NBWTA Report 1903-058
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111 110 Wuat WomMEN Have Lost. We cannot but deeply regret that this year women have lost considerably by being no longer eligible to be elected members of School Boards, for under the new regulations, the power having now been transferred to County and Borough Councils, women are not This eligible for election, and can only act as co-opted members. unquestionably is a retrograde movement which we must not ignore. There ought to be no reason at all why women cannot serve on Educational Boards on precisely the same footing as men. The greatest outcry against women in public life is that their special sphere is the education and care of the young, and consequently, in this direction at least, there should not be dissentient one voice as to women being It is true that women can be co-opted, but it is far qualified to serve. more satisfactory and works a great deal better, that women should be First of all, it gives them the means of knowing the people elected. whom they are to represent and for whose children they are to work ; and secondly, it places their election in the hands of the people, and not a favour which they receive from an Educational Board. I sincerely trust that a Bill may shortly be passed to enable women, married or single, to be elected, not only on Educational Boards, but to serve on all Local Government Boards. THE FauLT OF THE GOoob. If I were asked after many years’ experience of working with good, faithful, honest women what I should consider the greatest danger into which they are likely to fall, I should unhesitatingly say the habit of It is the fault of the good, if it is possible to say that any judging. But that it is a failing peculiar to those who faults belong to the good. have with all sincerity endeavoured to give their life to the highest, is, I believe, undoubted ; and yet those calm, strong words ring through the Not one of us but if centuries: “Judge not that ye be not judged.” we look back over numberless careless conversations will realize how prone we are to judge ; how easy it is to fall into the habit of continual criticism, not only about the deeper things, but about the outward and surface things of life. ‘“ So-and-so is worldly because ofherdress. . . . . Ihave “T am sure her good looks are artificially produced. “reason to know that she does not get on with her family,” the reason being that ycu heard it vaguely but cannot remember who told you. “I “Cam not sure that she is sincere ’—this, probably, simply because she has differed from you on some occasion about a point upon which you ‘I should be very careful how she was taken think you are infallible. “into any circle of work”; and here comes in perhaps one of the most dangerous failings, again, once and that is the using of phrases great deal more than the mere the hearer the impression that what is said which probably is more almost peculiar to the virtuous, which may be misconstrued to mean a words articulate, leaving in the mind of there is something mysterious behind How many people have I very bad. heard injured in this way! Remember that we can destroy a character by the uplifting of an eyebrow or the shrug of a shoulder. Our judgment may be silent, but it may convey worlds of mischievous meaning. The habit of judging comes, I believe, greatly from the fact that we are under the impression that God classifies His laws, that there are some that can be broken with comparative impunity, and, while we should probably scorn the idea that we have anything in common with the Church which divides sins into venial and deadly, nevertheless we are apt to believe that certain commands can be lightly disregarded while others we dare not disobey. The most punctilious Sunday observer, the most honest and sometimes bluntly truthful people, those who by word or deed or thought have never broken what they choose to regard as the most important commandments, yet ruthlessly disregard Christ’s teaching as to the judgment passed upon others. ‘The reason for itis not far to seek: it lies in the fact that we have so little power to place ourselves in the position of others, that we cultivate so little that “angel of the mind” which we call imagination, that we walk through life trampling so ruthlessly the tender blades of other people’s aspira- tions, and that we are so apt to undervalue the difficulties and intricacies of other souls. What is an overwhelming temptation to me may be none to you; what you have fiercely fought in battles that none but your own conscience know, may never have touched my life ; and it is this many-sidedness of our wonderful existence which we have often failed to comprehend and which has led to much of the careless judgment that is passed on others. I remember, now some many years ago, being present at a great Evangelistic meeting. At the close of that meeting those who desired further help, or who were burdened with a sense of sin, were pressed to go into aninner room. Two young people weresitting in the same bench and I noticed that they rose and went into that enquiry room, I looked questioningly at their mother, who glibly said that they had “gone there to help deal with souls,” a boy and a girl not out of their teens, with no knowledge of the cruel difficulties of life, the agony of unbelief and the torture of temptation. And then it came to me how lightly we regard that wonderful mechanism made by the hand of God, moved by His Spirit, belonging only to its Maker, that we call a human soul. How terrible the expression, “to deal with it.” And yet that is the view that is very often held, that they can be sorted and classified, and arranged and wound up and set going, by the most inexperienced and crudest workmen. To us, to whom it often comes to be obliged to hear something, by reason of our work, of the struggles and difficulties through which men and women are called to pass, let us keep fresh within us the idea of how Christ approached the divine in man and woman, woman Have in we ever that wonderful sufficiently scene realized how by the wayside He dealt in Samaria? ever occurred to us how differently we should probably have with Has the it acted, how we should have rushed in where the Lord paused, and probably opened the conversation by asking the woman whether she really understood |