The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-05-25
X CALLING FOR WOMEN.
CHRISTIAN VISITATION CHURCH
 WORK.

treat opportunity HUT S No
 Good seryIee-shouId Develop the
 Service and Furnish the Employ
 ment of This Kind to its Members
 Women Could do Most Useful yisita-
 tion. s
 Herewith is presented to our readers in full the following communication from the Rev. William J. Mutch, Ph. D.: i. .@s
 "I happened on Mrs. A. in furniture store to-day just in time to save her a lot of trouble. She was just ready to close a bargain for "a twenty dollar baby carriage, paying five dollars cash and dollar per week. MT. A. has nine dollars the week when he has work. and some whole weeks he has nothing. But the foolish woman did not have the courage to take her first baby out on the street in anything less stylish. persuaded her to go with me < to the auction room, and we got good one. scarcely the worse for wear for six Y dollars" These were the words of wise and experienced matron. But most women would not have dared to meddle with what might be considered none of their business So with un- wise management these young families keep themselves in poverty and dis couragement, nourishing all the vices which go with these conditions.
 E A stern and honest mother was hay ing no end os trouble with a child which seemed strangely stubborn and disobedient, until lady who had read Elizabeth Harrison's Study of Child Nature stumbled upon the situation, and saw that 1t was not a case of will fulness, but rather lack of will ag- gravated by nervous fear of punish ment, which practically paralyzed the child. A new mode of discipline was devised on the spot, and disaster was averted. For the lack of just such counsel there are many children being utterly demoralized through mistaken ideas of discipline.
 A widow had followed an unapprecia- tive son, her only support, from place to place until utterly disheartened. A friendly and resourceful visitor found her on the point of some rash act, and planned partial self-support for her, which the son was ready to supple nent. Further distress and irritation of soul was avoided for both. But so rare are those friendly visitors, so spas modic and irresponsible is their work, 3 and so unskillful their well intended efforts that a hundred cases wear Themselves out in despair where one Is properly relieved.
 fryr ,,t, otrf sified and expanding character of reli- gious work Does some one say, this Is not strictly religious work. It is certainly good and important work. Experience has shown that it cannot be systematically and continuously done in any other name or from any other motive than religion. And after all does it not belong with visiting the fatherless and the widows in their af- fliction, and with that comfort of the stranger, the sick and the bound, of which the King shall say, "Inasmuch as we did 1t unto these, my brethren, ye did 1t unto me?'
 No doubt these things are done more or less in the ordinary course of neigh borly and Christian society. No doubt they ought to be done far more than 7 they are, and 1t may be the chief count in the case against the Christian system, that this which is it's most Characteristic fruit is not more abun- dant. No doubt there ought to be far more systematic effort made to pro- mote such sympathetic and helpful ser vice. It is not improbable that the first step in such systematic promotion ought to be the preparation and regu- lar employment of well trained and Thoroughly consecrated Christian Wo- men to find the opportunities and rem der the service. Charitable institutions { may take 1t up, as they have done al- ready to some degree, but if the churches fail to enter this open door they will lose one of their best oppor- tunities to maintain a leading place hmong the worlds redemptive forces.
 It is sometimes argued that if church employs a trained and paid wo- man to do this work, it will relieve the members of that little sense of respon- sibility which they now feel for it, and that would be the worst thing that could happen to them. Truly unfortu- mate it would be if it should work in that way. It may have done so in some cases while the plan is new, and when no effort is made to prevent it. But in many churches where a trained woman has actually been employed in 2 the last few years, one of the impor- tant features of her work has been to < organize and develop the social service of the women of the congregation. Many have been drawn into it who would otherwise never have thought of 1t. They have been taught and as signed according to their adaptabilities, and the actual result has been very large increase both In the amount and the effectiveness of such work by and among the women of the congregation.
 One class of service, the nursing of z the sick, has already been organized \ by the hospitals; and the trained nurse has become indispensable in every well ordered community. Other classes of social service by women are waiting to { be similarly organized, when they will