RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Women’s Work in the Church Woodrow
opened to women a sphere of growing importance. The names of Harriet Newell, of Ann Hasseltine Judson, Emily Chubbock Judson, Fidelia Fiske, Eliza Everett, of the English Anne and Alice Mackenzie, and of A. L. O. E. (i.e., A Lady of England), Miss Charlotte Tucker (aunt of the Salvation Army officer, Booth-Tucker), whose pen did much to interest England in the evangelization of India, mark the first half of the century. In 1884 a little company of Englishwomen formed the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East. Fidelia Fiske introduced girls’ schools into Persia; Sarah L. Huntington, the first wife of Dr. Eli Smith, first taught Syrian women to read. In 1860 Mrs. Bowen Thompson founded the British Syrian Schools. In 1862 Lady Kinnaird organized the India Female Normal School and Instruction Society, out of which sprang the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, and the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. Pandita Ramabai (q.v.) of India has done a remarkable work for Hindu widows. Mrs. Anna Satthianadhan in 1863 began zenana work in Madras. Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. 8. (Krupabai) Satthianadhan, has rendered effective missionary service with her pen. Up to 1880 the idea of unmarried women in the mission field was coldly received notwithstanding some brilliant examples of such service, but in 1894 there were about 1,000 more women than men in mission work. Geraldine Guinness (Mrs. Howard Taylor, of the China Inland Mission) has done much to arouse missionary interest and consecration among the women of England and America.
The initiative in woman’s medical missions was taken by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale of Philadelphia about 1838, but a long struggle was involved to complete the movement. The first woman medical missionary was Dr. Swain, who went to India in 1870; the names of Dr. Mary Niles in China, Dr. Mary Patrick in Turkey, Dr. Mary P. Eddy in Syria, are conspicuous.
In 1860 Mrs. Anna Mason of Assam, coming home on furlough, inspired Mrs. Caroline Doremus with the thought of organizing women for mission work. In 1861 Mrs. Doremus formed the Woman’s Union Missionary Society. Denominational women’s missionary societies came later. The contributions of all these in twenty-eight years aggregated $13,500,000. For Home Missions (q.v.) in the United States between 1876 and 1893 seventeen women’s societies were formed. The names of Sue MacBeth and Alice Fletcher among Indians, of Joanna Moore among negroes, and of Emilia Brewer among the poor whites of the South may be mentioned among hundreds of heroic workers.
The rapid development of the principles of church federation permitting concerted action between women of all denominations will surely result in bringing back to strengthen the Church many of those feminine activities which are truly Christian, though by the necessities of the case not now in the
Church. Louisr Spymour HovueuTon. BreuiocrRaPHy: Besides the literature under Draconsss, consult: H. Grégoire, De Vinfluence du christianisme
sur la condition des femmes, Paris, 1821; J. Kavanagh, Women of Christianity, Exemplary for Piety and Charity, new ed., London, 1859; W. Landels, Woman's Sphere
and Work Considered in the Light of Scripture, 7th
ed., ib. 1866; C. E. Stephen, The Service lof the Poor,
ib. 1871; W. Welsh, Women Helpers in the Church,
their Sayings and Doings, Philadelphia, 1872; H. C.
G. Moule, Public Ministry of Women, London, 1892;
Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Woman’s Mission, New York,
1893; W. de L. Love, St. Paul and Woman, ib. 1894; Lina
Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, Cambridge, 1896;
E. Modersohn, Die Frauen des Alten Testaments .. . des
Neuen Testaments, 2 vols., Miilheim, 1903-06; E. F. von
der Goltz, Der Dienst der Frau in der christlichen Kirche,
Potsdam, 1905; J. Donaldson, Woman; her Position and
Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and among the Early
Christians, London, 1907; H. Merz, Christliche Frauen-
bilder, 6th ed., Stuttgart, 1907; L. Stécker, Die Frau in
der alten Kirche, Tiibingen, 1907; F. Wilke, Das Frauenideal und die Schitzung des Weibes im Alten Testament,
Leipsic, 1907; F. Harrison, Realities and Ideals: Social,
Political, Literary and Artistic, New York, 1908; M. Lohr,
Die Stellung des Weibes zu Jahwe-Religion und Kult, Leip-
sic 1908; A. D. Sertillanges, Feminisme et Christianisme,
Paris, 1908; J. Apolant, Stellung und Mitarbeit der Frau
in der Gemeinde, Leipsic, 1910; 8S. Coit, Woman in Church
and State, London, 1910; J. W. von Walter, Frauenlos und Frauenarbeit in der Geschichte des Christentums, Leipsic, 1911; C. L. Brace, Gesta Christi, chap. xi., new issue,
London and New York, 1911; G. Baumer, Die Frau und
das geistige Leben, Leipsic, 1911.
WOOD, NATHAN EUSEBIUS: Baptist; b. at Forrestville, N. Y., June 6, 1849. He was graduated from Chicago University (A.B., 1872) and the Baptist Union Theological Seminary, Chicago (1875); was pastor of Centennial Baptist Church, Chicago (1875-77); principal of Wayland Academy, Beaver Dam, Wis. (1877-83); held pastorates at Memorial Baptist Church, Chicago (1883-86); Strong Place Baptist Church, Brooklyn (1886-92); Brookline, Mass. (1892-94), and the First Baptist Church, Boston (1894-99); and was president of Newton Theological Institution, Newton Center, Mass. (1899-1908). He is president of the Northern Baptist Education Society, chairman of the executive committee of the American Baptist Missionary Union, and a member of the executive board of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society and of the American Baptist Education Society. In theology he is moderately conservative, and has edited J. R. Boise’s Hxegetical Notes on the Greek Epistles of the Apostle Paul (New York, 1896), and has written History of the First Baptist Church of Boston, Mass. (Philadelphia, 1899).
WOODCOCK, CHARLES EDWARD: Protestant Episcopal bishop of Kentucky; b. at New Britain, Conn., June 12, 1854. He was educated by private tutors and was graduated from Berkeley Divinity School, Middletown, Conn. (1882). He was curate of Grace Church, Baltimore (1882-84); rector of the Church of the Ascension, New Haven, Conn. (1884-88); Christ Church, Ansonia, Conn. (1888-1900); and St. John’s, Detroit, Mich. (1900- 1905). In 1905 he was consecrated bishop of Kentucky.
WOODROW, JAMES: Presbyterian; b. at Carlisle, England, May 30, 1828; d. at Columbia, 8. C., Jan. 17, 1907. He was educated at Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pa. (A.B., 1849), Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard (1853), and the University of Heidelberg (Ph.D., 1856), after which he spent an additional year of study in Europe. He was professor of natural science in Oglethorpe University, Milledgeville, Ga., in 1853-61, and in 1861
Woods Word of God