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Show REPORT OF THE FENCHOWFU WORK FOR WOMEN 1914- Distance all value enhances, When a man's busy, why leisure; Strikes him as wonderful pleasure; Faith, and at leisure once is he? Straightway he wants to be busy." In spite of the heat I think we have never had a better tempered lot of women together than gathered for those first three weeks of August. And when at length old Sol had lowered his head behind the AN AUTUMN city wall, benches and tables were brought out in the court- HOUSE PARTY yard for the last class of the day and evening prayers. Many a stroller on the wall rested his bird cage on the parapet and looked down on that unusual scene-a score of women reading and singing songs. Fans waved and mosquitoes buzzed, but unperturbed the singing went on. We were most fortunate in having Mr. Wang, the head teacher in the Grammar school to help in this class, and his hour in the early morning was most growth provoking. Good solid work went on from nine until eleven-thirty, then all gathered in the dining room-the coolest room in the house at that time-for a half hours sing before dinner. And how they do sing and how they love it! The baby organ is a great addition to our working force, for it goes on the even tenor of its way in spite of old Mrs. Wang's counter and Jen Ta Sao's "aimless wanderings over the gamut". A class in the Acts included most of the women who could use their Bibles intelligently and I can still hear the big bass voice of the well fed Lu Wu Sao as she stood outside the door calling the people together for this class, much in the same manner as a conductor performs his duty in letting passengers know that their train is in. After the station class closed, plans for the new school for women took a more definite form. A prospectus was gotten out, so that when the Fall touring was done they might be distributed among the people. Country Cart Trips. It is impossible in a few words to sum up the visits to those four outstations and six sub-outstations- That they were valuable to the ones who went I know, and that they were the earnest of good things for the women we met, I hope. The very fact that one comes back from such trips with renewed courage and a stronger conviction of the worthwhileness of the work is in itself convincing. The hours, and at most days, of visiting need to be followed up with good consecutive weeks and months and that is just what we hope our Women's school is going to furnish us in the future, - women who can go and take up their abode in the outstations and do for the women there what is already being so splendidly done for the men. |