Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/218

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206
Side Talks with Girls

myself. Of course, it wasn't stolen, and I am sorry anything was said about it." It was a little late to be sorry, for the girl who had been accused of being a thief was lying ill with a fever brought on by excitement, and the other two girls were both ill with nervous attacks. Surely no one in that house wore the mantle of charity, for there hadn't been a woman to defend those girls, and almost everyone had, without a thought, condemned them. The ways of charity are broad, making one think well before speaking, and always giving to the one accused the benefit of the doubt.

ANOTHER WAY OF CHARITY

You think the way to Heaven requires the walking over a certain path of belief. Your neighbor believes that it is approached by another, and her neighbor by still another. You all have faith in the same great truths and only differ in a few forms. Yet, if a discussion should arise, one would think from the way you speak that your neighbor worshipped graven idols, and that into her religion there came nothing that was beautiful, or good, or lovely. You bitterly condemn her ideas in regard to music, or whether she should kneel or stand when praying to the good God, and you wonder how in the world she can expect a happy hereafter when she doesn't elect to