A PLEA FOR OUR GIRLS by Belle Beck Gibson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 12, 1901

A PLEA FOR OUR GIRLS

By Belle Beck Gibson

BELLE BECK GIBSON

There lies before me a letter containing a command that I dare not disobey, “Work for the girls, Sister Gibson, work for the girls.” This is the cry that comes from one of these girls, for whom I, and every sister, yes, and brother, in our ranks must work as for eternity. We must redeem the time; for the days are indeed evil. Oh, that I could speak in a voice that would reach every one, in the interest of this important subject! My heart is greatly burdened with it; it is a work that has appealed to me since I was one of the girls, and saw and felt the necessity of a more determined and continuous effort to save these precious children of the Church.

The question is often asked, “Why is it that such a large per cent of Adventist girls grow up outside of the truth, with no interest in, nor regard for, it?” This is a question that deserves our serious thought and study. Why is it? I thank God now for the trials of my girlhood, which then seemed greater than I could bear, and which, but for God’s care and the influence of godly parents, I never could have borne; for they enabled me to enter into the sorrows and discouragements of the girls of to-day, as I never could have done without them.

In laboring for the youth of our churches, I have often, I may say always, had the same experience. They are easily melted, easily led, and respond readily up to a certain point; and when that is reached, all efforts are unavailing; they do not grow, hence will soon lose ground and fall into a formal, indifferent state. At first it puzzled me not a little, and I redoubled my efforts and prayers, but as, one by one, they came to me, privately, the secret was made known to me, and oh, the pity of it! The sin lay at the doors of the fathers and mothers, and older members of the Church. These children would not be raised above them. So they have lost the blessings they received, and have slowly, but too surely, drifted away, until I can now count one dozen girls who are making no profession at all, and seldom or never darken the doors of the church where they came so near the Lord and His mercy seat.

O brethren and sisters, let us awake! We are sleeping, unconscious of the sad fact that our precious girls, the purchase of our Saviour’s blood, are drifting, drifting, out on the sea of sin and death. Who will reach out a loving hand to draw them back? Who will clasp these erring children, these straying lambs, to their hearts, and say, “Forgive us, we knew not what we did. Come back, and let us start together in the path of truth, love, and mercy.”

I venture to say there is scarcely a girl, unless the delay has been too protracted, who would not relent; and if she knew there would be love, and prayers, and encouragement from the members of the Church, to welcome her, would come back into the fold once more. When one of these whose feet are slipping over the brink, does come back to attend services, through some lingering tenderness or for the sake of sister or mother, she is met by curious or half-averted glances, and whispers of, “Why, there is Susie Brown!” which reach the sharp, sensitive ears of the one mentioned, and spurs her to rebellion, and anger, and a determination “never to go back again, to be stared at and talked about.”

Now these things are facts, and should be dealt with as such. Why can not we older ones meet these girls with kind, simple greeting, neither noticing their long absence nor commenting upon it? Let them see God’s tender love shining in our faces, and feel it in our warm hand-clasp, or in the invitation to sit beside us or to visit us.

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.” Sin is sin, and we are told there are no degrees of sin; so are not we who are neglecting these lambs of the fold as guilty in the sight of God as they? We shall have all this to meet in the judgment. May God help us to face the situation now. In a recent Testimony we are told never to censure the wayward, but to lead them with love and tenderness to see a better way.

Many of us feel that if we could go to a foreign field to labor for perishing souls, we should do so gladly, while at our very doors is this work for our own girls, who are just as precious in the sight of God as are those in far-away fields; and we can not reach over this work to do some other, without being held accountable for that which we have neglected. Let us awake, let us be up and doing, with our hearts filled with the Spirit of God, and lifted to Him continually for wisdom, and for more of the tender love and mercy of Jesus in our lives. Without these, how are we to meet the question in the great day of the Lord, “Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?”