WOMEN'S WORK IN THE MISSION FIELD.

Waiapu Church Times, Volume I, Issue 2, 1 August 1907, Page 11

WOMEN'S WORK IN THE MISSION FIELD.

At the great Festival service, to be held next year m St. Paul's Cathedral, London, the members of the Church of England will present, through their Bishops, the monies collected throughout the world as a thank-offering' to Almighty God for the many blessings bestowed upon the British Empire. That part of the thank-offering collected m New Zealand has been allocated by the General Synod to the work of women m the mission field. In a recent article m the " Ceylon Observer," th« Hon. John Ferguson, C.M.G., M.L.C., says . that

he has often silenced cavillers against missions by a single-word^ a/nd that word was " Woman." "In what condition were the women of the Hindus or even the Mohammedans before the advent of Christian missions, and to what is the instruction, enlightenment; freedom from many terrible burdens and uplifting of a host of them due if not to the influence of Christianity and its teachers." And m «. . recent speech Sir W. Mackworth Young, who has spent a long and influential life m India, said :— '•' The Punjaub woman is, as a rule, a person who has little love for anything beyond rice or vice, but she will . listen to the foreign sister who comes to India to. relieve her agony, or to minister to the suffering of her darling child. So it is all the world over. The touch of love, the soft word, will prepare the way for the access of the truth to the hearts of men for the old, old story of Jesus and His love." The" statement of the Bishop of Ely is indeed true :— " If the Indian Church was to be m any true sense national its stronghold must be m the family ; and before that could be achieved the women of India must be won. Christian Europe ■was awakening to the supreme duty pf regenerating the family life of the East through the ministry of Christian women." And how many Christian women are at work m the Mission field? ' T give the statistics of Protestant Missions for 1895 and 1905 :— . 1895 1905 Wives of Missionaries ... 36Q2 50ftl Unmarried 25?8- 4306 &260 9367 And this army of at least 10,000 this year (19017) are at work m Tehara, and schools and hospitals, teaching, comforting, healing the women of the East, and the call is ' urgent to the women of Christian lands to come over and assist m regenerating the families of the East. A striking fact is the overwhelming proportion of Christians amongst the female literates of India. Our- C.M.S. institution, the Sarah Tucker College at Palamcotta, Tinevelly, has contributed largely to this result m India. A few weeks ago th© " silver jubilee " of Mass* A. J. Ackwith's 1 connection with the college was celebrated. She joined the staff m 1881, and there are no less than 535 of those who have come under her training now working as teacher's m South lindia, while a few others have 'gone to Burmah and Ceylon. The institution attained collegiate rank m 1846, and it has already sixteen " First Assistants " and two B.A.s amongst its present or former students. The college has 348 pupils

on its roll, and there are attached to it fifty-five branch schools, and four schools, one of them industrial, for blind children. _ Where m the whole world could Christian women, with educational qualifications and gifts> find more fruitful spheres than our Indian schools and colleges for infusing life and light into populous tribes and nations. We rejoice ,to find that among the New Year's honors conferred by the Indian Government, Miss A°kwith has been awarded a Kaisar-i-Hind second-class medal. What- are we church people asked to do with regard to the thankoffering ? We are asked to give at least one shilling to the fund. So we nuay call it the "Shilling Fund." Many will, of course, give twenty, or even one hundred shillings ; but every one of us is asked to give, at least, one shilling, and collecting cards have been sent out to every parish and parochial district. What is the weak point m our church financial organisation ? The collection of small sums ! Here then is an opportunity for us to remedy this point. Let us thoroughly organise the collection of shillings from, every one connected with our church, and, moreover, let us make it a yearly collection. The Maori and Melanesian Missions, the Home Mission work of the "diocese, all need the small sums as well as the large, and we may be sure that we are losing large support towards these missions simply because we fail to ask the many for shillings ! The "Shilling Fund," to be given this year for the work of women m the mission field, surely should be a large one, for no country m the world has received greater blessings and prosperity than our favored land of New Zealand. " Freely we have received, freely we should give." -A.F.G.