Year: 1872

VOMEN IN THE CHURCH.


We observe with pleasure that the Methodist
Conference in Brooklyn has proved itself as fully
awake and able to grapple with the Immediate
problems of the time as we prOphesied 1t would
be. Among the subjects set aside last week
for special treatment during the coming year,
are temperance, the proper observance OF sum
day, and work for woman in the Church. The
same subjects occupied the attention OF the
Protestant Episcopal Church during its Con-
ventiOn last October, and that of the Quakers
some time later. There is no more healthy
sign Of progress than the acknowledgment by
these powerful denOminational bodies OF the
fact that the true work of Christian teachers
is to deal with the actual needs Of men and
women in body and soul from day to day,
rather than to arbitrate about vague mystical
truths. Whether we are saved by our good
faith or good works is a matter which God
will decide, and which no argument Of ours
will affect one whit but that there is a seeth-
ing mass of ignorance and vice, and poverty
without faith, outside of the Church, and
countless wealthy, idle, devout men and women
within it, without works, is CHASTITY fact
which has Knocked at Christianity long enough,
and which is left for us to set right. The ap-
peals of intelligent women for careers to be
opened for them by which they may earn a
livelihood, and at the same time find scope
and outlet for their unused talents and finer
sympatles, seem simply absurd to those who
know that the field for Christian work is as
wide as it was in His day, and know, too, how
enormous are the sums contributed yearly that
this work may be done.


To bring this work, these seekers for
work, and the means together, as three
pieces of disjointed puzzle and put them
into harmony, is the business of the Church,
and we are heartily glad she has set about it.
There are several establishments in the
United States under the control of the Lu-
theran Church where this difficulty has been
successfully met. They have a sisterhood of
Prussian origin, which has taken as its especial
work the care of hospitals and orphan asylums
Similar orders exist in the Episcopal Church,
and it was to their utility, and the sound COM
mon sense and Christian spirit on which they
are based, that the attention of that sect was
called by the late Baltimore Convention.
There exists among many Protestants preju-
dice against any suspected imitation of Popery
but without entering into any argument as to
whether the ancient orders of nuns are saints
or sinners beyond other women, the present
question settles itself on its own merits
Every church, almost every family, has its un-
employed single woman, maid or widow, who
would be glad to serve God and her brother
if she knew how. Combined, trained, and un-
der the protection of a church, and with their
work mapped out for them systematically
Il off
whereas, alone, their efforts must in most cases
be both vague and narrowed.


Thel most direct and practical attempt to
train and assist such women is that of the
Potter Memorial House in Philadelphia, which
was brought before the notice of the Conyen-
ton last year. We especially commend this
establishment for its direct practical system,
and the absence of all sentimentalism or Wis
ionary experiments. Any woman with or
without means, desirous of working for her
Master, is received into it, though as it is in
tended as beginning a terminating house, so
to speak, for others, educated women are pre-
ferred. There are no vows of ceibacy, no
conventual dress, no bars nor gratings, real or
spiritual. The inmates are retained in the
house (at their own cost, or otherwise, as Is
conveniently until they are fitted for taking
charge of hospitals, children's homes, asylums,
industrial or night schools, OF for work among
either our own city poor or Indians. A few
have been sent abroad but the charity in this
case has begun its thorough work most nobly
and wisely at home. Some of the ladies sent
out from the Memorial House have been at
work among the Indians with signal success.
They go out trained to act as physicians and
nurses, as well as teachers, to the women and
children to ciyilize as well as Christianize in
fact, the motive underlying the whole system
is to bring Christianity home to the savage
as to the white man, as an actual practical
help from brotherly love rather than a
theory. The modes by which this is done
are admirably simple. Among them are
(for city work. industrial schools of all kinds
for children, the charge of jails or prisons,
evening meetings where poor mothers can bring
their sewing, talk or listen to reading, and 80
have now and then in their barren lives a
glimpse of social pleasure with educated Chris
tian women Bible classes for laboring men,
which when taught by ladies of high culture
and refinement have been singularly successful,
the very class of men who are suspicious of
parsons" giving prompt faith to q womans
purity and goodness. The women sent out
by the Memorial House are supported, but that
is all. IL is not the design to add the slightest
mercenary motives TO the higher ones which it
offers.


We have given SO much Of our space to this