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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Does Your Family Go to Church? Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. f ( it 'f 4iSk(J J vVvV - i-.VA '' "W '-Z " don' know why God is so good to us certain obscure mothers say, their faces radiant as they contemplate the safe arrival of Toms sont the happy marriage of lonely 30-year-old Sister Annie. By KATHLEEN NORRIS THE beauty of the old days when everyone went to church was that religion gives people a code a rule by which to live and by which to judge their own actions and those of others. Without religion it 'is hard to hold young persons to moral law. Their natural question "Why"? has no answer. an-swer. Some years ago, the 17-year-old daughter of a friend of mine secretly secret-ly rented a small Park avenue apartment and entertained her friends there while her mother thought she was merely dining and visiting with perfectly nice school fellows. Her expenses and the apartrrlent were shared by a boy of 18. To all of her heartbroken parents par-ents subsequent reproaches she only pertly answered why "why?" Why shouldn't she spend Granny's Gran-ny's legacy that way? Why shouldn't girls and boys live together togeth-er if they wanted to? Why should she tell her father and mother anything? What was there to be ashamed of? She really did not know the answers. At first glance youngsters do not see the connection between decency and religion. Religion itself as demonstrated by many of its exponents ex-ponents has done little to connect the two. Rituals, long sermons, incomprehensible formulas, greedy concern for interest, capital, bequests, be-quests, collections, money-making schemes have clouded the light. Our children see only these, and they decline to believe the great mystical and unproven truths upon which all real religion is based. If the lives of the teachers were different, differ-ent, then their effect upon our children's chil-dren's lives would be different. Greed, Stupidity Hide Glory. As it is, they are too often cheated cheat-ed out of their birthright of belief, partly because the blinding glory of faith is dimmed by so much human stupidity, partly because their parents par-ents have gone that same road before be-fore them and have decided that religion re-ligion is merely a profitable business busi-ness into which certain men enter; a "good thing," if you happen to be that unthinking, hypocritical sort of man, willing to fool along murmuring mur-muring things you don't believe or practice to women who don't believe or practice them either. But, thank God, under this heavy crust of age-old accumulated human stupidity, there works continually con-tinually the yeast of saintliness. The world is full of unseen, unrecognized unrec-ognized saints, who have probed further than this mere outer seeming, seem-ing, who have discovered the magic of the word, and who are quietly spreading it with every word they speak and every contact they make. Such persons may be the humblest hum-blest of mothers and fathers, working work-ing all their lives for food and shelter shel-ter for those they love, but their boys and girls will grow up strong in true morality, believing that they must keep their hearts and their lips clean, that they must pay what they owe, that they must keep their word, and give to those in need, comfort the sorrowing, forget for-get self in service. There is no more to it than that. Only somehow we don't find that unless we find God. It is belief in God, in our service to God, in the shortness of our term here and the necessity of making every moment of it valuable, that inspires this sort of teaching and this sort of conduct. con-duct. American children have not been deprived of moral teaching; it floods over them all during their home and school years. They have been deprived of the one thing that makes that teaching valuable. Will be a Settlement. They are like busy workers who have no employer. The humble true believer learns of God through the life of his expiating son, believes that it matters whether he is honest hon-est or not, truthful or lying, cruel or kind. There is a great employer, em-ployer, and eventually there will be a settlement. And acting blindly on this belief for a few years he begins to see that it works. Problems in his outer out-er life smooth out; the generous thing, the forgiving thing, the self-immolating self-immolating thing is suddenly and surprisingly the happiest possible thing. "I don't know why God is so good to us," certain obscure mothers say, their faces radiant as they contemplate con-template the safe arrival of Tom's son, the happy marriage of lonely, lone-ly, 30-year-old sister Annie. You never hear that phrase except ex-cept from believers. They see the surface-scum of human frailty in their leaders; they know of the wars, the slums, the selfishness and dishonesty of the so-called "Chris-' "Chris-' tian civilization." Everyone sees that. But they see further, too. They see that faith and the rule save young lives. The very leaders themselves them-selves may be lost. But the children to whom they taught love of God, and love of neighbor, are the only safe children in the world. Rob your children of everything else for which you are working and straining, strain-ing, but give them faith. "Why not?" the girl asked pertly. |