The White Ribbon: FOR GOD AND HOME AND HUMANITY Friday, March 15 1901. At Convention and After.

White Ribbon, Volume 6, Issue 70, 1 March 1901, Page 6

The White Ribbon: FOR GOD AND HOME AND HUMANITY Friday, March 15 1901. At Convention and After.

Uy the time this issue of the White Ribbon reaches some of our subscribers the Annual Convention of the New Zealand W.C.T.LJ. will have commenced its sixteenth session. Although the detailed programme is long and varied, the objects of Convention are only two. They are : To receive reports-to take stock-of what has been done during the year, and to form plans of future work. While the record of the past year will be of interest to the delegates, yet the most important feature of the assembly must necessarily be the plans formed for the present year. No National Union in the world is richer in power and opportunity than that of this colony. To a very large extent women here have placed in their hands the means to effect a moral and social revolution. The “ 1 )o Kverything ” policy laid down tor the 1 nion by Frances Willard affords opportunity for every kind of gift that women possess. New Zealand never had more need for earnest and enthusiastic women workers. And vet J the numbers of those are sadly few. How are they to be increased ? W hat means can be devised to make every nominal member of our Unions a worker in some way or other ? And having first set every member to some work that she can do, how are our members to be increased ? These are questions that not Convention alone, but every member of our Unions should attempt to answer. We are at the beginning of a new century, we are laying the foundation of a new nation. What that century will bring forth, what that nation will become, must largely depend on our use of our God*

given talents. We are proud of our bright young country. We want it to be free of the terrible evils that have compassed older lands. Nightly in the sky do we see the starry cross, the symbol of unselfish love, of pure, heroic work for others. Can we look up at that bright beacon without resolving that we, too, will work in the same spirit as He Who pleased not Himself. ♦