A Good Time.

We sometimes hear people lamenting the dangers of this age as regards unsettled views in religion, while others lament that girls neglect home duties for outside work.

I am not at all sure that our greatest danger does not lurk in that most modern invention, "a good time," which, as a disturbing element, is closely related to that other modern institution "week-ends."

Fifteen or twenty years ago, a self-willed or self-indulgent girl escaped from the monotony of home duties by the door which led into slums and hospitals. Nowadays the same girl finds that duties can be evaded by the simpler plan of staying at home and having "a good time." I do not think this will last, any more than slumming, as a mere fashion, has lasted. I hope not, for it means that girls have had very full liberty given to them, and that their sense of responsibility has not yet grown in proportion to their freedom. Just now, pending the growth of that sixth sense, "a good time" is very easily to be had—at the cost of a little want of consideration for others—since the elders of to-day are curiously large-hearted in giving freely and asking very little in return.

But it would be an ungenerous nature which took advantage of generosity, and was content to take much and give little.

Surely it is utterly ignoble that any living soul sent into the great battle should ask to pick flowers, while every one worth their salt was hard at work fighting the foe, protecting the weak, nursing the wounded. I do not believe a girl would do it if she thought twice; every generous instinct would cry out against it. But a girl may drift into a very selfish pleasure-seeking life, and the tendency of the day is to regard this as a defendable and lawful line of life. Duty will hold its own with the morally thoughtful and with generous natures, but it is no longer an unquestioned motto for every one as it used to be in Nelson\'s days.

I have heard a girl rebel against her life, on the ground that she had a right to a good time; youth was the time for pleasure, she would never again have such a power of enjoyment, and it was absolutely criminal on her parents\' part not to provide her with more. I thought she already had more than most; but in any case, I did not agree with her in saying that she must enjoy now, or not at all. In case it should be any comfort to those of you who may have a dull life, I can tell you that it is not so. I am convinced we all have a certain power of enjoyment, and if you can get your fill of pleasure in youth, you do not find as much keen enjoyment in middle life as if you had been kept on a shorter allowance. It is true you do not enjoy quite the same things—there are youthful amusements which you can only enjoy at a certain stage; but take comfort, if you do not get as much as you would like now, it will only mean keener enjoyment of the pleasures of the next stage of life.

But what struck me most was her fundamental assumption that Pleasure was a valid object in life, and that she was sent into the world to get as much as she could.

If so, I think the world is a great Failure. I often hear people saying, "I cannot believe in God, because of the Pain in the world;" and if this world was the end of things, that would be reasonable; if Pleasure is the object of Life, it would be better never to be born! But if we are sent here to grow, then I cannot understand Pain being a reason for doubting God\'s love. Looking back on life, I am sure each will feel, "I could not afford to miss one of its shadows, no matter how black they were at the time." And the fact that you and I each feel that the key of God\'s love fits the lock of our individual life, should be one valid reason for believing that all Life is ordered for a right and noble purpose; our happy lives are as real a bit of Life, and as good a specimen of God\'s government, as sad ones.

People say to me, "Yes, I feel as you do about myself, but others have such terrible shadows that I cannot feel God is good!" Well, some sufferers tell me they would not change their life, for they feel God\'s love in it: surely they have a right to speak. We learn from them that Pain works rightly into life.

What makes a woman\'s life worth living? That she has had this or that pleasure—that she has riches or poverty—that she is married or lonely, that she married the right man or the wrong?

No! What matters is, whether she is growing more and more into tune with the Infinite? Is she learning God\'s lesson, and fitting herself for the still nobler life He wants to give her?

You and I came into the world to do our part in a noble battle—

    "\'Twere worth a thousand years of strife,
    \'Twere worth a wise man\'s best of life.
    If he could lessen but by one
    The countless ills beneath the sun."

Besides, you will not find Pleasure-seeking pays in the long run! If you are feeling that Pleasure with a big "P" is your due, then all the little annoyances prick and irritate. If you pay heavily for a new dress which hangs badly, it is trying; if you never expected a new dress at all, and that same dress was unexpectedly given you, the drawback would be looked at very differently.

It would pay pleasure-seekers to try the old plan of looking on life as a Duty, where pleasures came by accident or kindness, and were heartily and gratefully enjoyed. Do you remember in the "Daisy Chain," how Ethel says, after the picnic, that the big attempts at pleasure generally go wrong, and that the true pleasures of life are the little unsought joys that come in the natural course of things? Dr. May disliked hearing her so wise at her age, but I think it must have been rather a comfort to Ethel to have found it out. No thought of that kind damps your pleasure when the dance or the picnic turn out a great success! And when they do not, it is nice to feel there are other things in life. Every one knows how often something goes wrong at a big pleasure; the right people are not there, or your dress is not quite right; you are tired, or you say the wrong thing; while, if you get much pleasure, a certain monotony ............