The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-05-18
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE
? T is privilege to talk to a woman
 of Mrs Inhn b Fllintt's tyne.

7 T is a privilege to talk 10 woman
 of Mrs. John D. Elliott's type.
 Methodists all over the state of
 Alabama know Mrs. Elliott, and leve her. and in other denominations she is well known. too, for her splendid ser vice as state president of the Woman Missionary societies Of the Methodist Episcopal church has spread far and wide, and what she has to say on the initial day today of the great centen- nary movement in Methodism (and con- tinuing through the week until Sunday. May 2D is well worth needing.
 Mrs. Elliott IS an appealing type not only in face and form, but in character and heart. her gentleness and Kindness, her many fine. womanly qualities endear- ing her to all with whom she comes in contact. and her deep devotion to her church and the great work of missions is significant of the deeply religious at mosphere that pervades her life. so in asking her to say word to me few days ago on The signs of the times and what women are thinking of the centen- ary," l feel that I have story quite worth while to offer.
 "Yes." said Mrs. Elliott, when l ap- preached her on the subject of the cen tenary.Y it is resurrected from a cranny of my cranium, the unmistakabie mem ory of a letter somebody wrote to you al sometime from somewhere, about mis- sionaries and Eottentots and red flannel shirts. I remember how l longed to an- swer the plaint of that letter which from the Dear Miss polly to yours truly was the commiseration for the poor, misguided missionary enthusiasts who sewed themselves sick in order to surprise the unhappy Hottentots with box of red flannels on a rare June day But why resurrect the ghost of single, ungratefu Hottentot, the memory of a long dead past?
 Its as bad form for heather to wear red f.annels these days as it is for such a missionary censor to pc mtsinformed or uninforned about missions, she con- tinued. It's impossible, in fact, even for an author of a hot Hottentot letter not to know more about missionaries than this vague idea we believe he entertained of a lot of humble people ready to be boiled at any time for some hungry feathen's dinner. Impossible. because the world is simply full of missionaries today. Why, everybody is some kind of missionary, because everybody has , some kind of a m.sHon We see them every tirae we look out of the window or turn a street corner. Just count the Red Cross missionaries, the I. M. and the Y. W, missionaries, the blessed sol dier boys who went abroad, and the mothers who stayed at home. Rather difficult, isn't il. to tell who is a home missionary, and who is a foreign mis- sionary. they all seem TO intent on doing their bit to help fires world? You krow our President, MT Wilson, is a big-souled world missionary. He is try ing like d great father to persuade all the selfless and selfish children, the will ing ones and the stubborn ones to join hands in a big ring around the world for Pollyannas glad game of life When we make up our minds and find it in oui hearts to do this. whether we call our selves d league of nations a world de mocracy, a reconstructed or a regen- erated world, we will be what a little negro boy know calls own deal