Mass Meeting of Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue XX, 14 November 1903, Page 56

Mass Meeting of Women.

MRS NELIGAN ON CHILD TRAINING. A big gathering of the women of Auckland assembled in the Choral Hall, Auckland, on November 4 to hear addresses by the Bishop and Mrs Neligan and other speakers on subjects of special interest to them. Bishop Neligan presided, and was surrounded on the platform by Archdeacon Cole, Archdeacon Calder, Canon Nelson, Canon Haselden, Dr. O’Callaghan, Revs. Watson, Hawkins, Carver, Lush. Buckland, Latter, Mawthorne, Gillam, Fowler, Benning (Free Methodist), Tisdall, Wilson, and Dr. I’urchas. In addition to Mrs Nelison, Mrs Gillam, Mi's Cubitt, etc., were also present. The meeting was begun in the usual manner with hymn and prayer. THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN. Mrs Neligan spoke on the training of children, and declared that there was nothing in the world so important or so interesting as the children. In these days one often heard it said: “The children are after all a very great worry. They are a tie and anxiety we would rather be without.” In plain words, “They are a bother.” It made her heart ache io think that there could be people who could say this—both for the parents’ sake and also for the sake of the little children who were regarded in this light. Children were truly a great responsibility, a great and solemn charge, but every good gift brought with it a corresponding responsibility. The joy of bearing children must, of course, bring with it great responsibility. When she looked upon the great company assembled in the hall that afternoon she was reminded of the marvellous wowcr which it represented. and of the fact that women had the making of our Empire for good or evil. She was, however, sorry to feel that sometimes the mothers were content to have no aims in the training of their children, and were inclined to neglect those important years of the children’s infancy till it was too late to remedy the mistake, and the result was that their sons and daughters were sent out into the world unprepared for the great life before them. The motto of a mother should be, “Not success but service.” The prayer of each one of them should be, “God help me. I am the mother of an immortal soul.” SPEECH BY THE BISHOP. Bishop Neligan followed with an address which touched on all the three subjects already dealt with by the previous speakers. He said that a very dear creed of Iris was “I believe in falling in love.” (Laughter.) And lie thought many of his hearers would admit that he had very good reason for that. His Lordship proceeded to compare man’s virtues with woman’s, and added. “Speaking as a mere man. I would say foi' God’s sake, ladies, don’t come down to us. We don’t want you to descend to our level. We want to come up to your level.” Just as women despised womanly men. so men lamented beyond measure a manly woman. They were not what men wanted- Men respected and honoured the woman who had to earn her bread, or the bread of a parent or an invalid husband, but she could still remajn womanly. Every man who was worth being called a man would admit that the finest thing on God’s beautiful earth, the grandest creature ever made and sent to bless the world was a womanly woman. A man knew perfectly well when his wife was the sort of womanly woman that, he wanted, and the more womanliness he found in her the deeper he fell head over ears in love with her. Every man would tell them that if there was anything good in them it was the womanliness of some woman who put it there. It was the good influence of his own mother which made him become a bishop, and as proof of this he could tell them that, his one prayer for many years was, “God, if You are above, let me get my mother’s religion.” The meeting that afternoon was going to have a national effect, over the whole community of Auckland and the colony of New Zealand. Each one of them could go away believing that in carrying out their purpose they had at least 1000 women in Auckland working for (he same purpose. He believed that, though the result of that meeting might never be reducible to figures, it would be apparent in I he higher standard that the women of Auckland would hold-up for marriage in the higher standard of liv-

ing tliat they would set up before the men, and in the gladder, brighter, less bad tempered lives of the children.