The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-02-26
KINGS DAUGHTERS.
Remarkable Growth Of the Order
Its Work and Magazine.

ANo aaa
In an article on the Kings Daugh.
ters in Harper's Bazar Mary Lowe
Dickinson says the following:-At
the end of its first year the Order OF
Kings Daughters numbered about
twenty thousand members, and from
this time its growth became phenom.
email. The correspondence increased
until both the secretary and treasurer
counted their letters by scores and
sometimes by hundreds a day. The
public press seized with such avidity
every item concerning its work, print
ing much that was so entirely due TO
rumor and imagination a forced the
order to prepare a few news
paper articles indicating its real
character and scope. But even
this was most sparingly and reluct-
antly done. Some of the origina-
tors of the order, fearing that in so
rapid a growth there might De failure
to comprehend and carry out its true
principles, resolved on no account TO
invite anybody to become a member.
but to leave the omer to follow the
call of Gods spirit and the inward
promptings of their own hearts.
Everything was done to restrain, and
nothing to encourage the growth;
and yet that growth increased with
amazing rapidity.
Near the beginning of its second
year it formulated a constitution,
stating as its objects 1.-THE develop
ment of spiritual life in its members,
and the stimulation of Christian ac-
tivities in the world" 1t was from
the beginning, as its name and motto
indicates, a Christian, but never a
UNCONVENTIONAL OF sectarian Sister
hood. 1t welcomed all who were
willing to work for humanity in the
name and for the sake of Christ. Its
constitution provided for State and
county secretaries, appointed
now in about thirty States.
and in the provinces of Canada, and
so many members fixed upon the same
line OF work that it was necessary to
inaugurate various departments and
appoint standing committees on home
and foreign missions, on education,
on city evangeliZation, on charity or
~ganization. on work for working wo-
men, on work among men and boys,
work among the Indians, etc. This
list did not mean that no others could
be included, but these committees
were provided because circles among
our members in different States were
interested in every one of these lines
of work. But neither State secre-
taries, county secretaries, nor heads of
committees altered the essential ele-
ment of freedom as to the choice of
work. or took authoritative charge of
the work in any department or any
locality; they simply made a medium
of communication between the Cen
trail Council and the circles, and
gathered up the information as to
what was being done each in her own
State or department, still leaving
each circle and each individual its
right to choose its wi field of labor.
BY the beginning of the second year
the correspondence grew to be so
enormous, and the cIamor on the part
OF members at a distance so great,
that it became necessary for the
society to have some medium OF com
munication among its members. To
this end the little magazine called the
SiLUeT Cross was established. and in
its pages the work of the order lies
open to the world.
The members of the order have not
appealed to women alone. Hardly
were they established before men and
boys began to seek admission, and the
Order of the Kings Sons, while in
numbers not as large as that of the
Daughters, is constantly increasing,
and is showing evidence ofnoble work
along very many and helpful lines.
The Rescue Mission work and the
work done by the Commercial Travel
lers' circles alone show the power of
such organization on the part of men.
New Ideab in bracelets.
The Shakespeare bracelet is one OF
the cheapest and perhaps the most
popular bracelet in the market. II
oornao &c N eirn,la band ~ s;Ixyor -