THE BUREAU IN THE WEST.
BY MISS ANNA M. CAHILL.
One main object of the Woman's Bureau, as stated at the time of its organization, is to diffuse information among the ladies of our churches, as to our work in its various departments.
The carrying out of this purpose led to my eight weeks of itineracy among the conferences and churches of Wisconsin and Michigan.
If I went to inform I went also to learn—to see how fares our cause in these churches. Especially I sought to learn how strong a hold the work of the American Missionary Association has upon the sympathy and effort of the Christian ladies of that section, what organized system of helpfulness they already have in this line, or what in their judgment can be done and will be done toward incorporating this work in their regular plan of missionary operations for each year.
As I expected, I found the interest in our cause in various stages of development. It is not strange that in some places the ladies did not even so much as know that there was a Woman's Bureau. The Bureau is in its infancy, and the fact of its existence has not yet taken hold of us all in any practical way. In many churches—not by any means always the larger ones—I found an intelligent appreciation of the needs and claims of the South.
We have had many workers from these States of the West, or rather of the Interior, and when I had the pleasure of going into a community that had sent out one or more to the work in some part of our field, I found always an enthusiastic interest and a warm response to my appeals.
My introduction to the warm-hearted Christian people of Wisconsin was at the State Association, met at Racine Sept. 24. Finding on my arrival a large representation of ladies gathered to celebrate the anniversary of their Foreign Missionary Society, I felt sure that there must be also an active sympathy for the work in our own land, and I was not disappointed. On the following day, at a special gathering of the ladies, a State society was organized, whose range of objects should include all the benevolent societies of our denomination, working in this country, leaving conferences and local organizations at liberty to contribute through one treasurer or several treasurers, to any of these societies.
After attending this "gathering of the tribes" it was my privilege to go by invitation to a few of the towns in southern Wisconsin. Of course the State organization has not yet stretched out its arms over the State in the formation of local societies. I can but think that Beloit, Whitewater, Geneva and Kenosha will be among the first to take definite steps in this direction. Wisconsin has by special contributions from her ladies supported a missionary in the South for several years and is still doing so. When through regular channels of organization they shall make this a part of their regular yearly charity, the arrangement can be more permanently relied upon by the Woman's Bureau. Many, I think, will endorse the sentiment of a prominent lady in Michigan who said to me: "I think the ladies of each one of these Western States ought to support one or more teacher-missionaries under the Association."
On the 9th of October, at Grand Rapids, I joined the representative of the Woman's Department of the American Home Missionary Society, with whom the longer tour of six weeks was to be made in Michigan. We were then on our way to the Grand River Conference at Allendale, where we found a hearty welcome. In this Conference there is a branch of the State Woman's Home Missionary Society, a society already more than a year old and organized on the same broad platform as that adopted in Wisconsin.
Before the meeting of the Southern Michigan Conference we were able to visit, in rapid succession, the churches at Middleville, Vermontville, and Olivet, in all of which an evident sympathy in the various forms of our work led me to hope that increased effort might result from this new presentation of our needs.
In the Southern Conference we found also a branch organization, union in its character, and so efficiently officered that all is likely to be done that can be accomplished through it. Nowhere did I find stancher friends for our Christian educational work in the South than in this conference.
At this point a short break occurred in our Michigan tour. A rapid journey brought us to Lake City in time to spend one day at the Minnesota State Association—just to grasp the hands of our Minnesota friends and be assured of their continued helpfulness. The Woman's Home Missionary Society voted that at the next annual meeting the constitution should be reconsidered, with a view to enlarging its borders and including all the benevolent societies of our home work. The giving of a year's notice before any change can be made is required by the constitution itself.
We took up the work in Michigan again at St. Joseph, and from there went to the Kalamazoo Association. We found here, as elsewhere, that these autumn conferences are generally held with the smaller and less accessible churches, where the attendance of ladies is necessarily limited, and we must, therefore, give our message to the pastors, charging them with the responsibility of carrying it to the ladies of their churches.
Before the next conference we were able to take in our plan the central points, Jackson, Ann Arbor, Flint and Lansing, and when we went up from there to Nashville to the Marshall Conference we felt that we were meeting old friends in the pastors and people, at whose homes we had already been.
Another tour through Kalamazoo, Allegan, Owosso, Port Huron, St. Clair, Detroit, Union City and Chelsea brought us much the same experiences as before.
We came finally to the large Eastern Conference, which was to be our last place of labor in Michigan. The ladies of this Conference, though not yet organized for home work under the State society, for several years supported a missionary in the South, largely through the personal effort of one active lady, who made this special collection her care. With the closing of this Bureau visit to the ladies of Michigan the work is left in their hands—not to be forgotten by them, but to be developed and strengthened until there shall be a rich annual fruitage of effort and practical result.