THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE GIRLS’ FRIENDLY SOCIETY.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2690, 21 November 1882, Page 3

THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE GIRLS’ FRIENDLY SOCIETY.

[Read at a meeting of the G.P.S. at the Mansion House, June 21st, 1882.] My object in addressing you this afternoon is to claim for the Girls’ Friendly Society the position of a National Society, and to correct the erroneous and somewhat widespread idea that it is a society for servants only. It is quite true that it reckons, and is proud to reckon, in its ranks a very largo proportion of members in service, but it has also enrolled a large number of girls and young women engaged in other employments, or living at home; and when the first object of the society is borne in mind —namely, the preservation of purity—it will be seen how inqiortaut it is to obtain the help of all classes in so great an endeavor. It has been well said that “ enthusiasm can only be kindled by two things: - an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.” Now, I need hardly point out that without enthusiasm the Girls’ Friendly Society could not have become in seven years so large and increasing a body as it now is—numbering more than 70,000 strong, and having already organised COO branches, presided over by twenty-nine Diocesan Councils and a Central Council, to which each diocese sends a representative three times a year. This “ definite plan,” on which the society has been organised, has conduced very much to promote its varied work ; and not only in England and Wales, but in Scotland and Ireland, in America and the colonies, similar societies have been started, based for the most part on the same fundamental rules. But what is more important to realise is the fact that it needed a great ideal to kindle, and, still more, to sustain such an enthusiasm and such an effort. The Girls’ Friendly Society aims at preserving purity, not merely by the outward aids of help and protection (though these are freely used in a very practical manner), but by endeavoring to awaken in the minds of women of all classes a sense of the prociousness of that purity in the sight of God —by seeking to band women together to strive for the honor of womanhood, because womanhood has been consecrated by Him and should be consecrated to Him—by proclaiming boldly and fearlessly that virtue is of no class, and impos sible to no class, and that in this matter all arc concerned, not only for themselves, but for others. For, when we invito you’to join the Girls’ Friendly Society we do not merely say “ Como, because you have need of us.” but “ Come, because wo have need of you,” We want your help in the work, your witness as Christian women for purity, and faithfulness, and truth, not only as servants in the household, but as dutiful daughters in the homo, as conscientious workers in the shop and the workroom, the factory and the school, wherever, in short, you, as women, are doing your part in the work of the woidd. And because we hold that love is the only key that can open hearts, strengthening them in the fight against evil and temptation, therefore, we ask all in our society to bear each others’ burden—the older and more educated to help the younger, the experienced to guide the inexperienced, the leisured to rest the toilers, the young and healthful to cheer the sick, the possessors of many gifts to share them with those who have few ; but the gifts of love, and friendship, and sympathy are shared by all alike —not inly to be given to all, but to be taken from all —and it is this which has made the success of our society, this that has caused it to be as a household word to many hearts, and this that has won for it, as wo humbly think, the Divine blessing. Whenever the spirit of love shall die out of the Girjs’ Friendly Society, whenever this better and nobler ideal of womanhood shall cease to bo set before it, whenever its work shall tend to foster self-righteousness, or self-interest, or pride, then it will fail, and it were better that it should. But till then, wo claim for it, as a National Society, the help of all who can join it, and all who can work for it, in every rank and class — both as employers and employed. M. E. Townkknti, President of G. F. S. Central Council.