The American Missionary — Volume 44, No. 04, April, 1890Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 44, No. 04, April, 1890
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
I want to lay before you a short account of the work of the White Cross
League, of this University, as reported by the members at a meeting held
at my house last Sunday night. You may not be aware that late last
school year I called together a dozen or two of our best young men and
induced them to take the White Cross pledge--to treat all women with
respect, to refrain from indecent jests and coarse language, to maintain
that the law of personal purity is as binding on men as upon women, etc.
At the meeting last Sunday night one after another gave his experience
touching the White Cross movement. One young man reported that through
his persuasion, public and private, especially the latter, three or four
couples who had been living together unlawfully went before the proper
authorities and were married. Another testified that he had personally
felt the restraining influence of his pledge, while he acted as waiter
at a summer hotel. The pledge had a great restraining influence upon him
and was a safeguard. Another found it necessary to organize a Wednesday
night Bible meeting of his own, for the regular meetings of the churches
did not give him the opportunity he desired.
All the young men testified to the good influence of the pledge upon
their own lives, but one young man's report of his work was of especial
interest. He is head waiter at the hotel at Lake ----, where about 250
servants, men and women, are employed. He took a squad of seventy-eight
colored men from the South to the Lake at the opening of the season,
engaging them on condition that there was to be no gambling among them.
Immediately on arriving he organized a Y.M.C.A. among them, and held
meetings Sunday afternoons and two evenings during the week through the
summer, all well attended. At some of these meetings he spoke of the
White Cross movement, and was successful in gaining the approbation of
most of the members of the Association. The nature of the pledge and of
the talks got out among the women servants, and ere long at their
invitation he assembled from seventy-five to one hundred of them and
gave them a very earnest talk on the value and duty of virtuous lives.
Many were affected to tears, and all were seriously impressed. After
that they seemed to look to him as their protector, and often said they
were so glad they had a head man who would endeavor to shield them from
temptation and wrong. And the remarkable thing about it is, that these
women servants are white!
The proprietor of the hotel, on closing the season, told our student
that if he had been told that such a work as he had accomplished among
his help could be done he would have declared it impossible. What is to
be the outcome of this little movement so auspiciously begun? It seems
to me that if wisely carried on the possibilities for good are very
great.
* * * * *
BEREA AND TEMPERANCE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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