Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/143

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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 Charities Bazaars Missionaries How to Work for Great How to Manage a Church Zenana Missions Charities Bazaar Home Missions, etc. Great Chariiy Organisations What to Make for Baaars Great Leaders of Religious Local Charities, etc. Garden Bazaars, etc. Thought The Women of the Bible How to Manage a Sunday-school W0ME.M ¥¥©RIiE^^ IN THE CMURCInl By the Rev. REGINALD R. T. TALBOT, D.D., Canon Residentiary, BRISTOL CATHBDRAL ITvERY church has its own discipline in regard to woman's work in it and for it. The conditions under which a woman's work would be accepted, and the sphere assigned to her, would not be the same in all churches. Bat all churches, subject to their own in- terior discipline, welcome the work of women. This is no other than the nature of the case demands. Christian Churches stand upon the acknowledged basis of belief in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of mankind in Christ. A church cannot just barely maintain this as an academic pro- position. It is. con- strained to apply it, to consider the needs of "all estates of men " in Christ's Church, and to try to put the prin- ciple of religion into practice. Women's service in the Church may be divided into paid and professional work, or unpaid and amateur work. The terms are used without p r e j u d ic e . They are simply de- signations of facts, and do not carry any valuation. The value of the work done is me asured by its quahty and not by its remuneration. The -ru p r r /^i 1 , The Kev. Canon K. Lhurch opens a large y. Pusseii field of employment to the paid worker. Sisterhoods are found in every branch of the Christian communion — ^they imply a common dwelling-place for women and a rule of life. The vows may be of lifelong obliga- tion or for a set period. Maintenance is guaranteed. The work is done with the sanction of the church to which the Sister- hood belongs. The Sisters are engaged in the care of the sick, the recovery of fallen women, the education of the young in its elementary and higher stages, the general care of the poor or of particular classes who need special help. Conventual life is not always maintained. Workers are detached at times from the com- munal centre for special service in connection with some particular church which employs them in its own work. Deaconesses and kindred groups of women, while they have a common train- ing-place and head- quarters in a particular institution, are at- tached to a given reh- gious organisation for longer or shorter terms, and spend their lives here or there as they are appointed, doing the same sort of work as Sisters do at the T. Talbot, D.D. &• Sons