Against the dark background of thriftlessness and ignorance and poverty which we find among the colored people, such homes as these stand out in bright relief, and they should be a source of encouragement to all who are trying to do God’s work in the world. And so, dear friends, I have told you of these homes, that seeing the difference and what may be accomplished in all these homes by Christian education, you may not grow weary, but may look forward to that harvest-time when the seed which your prayers and gifts have sown shall spring up and bear fruit even an hundredfold.
BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.
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.