Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/95

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A Girl's Religious Life

active belief? Or are you going to let people see how happy and how good it is to have such a faith, by letting them see how happy, how good, how loving, and how charitable, your own life is? Unless you mean to do this, to try to do this, you will never convince anyone that you have the true faith. You will never convince anyone that yours is the true faith when you attack every other.

In the Talmud is the story of the many pilgrims who came to the gate of a great city; each was hungry and thirsty, each spoke in a different language and said one word. They looked angrily at each other, and it almost seemed as if they were coming to blows, when the keeper of the gate sent for an interpreter. He listened to each one, smiled, and said: "Give them grapes, each in his own tongue has asked for them." Peace was restored and they became friends. Now, each of us in our way is trying to get to the Kingdom of Heaven; each of us may take a different mode of expression, but as we know what the desire of each is, shall we scoff at the mode of speaking? My dear girls, respect the belief of every human being, no matter how different it may be from your own, for it is God, not you, who will judge of the right and the wrong.