ANNUAL REPORT.
BY MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.
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.
Desiring to interest children and youth, that they may become familiar with the American Missionary Association and its work, and contribute habitually to its support, we have selected a “Children’s Missionary” to write especially for little children in mission bands and Sunday-schools, and one who will write also for the young people, both boys and girls, that they may early imbibe a missionary spirit, in consecration of money and of personal service. A collecting card, called “The A. M. A. ‘True Blue’ Card,” has been prepared as an aid in raising money, and this card will be furnished to all who wish the missionary letters.
During the year the Woman’s Bureau has been given direct representation by its Secretary at the meetings of the ladies in their State Unions, and in connection with State Conferences East and West, thereby establishing an acquaintance and confidence of exceeding value, while giving more full intelligence of this great mission field.
This has helped to develop the plan for the ladies of any one church or association of churches to take some definite part in aiding the American Missionary Association to carry forward its work. The suggestion has been cordially acted upon, and with good results. Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin now have each their special schools or missionaries under the American Missionary Association, with whom they have communication through the Bureau of Woman’s Work. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Michigan are beginning to respond to this call, and we are led to hope that we shall have from each of these States also the help found in concentration and union, thus making twelve States in which this work is hopefully begun.
In this plan for woman’s work in definite lines, it is not our purpose to divert funds from the usual church contributions. There would be nothing lost in this, but neither would there be anything gained. What the American Missionary Association needs is more help than it has hitherto received, and that without diminishing the usual church contributions the ladies will by special measures make a cash contribution annually in the support of teachers. In order to secure the results of the work in schools and homes, prompt action is taken in the establishment of preaching missions and churches, thus requiring a constant advance. It is for this reason, ladies, that we urge upon your attention the fact that a portion of the field is peculiarly yours. If you will do your part, the advance can be made.
Look in upon a single mission station. A group of three buildings attracts our attention as a bit of New England transplanted, a church, a good-sized school-house, and between the two a neat white painted cottage. The missionaries number four, of whom three are ladies from the North. Over 200 children and youth come daily to the school, where these missionary teachers instruct in branches usual in primary to grammar grades, and also in Christian morals and manners, with the Bible for a text-book, seeking earnestly to develop heart, mind and body to honor and righteousness. The little New England home gives practical illustration of what otherwise would be but dimly comprehended by those who have never known a home. It is open, day and evening, to all who will come. The morning devotions, the pleasant social meals, the group around the table in the evening, which the older pupils often join, are phases of home life sharply in contrast to the shiftless, joyless homes about them. With the influence of this home as a starting-point, these teachers, in visiting from house to house, suggest, advise, encourage, finding always the children the most ambitious to improve and make the little cabin like the teacher’s home. You would think this sufficient to occupy these three ladies, and so doubtless they would were it not for the dire need about them. So time is found for a sewing-school, for meetings with the women, for temperance societies, for mission Sunday-schools, and numerous other forms of systematic work—for the purifying of the home life, and to guard the children from the fate of the parents. Who but women could win an entrance into such homes and hearts? It is to counteract the ignorance and desolation of womanhood that woman’s help is needed in this broad field.
But is it more the duty of these to go and teach, than for us who remain in the enjoyment of our great home privileges, to send them? Can any lines be drawn in the personal responsibility resting upon us as Christian women, for the redemption of womanhood in these so long cast out and bound down?
Help is needed, and it is needed now, before the millions of children grow out of our influence and reach, to become like their parents, and even a more dangerous element in society.
How shall the help be given? Every church is an organization which bands together Christian workers. The nearer all can come to the very heart of the great societies appointed to the work of missions, the stronger and warmer are the missionary pulsations. Here is the American Missionary Association, with its forty years’ experience in church and school planting, combined with woman’s work. It has every facility for examining the field and selecting central points with view to the largest results, and it invites and urges your co-operation through its Bureau of Woman’s Work, which is prepared to furnish information and to put you into direct communication with the missionaries. With your own heart full of this need, try so to lay the case before others that they, too, may feel it, and constitute yourselves a church mission band, to raise money to aid the American Missionary Association in carrying on its work in the South, and for the Chinese and Indians.
Thus can the ladies of every church take part with us in overcoming ignorance, superstition and caste prejudice in behalf of womanhood in this our land.