The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-06-18
PLEA FOR MISSIONS.
Mrs. Dickinson Tells the
Woman's Foreign Society
of Evils Existing
and Abolished.
CONCERNING READING PLEDGES
Study Essential to Information
and Reform the Result Of
knowledge.
CONCERNING READING PLEDGES

OF the Wofnan's Foreign Missionary
Society in Emory M. e. Church, yesterday
afternoon. were the leave taking of Mrs.
s. L. Baldwin the president, who is soon
to leave her husband, the Rev. DR.. Bald
win, for a visit to the missions in China,
Japan and Corea, and the reading of a
paper, Concerning Reading Pledges" by
Mrs. G. w. Dickinson, the Newark Dis
trict Secretary. Aside from this all that
was done was the reading of several let
tiers from Missionaries In the field.
Mrs. Dickinson made the following adj
dress:-An enlightened interest in the
great need among Methodist women to-
day. The multiplicity of domestic
machinery, of social demands. of literary
exactions, all combine to crowd out the
| opportunity for quiet thought and re-
search along lines of department work in
the Methodist Church. Not long ago a
| collector of the dues in a Home Mission
airy Society within reach of New York
| City, called upon the wife of a local
Methodist preacher. During the CONVEX
did not know that were
| associated with the Home Society; she
did not know there was a Deaconess'
Home in New York, nor did she know
that the work among emigrants was
one of the most successful enterprises
undertaken by that energetic ~organiza-
ton. If a member of the Home Society,
serving as a collector for its membership
dues, was SO unfamiliar with society
working at home what can be expected
when the Foreign Society begins to col
iect its dues. Such a lamentable lack of
| information is inexeusable. With the in
| creasing devotion which prays for en-
larged opportunities there should be a
definite knowledge of the various fields
known as our Church Benevolence. It is
very much the same in church work as
in house life. The constant pressure or
duties is u~nrelaxing. Ian work ends
with the sun, but woman's work is never
done is a truism in church as well as
domestic affairs and the result Is
obvious. Every woman becomes an
elector. Each day she must elect just
what she must do in the house. II the
strawberries must be canned, the stock
ings must wait. If the bread is low the
visits must be delayed. So on day after
day she makes a constant selection of
tasks. It becomes a sort Of Darwinian
survival of the fttest, and that occupa-
ton which is the attest is the house
keepers duty for the day. Do her inter-
est and duty toward other household af-
fairs cease because, forsooth she does not
wash, iron, bake and stew all in one
day?
s in church life. Each woman must
needs become an elector. She must make
a careful examination of her own fitness,
Of her own talents, of her God given abili-
ties, and then deliberately, prayerfully,
zealously turn them into that direction
which will make her of greatest service
not only to the church but also to the
salvation of human souls.
when a woman unites with the Wom-
ans Foreign Missionary Society she not
only pledges to pay two cents a week to
help provide for the temporal work, but
she pledges two cents a week and prayer.
She enters into a solemn compact with
her Heavenly Father for the salvation of
her heather sisters. Oh sisters, how
often do we fail to realize what a sacred
engagement exists between God and US
for the soul saving of that dear little
woman beyond the seas. God has given
us food, shelter, parents, homes, hus-
bands, children and love beyond measure
L 6uIlGIltS our ilttp. 6FCIy DtcSSiHS THAI
our enlightened civilization can afford
lies at our door, and we lave but to reach
out our hand and grasp it. Just for a
moment compare the life In our country,
of an expectant mother with that of a
Chinese or Hindoo mother. Think of
the welcome that awaits the little one in
our country. Think of the lavish care
bestowed on mother and babe when the
. 1xr-. lo,. n r{xvoc nh 1~.xs, = Nr..f
fering yonder is physically similar to that
here. But imagine the surroundings in
that Chinese home. A damp earth floor
is that mothers resting place. Unat-
tended save by the grossest creatures a
child is born-alas, if 1t is a girl! Its first
wall will probably be its last.
"~Infancitide is still a common crime in
China. Or. if the child girl is spared, at
two years or at the latest four years the
long strips of cloth are bound about the
little toes until the awful agony is torture
alike to mother and child. Little girls
who have hobbled to our mission schools
frequently lean over the sharp edge Of
a table or chair and by pressing hard on
the deshy calf try to relieve the excru-
eating pain in their feet. Gangrene
often appears. Toes drop off, feet rot
away, blood poisoning sets in-death mer-
cifully follows. This, in brief is the story
Of a daily tragedy enacted in China in
1897. Can you imagine yourself watching
this scene with your little laughter as
the victim? And yet so many sit in calm
Indifference and say, oh. God will save
the heather # they never hear of Christ,
Oh, what's the use of troubling about the
heather, they are. well enough as they
are. I prefer to do what / can for the
heather home, Yes, and in the spring
husbands outgrown coat is given away
to keep it from the moths; a package 81
wheatena Is put in the barrel at church
along with q lot of half worn chfldren's
J clothes, and, forsooth, the mission work
Of that soul is done. Away with such
frauds; away with such hypocrisy.
1T Is true there are heathens, the very
I'll worst sort. In our own land. But fol
them the Gospel Is within reach. MOI
q soul from Hell Gate in New York t.
Golden Gate in San Francisco, or from
Maine to Texas, but can hear Of Christ
II he will. Not a body In need Of food
proper application. Such is the perfection
of our Christian cfvilization-such is the
permissible boast of our Home Mission.
, airy Societies in all denominations.
But Christss m Go We into all
the world and preach my Gospel is n
force today. Has 1t ever occurred to Won
my sisters, as you trace your revolution.
airy ancestry and boast of your heroic
blood, that your Anglo-Saxon fathers
were idolators? That Augustine ana his
mpani weqt to e people that asked
and the English speaking race, your race
Think again. The ONCE of the reiiei6n
l * of Jaaus Christ is NOT marolv * 1890