Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/91

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A Girl's Religious Life
79

Of this I only have to say, do not get into the habit of repeating it thoughtlessly, but linger over the beauty of its words and realize what they mean every time they are uttered. The universal prayer, the one which asks "Our Father" for help, and wisdom, and charity, and sweetness, belongs to all of us, is simple enough for the youngest to understand, and magnificent enough in its words and intention to satisfy the most intellectual. That is all I can say about prayer, because when we pray and how we pray must be arranged by each, only we do not want our prayers to be mere words, nor do we wish to go on the housetops or the highways to make them.

VALUE OF SELF-EXAMINATION

There is probably no way to arrive at one's religious condition so valuable as by self-examination, and by this I mean the living over in your thoughts the hours of the day, and the seeing wherein you have made mistakes, and how in future they can be avoided. Sometimes this practice is carried to such a degree that hope is driven away from one, but this is only when one is not looking at the world justly, and is too prone to see the dark side of the cloud and not its silver lining. Probably the best way to examine one's conscience is to say to one's self the Ten Com-