The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-12-08
TALKS ON JAPAN
AND NEW YORK
Woman's Board of Missions Hold IN
teresting Meeting and Hear Reports.


teresting Meeting and Hear Reports.
Of special interest at the regular
monthly meeting of the Woman :
Board of Missions OF Central Union
church which was held Tuesday after
noon N the chapel, was the paper BY
Miss Julia A. E. Gulick on ".Japanese
Missions Today and the informal ad-
dress by Miss Florence Yarrow, a well
known city missionary worker. whose
| summer experience in the East in visit
ing the New York slums were graphic
ally told.
Miss Gulick is the local representa-
tive of the Woman's Board among the
japanese of the city and is closely in
4 touch with conditions here and in the
Orient. She referred to the present
attitude of the japanese toward the
! Christian religion, as friendly one.
sometimes arising from sincere regard
for its teachings; sometimes merely
i from political policy. sometimes merely
as a means to utilitarian betterment.
Many of the educated Japanese in the
fiowery kingdom are keenly IN svmpa-
thy with religion from the viewpoint
of ethics though possibly having no
spiritual understanding of it. She quo
ted a well known writer who refers to
Japan as an 'unbaptized Christian
country The speaker referred to the
great advance In questions pertaining
TO women; to the improvement in Jap
anese literature which is beginning to
show strong religious feeling, there
now being two recognized native nov
ellsts and one brilliant essayist.
Miss 1arrow, who is an earnest and
forceful speaker, filed with enthusiasm
and love for her work, presented the
antithesis of slum life in New York to
her hearers. Her first day of Summing
i'll the eastern metropolis was given
over to visiting those formerly congest-
ed districts of the city where now
beautiful parks have been established |
cid and decayed tenement houses torn |
down and replaced by sanitary and /
more livable new ones; public baths |
provided and settlement schools estab- |
iished. The visitor could but feel the |
heart warming influence of all this al |
truistic work and she felt that after |
all there was not so much to be done.
But her second days visit showed her |
the other side in all its awful blackness |
and hldeousness, its squalor and its |
filth, and its disease breeding horror,
where hundreds of miserable poor were /
crowded like stricken animals into tiny
rooms, unlighted and unyentilated,
where poverty and ignorance and sin
and death stalked, and it made her
heart sick to contemplate the terrible |
conditions Miss Yafrow then referred |
to the depiorable condition of many of I
the crowded tenement houses in Homo
lulu, which are menace to health and |
morals, and voiced her earnest desire !,
to see these miserable places burned /
and sanitary buildings erected in their
stead.
Apropos of this phase of the question
Mrs. Mckenzie and others spoke feel !
ingly, telling almost unbelievable sto-
ries of the conditions existing in Homo
lulu today and of the new rows of cheap
tenement houses even now being erect /
ed to add still greater distress and dan
ger Of disease.
An interesting feature of the afser-
noon s program was the annual report
of the Loima Kokua, the "helping
hand" society, composed of young Ha-
waiian girls, which showed a gratifying
amount of work accomplished during
the year. Two songs were sweetly sung
in Hawaiian by the band of dark |
skinned girls.
The remainder of the program in
cluded devotional exercises led by Mrs.
A. G. Alexander, solo by Miss Kath-
crime Reynolds, an interesting letter
from Mrs. Ellis, a missionary in China.
read by Mrs. Richards, the reports of |
secretary and treasurer, and the current !
events given in a clear and concise re-
port by Mrs. Giles Gere. The two spe- |
cial points brought out by Mrs. Gere |
were, the need for all missionaries to |
Africa to have medical education and |
of the strong spirit of "Ch;na for the |
Chinese which is ever increasing in |
China,
Mrs. Doremus scudder presided with |
her usual graciousness over the meeting, /
relating one or two incidents of par-
ticular local interest. She also an |
nounced that for the first time in wears
both the home and foreign mission |
boards could begin the new year out of !
debt, which is eloquent testimony of
the widespread interest in missions
which is being taken by laymen all over
the country.
The principal of the Kamehameha
Schools has yri4fan a 1a++o- g x.1..