BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.

Miss D. E. Emerson, Secretary.

FROM OUR LADY MISSIONARY, WILMINGTON, N.C.

MISS A. E. FARRINGTON.

My work the past month has been very encouraging. Mrs. Steele has been with us and special meetings were held among the women and girls. At one of these about 90 were present, and many seemed deeply interested. At the close quite a number rose for prayers and remained for personal conversation. After the meeting that night, which was also quite full, the same girls remained, and several expressed the hope that they had given their hearts to Jesus. Some of them had been very thoughtful for weeks, and seemed to need just the help that these meetings gave to bring them to a decision. A meeting of the boys was also held. The girls begged me to keep on with meetings for them, which I have very gladly done every Monday after school, from twenty to thirty-five coming in. Nine or ten of them hope they have become Christians. Several of them wish to unite with the church at once. They were examined and their friends consulted, and three were propounded for admission, but will not be received until they have had a little time to test their sincerity. Influences have been brought to bear to draw them away from us. They have been told that there is no religion where everything is so quiet, and endeavors have been made to get them into revival meetings which are wild with excitement. Last week some of our teachers went into one of these meetings, where several girls were rolling on the floor, crying and moaning. One lady thought she saw one of her scholars among them, and going to her held out her hand and told her to get up. She obeyed at once, and her teacher led her to a seat, where she talked to her quietly a few moments, telling her that God did not require any such thing as that of her or any one else, that her good conduct in school and elsewhere lately was stronger evidence that she had given her heart to Jesus than anything she saw there. Afterwards she went to another part of the church, where others of her scholars were, quieting them, some going home as soon as they saw her. These lambs of the flock need to be very tenderly guarded, and others seem only waiting to be led along the right way.

A VALUED WORKER GONE.

Rev. Dr. Woodworth, of our Boston office, in a commemorative address on the death of Mrs. D. L. Furber, of Newton Centre, Mass., gives an account of her devotion to the cause of missions, in language fitted to arouse, in no common degree, the zeal of the Christian women of the country. He says:

She had the rare faculty, perhaps I should say double faculty, of comprehending a great cause, and at the same time of making individual cases all her own. I have heard her talk of the work in the South as a work for the African race, until her tongue thrilled with eloquence, her face shone with a strange light, and her whole person seemed to expand to the measure of her theme. To her it seemed so strange that people did not see what to her was so plain: that the churches were so slow to accept their opportunity; that the very conjuncture of the death of slavery and the opening of the African continent by exploration and commerce were a demonstration that they were part and parcel of the same plan and pattern, and meant the salvation of the African race. Why could not the churches see it? Had blindness happened to the people of God? How hot and fast her words fell, as she pictured the possibilities which lay in the Southern work, and as she expressed her amazement at the failure of good people to discern the signs of the times!

To her these four millions coming out of the house of their bondage, in need of every thing, were Christ himself, hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless—a stranger. In them she saw her Lord; in them she heard His cry of distress; in them, as unto Him, she gave her sympathies, her time, her bounty. She walked under the light of that vision which so glorified her life. Each one of that suffering race whom she took into her family, to whom she sent clothing, or aided in his course of education, represented Him.

Another thing which struck me was what seemed a thorough mental honesty; and by this I mean that she took the widest survey of the field of which she was capable, and formed her judgments after full collation of the facts. Like the ideal scientist seeking light from every quarter, and open to its reception, come from where it might, she was ready to follow the truth wherever it might lead. She submitted her judgment to her intelligence, and was not afraid to obey her convictions. She loved the slave when it was not popular to do so. She was on the side of the weak when only a few stood with her. She counted the cost and took the stand for righteousness and truth. She saw in them clearly the humanity now represented on the throne, and for that would have gone down among them with perfect serenity and cheerfulness, bidding every offended sense and feeling be still. She had schooled herself to do right. She had said to her soul, “I will do for the poor as I would do for my Lord.”