Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-03-18
BY the Churchman.

:" EGINNING March 27 in New York
DA and continuing for three days will
be held the closing sessions of the
jubilee missionary meetings which for
months past have been held throughout
the country. With it's close will come the
satisfaction to many Washington women
that the great result, that OF arousing the
50 per cent Of churchwOmen to realiza-
ton of their duty to missions, has been
in a great measure accomplished. The
rallies held in this city, together with the
great luncheon at the New Willard, when
over 800 women were presided over by
Mrs. Wallace Radcliffe. marked an epoch
In the missionary work in the National
Capital which it is averred has placed
the effort at the front. 1t mar..~a another
OF the steps by which woman entered
half century ago in the new worlds
work before her, in the stirring period OF
great wars. between 1870 and 1885,
The Crimean war brought Florence
Nightingale to her task in the hospitals
of Scutar, says "A recent writer and
opened to woman the whole field OF
trained nursing. in peace and in war.
me franco-ltalian war began the Red
cross and created a great agency, chiefly
managed by women. The lack of men
for mission work, suddenly apparent at
the opening of our civil war. awakened
in this country the organized work OF
women in missions. which has since
spread over the world and remodeled the
place and office of Christian women in
the civilization, education and evangeli-
cation of humanity.
This world movement has had its most
active operation in the United States,
Women have played their share i'm Chris
ton missions from the Pauline days OF
Priscilla and Thekla. The devotion and
early death Of Harriet Newell stirred the
missionary enthusiasm of thousands or
young women in the first half of the
last century. The wise resolve of Amer
lean missions in all it's branches to make
the Christian home and family of the
missionary as important an agency in
spreading the gospel and making tho
Christian life visible, in lands to which
Christianity was alien, as the preacher,
printing press and school. early con-
sciously brought the American woman
into mission labors as wife and mother.
But the new spirit and the new effort
which the jubilee celebration for four
days to come commemorates-brough
into missions the woman as teacher, as
the organizer of education for her own
sex, physician in dispensary and hos
pital, and, most important of all, in di-
rect. personal. inspiring contact with the
oriental woman. secluded to appearance
and by the visible conventions of harem
and purdah: but in fact having a vivid
personal power and influence, which in
our own day made Manchu handmaiden
the empress and despotic ruler of a third
of the human race in China.
Into this great work the women OF
every American denomination have en-
tered. Their colleges and schools belt
the world. Their healing Office has
changed the life of millions and begun
the transformation and emancipation OF
the Asiatic women. Only those who have
seen and visited know the thrill of find
ing in some Mohammedah city forbidden
to men as missionaries, or in some dis
tant interior swarming Chinese town.
woman missionaries living alone, with no
protection but their faith and no safe
counting martyrdom the least of the
perils they faced. fearlessly preaching
and teaching, visiting the sick. pre-
scribing to thronging thousands, travelling
from village TO village. sharing the life
about them without the protecting con-
ventlons of the east, upborne by per-
sonal conservation, in devoted self
sacritic. enduring with unabated fervor
long years of apparently fruitless labor.
In fifty years these efforts of Christian
American women. divided between or
ganiZed support at home and lifelong per-
sonal devotion abroad, have changed the
face of the feminine world. The Moham-
medan government of Turkey pays the
tuition fees of its future teachers in the
American Woman's College at Scutari.
Japan began the education of fits women
through woman mission teachers. and has
continued 1t through the graduates OF
Bryn Mawr and Vassar. The Chinese
is receiving more of her education
from American women than from any
other source The zenana Of India and
the harem Of the Moslem world has been
penetrated and in generation or two
will be transformed.
Those who meet in Jubilee honorable
not few" have a right to feel
that. while many daughters OF the church
have done virtuously, those in the mission
work of American women have among
the influence of civilization in the non
Christian world excelled them all