The American Missionary — Volume 41, No. 1, January, 1887Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 41, No. 1, January, 1887
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
It is apparent to any who study the character of the field of the
American Missionary Association, that not only is there ample
opportunity for women to work, but that it becomes a necessity to
the successful accomplishment of the good designed. As well might
we say to the impoverished, “Be ye warmed and filled,” giving none
of those things needful to the body, as to provide churches and
schools for the degraded and destitute, without supplying those
influences which will permeate and mould the homes, in the arousing
and uplifting of the women from their condition of ignorance and
indifference. Yet to secure this, we do not need a distinct and
separate class of missionaries. The work is combined, and so it is
that the schools of the American Missionary Association include
other lines of instruction than those usually involved—instruction
pertaining to home life, given to the youth in the school-room and
to the parents in the cabins; and the teachers become missionaries.
Selecting these according to the need of the field, it results that
a large number of those employed are women—236 having been engaged
in this missionary service during the past year.
What part has the Bureau of Woman’s Work had in this? Just so large
a part and so helpful as the Christian women of the North have
permitted; and we rejoice to record an advance both in interest
and in contributions. In addition to the donations by women to the
general work of the Association, twenty-six of these missionary
teachers have been sustained by funds raised in Ladies’ and
Children’s Missionary Societies of our Congregational churches,
or by special collection. In every instance the contributors have
been put into correspondence with their missionary representative
through the system of monthly letters direct from the field, and
thus a better knowledge of the work has been obtained.
These missionary letters have proved an effective agency in
imparting information and increasing interest, as many have
testified, and one letter per month serves as report to the
Association and also to contributors. Is it not reasonable that the
excess of letter-writing by teachers should be thus relieved, since
their time is so valuable to the needy people about them? Referring
to her large correspondence, one of our faithful missionaries
writes: “If for all the help we receive in our work so much is
required, we shall have but little time for anything else.” Let us
reduce all this writing to one letter per month and use each such
letter for its full worth, by free circulation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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