Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/822

 This section comprises articles showing how women may help in all branches of religious work. All the principal charities will be described, as well as home and foreign missions. The chief headings are : Woman's Work in Religion Alissionaries Zenana Missions Home Missions, etc. Great Leaders of Religious Thought Charities to Work for Great Ho7V Charities Great Charity Organisations Local Charities, etc. The Women of the Bible Bazaars to Manage Church How Bazaar What to Make for Bazaars Garden Bazaars, etc. How to Manage a Sunday School MISSION THE BIBLEWOMEM AND NURSES' By SARAH A. TOOLEY The Romance of a Great Charity — The Story of a Poor Girl who Had no Shoes or Stockings to Wear on her Wedding Day— The Bible in the Most Dangerous Slum in London— What the Mission Does for the Very Poor— Holidays— Presents of Clothes and Boots in the special room for the purpose Ranyard House. The branches of the mission may be thus summarised. There are upwards of ninety bible women, who, as trained mission visitors, work in many of the poorest quarters of London. They live in their respective districts, and generally work under the auspices of some church or chapel. The mission is inter-denominational. The Ranyard nurses — fully trained hos- pital "nurses — number about eighty, with their superintending sisters, and work in various parishes and districts, on the general lines of district nursing. Their work, however, has a distinctive religious character, for which they receive special training at Ranyard House. In the year 1909 the nurses attended 8,522 cases, and paid 230,758 visits. The convalescent home at St. Leonards is open all the year round, and receives patients from the districts where the biblewomen and nurses work. Some 355 patients are received annually. The Biblewomen and Nurses' Mission has, as its name implies, a twofold object : it sends both biblewomen and nurses into the poorest districts of London. The primary work of the biblewomen is to introduce the Scriptures into the homes of the people. They read and teach the Scriptures and endeavour to persuade those who have no Bible to purchase one on the easy-payment system of a penny a week, arranged by the British and Foreign Bible Society, with which the mission is affiliated. The biblewomen use every opportunity for making friends with the poor, and are there- by enabled to influence them in the reformation of their homes and in the general betterment of family life. They do not deal with sickness except to report it. The mission has its trained nurses to send to the sick in their own homes. The nurses, like the biblewomen, come to headquarters once a week to receive gar- ments for their destitute patients, and medical stores. Both groups of workers meet together for devotional services Mrs. Ranvard, the founder of ihe mission