of age,” with plenty of spending money, seeks out the child, often crippled or blind, gives it food, clothing, a wheel chair, or takes it to a great physician who makes it well. Sometimes the heroine finds work for father and mother, and they move to a cottage in the country and are happy. Always in the story misery is relieved and hearts are made glad. Always the heroine is self-sacrificing and those helped are touched with deepest gratitude. In the last story, “Little Elsie sat comfortably back in her wheel chair too happy even to move it about. Her mother tried to find words to express her gratitude, but could only murmur her thanks. The child looked up into the face of her kind friend with a celestial smile that paid for all the sacrifice.”

This desire to give all in altruistic service, this longing to make the whole world happy, this worship of the Good reveals itself too in the girl’s effort “to find her Lord and worship Him.” The religious sense, so strong in the heart of the race that man must bow down and worship something, some one, be it fire, the moon, the stars, the river, ancestors, idols of wood or stone, is strong in the heart of the girl in her teens. And if rightly taught and presented, the Christ unfailingly becomes her great ideal. All the qualities she most admires she finds in him. Bravery, courage, purity and strength, patience and sympathy, all are there and she worships him. For him she can perform deeds of quiet heroism of which no one dreams,—struggle desperately to overcome her faults, and sacrifice many a pleasure willingly. Her prayers are ardent and sincere, and must rise to heaven as an acceptable offering. I saw such a girl bow her head in prayer in the crowded church on Easter morning. Her face was good to see. Death and the grave meant nothing to her, but oh, LIFE—it was so good. Sixteen found her hard at work in the cotton factory. But looking at her in her new suit and hat and gloves, and at the one bright yellow jonquil she wore so proudly, you would never have guessed that a week of toil lay behind her and another awaited her. That night she sang a brief solo in the chorus choir, and did it well; one of the boys in the church walked home with her, they talked a few moments, and Easter was over. At five-thirty next morning she rose, ate her hasty, meager breakfast, and went to work in the rain. A week later, when we were talking after Sunday-school, she said, “I don’t know as I ever had such a happy Easter. It was such a beautiful day.” And then hesitatingly, “I made up my mind I ought to be better than I have been, and I’m not going to let my sister go to work in the mill, no matter what it costs me. I’m going to send her to high school next year instead of taking singing lessons. I decided Easter night.”

I could see her sitting in her bare, hopeless little room, with the memory of the sunshine, the new suit and the jonquil, the solo, and the Risen Lord filling her soul as she made her sacrifice, letting the cherished plan of singing lessons go.

“What made you want to do it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, “I felt that I ought to, and Easter makes you think of those things. I think Christians ought to be more like Christ, as Dr. —— said in his sermon.”

That was the explanation. She was following, the best she knew how, the pathway of the Christ—her ideal. God bless her,—the sacrifice will pay.

Failing to find the Christ, the religious sense satisfies itself with lower ideals. Intensified longings, dissatisfaction, and a restlessness not found in the girl who truly gives her allegiance to the Christ and feels his steadying power, are very evident in the girl who has not yet found the one whom she can call Master and Lord.

Keeping pace with the deepening and broadening of the religious sense and the physical growth and development, the intellectual powers have been busy grasping new truths, eagerly seizing new facts that relate to life, comparing, rejecting, reasoning, indeed for the first time independently thinking.

Before her friends realize it, the years have hurried past and the time has come when only one more “teen” remains. She is eighteen. Eighteen may find her plunged into life as a wage-earner, one of the procession of thousands of girls facing realities that are hard. It may find her already in the whirl of social life, struggling to meet its demands, or in college facing its problems. Wherever it finds her, two things are true of her. She thinks for herself,—and she is critical.

Many of the theories of life and religion which she accepted unquestioningly she questions now. Doubts assail her, and she is perplexed by the evidence of wrong and evil resulting not only from weakness, but from deliberate planning. If all her ideals fail her, if the men and women she has trusted disappoint her, she grows cynical, and tells you that “no one is what he seems.”

Now, more than at any time in her life, she needs to meet fine men and women, that they may overbalance those whom she thinks have failed. She needs to know definitely the good being done everywhere in the world, to study great sociological movements, to see the efforts being made to meet the special needs of the day, the problems of the cities, and the salvation of the individual. Biography is good for her, and sketches of real men and women living and working for and with their fellows strengthen her faith and steady her.

Now is the time when she so easily develops into a gossip, and she needs anything and everything that will help her despise it, and provide her with something to talk about beside her neighbors and associates.

She is keenly critical, because she is comparing theories and life—because her ideals are high and her requirements match her ideals. She is scornful, because she has not lived long enough to realize how easy it is to fail, and she has not learned to let mercy temper justice. She doubts because she is not able to adjust things which seem to conflict, and experience has not yet helped her find harmony in seeming discord.

She still loves a good time, and has it. Her ability as leader, manager, or organizer reveals itself quickly if opportunity is given. Her tendency toward introspection and self analysis often makes her unhappy, dissatisfied and restless. She longs unspeakably to find her work, to be sure she is in the right place in the great world. She needs patience, real sympathy, and understanding from those with whom she lives; to be led, not driven, by those who control her; positive teaching on the part of all who instruct her, concrete interests, social opportunities, and some one to love.

“What does the girl in her teens need?” has been asked these past few years, by fathers, mothers, and teachers of girls, with increasing desire to find a real answer. As yet, not enough thoughtful people have even attempted to meet the question to make us sure that we have a safe and universal answer. Yet we may be reasonably sure of a few things.

She needs love. But, comes the reply, we do love her. From the time when she “lengthens” her dresses and “does up” her hair, to twenty when we greet her as an equal and consult her about all things, we love her. Who could help it?

But she needs intelligent love, which is really sympathetic understanding and keen appreciation wisely expressed. And she needs, from thirteen to twenty, to be taught two things: to work and to play. The girl in her teens needs to be helped to realize her dreams in action.

She has the dreams, the hopes, desires and longings. We must