new heaven and a new 
 earth." What a challenge this gives to Christian 
 womanhood to stand for her religion ; to live it, to 
 teach it around her own hearthstone, and in "the 
 uttermost parts of the world." And "when men 
 falter, woman, in some Mary Magdalene, must 
 steal to the grave in the morning, as darkness turns 
 to gray; and woman in reform, in achievement, in 
 hope, must run before a disheartened race, to cry, 
 with all the sweetness which a religion of the heart 
 can give: 'He is risen!' A woman, in that hour 
 before daybreak, ran to a new Poland, when, as the 
 wife of a ruler, she caught the risen glory of Jesus, 
 bending before all others at that sepulcher of his 
 which we call the Dark Ages. A woman once 
 heard in Russia the voices of resurrection, before 
 all others, and that Mary jVIagdalene ran and told 
 Russia that for her Christ had risen. Woman 
 beheld the forsaken grave first, as Christianity rose 
 ' Gunsaulus, Paths to the City of God, p. 238.
 
 i6o Lives Worth Living 
 
 out of the tomb in which, for ten centuries, civiliza- 
 tion had slept through the Middle Ages. Chivalry 
 caught the word from her, and through all the 
 mistakes of fanaticism, the ideal woman has led 
 the world. Says Draper: 'Clotilda, the queen of 
 the Franks, brought over to the faith her husband 
 Clovis; Bertha, the queen of Kent, and Gisella, the 
 queen of Hungary, led the way in their respective 
 countries.' Greater than monks or lonely priests 
 were the captive women taken from the south of 
 Europe in war, to civilize the north. The Greek 
 wife mentioned by Xenophon, who tended her sick 
 slaves, was a prophetess of that womanhood which 
 would produce a St. Perpetua for martyrdom, a 
 Joan of Arc for sacrificial love of liberty, a Florence 
 Nightingale for tender charity 
 
 "Christianity has been called a new enthusiasm 
 for, and the enthusiasm of, humanity. It must, 
 therefore, not only propose to re-create woman's 
 life, but it proposes to turn the power of the re- 
 created womanhood upon the slow world. It not 
 only found new powers within woman, but it found 
 new uses for all her powers, latent and manifest. 
 And so, along with Christianity, there came Mary 
 and Martha, Lydia and Elizabeth, Euodia and 
 Syntyche."^ 
 
 So history teaches that as it is the Christ that 
 has brought to womanhood the greatest possession 
 
 ' Gunsaulus, op. cit., p. 241.
 
 Woman as Interpreter of the Faith i6i 
 
 of her life, it should now become her greatest 
 responsibility to make her life interpret Chris- 
 tianity to her generation. An interpreter is a 
 discoverer, a revealer, a translator, and an inter- 
 preter of the faith is one whose word or act or 
 thought reveals the love of God and the meaning 
 of life in such a way that others may understand. 
 We readily see how the person of large influence 
 and great usefulness is able to interpret Chris- 
 tianity through his life-work. But Jesus made no 
 discrimination when he said to his disciples (drawn 
 for the most part from the common people), "Ye 
 are the light of the world. A city set on a hill 
 cannot be hid. Neither do men light a lamp, and 
 put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it 
 shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so 
 let your light shine" (Matt. 5:14-16). 
 
 To the hundreds of Wellesley young women who 
 came under her care, Alice Freeman Palmer was 
 indeed an interpreter of the faith. As she herself 
 once expressed it, "I am trying to make girls wiser 
 and happier. It is people that count — you want 
 to put yourself into people; they touch other 
 people; then others still, and so you go on working 
 forever." And as her husband. Professor Palmer, 
 of Harvard, adds, "She adopted the idea of Jesus 
 that if you would remold the world, the wise way 
 is to devote your fleeting years to persistent talks 
 with a dozen young fishermen. And that this
 
 i62 Lives Worth Living 
 
 audacious method was effective in her small degree, 
 as in that majestic instance, I now daily perceive 
 as I meet with those who once were almost dead 
 and were brought to living fruitfulness by her 
 ardent patience."^ 
 
 "In the pulpit of that great cathedral, the City 
 Temple of London, a woman one day stood con- 
 fronting a vast assembly. Many had come, curious 
 to see this great sight — a woman in Parker's pulpit ; 
 they remained to be awed by the power, the refine- 
 ment, the inspiration of Catherine Booth, wife 
 of William Booth, general of the Salvation Army, 
 as she cried, ' What the preaching of England needs 
 is Sword. ^ 
 
 "It was she who, from the gallery, on the day 
 of his revolt from the church of which he had been 
 a member, when the question of his submission was 
 before the Conference, waved her handkerchief and 
 called out 'Never!' and together they went forth 
 in the name of liberty of preaching. 
 
 "It was she who sustained and advised him in 
 the dark days of their traveling evangelism; it 
 was she who conceived the idea of military dis- 
 cipline and designed the dress, at least of the women 
 'soldiers'; it was she who was counselor-in-chief 
 to the Army, especially in its work for women, and 
 counselor-in-chief to the General until she died."^ 
 
 ' Life of Alice Freeman Palmer, p. 9. 
 * Professor G. A. Johnston Ross.
 
 Woman as Interpreter of the Faith 163 
 
 Here was an interpreter of the faith in warfare 
 for God ; for the Salvation Army has been a sword 
 thrust into the "heavy sleepy body, first of English 
 and later of the world's religious life." Through 
 her, Christ was interpreted to a struggling human- 
 ity who, in return, gave their affection and their 
 reverence to the ''Mother of the Army." 
 
 We have seen how Florence Nightingale was a 
 pioneer interpreter of the faith through the min- 
 istries of healing, and how she made it possible 
 for thousands of unknown nurses to become just 
 such other interpreters of God's loving care to 
 sick and needy souls the world around. 
 
 Recall that company of noble women who have 
 counted "all things to be loss for the excellency of 
 the knowledge of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:8) and, 
 going out into the Christless places of the world, 
 as did Corinna Shattuck, have interpreted their 
 faith to oppressed and ignorant souls. While we 
 cannot mention them all by name, our hearts de- 
 light to dwell with affection upon that young col- 
 lege girl, Dr. Eleanor Chestnut, who became a 
 martyr for China; upon Isabella Thoburn, who 
 dreamed great dreams for the women of India, and 
 upon Ellen Stone, held captive by brigands in 
 far-off Macedonia. 
 
 Recall, also, that host of mothers who, like 
 Hannah of old, stand beside little children and the 
 young people of our homes, with one hand in
 
 164 Lives Worth Living 
 
 blessing upon their head, while the other points 
 the way into a life of service. They are no less 
 interpreters of the faith because their names are 
 unknown to the world; for they have the name of 
 the Father written on their foreheads and their 
 own names "are written in the Lamb's book of 
 life" (Rev. 21:27). 
 
 Our hearts salute that army of interpreters who, 
 in our public and church schools, look into the 
 faces of the youth of our land and try to interpret 
 Hfe to them in the spirit of the great Teacher. 
 
 Mary of Bethany and Ruth the Moabitess 
 interpreted the faith in terms of affection, while 
 Deborah's interpretation was a bugle call to a 
 holy warfare. But the varied experience of them 
 all is needed for the complete interpretation of the 
 living, growing faith that has come down to us 
 through the ages. 
 
 To many who are standing at the threshold of 
 life, unable to see that they have any gift that the 
 world needs, comes the reassuring, challenging 
 word of the Master, spoken in the familiar parable 
 of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-29). Each of the 
 servants received something for the use of which he 
 was held strictly accountable. The servant who 
 considered his one talent too insignificant to make 
 use of, and hid it out of sight, had it taken from him; 
 while those who used their talents had other talents 
 given them.
 
 Woman as Interpreter of the Faith 165 
 
 This parable is a summons to each of us to dis- 
 cover and use the talent which God has given to us 
 or implanted within us. Here is the help and com- 
 fort needed by the self-distrustful young woman 
 when she finds, not only the need before her, but 
 the God above her, forbidding the neglect of her 
 gift. As Paul said to his young friend Timothy, 
 "Stir into flame the gift of God, which is in thee" 
 (II Tim. 1:6, margin). 
 
 However, it is not only the one-talent servant, 
 but often the possessor of five talents who is at a 
 loss to discover his gift and place of service. 
 
 After several years of uncertainty and painful 
 waiting Henry Drummond, the great interpreter 
 of the faith in its relation to science, found his 
 gift, and summarizing the knowledge which this 
 experience taught him he inscribed upon the fly- 
 leaf of his Bible the following maxims, which will be 
 most helpful to anyone who is trying to discover 
 his gift and use it: 
 
 "To find out God's wiH, first, pray; second, 
 think; third, talk to wise people, but do not regard 
 their decision as final; fourth, beware of the bias 
 of your own will, but do not be too much afraid 
 of it; fifth, do the next thing."^ 
 
 Having found our gift, we must remember that 
 it is given us for service in the community. Paul 
 makes this clear when he says that each one's 
 
 ' G. A. Smith, The Life of Henry Drummoid, p. 127.
 
 1 66 Lives Worth Living 
 
 gift is for the purpose of interpreting the spirit 
 and faith of Jesus for the world's profit (I Cor. 
 12:7), None of us, therefore, are left out of, or 
 denied the privilege of a share in, the work of 
 interpreting the faith by means of our gift. In- 
 deed, so far from being negligible, we are necessary, 
 as necessary for the full efficiency of the community 
 as the humblest organ of the body is necessary for 
 the health and efiiciency of the whole (I Cor. 12:12- 
 26). So it is by the use of our gift in the right 
 spirit that we interpret that part of the faith which 
 is most vital and real to us. 
 
 Faith of our fathers, living still 
 
 In spite of dungeons, fire and sword, 
 
 O, how our hearts beat high with joy 
 Whene'er we hear that glorious word. 
 
 Faith of our fathers, holy faith, 
 
 We will be true to thee till death. 
 
 Faith of our fathers, faith and prayer 
 Have kept our country brave and free. 
 
 And through the truth that comes from God, 
 Her children have true liberty! 
 
 Faith of our fathers, holy faith, 
 
 We will be true to thee till death. 
 
 Faith of our fathers, we will love 
 
 Both friend and foe in all our strife; 
 
 And preach thee, too, as love knows how, 
 By kindly words and virtuous life. 
 
 Faith of our fathers, holy faith, 
 
 We will be true to thee till death.' 
 
 'F. W. Faber, "Faith of Our Fathers."
 
 Woman as Interpreter of the Faith 167 
 
 For Continued Thought 
 
 What God-given talent have I which would make 
 more complete the interpretation of the faith to 
 the world in which I live ? 
 
 Questions for Use in Teaching or Further Study 
 
 1. In what ways did Christianity emancipate and 
 develop woman's life ? 
 
 2. What can she give the world as an expression of 
 her gratitude ? 
 
 3. Mention ways in which the area of woman's 
 life has been enlarged during the last fifty years. How 
 has the world been enriched by this larger service ? 
 
 4. What is it to be an interpreter? What is the 
 meaning of the expression, "an interpreter of the 
 faith " ? Has woman any special qualifications for this 
 task? 
 
 5. What is prerequisite to becoming such an inter- 
 preter ? 
 
 6. Why ought we to hold the "faith of our fathers" 
 so sacred? Have we any relation to it except to pre- 
 serve it ? 
 
 *7. Study several great hymns of the church which 
 especially reveal this faith. 
 
 *8. Read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews for a 
 study of faith. 
 
 9. Are there vocations which are pre-eminenth- 
 the field of the interpreter ? 
 
 10. Is there any vocation which does not provide 
 an opportunity for such service ?
 
 i68 Lives Worth Living 
 
 11. How does education enable us to discover and 
 to widen the use of our gifts ? 
 
 12. What do you think of the maxims of Professor 
 Drummond ? 
 
 13. What is likely to happen if we consider our 
 gift too insignificant to use? 
 
 14. Why is the use of our gift necessary for the 
 complete interpretation of the faith ? (I Cor. 12 : 27-31). 
 
 15. Recall the characters of Mary of Bethany, 
 Hannah, Ruth, Deborah, Lydia, and Corinna Shattuck, 
 and mention the part each had as an interpreter of the 
 faith. 
 
 *i6. Mention the names of women of modern times, 
 other than those spoken of in these lessons, who seem 
 to you conspicuous examples of serviceable lives. 
 
 17. Is it an easy thing to be an interpreter of the 
 faith ? 
 
 *i8. Are you willing to make the effort necessary 
 to discover your gift and use it to interpret the faith 
 to others ? 
 
 Reference Books 
 
 Gulick, Luther H., The Efficient Life. 
 
 Gunsaulus, Frank W., Paths to the City of God, chap, xii, "Chris- 
 tianity and Woman." 
 
 Hitchcock, Edward, Memoirs of Mary Lyon. 
 
 Palmer, George H., Life of Alice Freeman Palmer. 
 *Parsons, Frank, Choosing a Vocation. 
 
 Smith, George Adam, The Life of Henry Drummond. 
 
 Tucker, William J., Personal Power. 
 
 jVocational Literature. Vocational Bureau, 6 Beacon St., 
 Boston.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS 
 
 The value of this course of lessons is not to be found 
 primarily in the accumulation of separate facts week 
 by week, but rather in the ever-widening 
 circles of interest and influence, which 
 result in some form of helpful service. Each one of 
 the characters presented emphasizes the truth that 
 ''one is richest in soul who has given most to enrich 
 other souls," and that it is the cup of cold water given 
 in Christ's name that distinguishes his disciples. 
 
 These lessons have been arranged in groups of two, 
 the first being in most cases the biographical illustration 
 of the second. Hence the second lesson in most of the 
 chapters may be said to be the one for which the first 
 was made, and the two should be thoroughly studied 
 before attempting to teach either. The teacher will 
 thus recognize the unity of the two lessons and will 
 assign questions and topics accordingly. 
 
 Teacher and pupils will find that they can greatly 
 increase the value of these lessons by the use of the 
 books listed at the end of each lesson. The teacher 
 should plan the outside reading and make assignments 
 to members of the class. Some pupils will find it an 
 advantage to select one book for the entire course, while 
 others will be able to do considerable reading in con- 
 nection with each lesson. The lists given are large 
 169
 
 170 Lives Worth Living 
 
 enough so that pupils who hav^ time may read several 
 books on the same subject. Books marked with an 
 asterisk (*) should be read by as many of the class as 
 possible and will be found in most public libraries. 
 Librarians are very willing to give assistance in the 
 selection of books and also to buy any book for which 
 there is a demand. The books marked with a dagger 
 (t) are in pamphlet form and need to be secured early 
 in the course. 
 
 The teacher will probably find that the members of 
 the class will be more interested in studying the 
 questions requiring thought, and in reading the 
 reference books, after the lesson has been presented 
 in class. This order of work may be preferable, as 
 tending to create in the student an enthusiasm for 
 the subject which will lead her to read the reference 
 books much more thoroughly than she otherwise 
 would. 
 
 All questions marked with an asterisk (*) give 
 opportunity for special thought and continued study. 
 
 The material for these lessons is varied. The Bible 
 references come first and are fundamental. At least 
 some portion of the supplementary reading suggested 
 is equally important in order that both teacher and 
 student may have a larger outlook upon the theme. 
 The class should have access to a dictionary of the 
 Bible, such as Hastings', in order to understand the 
 customs and local conditions. If, in addition, a 
 modern commentary, such as the Cambridge Bible for 
 Schools and Colleges, can be consulted, the work will 
 be still further illumined.
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 171 
 
 The limited time of the regular session of the 
 Sunday school will often prove insufficient for a thor- 
 ough presentation of the lesson. It is hoped that many 
 teachers will find it profitable to continue most of the 
 lessons for two or more sessions of the class, thus 
 extending the course over a half-year. 
 
 Opportunity for debate and the use of special 
 topics is left largely to the discretion of the teacher. 
 But the use of the lecture method is discouraged, as is 
 also such discussion as is likely to be fruitless. Inde- 
 pendent, constructive thinking is urged. Indeed, the 
 teacher's success will depend largely upon her ability 
 to hold the class to the subject presented and at the 
 same time to allow opportunity for sufficient freedom 
 and spontaneity in discussion. 
 
 Interest is sure to be awakened in different forms of 
 religious and social service which should be allowed 
 some means of expression. The formation of a week- 
 day club with its inside-work and outside-work com- 
 mittees, meeting monthly or fortnightly, will be a 
 natural development; while the reading and dis- 
 cussion of one or more of the reference books may be 
 made a valuable part of the program for the club 
 meetings. 
 
 Although the Sunday schools of today are better 
 equipped than ever before, the success of any series of 
 lessons depends very largely upon the personality of 
 the teacher and her ability to detect and satisfy the 
 deepest needs of the individual members of the class. 
 There are no tools that take the place of devotion and 
 sympathetic affection.
 
 172 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Chapter I — Lesson I 
 
 Mary of Bethany — The True Friend 
 
 With the aid of maps, encyclopedia, and Bible 
 dictionary have as a background for this lesson a dis- 
 tinct picture of Bethany and Jesus' friends who livgd 
 there. Live with Lazarus and his sisters in imagina- 
 tion until they seem like real friends in some distant 
 village. Then will Mary's beauty of character be more 
 fully realized and her distinct gift understood. This 
 study should ennoble true friendship and emphasize 
 its qualities as well as its cost. The lesson begins 
 with Mary; but properly does not end until teacher 
 and class become true friends to someone who needs 
 their help. 
 
 One Sunday-school class met the challenge of this 
 lesson by adding to its numbers tw^o young women, 
 one somewhat afflicted and consequently shy about 
 meeting those of her own age; the other a nervous 
 invalid who for months had not left her bed, but who 
 put on the class badge with the others and met them 
 in spirit week by week. 
 
 Chapter I — Lesson II 
 Woman's Opportunity in Friendship 
 
 The value of this lesson will be found in the entrance 
 it gives to the outside world of beauty and life, and to 
 the inner world of affection and sympathy. It will 
 ennoble the daily routine if the teacher can arouse in 
 the class an expectancy for opportunities in which 
 to show friendly attentions.
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 173 
 
 This lesson may profitably be extended one or more 
 weeks, thus allowing time for the class to report on 
 books read, trips for the study or enjoyment of nature, 
 and the results of following the suggestions for friend- 
 liness under the paragraph on friendship with persons. 
 In this connection, the influence of the Social Settle- 
 ment, which teaches by being friendly; the Big Brother 
 and Big Sister organizations; the work of the Juvenile 
 Court and Probation Officer, who endeavor to save 
 boys and girls by wise sympathy; the Visiting Nurse; 
 the Camp-Fire Girls; the Boy Scouts; church groups 
 of boys and girls, and many other such agencies may 
 be considered. 
 
 Consider the different ways in which one may con- 
 tinue his education through life as a means of constant 
 enrichment. 
 
 Mention certain occupations which offer special 
 opportunities for friendship, the teacher emphasizing 
 that of the home-maker in preparation for chap. ii. 
 
 The teacher will know how personal to make the 
 questions in regard to friendship with God. This is 
 the climax of the lesson and should receive its full pro- 
 portion of time and consideration. Avoid superficial 
 and stereotyped expressions. The lesson offers a 
 special opportunity for leading the pupils to make the 
 spiritual life supreme. 
 
 Consult the newspapers and such magazines as 
 the Survey for incidents in answer to the questions for 
 further study. 
 
 The following practical suggestions have been 
 found helpful:
 
 174 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Let each pupil make a list of worth-while books she 
 would choose for a three-foot shelf, and give the 
 reasons for her choice. 
 
 Have a Saturday afternoon walking-club for the 
 sake of good comradeship and the study of nature. 
 Keep a notebook for the record of interesting dis- 
 coveries. 
 
 Urge each pupil to have a hobby and make col- 
 lections. A small boy in a crowded city block had 
 splendid success raising flowers in boxes on the roof 
 of an adjoining building. Back yards and vacant lots 
 have often been transformed into gardens. 
 
 Have the members of the class put in practice for a 
 week Alice Freeman Palmer's rules, keeping a record 
 of the results and reporting at some later meeting of 
 the class. 
 
 Chapter II — Lesson III 
 Hannah — A Noble Mother 
 
 Make the story of Hannah very real to the class, so 
 that the members may feel a personal interest in 
 Elkanah's household. 
 
 Let Hannah be a revelation of the guiding influence 
 a true mother may have in her home, considering also 
 the attractions which constantly draw young women 
 away from the home and make them unwilling tc 
 assume the responsibilities of motherhood. 
 
 This lesson should result in a more worthy apprecia- 
 tion of one's own mother and the realization that hei 
 unselfish labor through the years finds its highest 
 reward in the excellence of her children.
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 175 
 
 For the larger interpretation of tliis chapter have 
 the class understand clearly that the home spirit is 
 not dependent upon having a home of one's own. 
 Mrs. Mary Hemingway writes of a missionary, "she 
 had a genius for home-making. If it were only a bare 
 room in a Chinese inn, within a few moments she could 
 bring cheer and homelikeness." We all know such 
 people. 
 
 Be sure to ask the class for the results of their study 
 of mothers, as suggested for further study at the close 
 of the lesson. This will make an interesting intro- 
 duction to the following lesson. 
 
 Chapter II — Lesson IV 
 Woman's Privilege in the Home 
 
 This is so important a subject that two or even 
 three lessons may profitably be spent upon it by 
 most classes. A possible division of the subject 
 might be: (i) the home and the family; (2) the home 
 and the community; with an entire lesson for each 
 subject. 
 
 If the teacher has become acquainted with the homes 
 of her pupils, her suggestions will prove much more 
 helpful, since she can lay stress upon the problems and 
 difficulties which have been found in the actual 
 experience of the class. If not, she should seek to 
 lead the class to discuss the problems that they 
 actually face. 
 
 Secure from the Perry Pictures Company, Maiden, 
 Massachusetts, penny copies of the picture entitled
 
 176 Lives Worth Living 
 
 "Morning Prayers in the Family of Sebastian Bach," 
 by Rosenthal, and notice how music and religion 
 ennobled the life of that family. 
 
 A class party at the home of cne teacher would be one 
 of the best applications of this lesson, especially if the 
 class is made up of working girls in a city. A certain 
 Sunday-school teacher after such an evening was 
 surprised to have one of her girls remark as she said 
 goodnight, "This is the first time I have been in a 
 home since I came to the city two years ago!" The 
 same teacher, when offering to call upon one of her 
 pupils, was asked not to come. "I have no place 
 where I could have a caller," said the girl, "and I have 
 to do my laundry work evenings." 
 
 These are but suggestions of "follow-up" methods 
 which the teacher may find helpful in establishing the 
 home atmosphere for some of her own pupils. 
 
 If the members of the class have their own homes, 
 'there is hardly a limit to the various subjects which 
 may be discussed in connection with this lesson. 
 
 Chapter III — Lesson V 
 Deborah — A Champion of Israel 
 
 A clear understanding of the historical background 
 of this lesson will be found necessary rightly to interpret 
 these varying events. Note how the writer of the 
 first three chapters of Judges exposes in unsparing 
 language the infidelity of Israel. He seems the mouth- 
 piece of Jehovah as he emphasizes over and over again
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 177 
 
 the divine law that disobedience always brings punish- 
 ment; that Jehovah is the only true God, and that 
 Israel will always be severely punished when she turns 
 aside to worship other gods. 
 
 Have the class realize that Deborah's success was 
 preceded by years of patient preparation before she 
 was able to arouse oppressed Israel. Point out the 
 value of leadership and prove that the highest motives 
 and the right spirit are necessary if one is worthily to 
 respond to its challenge. 
 
 This lesson also teaches the value of united leader- 
 ship. We have not only Deborah, but also Barak and 
 the people who "offered themselves willingly." Each 
 of these received the reward that always comes to those 
 who give what costs something. "Whosoever would 
 save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose 
 his life for my sake, the same shall save it" (Luke 9: 24), 
 is the New Testament way of expressing it. If atten- 
 tion is called to the elements of cruelty, and evidences 
 of imperfect moral ideals in the story, these should be 
 neither glossed over nor excused, except to point out 
 that they were according to the standards of that age. 
 But it is not for these that we are studying this story, 
 and as little time as possible should be given to them. 
 
 In preparation for the following lesson, ask the class 
 to be on the lookout during the week for instances in 
 our public life where the spirit of Deborah is sounding 
 the alarm and the people are offering themselves 
 willingly, "for the help of Jehovah against the mighty." 
 Note especially those instances where a woman is the 
 leader.
 
 178 Lives Worth Living 
 
 Chapter III — Lesson VI 
 Woman's Public Influence 
 
 This lesson offers an opportunity to the teacher to 
 broaden the vision of what it means to be an efficient 
 woman in the community. No teacher can ask for a 
 larger task than to be able to point out to her class the 
 way to a life of unselfish service for others. Let the 
 end and aim of all service as expressed in Matt. 25:40 
 be kept clearly in mind in the teaching of the lesson. 
 The varying needs to which woman is especially 
 adapted to minister should be made very clear and 
 definite, so that there may be awakened a desire to 
 help in meeting them. 
 
 The best discussions are those among the members 
 of the class, the teacher simply guiding the thought into 
 helpful and suggestive channels. This will be found 
 to be true even with the questions on suffrage, where 
 there is sure to be much difference of opinion. 
 
 Let the teacher ask each member of the class to make 
 a special study of some woman whose public influence 
 is well known. If the pupil could come into personal 
 touch with such a woman, the experience would add 
 interest to the lesson. 
 
 In preparation for next week's lesson the pupils 
 should be asked to read the Book of Ruth at one sitting, 
 just as they would read and enjoy any short story, 
 while the teacher herself should read the introductory 
 paragraph at the beginning of the next lesson that she 
 may enkindle the interest of her class to make a worthy 
 preparation for the study of Ruth, the immigrant.
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 179 
 
 Chapter IV — Lesson VII 
 Ruth — The Immigrant 
 
 In this lesson nothing will take the place of a 
 careful reading and re-reading of the Book of Ruth. 
 As suggested in the last lesson, the teacher must awaken 
 the interest of the pupils in the story sufficiently for 
 them to be willing to do this, one delightful method 
 being to present the lesson for the first time in its 
 dramatized form. This will give a familiarity with the 
 story and the words of the text, if the different charac- 
 ters are represented by members of the class. It 
 might be found helpful to give this in costume at some 
 social gathering of the entire Sunday school. 
 
 Interest must also be aroused in Ruth as an immi- 
 grant, by considering the reason for her becoming 
 one, the conditions she met in a strange land, and 
 the happy outcome. This will prepare the way for 
 the next lesson with its study of women immigrants 
 in our own country. 
 
 Chapter IV — Lesson VIII 
 
 Women Immigrants in America 
 
 The purpose of this lesson on immigration is to 
 awaken an appreciation of our own national ideals, 
 and a sympathetic attitude toward the people ot 
 other countries who are helping us make "the new 
 America." As the subject of immigration is so widely 
 discussed in our magazines and papers, and so manv
 
 i8o Lives Worth Living 
 
 helpful books have recently appeared, the teacher will 
 find ample material suggested for two or more lessons. 
 Points of special emphasis should be: From what 
 lands and conditions of life have these immigrants 
 come? What do they bring to us? What do they 
 find here ? How are we helping them ? What remains 
 to be done ? 
 
 Memorize the hymn at the beginning of the lesson 
 written by Katherine Lee Bates, and have it sung by 
 the class to the tune of "Materna," which may be 
 found in most church hymn books. 
 
 To awaken further interest in the immigrant and his 
 family, nothing is more suggestive than to make a sur- 
 vey of the neighborhood or town or city in which one 
 lives. Indicate on a map of as large a size as possible 
 the homes or rooming-houses of immigrants. Note 
 the conditions under which they live. Locate on 
 the map all helpful influences, such as schools, libraries, 
 and churches and settlements; also the harmful influ- 
 ences, such as saloons or dance halls. Make careful 
 inquiries as to what use is being made of all these 
 institutions by the immigrant. Find some right 
 way to become acquainted with these people, especially 
 the women, so that you may be a friendly visitor in 
 their homes or a "big sister" to their children. Dis- 
 courage all disrespect shown to them in the use of 
 such nicknames as "dago," "nigger," "sheeny," 
 "Jap," "chink." Encourage the immigrant to tell 
 you of his fatherland and its national heroes. 
 
 Find a common ground of interest with the maids in 
 your own home. A bit of Norwegian embroidery, or a
 
 Suggestions for Teachers i8i 
 
 recipe for Danish cakes may be instrumental in bring- 
 ing real happiness to the immigrant girl living under 
 your own roof. This is a class of inmiigrants for which 
 perhaps least is being done, and who live closest to us. 
 
 After you, individually, are enlisted in the work, 
 interest someone else. Try to have the local church 
 open its doors and provide stereopticon lectures of a 
 nature that can readily be understood, even by the 
 newly arrived immigrant. A church in Boston held 
 international socials once a month, the guests being the 
 foreigners of the neighborhood, who were invited to 
 wear national costumes, while national songs and 
 tableaux made up the program. 
 
 Make a careful record of the conditions as you find 
 them and confer with the leaders of your home or city 
 missionary societies, who will gladly render you 
 assistance in such work. 
 
 Chapter V — Lesson IX 
 Lydia — A Christian Business Woman 
 
 A delightful preparation for this study of Lydia will 
 be found in the interesting description of the city of 
 Philippi and adjoining country as pictured by Robert 
 Bird in his book Paul of Tarsus, pp. 247-64; also the 
 chapter entitled "St. Paul in Macedonia," under Acts 
 of the Apostles in the Expositor's Bible. Use a map to 
 locate all the places mentioned. After reading the 
 lesson story in Acts 16:6-40, read the entire letter to 
 the Philippians as the letter Paul wrote to the church at 
 Philippi several years later. This will give perspective
 
 i82 Lives Worth Living 
 
 and atmosphere. Emphasize in the lesson the valuable 
 results that often come from small beginnings; con- 
 trast the business that is carried on for money gains 
 and that which is conducted for the achievement of 
 high and noble ideals. Illustrate by using concrete 
 examples from the business life of your own .town or 
 city. Make Lydia live to your class. One's imagina- 
 tion will not go far from a true portrait if one will hold 
 carefully in mind the few glimpses that Luke has given 
 us. The last two questions of those for further study 
 prepare the way for the following lesson. 
 
 Chapter V — Lesson X 
 Woman's Place in Industry 
 
 Nothing will impress the thought of this lesson more 
 deeply than for the teacher and her class to come in 
 touch with some group of working girls in their own 
 neighborhood or city, or to make some personal investi- 
 gations of store or factory conditions. Try to find 
 ways in which your church may become a friendly place 
 to the young woman who toils, and be a "big sister" 
 to some young cash girl who longs for recreation and a 
 good time, and who will be tempted to look for it under 
 unsafe conditions unless some good friends provide 
 legitimate fun. 
 
 As women have not as yet been able to compete with 
 men in the highest positions in the industrial world, 
 there are only a few conspicuous examples of business 
 women whose success has equaled that of men. But 
 be sure to find out all you can about Madame Bouci-
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 183 
 
 cault, manager and owner of the Bon Marche in Paris, 
 as skilful and expert a leader of industry as any man. 
 Then, in preparation for next week's lesson, read the 
 booklet issued by the Woman's Board of Missions of 
 the Interior (Congregational), Chicago, and entitled 
 Corinna Shattuck — Missionary Heroine, for an example 
 of a captain of industry who succeeded under most 
 unusual and trying circumstances. 
 
 Chapter VI — Lesson XI 
 Corinna Shattuck — Missionary Heroine of Oorfa 
 
 One of the best ways to study history is by means 
 of biography. As Emerson once said, " the only history 
 is biography." And there is no more fruitful way to 
 study missions than to become acquainted with the 
 heroes and heroines of the faith, who in out-of-the-way 
 places and under the most difficult conditions have lived 
 a life of self-sacrificing service. Let the teacher who 
 feels that her own interest and enthusiasm are not 
 sufficient to meet the requirement of this lesson read 
 from beginning to end that booklet issued by the 
 Young People's Missionary Movement, by Dr. Joseph 
 Clark, entitled The Smoke of a Thousand Villages, 
 and she will get a vision of the missionary opportunity 
 of the Sunday school and its appeal to young people 
 that will enable her to make the life of Corinna Shattuck 
 a concrete example of the missionary motive and pas- 
 sion. 
 
 Miss Shattuck's unusual ability as an organizer of 
 industry under almost impossible conditions makes
 
 1 84 Lives Worth Living 
 
 the study of her life follow naturally the last two 
 lessons. 
 
 But for those classes that prefer to study the life of a 
 missionary of their own denomination the names of 
 Isabella Thoborn of India (Methodist); Dr. Mary 
 Eddy of Syria (Presbyterian); Charlotte Tucker of 
 England (Church of England); and Ann Hasseltine 
 Judson's work for the Burmese (Baptist) are sug- 
 gested. The denominational boards of foreign mis- 
 sions will gladly give information and supply additional 
 literature in regard to the work of any of their 
 missionaries. 
 
 In these days, when the missionary movement has 
 so much to do with the shaping of a national life, the 
 Sunday-school teacher must put into the life of her 
 scholars not only Bible facts but the missionary impulse 
 of the Bible. Missionary biography is of special service 
 to the teacher at just this point, for it always leads up 
 to the question, "Why did she do it?" Some in the 
 class may be inclined to express it as the disciples did, 
 when the woman poured out the precious ointment as 
 a token of her affection for Jesus, "To what purpose 
 is this waste?" The teacher must be prepared to 
 meet the objections that still continue to be raised in 
 regard to foreign missions, but it would be most unfor- 
 tunate to have this the climax of the lesson. Rather, 
 let the heroism and devotion of such a life as that of 
 Corinna Shattuck suggest the more personal question, 
 "What is my part toward completing the task that 
 Jesus began and these noble men and women have 
 been carrying on ? "
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 185 
 
 Some of the class may be interested to look up the 
 new constitution in Turkey and the Young Turk party; 
 the writings of the sages of Edessa; or the work in 
 Oorfa of Rev. and Mrs. Francis H. Leslie, the successors 
 of Miss Shattuck, which the x\merican Board of Foreign 
 Missions at Boston can supply. 
 
 Chapter VI — Lesson XII 
 
 Florence Nightingale — Pioneer in a Profession 
 
 This lesson is intended to emphasize the service that 
 may be rendered to the world by the trained worker. 
 In your group of young women there may be several 
 college girls who need to realize life's challenge. There 
 are certainly those who could have special training if 
 they were made to feel that it was worth while. The 
 life-work of Florence Nightingale gives the teacher 
 the opportunity to make both of these groups of young 
 people feel their responsibility to match the world's 
 need with the particular service they are best fitted to 
 give. This thought is further developed in the next 
 lesson on "Woman as an Interpreter of the Faith," 
 which considers more definitely the question of personal 
 gifts. 
 
 The teacher should encourage the class to look for 
 as many examples as possible of the splendid work done 
 by women in the professions. This will stimulate the 
 desire to take a share in such work themselves, suggest 
 a closer study of one's own abilities, and how to apply 
 them to satisfy the need.
 
 i86 Lives Worth Living 
 
 The magazines frequently have articles on the work 
 of women along professional lines. Read in the 
 American Magazine for October, 19 14, an account of the 
 interesting work of Ida M. Tarbell, a prominent 
 journalist, and in the February, 191 5, number of the 
 same magazine that of Anne C. Tyler, New York's 
 "Story Lady." 
 
 Chapter VT — ^Lesson XIII 
 Woman as an Interpreter of the Faith 
 
 Let the teacher begin the study of this lesson with 
 the genuine desire to measure honestly her own work, 
 as an interpreter of the faith, before attempting to 
 interpret the work of others. This will lead her 
 to question thoughtfully her own motives and ideals and 
 the influence of her message upon the lives of others. 
 It may take some time before she is able to answer 
 satisfactorily the questions, "How much does 'the 
 faith' really mean to me?" and "How rich a faith am 
 I revealing to others?" The more time the teacher 
 is able to give to purposeful meditation on the truths 
 of this lesson, the more valuable will be her expression 
 of them at the lesson hour. 
 
 Lead the class to sing the hymn found in the Lesson 
 Comments, "Faith of Our Fathers," to the tune of 
 St. Catherine; also other great hymns of the faith 
 that you especially enjoy. Let them make them their 
 own by memorizing them. 
 
 For many in the class the question of fitting them- 
 selves for their life-work and the discovery of their
 
 Suggestions for Teachers 187 
 
 gifts will be of vital interest. Here is an opportunity 
 to give hope and courage, both to the young woman 
 who has had advantages and training and also to her 
 less fortunate sister. This lesson should open the way 
 for many an intimate talk in regard to the personal 
 life of the pupils, and should aim to send both the 
 teacher and the pupil out into their day's work with 
 the God-given purpose to belong to that great company 
 which no man can number, who in their daily ministry 
 are the interpreters of the faith to a waiting world.
 
 THE CONSTRUCTIVE STUDIES 
 
 The Constructive_Studies comprise volumes suitable 
 for all grades, from kindergarten to adult years, in 
 schools or churches. In the production of these studies 
 the editors and authors have sought to embody not 
 only their own ideals but the best product of the 
 thought of all who are contributing to the theory and 
 practice of modern religious education. They have 
 had due regard for fundamental principles of peda- 
 gogical method, for the results of the best modern 
 biblical scholarship, and for those contributions to 
 religious education which may be made by the use of 
 a religious interpretation of all life-processes, whether 
 in the field of science, literature, or social phenomena. 
 
 Their task is not regarded as complete because of 
 having produced one or more books suitable for each 
 grade. There will be a constant process of renewal 
 and change, and the possible setting aside of books 
 which, because of changing conditions in the religious 
 world or further advance in the science of religious 
 education, no longer perform their function, and the 
 continual enrichment of the series by new volumes so 
 that it may always be adapted to those who are 
 taking initial steps in modern religious education, as 
 well as to those who have accepted and are ready to 
 put into practice the most recent theories. 
 
 As teachers profoundly interested in the problems of 
 religious education, the editors have invited to co- 
 operate with them authors chosen from a wide territory 
 and in several instances already well known through 
 practical experiments in the field in which they are 
 asked to write.
 
 The editors are well aware that those who are most 
 deeply interested in religious education hold that 
 churches and schools should be accorded ]:)erfect 
 independence in their choice of literature regardless of 
 publishing-house interests and they heartily sympa- 
 thize with this standard. They realize that many 
 schools will select from the Constructive Studies such 
 volumes as they prefer, but at the same time they 
 hope that the Constructive Studies will be most widely 
 serviceable as a series. The following analysis of the 
 series will help the reader to get the point of view of 
 the editors and authors. 
 
 KINDERGARTEN, 4-6 YEARS 
 
 The kindergarten child needs most of all to gain 
 those simple ideals of life which will keep him in har- 
 mony with his surroundings in the home, at play, and 
 in the out-of-doors. He is most susceptible to a reli- 
 gious interpretation of all these, which can best be 
 fostered through a program of story, play, handwork, 
 and other activities as outlined in 
 
 The Sunday Kindergarten (Ferris). A teachers' manual 
 giving directions for the use of a one- or two-hour 
 period with story, song, play, and handwork. Per- 
 manent and temporary material for the children's 
 table work, and story leaflets to be taken home. 
 
 PRIMARY, 6-8 YEARS, GRADES I-III 
 
 At the age of six years when children enter upon a 
 new era because of their recognition by the first grade 
 in the public schools the opportunity for the cultivation 
 of right social reactions is considerably increased. 
 Their world still, however, comprises chiefly the home, 
 the school, the playground, and the phenomena of
 
 nature. A normal religion at this time is one which 
 will enable the child to develop the best sort of life 
 in all these relationships, which now present more 
 complicated moral problems than in the earlier stage. 
 Religious impressions may be made through inter- 
 pretations of nature, stories of hfe, song, prayer, simple 
 scripture texts, and handwork. All of these are 
 embodied in 
 
 Child Religion in Song and Story (Chamberlin and Kern). 
 Three interchangeable volumes, only one of -which is 
 used at one time in all three grades. Each lesson pre- 
 sents a complete service, song, prayers, responses, textsi 
 story, and handwork. Constructive and beautiful 
 handwork books are provided for the pupil. 
 
 JUNIOR, 9 YEARS, GRADE IV 
 
 When the children have reached the fourth grade 
 they are able to read comfortably and have developed 
 an interest in books, having a "reading book" in 
 school and an accumulating group of story-books at 
 home. One book in the household is as yet a mystery, 
 the Bible, of which the parents speak reverently as 
 God's Book. It contains many interesting stories 
 and presents inspiring characters which are, however, 
 buried in the midst of much that would not interest 
 the children. To help them to find these stories and 
 to show them the living men who are their heroes or 
 who were the writers of the stories, the poems, or 
 the letters, makes the Bible to them a living book 
 which they will enjoy more and more as the years 
 pass. This service is performed by 
 
 An Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children (Cham- 
 berlin). Story-reading from the Bible for the school 
 and home, designed to utilize the growing interest in 
 books and reading found in children of this age, in
 
 cultivating an attitude of intelligcnL interest in the 
 Bible and enjoyment of suitable portions of it. Full 
 instructions with regard to picturesque, historical, and 
 social introductions are given the teacher. A pupil's 
 homework book, designed to help him to think 
 of the story as a whole and to express his thinking, 
 is provided for the pupil. 
 
 JUNIOR, 10-12 YEARS, GRADES V-VII 
 
 Children in the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades are 
 hero-worshipers. In the preceding grade they have 
 had a brief introduction to the life of Jesus through 
 their childish explorations of the gospels. His 
 character has impressed them already as heroic and 
 they are eager to know more about him, therefore the 
 year is spent in the study of 
 
 The Life of Jesus (Gates). The story of Jesus graphically 
 presented from the standpoint of a hero. A teachei-'s 
 manual contains full instructions for preparation of 
 material and presentation to the class. A partially 
 completed story of Jesus prepared for the introduction 
 of illustrations, maps, and original work, together with 
 all materials required, is provided for the pupil. 
 
 In the sixth grade a new point of approach to some 
 of the heroes with whom the children are already 
 slightly acquainted seems desirable. The Old Testa- 
 ment furnishes examples of men who were brave 
 warriors, magnanimous citizens, loyal patriots, great 
 statesmen, and champions of democratic justice. To 
 make the discovery of these traits in ancient characters 
 and to interpret them in the terms of modern boyhood 
 and girlhood is the task of two volumes in the list. 
 The choice between them will be made on the basis of 
 preference for handwork or textbook work for the 
 children.
 
 Heroes of Israel (Scares). Stories selected from the Old 
 Testament which are calculated to inspire the imagina- 
 tion of boys and girls of the early adolescent period. 
 The most complete instructions for preparation and 
 presentation of the lesson are given the teacher in his 
 manual. The pupil's book provides the full text of each 
 story and many questions which will lead to the consid- 
 eration of problems arising in the life of boys and girls 
 of this age. 
 
 Old Testament Stories (Corbett). Also a series of stories 
 selected from the Old Testament. Complete instruc- 
 tions for vivid presentation are given the teacher in 
 his manual. The pupil's material consists of a note- 
 book containing a great variety of opportunities for 
 constructive handwork. 
 
 Paul was a great hero. Most people know him only 
 as a theologian. His life presents miracles of courage, 
 struggle, loyalty, and self-abnegation. The next book 
 in the series is intended to help the pupil to see such a 
 man. The student is assisted by a wealth of local 
 color. 
 
 Paul of Tarsus (Atkinson). The story of Paul which is 
 partially presented to the pupil and partially the result 
 of his own exploration in the Bible and in the library. 
 Much attention is given to story of Paul's boyhood 
 and his adventurous travels, inspiring courage and 
 loyalty to a cause. The pupil's notebook is similar in 
 form to the one used in the study of Gates's "Life of 
 Jesus," but more advanced in thought. 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL, 13-17 YEARS 
 
 In the secular school the work of the eighth grade 
 is tending toward elimination. It is, therefore, con- 
 sidered here as one of the high-school grades. In the 
 high-school years new needs arise. There is necessary
 
 a group of hooks which will dignify the study of the 
 Bible and give it as history and literature a place in 
 education, at least equivalent to that of other histories 
 and literatures which have contributed to the progress 
 of the world. This series is rich in biblical studies 
 which will enable young people to gain a historical 
 appreciation of the religion which they profess. Such 
 books are 
 
 The Gospel According to Mark (Burton). A study of the 
 life of Jesus from this gospel. The full text is printed in 
 the book, which is provided with a good dictionary and 
 many interesting notes and questions of very great 
 value to both teacher and pupil. 
 
 The First Book of Samuel (Willett). Textbook for teacher 
 and pupil in which the fascinating stories of Samuel, 
 Saul, and David are graphically presented. The com- 
 plete text of the first book of Samuel is given, many 
 interesting explanatory notes, and questions which 
 will stir the interest of the pupil, not only in the present 
 volume but in the future study of the Old Testament. 
 
 The Life of Christ (Burgess). A careful historical study of 
 the life of Christ from the four gospels. A manual for 
 teacher and pupil presents a somewhat exhaustive treat- 
 ment, but full instructions for the selection of material 
 for classes in which but one recitation a week occurs 
 are given the teacher in a separate outline. 
 
 The Hebrew Prophets (Chamberlin). An inspiring presen- 
 tation of the lives of some of the greatest of the prophets 
 from the point of view of their work as citizens and 
 patriots. In the manual for teachers and pupils the 
 bibhcal text in a good modern translation is included. 
 
 Christianity in the Apostolic Age (Gilbert). A story of 
 early Christianity chronologically presented, full of 
 interest in the hands of a teacher who enjoys the his- 
 torical point of view.
 
 In the high-school years also young people find it 
 necessary to face the problem of living the Christian 
 life in a modern world, both as a personal experience 
 and as a basis on which to build an ideal society. To 
 meet this need a number of books intended to inspire 
 boys and girls to look forward to taking their places 
 as home-builders and responsible citizens of a great 
 Christian democracy and to intelligently choose their 
 task in it are prepared or in preparation. The following 
 are now ready: 
 
 Problems of Boyhood (Johnson). A series of chapters 
 discussing matters of supreme interest to boys and 
 girls, but presented from the point of view of the boy. 
 A splendid preparation for efficiency in all life's relation- 
 ships. 
 Lives Worth Living (Peabody). A series of studies of 
 important women, biblical and modern, representing 
 different phases of life and introducing the opportunity 
 to discuss the possibilities of effective womanhood in 
 the modern world. 
 The Third and Fourth Generation (Downing). A series of 
 studies in heredity based upon studies of phenomena 
 in the natural world and leading up to important 
 historical facts and inferences in the human world. 
 
 ADULT GROUP ~ 
 
 The Biblical studies assigned to the high-school 
 period are in most cases adaptable to adult class 
 work. There are other volumes, however, intended 
 only for the adult group, which also includes the 
 young people beyond the high-school age. They are 
 as follows: 
 
 Great Men of the Christian Church (Walker). A series of 
 delightful biographies of men who have been influential 
 in great crises in the history of the church.
 
 Social Duties from the Christian Point of View (Henderson). 
 Practical studies in the fundamental social relationships 
 which make up life in the family, the city, and the 
 state. 
 
 Religious Education in the Family (Cope). An illuminating 
 study of the possibilities of a normal religious develop- 
 ment in the family life. Invaluable to parents. 
 
 Christian Faith for Men of Today (Cook) . A re-interpretation 
 of old doctrines in the light of modern attitudes. 
 
 The Life of Christ (Burton and Mathews). A careful 
 historical study of the life of Christ from the four 
 gospels, with copious notes, reading references, 
 maps, etc. 
 
 It is needless to say that the Constructive Studies 
 present no sectarian dogmas and are used by churches 
 and schools of all denominational affiliations. In the 
 grammer- and high-school years more books are pro- 
 vided than there are years in which to study them, 
 each book representing a school year's work. Local 
 conditions, and the preference of the Director of 
 Education or the teacher of the class will be the guide 
 in choosing the courses desired, remembering that 
 in the preceding list the approximate place given to 
 the book is the one which the editors and authors 
 consider most appropriate. 
 
 Prices always placed at the minimum but liable 
 to change from year to year may be learned from the 
 latest price list. Address the 
 
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