History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

Efforts were then made for the purchase of property in Nagoya for a Mission Home and School,
and a building fund was commenced, Mrs. Fornshill of Baltimore being elected treasurer, and the
fund at this time, 1896, amounts to nearly $2000.
In 1892 Miss A. J. Rowe of the Iowa Branch was sent to Yokohama to take the place of some of
the missionaries who had returned for rest. In September of the following year Miss Annette
Lawrence was sent to Nagoya. In 1894 Miss Margaret Kuhns of the Pittsburgh Branch was sent to
Yokohama to take the place of Miss Brown, who returned to America, and in September of the
following year Miss Alice Coates was sent to her assistance.
By a resolution of the General Conference of 1892 the missionaries of the Society were granted
membership in the Japan Mission Conference, and the reports of work were thereafter included in
the statistical tables of the Conference. Whenever able to do so, the Society has furnished interpreters
to the missionaries of the Church Board and teachers in the Sunday-schools. There are at present
seventeen Sunday-schools connected with the Japan Mission Conference of our Church, nine in
Yokohama, three in Nagoya, and five in Shizuoka, and in most of these the missionaries of the
Society, with nine of the older girls, give their help. The total number of scholars enrolled is 706.
The number of scholars in the boarding school of the Society is forty, of which ten are day scholars.
Seven of the girls do house to house visiting, distributing tracts, holding meetings, and inviting
people to church and Sunday school, and are proving a blessing by increasing the attendance,
interest, and membership. A number of the girls educated in the Home have married native Christian
ministers and are with their husbands still assisting in our mission work and have given to it years
of faithful labor. From the report of Rev. C. H. Vandyke, secretary of the Japan Mission Conference
for August 29, 1895, we take the following "A very hopeful feature of our general work is the direct
aggressive and efficient evangelical work now arranged for by the workers of the Woman's Foreign
Missionary Society. If nothing occurs to thwart this work, wisely organized and now being
energetically pushed forward, in a very few years we shall have a band of Bible readers or women
evangelists of which the whole mission can be proud and for which it has been working and praying.
Besides those in connection with the school, seven women are now in training under the very
efficient leadership of Miss Lawrence for direct Christian work, some of whom will soon be ready
to be sent forth 'two by two.' The field for such workers is fully ripe and well nigh boundless."
Christian Endeavor Societies are organized in the churches and Junior Societies in the
Sabbath-schools; also a very prosperous circle of King's Daughters is in operation in the Girls'
School at Yokohama.
The amount collected by the W. F. M. S., since its organization, sixteen years ago, not including
that which will be reported at the close of the fiscal year of 1896, is $46,923.14 for the general fund,
and more than $10,000 has been collected for building purposes. Also there is collected annually
from two to three hundred dollars for current expenses, for it is a law of the Society to use no money
for the conduct of the work at home which has been raised for the work abroad. The money is raised
principally by small amounts, two cents a week being the requisition on each member. This amount
it is understood does not release the giver from the duty of giving to the collections taken in all our
churches for the General Board of Missions.