Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/144

 RELIGION 124 direction of the mission or church which employs them and pays them. Most British and Colonial dioceses have bodies of this kind attached to them. The Salvation Army, the Church Army, and some other bodies use women largely in their religious and social work, and train them and put them in the way of mainten- ance. In addition to this, nearly all religious organisations employ the paid service of nurses, parish visitors, or Bible women. There are also homes, refuges, and creches (usually in connection with a religious body), where women serve in various capacities, and are paid for their work. The pay is small and the work hard, but when a woman has the indispensable vocation no life could be more happy and more useful. But the tale of woman's work in the Church is by no means exhausted. Every section of the Christian Church makes ample use of female ministry rendered voluntarily. Inside the Church women can and do act as churchwardens, as sacristans, and are often engaged. in the instrumental and choral music. We shall in the remainder of this article describe in further detail what the amateur can do. Such a person may find herself living in or near some centre of population. Here and there will be various churches with one or more paid workers, clerical or lay, who are called upon to minister to the varied needs of perhaps several thousands of men and women and children. Work of all sorts is required ; but little more can be done than just to teach the principles of life to the few who come to church, and to do a little prac- tical application. The fight is very unequal. On the one side, ignorance and apathy and vice are, it may be, firmly entrenched and established ; on the other side are one or two officers of Christ's Church, but they have no standing and little following. There is no money to spend. The clergyman's function as a teacher, inspirer, organiser, is lost in the gulf of overwhelming drudgery. But at the last hour of need some women in the neighbourhood come to the rescue, and help to restore the lost ideal of a church. One, maybe, is a girl of eighteen, just home from school. She wants to justify her educa- tion, she wants to have " a good time " ; but also she would like to do " some good." She goes to the clergyman, or to his wife, perhaps, and, while confessing how little she knows, asks to be given something to do. A young, inexperienced girl cannot be launched into the deep waters of social work, but there is not a little which she can safely do. It might work out hke this. She will be introduced to a group of girls who are just past school age, a meeting- place will be provided, and two or three evenings a week our young amateur can both teach and learn. She will form the nucleus of what may develop in time into a girls' club. Or take the case of a mother who is wilhng •io make some time and use it in connection with a church by getting into friendly touch with those who, like her, are mothers, but who have few opportunities and privileges. How gladly the church will welcome her and provide her with all that is required, so that she can form a fellowship with other women on the basis of the common interest of motherhood. If it is true, as it certainly ■ is, that a mother's influence counts for so much in the family life, just consider what a door of opportunity is opened in this way. Given a tactful, gracious woman, what encouragement she can give to women who only want encouragement to rise to great responsibilities, the claim of which would never have been realised but for her ! Here is another sphere of woman's work. Supposing twenty women are in touch with twenty families — here are nearly 2,000 souls linked up with the Church who otherwise would have been sheep without a shepherd. In this way the Church becomes a living reality in the district, and the throb of life is felt in the before-time inanimate parish. Or, again, there are the Sunday-schools, ranging from infants through every grade up to the adult Bible-classes ; there are Bands of Hope, guilds, classes, and so on. Well, in every single instance there is work waiting to be done which some woman or girl can do — without a great expenditure of time — work by which she can create or continue extra- ordinary influence over the opening lives of young human beings. There will be women who want to help the Church who cannot leave their home, but for such there are many opportunities within the homes. A working party can be organised to clothe those who need clothing, or to provide for an annual sale, the proceeds of which can be devoted to church work. Every parish will also afford facilities for those who do not feel called to work which is of a rehgious or ethical character. Physical drill, nursing classes, ambulance classes, swimming classes, dramatic enter- tainments, concerts, savings banks, friendly visits to the sick or infirm, are just hints of the very varied shapes of service which a church needs and welcomes. How can a start be made ? Well, the simplest thing is to go to someone in charge of some church, settlement, or mission, and say : " Give me something which 1 can do." The rest will follow. And when you are engaged in some piece of work remember two things : (i) Work with as much care and fidelity as if you were paid for it, and work not in the spirit of patronage, but of loving service ; (2) you and others are together working to fill up with detailed service the large outline of the otherwise unfulfilled possibilities of the Church in a given area. The measure of the welfare of the whole parish or district depends upon the loyal co-operation of all concerned. There must be one desire — the desire to se- cure the good of all by the unselfish service rendered by each worker. There must be as little room for self-praise as for petty rivalry.