Then her grandmother who sat in the sunny room upstairs as long as the little girl can remember is taken sick.  Some days pass and her mother with tears streaming down her face tells her little daughter that grandmother has gone to heaven.  The mystery bearing down upon the little soul deepens.  “What is Heaven?” and “where is Heaven?” she asks.  They tell her of its beauties, its peace, happiness and joy.  They say that grandmother wanted to go and then they cry again.  The little girl cannot understand it all, but she tries.  If grandmother is happy and really wanted to go, why does mother look so sad, why the closed blinds, why is everything so quiet?  She asks the question in the presence of her practical unimaginative aunt, who bids her be quiet and adds in her even, impressive voice, “Your grandmother is dead.”  The word has an awful sound and she raises her eyes to the severe face above her and asks, “What is dead?” But the aunt does not answer, and the little girl goes to the window to think it all over.  She knows that dead is dreadful—­grandmother has gone, the house is quiet, father will not play with her and mother cries.  She is only a very little girl but she has met the unanswerable questions, “Who made God?  Where did I come from?  Where is Heaven?  What is it like?  What is Death?”

As the years pass her instructors in religion attempt to teach her.  In varied words, according to varied creeds they answer or postpone the answer to her questions.  She learns that God is good and God is great; that He takes care of people, at night especially; that one may ask Him for whatever she wants and if it is best she will get it; that if one would please God she must be very good and there are many things she must not do; that those who please Him shall be rewarded and those who fail shall be punished.

Her instructors do not mean always that this shall be the sum total of their teachings but stripped of all the songs, the pictures and cards, the birthday greetings, the flowers and stories, these things in the majority of cases sum up the little girl’s conclusions.  There enters into her religion in many cases that name which seems so often to sound sweeter when murmured by baby lips than at any other time.  The little girl has learned to love the Baby asleep in the hay, the Child before whom the Magi knelt, the obedient and lovable boy who played in Nazareth.  Then the new outlook comes and the little girl sees Jesus the Redeemer and God the Father.  She listens with eager fascinated interest to the stories of what He did and said, tries to obey the commands He gave, suffers for her sins of commission, prays and hopes to be forgiven.  The One who searches the hearts of men must find as honest, devoted faith among these little girls as anywhere in His army of believing followers.

Then the spirit of altruism begins to awaken.  She is no longer a little girl.  She begins to understand the meaning of sacrifice, she is stirred with the desire to serve.  Christ the Messiah, the Savior and Master, claims her interest and her heart is filled with desire to serve and to prove her love to Him.  She pledges herself to His service, strives to be faithful, suffers agonies of remorse over her failures.  Among all the hosts who follow Him there are none more loyal and loving than this girl in her teens.