The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-04-10
MISSIONARY SPIRIT.
THE WOMAN WHO WANTS TO MAKE
EVERYBODY GOOD AS GOLD.

MfsdirecteA Enort OF Many who
Mean Well, but Don't Know-The
Best missionary work II TO HLove
Thy Neighbor as Thyself."
II you know a woman possessed Of the
missionary spirit-in whatever direction
it may tend-pity her; for her days are
not all made UP of pleasures and her
nights filed with the peaceful dreams that
come only to the one who has labored sue
cessfully and found her toll appreciated.
The woman who wants to see everybody
in the world just as good as gold Gay be
the woman worthy of all the love you nav
to bestow upon her; but, as I have said,
don't forget to pity her also, for she needs
1t. You may have to indulge in your
plying very quietly, for the missionary
spirited woman is usually proud-proud of
her desire to improve other folks lives,
from the proper way to clean the one room
in a tenement house to the revising of the
list of people it is well for you to call upon
or have your daughters associate with.
/ wonder if ever there was a missionary
who felt herself repaid for her labor. /
wonder If ever there was a missionary who
did not finally come to sit down and say,
in a disappointed instead of a happy voice:
"Wel1, l don't believe that other folks
need SO much looking after when it comes
right down to the truth of the matter. We
have just got in the way all our lives of
looking for and expecting to find more
evil thar good In the world, and it's all
wrong"
Now, my dear little missionary woman,
yvhoa VIM aif domn nfrfoftr and annQ m
this conclusion then your good work has
only just begun. But 1 am reminded as
/ write this of a true missionary story.
Tho charming young woman who figured
in it had not, at the time Of its occur
renee, come to the peaceful conclusion
that the people who go to make up this
world are not such o bad lot after all, but
I think she has since,
In her zeal to lift up some of the awful
ly downtrodden INK wicked people of the
city she asked g friend to tell her where
some such could be found. She was di-
rected to one dark looking little side street,
and thither she HE'D, in company with an
other young woman and a bundle of old
books and clothes, on a bright afternoon,
albeit it was cold.
With bright and smiling faces the mis-
sionary girls tripped up a flight of dark
looking stairs. They had been told that a
widow with two small children lived there,
and to the widows room they would go
first and give her the old clothes and the
good books to read.
When they raped on the door at the
top of the stairs, 1t was opened by a neat
looking woman, who was ironing out
snowy, ruffled skirts that evidently did not
belong to her. There were several baskets
heaped up with freshly Numbered gar
ments.
The woman looked the surprise she felt
at the arrival of her unexpected visitors.
When the young women told her they had
come to pay her a friendly visit and leave
her some books, the oma smiled rather
sadly, thanked them, and said she had
little time to read, and that if the ladies
would excuse her she would go on with
her ironing, as she had a pile of those love
", snowy skirts to finish and deliver be-
fore dark.
Looking about the room the missionaries
discovered that it was clean and that over
the fireplace there hung a bright hued pic
ture of the Christ Child and his mother.
That one poor, little room in O tenement
house did not seem, somehow, the place to
begin reforming neither was there any
sign that old clothes would be acceptable.
'sAnd, would you believe it" said the
young woman who told me the story her.
self, tive trotted around all that after
noon and did not find any one we felt we
dared give those old clothes to, and so we
just had to take them back home with
u.s."
"My dear, " said a quiet voiced woman
who heard this story, why did you not
- - -. 49,. -
you had to give? l know apoor girl about
your size that l could have made them
over for beautifully ard never let her guess
that they came to her as gifts Of charity. F"
The dearest missionary worna in the
world is the one who has a heart full of
charity for the one who sometimes fails to
do right and who sees shining through
all the wrong that little spark of right
that is born with all of us. She shuts her
eyes to the wrong and soon the good pre-
walls. Nobody enjoys being told that he
or she is entirely wrong. So this is a very
nice plan.
The missionary spirit needs curhing,
just as the shopping habit does.
If you want to reform you neighbors,
let them know that you take a real, sin
cere interest in them, but meet them on a
common plane. You will never find a
nice and opportune time to suggest to.
them that there are higher ideals than they
entertain if you once let them guess chat
you believe yourself superior in your way
of living and thinking.
The missionary spirit that prompts a
woman to be fearful every day OF her life
that unless she Is astir Hooking after
things some part of the world will go al
wrong is not to be encouraged. 1t brings
no happiness to the woman herself and
her family certainly is not n to be en-
We'd.
Shift the pretty pictures about on the
walls of your own apartment until you
make room for q real old fashioned motto,
Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself," and
when you are quite sure that you have
learned this so well that you will never
even for a moment forget it then be GER
tain that you are ready to be a missionary,
or r~efor1ner, or whatever you choose to
call the good work of making other people