CHURCH WORKERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23224, 23 June 1937, Page 11

CHURCH WORKERS

PART PLAYED BY WOMEN ADDRESS BY MISS SALMOND An interesting lecture on her observations of women in church work in Britain and Europe was delivered by Miss M. Salmond. principal of the Presbyterian Women s Training Institute, to a fairly large audience in the Stuart Hall last night. Dr J. D. Salmond occupied the chair. Miss Salmond said she would like to take them over some of the places which she had seen while travelling last year and to introduce some of the women she had met. .There was great scope for home mission work in many areas of England, where women were appointed elders and deaconesses to do social work. They carried out an exceptionally difficult service with excellent results in poor areas, visiting homes, helping mothers, and conducting kindergartens. The educated women of England did not usually take up work for the Church, a prominent church educationist had told Miss Salmond, because there were few church offices open to women. She had found that this was also the case in Scotland. In 1938, however, the United Church of Scotland intended to discuss at the General Assembly the question of women in offices, so that the policy of caution might then be revised. The order of deaconesses seemed to be a dying service in the Scottish Church, and she had also found this true in English and German churches. The Sisters of the Church of Scotland, who performed a different type of work from the deaconesses, were a more recently-formed body of women and were directly under the control of the Home Missions Board. The Woman's Guild was a prominent movement in Scotland, having a membership of 126,000 women, and was the largest women's church movement in Britain and Europe. She felt that she had been particularly fortunate, Miss Salmond said, in being able to attend the centenary celebrations at Kaiserverth of the establishment of sisterhoods of Germany. There were about 2000 people employed bv this mother-house to-day, and 108 other houses were situated in various parts of Germany. The service was carried on by 34,000 deaconesses, but friction with political powers badly affected the work. Miss Salmond concluded with an appeal to the women of New Zealand to devote their efforts faithfully to serving the Church. They had great opportunities, and she felt sure that there was room for an accession of spiritual feeling among women connected with the Church's work.