THE CHURCHES AND THE WAR.

Northern Advocate, 1 December 1916, Page 1

THE CHURCHES AND THE WAR.

V DIFFICULT PROBLEM.

BEFORE THE PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY.

SHOULD WOMEN HELP

A great and steadily-growing difficulty —the lack of men —was reported by the Home Mission Committee of the Presbyterian General Assembly which has been sitting in Wellington. The report stated that though district after district was known to the committee in which a, beginning could and ought to be made, it was useless to think of sending agents to new places while the committee was unable to fill the vacancies in stations for which it had long been responsible. It had only been by the utmost diligence in searching for men that the vacancies had been kept down to, in the circumstances, a satisfactory figure; and, even so, several stations all through the year had been without agents. At the moment of writing the vacancies numbered eight, but the Assembly had to face the fact that when the students now filling vacancies returned to college next March, the vacancies would leap up to at least 20 or 21. The explanation of this state of affairs, it was hardly necessary to say, was the war. "The insufficiency of our supply," continued the report, "is not due, however, chiefly to the number of men who have thus far volunteered. It is due to the fact that there are very few single men, practically none, available to fill the gaps that are always occurring in this work. Vacancies are made by men leaving the service, by men taking the special Knox College course, and in other ways. It has always been difficult to find an adequate number of unmarried men; now they are not to be found at all. Even married men are much scarcer than formerly, but so many of our stations cannot possibly • —even with generous grants from the fund—support a man with a family, that often the application of a married man is, or at any rate ought to be turned down." Dr. Gibb suggested that the time was opportune when the aged and infirm ministers might come forward, although Home Mission work was often purely a young man's work. There was another alternative. If women could make munitions, act as conductors on trams, and the like, why not look to them in the missionary workf The committee should take every deaconness offering. Perhaps unprotected women would not suit for the isolated stations, but he was sure they would bo a big help in all directions. More help, too, was wanted from the elders. Referring to exemption from military service for ministers. Dr. Gibb said i a man wanted to go they should let him go. They had to be very careful because, in the opinion of the man in the street, a minister was useless to the community. lie had finally decided that if any home missioner wished to obtain exemption, he should be backed up by the Church through the Home Mission Committee.