WOMAN’S HOME MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.
Room 20, Congregational House, Beacon St., Boston.
Miss Nathalie Lord, Secretary. Miss Abby W. Pearson, Treasurer.
One of the difficulties the W. H. M. A. meets with is to find definite work for its auxiliaries. Although in general they have fields of labor chosen by themselves, it often happens that they look to the parent society to furnish them; and indeed one of the chief offices of the Association is to bring together the need and the supply, those who want help and those who have the heart and the hands ready to help. So we are fortunate this month in having something to offer to the party requiring work, and first we present a call which may well enlist sympathy and effort. Miss Carter, writing from Nashville, Tenn., asks in behalf of the President of Fisk University, whether our Association, in any of its auxiliaries, would be willing to assume the education of a pupil there. She says:
"Let me tell you of an especially sad case. —— is a little girl about thirteen, her fair hair, blue eyes and white skin prove her parentage. Her mother is a colored woman of the lowest class, living and delighting in licentiousness. There are numberless such, but this woman differs from the majority in this respect, it is perfectly immaterial to her what becomes of this daughter. Usually, if the mother seems hopelessly bad she will yet try to shield her child from the same sin which has been her own ruin. * * * ——’s mother is different. Her grandmother has seen the danger to the girl of allowing her to remain with her mother, so has sent her here. But the grandmother can pay only five or six dollars a month towards her expenses. The tuition and board are twelve dollars, and beside this is the expense of clothing her. If the girl can remain here four or five years, such habits and good principles will be formed in her that at the end of that time she will be morally saved, perhaps. If during that time she could receive help she could then begin to teach and so help herself. There is more than usual religious interest in Fisk at present, and little —— has surprised all by showing deep interest.
“Will you not present her case to whomsoever will help her?”
This opportunity offered suggests also that there are many such. We do not know of any better or more satisfactory work for an auxiliary than to assume the support of a student at Hampton, Carlisle, Fisk, or some other kindred institution. There is certainly no surer way to have a hand in the strengthening and purifying of our country as well as in saving individuals, for the large majority of those so helped go directly into the work of helping up their own race as teachers, and all so brought under the power of a Christian education must be centres of good in the nation.
Then here is one more opportunity, and this is for the children. The greatest, perhaps, or at least one of the greatest disadvantages under which these brave and earnest young teachers labor who go out from Hampton, Fisk, and other schools to teach their people, is the almost total lack of good reading matter. Sunday-school papers are of really inestimable value to them in their Sunday-schools; but they can only get them occasionally and very sparingly. Now we know there are Sunday-schools on Sunday-schools of our Congregational churches where the children would be glad to save their papers and send them regularly to such destitute schools, where we can promise the children they will give double the pleasure they have ever given before—in fact will double the pleasure to each party, to the givers and to the receivers. Now, how to do it; for, in order to be a success, the thing must be done systematically. Well, then, first, if any Sunday-school wishes to adopt the plan, let them send to us and we will furnish them the name of a neighbor Sunday-school in the West or South too poor to have any papers of its own. Then let them appoint some one to take charge of sending the papers, and let each scholar be sure and remember to save his paper and give it to the one who has the business in charge. The only expense, in money, will be the postage. This often seems a good deal, when large numbers of papers are mailed each week, and some one may even be disposed to question whether it is worth the money; but our Home Secretary, who has taught some years at Hampton, and is in constant communication with teachers who have gone from there, and is often sending papers and books in this way, and receiving letters in return which show how they are appreciated, thinks the good they do far outweighs the expense; for, she says, in many cases, the children would have absolutely no reading were it not for them.
So then, third, some one or ones, will be found to pay the postage, and the thing will be done. The children will have the pleasure of reading the papers themselves, the pleasure of sending them regularly to some one else who will appreciate and enjoy them even more than they; the pleasure of hearing from these friends at a distance, for the teachers will write them, that is a part of the plan; and the pleasure of doing something for Jesus and helping His cause.
Now, who wants to take up with this plan and begin at once? Let them write to the Secretary of the Woman’s Home Missionary Association, 20 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., and the address will be sent them forthwith. Where Sunday-schools are not ready, individuals can take up the work. A little girl in Philadelphia is sending two hundred a week, her mother paying the postage.
Since writing the above we have received an account of the Annual Meeting of our Alabama State Auxiliary, held in Mobile March 28th. This must have been a meeting full of interest to all who were present, and as the reports were brought in from different parts of the State, the Secretary writes, “We found that the field had many a Ruth, who had toiled from morning even until even, and brought in her gleanings.”
Receipts of the Association from March 21 to April 25, 1881:
| From | Auxiliaries | $163.85 |
| ” | Donations | 74.60 |
| ” | Life Members | 40.00 |
| ” | Annual Members | 59.00 |
| ———— | ||
| $337.45 |
Donations through Cong. Pub. Soc., Boston, to colored schools, S. S. papers, $5.20. From the Williston Young Ladies’ Aux., Portland, Me., one box of new clothing and sewing material valued at $30.00. From Ladies’ Freedmen’s Aid Soc., of Eliot Ch., Newton, second hand clothing, $55. From Ladies’ Aux., Franklin St. Ch., E. Somerville, barrel clothing, $94.50.