HOW TO ORGANIZE AND CONDUCT A LADIES MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
The Home Land Circle, Park St. Church, Boston, was organized a little more than two years ago. Three public meetings are held during the year. Funds are divided among the Am. Miss. Asso’n, the A. H. M. S. and the N. W. E. C., in such proportions as the ladies decide at one of these meetings. The names of the ladies in the church and society are taken, a band of collectors is appointed, and each lady is called upon, and offered the privilege of contributing. By mentioning the wish to the collector, any contributor can have the whole of her gift go to the specified society. Membership is constituted by an annual contribution, no amount specified. The meetings, we are informed, have been made very interesting by means of letters from the workers of the societies aided.
Referring to the value of these letters in mission circles, one lady writes: “While once we felt ourselves to be working blindly, with little idea of the work that was being done or of the manner in which we could best help, we seem now to have a personal and friendly interest, as well as an increased sense of our own responsibility.”
The Colored People are crazily fond of organization. Women and men alike are caught in the whirl. Offices with high-sounding names, processions, regalia and show, have a wonderful charm before which go down their better judgment. The evils of the Lodge, our missionaries meet on every hand. In the home and in the church, this insidious foe to piety and thrift is encountered. The love of organization may be utilized and turned to good account. Our teachers endeavor to impress upon their pupils the value of co-operation in doing good. The outcome of such instruction appears in one of our schools where the girls of their own accord, and without aid from their teachers, organized themselves into the Helping Hand Society, in which the members pledge, (1) Not to tell lies, (2) Not to steal, (3) Not to be selfish, (4) Not to quarrel, (5) Not to talk about the boys when together, and (6) To try and help every one they can.
On the other hand, the vice of “Secret Orders” may be seen in the following, written by one of our teachers:
A colored man with the title of Elder, recently visited this place and organized a secret society called the Universal Brotherhood. He had left one church with stains upon his moral character, but, as is too often the case, another fold had an open door for sheep, goat, or wolf, and, as he could operate better inside a church than out, he went in. The initiation fee to the society is one dollar, and the monthly dues are twenty cents. Small as this amount is, it is much to those who have families to provide for upon very small wages. If all the promises made by the organizer could be believed, membership in the society of Universal Brotherhood would be better than forty acres and a mule. All who are sick are to receive aid. When a member dies, his family will receive a thousand dollars. If any one of the family dies before the member insured does, twenty-five dollars will be furnished for funeral expenses. Heavy fines are imposed for absence from the meetings, which are held weekly. The name might lead one to suppose that this lodge is for men only, but it is composed of men and women. They have oaths and pass-words and secrecy, but one who is too wise to join such an organization says the great secret which they will never find out is where the money goes.
The idea of some one to help in time of sickness, and of property left to one’s children, is enough to draw the final dime from a colored person’s pocket, and stimulates parents who are not able to patronize a school to invest in a lodge. A colored woman who does well to send one of her six children to school said to me last week, “I am just as much opposed to the lodge as I can be. A good many women have to work hard to support their families, for it takes all their husbands can make to keep up the lodges. They pay four dollars a month for the rent of a hall to meet in, and they can’t pay the rent for a shelter for their families, so their wives have to attend to that.” The poor woman had the eloquence of truth and earnestness. She had had enough experience to know what she was talking about.
They have the lodges, chapters, commanderies, and consistories of the Masonic order for colored men as well as for white. In Oddfellowship there are lodges for the men, and the Household of Ruth lodges for the women. There are the Knights of the Wise Men and the Sons and Daughters of Relief. The following are some of the lodges for men and women: Diamond Square, Beulah Temple, Blazing Star Temple, Daughters of Shiloh, Sisters of Charity, Sons and Daughters of Ham, and Willing Workers. There are Queen Esther’s Courts, and the United Sons and Daughters of Abraham, the Good Samaritans, the United Daughters of Zion, the Star Tabernacles, the Daughters of Union, the Tabernacle of Love and Charity, the Sons and Daughters of Moses, the Sons and Daughters of Honor, the Mothers and Daughters of Israel, the Eastern Star, the United Brothers of Friendship, the Sons of the Mysterious Ten, and the Immaculates.
In our little town there are but two surviving secret societies amongst the colored people, but in my opinion there are too many by two. They rob the home, the church and the school, and are obstacles in the way of all who seek to promote the best interests of the people. Yours for the right and the light.
J. B. N.