THE BIBLE-WOMEN NURSES. IN completing the twentieth volume of the "MISSING LINK MAGAZINE," we look back on eight years' history of the BIBLEWOMEN NURSES, increasingly valued in the districts they serve, and still able to continue true Bible-work, though not Bible collecting work, beside the sick-beds to which their nursing introduces them. STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURE OF MOTHER- Total. £ s. d. Jan., 1875 482 9 10 594 2 721 19 422 18 3 124 6 1 33 15 9 797 2 0 388 1 6 643 11 024 11 520 6 8144 6 0 32 10 5 865 5 6 229 8 € 204 14 0 222 15 0 576 15 0 27 11 4 39 16 7119 4 5 33 16 1 797 3 5 Sept. Donation from "House 197 1 5 659 3 027 17 1 5 14 10 115 12 11 33 5 5 841 13 3 STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURE OF MOTHER-HOUSE AND BIBLEWOMEN NURSES, FROM APRIL, 1868, TO OCTOBER 15TH, 1875. The Districts served during the year have been as follows: We have trained with our Bible-women and in hospitals ten new nurses this year, and nine have left us. The districts given up at present are eight-Hendon, Gray's Inn Road, Upper Thames Street, Bow Common, Clerkenwell, Caledonian Road, Rotherhithe, Shadwell. The new districts this year have been ten-St. Martin's Lane, Finsbury, Coventry Street, Nine Elms, Lisson Grove, Wandsworth No. 1, Wandsworth No. 2, Hoxton, Cumberland Market, Kennington. Twelve new ladies have joined us as Nurse Superintendents. In 1868, were visited 99 sick persons, to whom were paid 5,000 visits. Out of the number visited this year 430 persons died. 111,601 111,861 29 The excess of 1,000 in the number of this year's cases, and the comparatively small increase in the number of visits, 260, signifies, at least, the extension of the Mission, and we think more discernment has been exercised concerning the cases which ought to be taken into hospitals, rather than nursed at home. The kind Nurse frequently persuades and accompanies the patients to the hospital, and one recently, with broken ribs, was bandaged and sent home again, and is now doing well. Another, with diseased jaw, is glad to have the wound on his face dressed and syringed as was ordered; it just enables him to do a little work, but probably nothing will cure him short of the removal of the bone There is, of course, far more than can be told in the details of the Nurse-work, and it requires perpetual oversight and repair, even more than the Bible-work. It is very laborious; so much so that a worn-out nurse will often be refreshed and rested by a return for two or three months to the Bible-woman's work instead of nursing. The aid administered in food to the sick this year from our Mother House has been at the cost of £281 14s. 2d., and has consisted in meat, milk, and farinaceous nourishments, usually cooked by the nurse, and taken by her to the patient. We have spent: After eight years' experiment we are convinced that our merciful Lord has vouchsafed His perpetual blessing to this practical work with souls as well as bodies. He goes forth with the humble, loving workers as the Great Physician, Comforter, and Healer, and they work as in His sight. On the whole, their health is preserved and renewed, although they are often called to nurse the lowest of the low in morals,-and in such places !—mothers expecting infants, in dirty rooms, without any furniture, no fender to the fireplace, and almost in darkness from broken windows stuffed with paper or rag or by old boards. Many who have given up trying to be clean, or to care how they live, or whether they die from the cruelty of their drunken husbands, who, coming home at midnight, will sometimes drive wife and children out of bed and into the streets, cold refuge from fierce blows and possible murder. “Ah! many such a sorrowful woman does our Nurse comfort with the balm of Gilead, and carry to her the first Gospel she ever heard-as she tends the new-born babe-and hears her, as her tears run down, say, 'No one was ever so kind to me before.' In numberless instances life is saved at those seasons which would have been lost, as well as the heart for the first time softened to receive God's good seed. "Then there are so many wounds from accident, which, if not meeting at first with proper attention, after a while become ulcers, especially if aggravated by drinking habits; but healing perpetually follows the regular dressing with carbolic lotion, and they are always shown what to do for themselves in similar cases in future. "One tale is told of a patient found in a fearfully dirty model lodging-house in the neighbourhood of Whitecross-street which was only a model of dirt and misery, tenanted by several hundred people. Nurse's visits have led to its inspection, and a change is taking place in it. It has never been possible to visit there on a Saturday afternoon, there is so much drinking and fighting. "The friends of Home Missions dwelling in the country have this year established a 'Bible Flower Mission' to London with very pleasing results. From Derby and from Great Stanmore, we have received all the summer, on Tuesday mornings, lovely little bouquets of flowers, so packed that they have reached us while quite fresh, and accompanied, each one, by a text of Scripture. By twos and threes they have been attached to our Nurses' bags of supplies for their patients; often distributed one by one, they have each spoken to the sick and sad, to the young child and the worn-out sufferer, of a breath from the country and a message of God's love and care. We have called them the embroidery of our Bible Mission, and have noted many a sweet result from their distribution. Boxes of grapes repeatedly sent have also been conveyed with joy in small portions to parched mouths, which had never dreamed of such luxurious relief, or such sharing of blessings by the rich with the poor. In other forms of supply we have, in between fifty and sixty districts, dispensed to those greatly needing itindia-rubber goods-bedding, easy chairs, bed-rests, air-cushions, carbolic soap, lotion, lint, and 2,239 articles of clothing." THE SONG IN THE VALLEY. Nurse G.'s Patient. "MRS. C, age about 35, suffering from consumption brought on by the cruel treatment of her husband, who was for many years a great drunkard, and would frequently on his return home turn his wife out in the back yard, or shut her in the wash-house, and otherwise ill-treat her. In frost and snow this was the usage she often received. He died about four months since, and it is not to be wondered at that a few weeks afterwards she took to her bed, the victim of rapid consumption. |