“First, for promoting the spiritual and mental, and thus indirectly the material, welfare of the most helpless and degraded people on the globe.
“Second, for promoting Christianity and education in lands like Japan, where there is already an awakened aspiration for better things, and hence the most immediate results may be anticipated.
“Third, for promoting such measures as shall diminish the slave-trade wherever it exists, and for preventing the liquor traffic between civilized and barbarous nations, for instance, such as is now disgracing and desolating the Congo State.
“Any man or woman who applies to be sent out as preacher, teacher, or agent, for promoting any of these ends, shall be accepted if he or she give satisfactory evidence to the committee of being fitted to do sufficiently helpful work in the positions to which they are assigned. No acceptation of any creed shall be required of any applicant. After being enrolled for the work, however, all shall be required to leave detailed written statements of their religious beliefs. These are to be kept on file for statistical purposes, together with the records of the subsequent work of the candidates, their methods of labor, and the results accomplished.
“Every woman employed by the trustees shall receive the same salary as a man would receive for doing the same work. In sending out preachers and pastors no distinction shall be made in regard to sex. All women desiring to preach and to administer the sacraments shall be authorized to do so if possessed of proper qualifications.”
In regard to that latter clause I had had considerable discussion with auntie previous to convening the trustees.
“Isn’t that a little odd?” she asked. “I am afraid some clergymen would be shocked at that.”
“Aunt Madison,” I said, “if it is desirable to have the sacraments of communion or baptism celebrated at all, I can see no reason why they cannot be done by a woman’s hand as well as by that of a man? If the hand that made the bread does not desecrate it, why may not that same hand break and pass it, provided it be done in a proper spirit? Is a man’s hand any more sacred than a woman’s?”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” said auntie, fidgeting a little; “but it is the words and the service which go with it, of course.”
“Certainly,” said I,—rather bluntly, too, I am afraid,—“and those words consist of quotations from the words of Christ and Paul, and a prayer. I see no reason why quotations and prayer uttered by a female voice may not be just as acceptable to the Almighty as if spoken by a male voice. (I hate those words ‘male’ and ‘female,’ but I thought it would help her to see the absurdity of our conventional notions about such things.)”