The Rev. ROBERT CLAUDIUS BILLING, Rector of Spitalfields, and Rural Dean. I THINK it is impossible for us to ignore the fact that the prominence given to rescue work at this Church Congress is largely owing to the disclosures which have been made in a notorious London print. There are some who suppose that we are disposed to throw a shield over offenders because they are supposed to belong to the upper classes. This is not so. Our protest is not against any report on this subject, but we enter a most earnest protest against the narrative form adopted in that newspaper. On the other hand, after the report has been submitted to an Archbishop, a Cardinal, a Bishop, and a member of the Legislature, who have declared that the report is of evils that do exist, it is nothing short of a scandal, in my judgment, whatever may be our opinion with regard to the conduct of those who formulated that report and carried out that investigation, that there should only have been one prosecution. Having thus referred to the events which bring this matter into prominence, I must go on and speak from my own experience of rescue work in a large town. I should like to say in the first place that the work among fallen women is the work of women, as the mission of purity to men is to be regarded as peculiarly the work of men. If the work is to be successfully prosecuted it must not be relegated to outside organisation, but taken up as an integral part of the parochial system. In many parts of our great cities and towns co-operation between different parishes might with advantage be arranged. This would be found advantageous for many reasons. It is not desirable that a temporary home should be established in every parish, and such temporary home is best planted at a convenient distance from the part in which the women have lived; and the assistance of the clergy of the parish in which it is situated may often be obtained for the benefit of the women who sojourn there before they are sent to penitentiaries or otherwise provided for. Some co-operation between those engaged in the work is absolutely necessary to prevent women from constantly having recourse, first to one home and then to another, without any intention of reforming their lives. It is very necessary that we should co-operate with the poor-law guardians in this matter. In every poor-law infirmary there is a lock ward and a lying-in ward. My experience is that the guardians and the chaplains at workhouse infirmaries are very ready to welcome the assistance of those-ladies especially-who will go in from without and work amongst those who are in the lying-in ward or the lock-ward. With a little co-operation no one who has gone in can slip through your fingers. You can ascertain when a woman is going out; you can provide for her a temporary home and shelter, and thus a great many who would return to their old life may be saved by God's mercy for a life of virtue. Those engaged in the work of rescue usually meet the women in the streets, but the most satisfactory work is prosecuted among them in the locality in which they reside. For those who live in his parish more than for those who frequent the streets and live elsewhere the parish priest is principally responsible. "Prevention is better than cure," and rescue work is most fruitful of results among those who have lately entered upon a life of sin. A thorough acquaintance with the streets and courts in which they live, with the advantage the clergy of the parish and their recognised helpers enjoy of access to their dwellings, will promote the success of the watchful effort to save the unwary and careless from being entrapped. A new comer will be presently noticed, and the poor girl who has not been inured to this dreadful life have a helping hand stretched out to save her before she has become habituated to her miserable condition. Many experienced workers rely largely on special services and meetings. Personally, I deprecate the use of the church for gatherings to which these, and these only, are invited; and other meetings, in my judgment, are best held not late at night, when many are under the influence of drink, but in the afternoon, or early in the evening. Only a limited number should be invited, and great care and discrimination exercised in the issue of invitations. It is very undesirable to mingle old and young together. There should be, at least, one experienced lady for every three or four of the guests; they should receive them, and sit amongst them. If tea is provided, as it usually is, some occasional solo singing by ladies, whom God has gifted with the power of song, will have a solemnizing effect, and will not altogether prevent conversation between the ladies and their guests. I would never rearrange those assembled for a formal meeting after tea. I recommend to avoid anything approaching to sensationalism, and to trust to the Holy Spirit of God to move the conscience, rather than to the voice of man to move the feelings. I believe it to be a very bad thing indeed to put upon the lips of these poor women some of those sacred songs with which we are so familiar, and which express the highest Christian emotion, and the most lofty Christian experience. We ought not to ask them to sing such things whilst at the same time we are treating them as those who are far away from their God. Let there be no hasty dealing with cases. In our zeal to save a poor soul, we should never allow ourselves to over-persuade any woman to come away at once to the home. It is not likely she will stay if she has come unwillingly or only under the influence of excitement, and not because of a real desire to lead a better life. The matron in charge of the temporary home needs to be as discriminating as experienced, and judicious as any one in charge of a penitentiary. In many places night work must be organised and systematically prosecuted. Great care is necessary in the selection of workers. The lock-ward and lying-in ward in the Poor-law infirmary afford a proper field for rescue work, and the co-operation of the chaplain and the authorities of the infirmary should be obtained and the way made easy for any woman leaving the infirmary to enter a home. The need of more systematic effort is patent to all who know anything about the state of our great towns. There are others than "street walkers" to be rescued, and it is shocking to think of the many children of tender years who are fallen and are carrying on this demoralising trade. Once we had women to rescue, then girls, now we have children. A somewhat long acquaintance with the work enables me to say that though it is, perhaps, the most difficult work anyone can undertake, and from which everyone must shrink-though disappointment has to be endured to a degree of which, perhaps, the novice has no conception-there is no more necessary work, of all the Church is called to undertake, and it is a work which the true-hearted servant of the Lord Jesus must feel is dear to the Master's own heart. DISCUSSION. The Right Rev. HARVEY GOODWIN, D.D., Lord Bishop of Carlisle. I RISE not merely at your your lordship's bidding, but also at the bidding of Mrs. Townsend, who has requested me to say a few words concerning the Girls' Friendly Society. As that society has been working efficiently in my own diocese I considered I was bound by gratitude and duty to obey that lady's command. My diocese is of a very different character to that which is shadowed forth by such speeches as we have been listening to to-day. Mine is almost entirely a country diocese, a beautiful mountain diocese, and we have not so much of that mass of filth and sin and horror with which our minds have been sated for some time past. We have, however, a great deal of sin of a certain kind. There is a great prevalence of low views of morality. The standard of family purity in our country villages, and even in our beautiful dales, is not as high as it ought to be, and the agency which is brought to bear by the Girls' Friendly Society seems to be exactly that which we want, and is more valuable for such a country as mine than other agencies, precious as they are, which are so necessary in large over-crowded towns. In Mrs. Townsend's paper reference was made to the value of the Girls' Friendly Society as bearing witness to purity, and great stress should be laid on that part of the operation of such a society. It is a great thing that people should know that there are a large number of girls throughout the country who set a value on purity, who do know what female virtue is, and who take their stand on the highest platform of pure and holy and godly living. On this account I estimated very much one of the actions of this society in my diocese a few years ago. We had a great Girls' Friendly Society Festival in Carlisle, when 1,200 or more girls were brought together and attended service in our Cathedral and one of our churches, listened to sermons, saw the antiquities of the place, were entertained with music, and tea in the evening and went home very pleased and happy. It was not so much on account of the happiness that was given to these girls that I was gratified by the festival, but because I considered that 1,200 poor girls walking through the city and having it as the very bond of their co-operative union that they were associated on the question of purity, formed a sermon on the great text of female purity, such as none of my clergy would have been able to preach. Mrs. Townsend's paper spoke also of befriending girls. Girls want friends quite as much as young men can do. That is one form of work which this society takes up, and it is invaluble. In Carlisle we have a lodging-house where poor girls, who are employed in milliners' shops and the like, may obtain lodgings, not only cheaply, but where they may be kindly treated, and may be sure of a pure and quiet home. I conceive that you cannot possibly bestow a greater boon upon young girls in a town or city than by supplying them with a lodging-house where they will be tended with kind and motherly care. Stress has been laid on the far-reaching character of the society. It spreads its ramifications even into distant countries. It is a grand thing when a girl goes from one place to another, whether in England or in the Colonies, that she may take a letter of introduction with her, and be sure of receiving a hearty welcome. Taking this very simple and obvious view of the matter, I rejoice very greatly at what has been and what, I believe, may be done by this society. There is a great deal in friendship. I was much struck with a remarkable paper I heard yesterday, and I congratulate you, my lord, on the innovation you have made in allowing ladies to read their own papers. There is no end to improvement. Last year, at Carlisle, the question was raised, but we dared not face it. We thought it would be such a Radical reform to let ladies speak, that it would frighten some Conservative friends, and we put it on one side. Certainly the cause you have taken was justified by the result, for a more striking paper I never heard than that of Miss Weston, and emphasis was given to it by the fact of its being read by the lady herself. What struck me so much in that paper was the power of friendliness. It seemed to me that all the work of that lady was based upon friendship. She told us that the very beginning of her great work, which has now attained to such large proportions, was due to her writing a letter to a poor lad who had lost his mother, and thus supplying the lack that boy felt in his heart. There is no doubt, whether we belong to one class of society or another, that we all feel the want of some heart to which we can communicate our feelings, of some deep sympathy, of somebody to whom we can tell our troubles, especially during our younger years, and somebody from whom we can receive loving advice, and who we know will be prepared to help us in our time of need. But there is one other thing I should like to say, and it is a thing which Mrs. Townsend could not possibly have said herself. I should like to lay stress on the great good that is done by this society to those ladies who themselves take part in its work. The quality of mercy, as we all know, is that it confers a double blessing; it blesses those who give as well as those who receive; and the observation was never more true than in the case of the Girls' Friendly Society. The life of many of our women of the higher classes is not always favourable to the development of the religious life. A young unmarried woman or a married woman spends the season in London and then goes down to her happy and beautiful home in the country. There may be a greater tendency on her part to think more of the world than it is wise or christian for a woman to do, and there may be a great tendency in the pursuit of innocent pleasure to neglect those who are about her. We hear a great deal now of ladies with their cricket matches. They have their elevens just as they do at Eton and Harrow, and you see married women sometimes turning out in their flannels and performing all the wonderful things which are done by great cricketers. I say nothing against it. Let ladies do as they please. I am not their judge. They know better than I do what is good for them. But I do say this-that it is a great blessing for a woman to be drawn by an influence she cannot and does not wish to resist into some good works for the poor people round about her. We all know Lady Clara Vere de Vere, and there are perhaps many Lady Claras who have poor about their lands to whom they ought to have done good, and it will perhaps be a source of regret to them that they have not done it. The reflex of the action of this woman's work upon those who undertake it is as valuable in its way as the direct work they undertake. In saying this I have in my mind the recollection of a meeting of the Girls' Friendly Society we held in Carlisle not long ago. I, the only man present, was invited-with the confidence which the ladies showed in my character and good intentions-to give them a little advice before they went to their work, and as I had the opportunity of seeing them in their quiet council chamber, I do not think I am revealing any secrets I ought not to reveal when I say that there were there gathered together 100 or more women, including some of the most influential and highest ladies in the diocese, and that they had all been brought together for the simple purpose of endeavouring to do good to their poorer sisters. It was a sight which did my heart good. It was what I call a magnificent phenomenon. It had this great advantage, that it brought together persons from all parts who were interested in Girls' Friendly work which does not involve that higher form of woman's work of which we have heard this morning, but which does involve work which everyone of those women could carry on in her own parish for the benefit of her neighbours, and, I believe, very much for her own benefit too. In one word, I say that the Girls' Friendly Society has done, is doing, and will do a great deal of good, and from the bottom of my heart I thank Mrs. Townsend for what she has accomplished. The Rev. G. J. ATHILL, Diocesan Inspector of Schools. I SHOULD not venture to address the meeting had it not been suggested that, coming in contact as I do every day with the girls in our elementary schools and their teachers, I might say a few words on a practical point connected with one part of our subject this morning, that is to say the way in which the Girl's Friendly Society can act upon the girls in our elementary schools through the schoolmistresses. I would preface what I have to say by stating that, except in a modified form, it is not applicable to small schools, where the girls and their surroundings and circumstances are well known to the clergyman and other Church workers in the parish, and that the work is already being carried out to a considerable extent, and nowhere, I believe, with better effect than in this borough. It was only last week that, in one of the largest, and perhaps the poorest school in this town, I found gratifying marks of the good that was being done in this way. Now, what is our position in this matter? You have the girls in the school on the one side, and on the other side you have the Girl's Friendly Society very anxious to help them. How can the two, in the case of large schools, be brought together? It is thought that this might be done by the schoolmistress being made an honorary associate of the society, not a working one, because she already has as much as she can do. She could, without materially adding to her work, single out the girls in her school who most require this kind of help, and who are most suitable to receive it, and pass them on to the associated branch. There are three reasons why we should try to do as much as we can in this way. The first is because the need for this help is so great; the second is because the means of giving that help are so ready and effective, and the third is because the help given is so real and far reaching. The need is so great. We all know the temptations that many of these girls are surrounded by. The subject has been brought under our notice lately in the most painful way, and it is quite necessary for me, in a meeting of this kind, to dwell on the point for a single minute. But there is one aspect of it which is most serious, and that is that with large sections of the girls who come into these schools parental control is lamentably weak. How this difficulty can be overcome is a most perplexing question. I remember how a parish priest, who was reputed to be one of the most effective and efficient in the diocese to which he belonged, used to gather the parents together, admitting no one but parents to the meeting, and speak very earnestly, lovingly, and plainly to them, and it was obvious that in that parish a great deal had been done to raise people's thoughts as to their duties as parents. In the second place the means are ready and effective. There the mistresses stand. They are in contact with the girls. In nearly every case they are looked up to by the girls and they are very generally esteemed and loved by them. Thanks to the educational work of the Church, and to the way in which we have extended and maintained our training colleges, not only have we supplied the Church schools, but a great many of our mistresses are in board schools, and the mistresses of both classes of schools are ready and anxious to do all they can for their scholars. In the third place the help is real and far reaching. Mistresses have sometimes said, “I shall gladly do what I can, but, considering the immense number of scholars I have to do with, what can I do for them out of school?" Now, if all that is needed is to speak to one of the members of the Girls' Friendly Society it makes the matter very different. At once a home and a friend is found for the girl in every part of England; I hope we may soon be able to say in every part of the English-speaking world. I remember how one day the difference between an attempt on the part of the mistress to help, out of school hours, girls in such large schools as I have alluded to, and handing them over to the Girls' Friendly Society to be dealt with, was compared to the difference between trying to push on a train oneself and coupling on an engine to take it along. I have sometimes wondered how it is that as the Girls' Friendly Society has tried to get mistresses in this way it has not succeeded to a greater extent. Perhaps it is because the appeal has been made in most cases through the post by means of a circular or pamphlet. I think that schoolmistresses receive almost as many of these as the clergy, and they pass very speedily into the waste-paper basket. If each of us would try to do what we could in this matter in our respective neighbourhoods, we should encourage the teachers and give an impetus to their work, which would sustain and cheer them. The Rev. J. ARTHUR FORBES, Vicar of St. James's, THE reason why I have taken the liberty of addressing you is that it is my |