The call of Jesus has come ringing down the ages, calling on every nation, tribe and tongue, "Come unto me." In every age some have heeded the call, until unnumbered millions have been uplifted and blessed. But those who have passed their youth without hearing or heeding this call to a life of holiness and service, are in danger of never opening to it their ears and hearts.

      Character, whether good or bad, ever tends to become permanent after youth [67] is past. Habits become fixed, hearts grow hard ears dull--if they have not been opened to what is truest and best in the springtime of life.

      The hope of the church is in the young; and no class should be more hopeful, or reached in larger numbers, than young women. Their hearts are tender and their minds open. The protection of home and school has shielded them from care and sorrow. They are easily interested in their less favored sisters of heathen lands and eagerly undertake to do all within their power to give them the gospel and its fruits.

      In the same year in which the young Christian girl, Victoria, ascended the throne of England, the Christian women of the world had placed in their hands a hitherto undreamed-of scepter for a more than imperial sway. A returned missionary aroused the women of England by telling them of the terrible wrongs of heathen women, that millions of them were imprisoned in harems and zenanas where no man could enter with the light and hope and redeeming love of the gospel. The idea of women attempting to organize to send women for this special work was ridiculed and derided; but some brave souls persevered, and women's missionary organizations made their beginning. Twenty years later this rallying-cry, first sounded in Great Britain, came to America, and there are now, approximately, a million women enlisted in the women's missionary societies of the world.

      No call to young Christian women, outside the home, better deserves to be heeded, or has greater power to bless, than the call to become helpful, intelligent members of the Christian Woman's Board of Missions. Innumerable clubs and societies are seeking the allegiance of our girls. These may be very good within themselves, but they should not be allowed to interfere with the best. Countless amusements and diversions bid for their attention and time; they may be harmless, they are not first.

      Who can estimate the power for good of a generation of women who were trained first in the children's missionary society, and then in our young ladies' mission circles?

      The young woman who becomes a member of a circle plans to set apart one afternoon or evening in the month for the missionary meeting. The reading and thinking necessarily done in preparing programs; the bringing of these great subjects before her, even though it be in an imperfect way; the constant communication with State and national officers; the information and inspiration gained from the study of our missionaries and their fields; the regular systematic giving; the study of God's word with this thought in mind; the prayers offered for world-wide missions--these things will have an influence on her life, and through her on the lives of all with whom she comes in contact--the boundless and endless results of which only God can know. Her individual life will be broadened, uplifted, sweetened, enriched, redeemed from trivial interests just in proportion to the effort and sacrifice she makes for this work. The friendships she will form through this work with God's truest handmaidens will also enrich her life.

      Another great field which the C. W. B. M. offers to young women, in which they may do good and also develop themselves, is that of our Young People's Department. Those who wish to grow in patience, self-control, wisdom, gentleness, executive ability, and every Christian grace, can find no better culture than superintending a children's missionary society.

      The Christian Woman's Board of Missions needs the help which the young women can give to it. Its future life depends upon the enlisting of young women. Our C. W. B. M. has made only a good beginning in these thirty-five years. In all lines of work more money and more helpers are needed. The plea of every missionary is for better equipment and more workers. If you can not belong to every society which has a worthy object, be careful to choose the best--that which will enable you to be of the most use in the world. It is only by losing sight of self, becoming absorbed in love for a good cause, that you can become lovely in character, can attain that sweetness of spirit, that joy which comes to those who serve the highest purposes in life. [68]

[CCR 67-68]