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THE LIBRARY 

of 
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY 

Toronto 



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THE LIFE AND WORK 



OF 



Xucinba B* Ibelm, 



FOUNDER OF THE WOMAN S PARSONAGE AND HOME 
MISSION SOCIETY OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. 



ARABF.L WILBUR ALEXANDER. 



We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name 
for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a Jast effort of 
Divine Providence in behalf of the human race. Emerson. 



NASHVILLE, TENN.: 

PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH. 

BARBEE & SMITH, AGENTS. 

1898. 



fi\l 

K^ A p- 

W.4A5 

EttMANUQB 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1898, 

BY ARABEL WILBUR ALEXANDER, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TO 

THE WOMEN OF THE HOME MISSION SOCIETY 
OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. 



PREFACE. 

LUCINDA B. HELM S relation to a movement which 
had its birth in her fertile brain, and has grown up 
under her leadership to be one of the most potent 
and efficient departments of the great Methodist Epis 
copal Church, South, makes it eminently appropriate 
that the story of her life and work should be told. 

During her life she was urged by many to publish a 
full account of her work ; but, although possessing the 
ability to lead and organize, to mold thought and direct 
energies, she had the modesty that shrank from this 
task, as became a lady of her gentle breeding. 

The intimacy between her and the writer was such 
that conversations concerning the history and develop 
ment of her work were frequent, and in one of these 
she expressed a desire that if the facts were ever given 
in permanent form it should be done by the author, 
adding : " When I am gone, I think perhaps God 
would use the record as a blessing." Thus, while wish 
ing that a worthier pen might render this loving serv 
ice, we trace with sacred feelings the footsteps of this 
peerless woman. 

It has been a source of encouragement that so many 
requests have been made since her death for a prepara 
tion of her biography. Her host of friends through- 



O LUCINDA B. HELM. 

out the Church desire to know more of the inner 
springs of a life that was so fair and beautiful in itself, 
and that brought such help and inspiration to thou 
sands. In response this little volume goes forth with 
the prayer that its imperfections may be overlooked, 
and that it may contribute to the promotion of that 
cause for which she gave her life. 

We wish to acknowledge with gratitude the assist 
ance rendered by Miss Mary Helm, the late Dr. David 
Morton, and other friends. THE AUTHOR. 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE mission of Christ to the world was to save it 
from sin ; the mission of his followers is to give the 
story of this evangel to every creature. Early in life, 
even in girlhood, Miss Helm had received a vision of 
her Lord and his mission. She taught and superin 
tended a night-school for negroes. Thus began the 
work of laboring in the kingdom of God, a work 
which grew from dropping a few seeds near her Ken 
tucky home to the sowing beside all waters. In later 
years she had the privilege, among many other under 
takings, of making the first donation for the establish 
ment of a mission in Korea. 

Wholesomeness of religious life is rare ; some per 
sons are consumed by zeal ; others are apathetic and self- 
controlled. Asceticism is not yet dead ; while on the 
other hand there are men and women who feed on the 
emotional and sensuous side of religious life. No one 
was ever better poised than was this woman. With 
an uncompromising adherence to the right, she was no 
Pharisee; and, with a courage of conviction which 
made her a fearless advocate of truth, she was no 
Puritan. There was in her a joyousness of faith 
and a buoyancy of spirit which carried constant sun 
shine. 



LUCINDA B. HELM. 

How magnificently she was endowed for leadership ! 
Out from the discipline of a remarkable mother s 
realm, and from the counsels of a father invested with 
the care of a great commonwealth, came this woman 
with a body as frail as a flower, but with the courage 
of a Deborah. Hers was a spirit so resolute that no 
infirmity could conquer it. Hers was a strength of 
will so powerful that difficulties melted away as mist 
before the morning sun. Consecration, sympathy, in 
tellectual grasp and soundness of judgment character 
ized her life-work. 

" Glimpses into the inner regions of a great soul do 
one good," wrote Amiel in his journal. " Contact of 
this kind strengthens, restores, refreshes. At the sight 
of a man we too say to ourselves : Let us also be men. " 
It is appropriate that the author of this life-sketch 
should lead us along the unbeaten paths where many, 
who did not know Miss Helm personally, may come 
into closer touch with her remarkable life. As the 
author had learned to know and love her so well as a 
friend, their companionship in effort and fellowship in 
Christ make her eminently qualified for this work. 

WALTER R. LAMBUTH. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. PAGE 

Ancestry 1 3 

CHAPTER II. 
Girlhood 26 

CHAPTER III. 
Early Missionary Work 45 

CHAPTER IV. 
Woman s Department of Church Extension 60 

CHAPTER V. 
Woman s Parsonage and Home Mission Society . 84 

CHAPTER VI. 
Full Development of the Work 108 

CHAPTER VII. 
Editorial Work 1 34 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Twilight 168 



LUCINDA BARBOUR HELM, 



DECEMBER 23, 1839 NOVEMBER 15, 1897, 



Behold, what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should be called children 
of God! (i John Hi. i.) 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCESTRY. 

" When a firm, decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see 
hoTV the space clears around a man and leaves him room and 
freedom" Foster. 

THE ancestry of Lucinda B. Helm may be 
traced back to an early period in the history 
of our country. Some of her forefathers, it is be 
lieved, could boast of patrician blood, while others 
possessed a nobility higher than that of birth or 
station the nobility of personal character. The 
family was one of the most influential of those that 
originally settled the Old Dominion colony. The 
first in the direct ancestral line of which we have 
any definite record was Thomas Helm, the grand 
father of the late Gov. Helm and great-grandfather 
of Lucinda B. Helm. In 1780 he, with his family, 
left Prince William County, Va. , where he had been 
born and reared, and started to seek his fortune 
in the yet unexplored wilderness of Kentucky. 
They reached the falls of the Ohio (where the city 
of Louisville is now situated) in March, at which 
place he remained for about a year; but as his 
family suffered from diseases contracted there, he 
mounted his horse one morning and set his face in- 



14 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

land, with the determination not to return until he 
had selected a permanent abiding-place. On the 
third day of his search he reached the foot of the 
hill in the vicinity of the present village of Eliza- 
bethtown. This hill commands the site of the 
place where he afterward lived and died, and 
also of the cemetery where he is now buried, sur 
rounded by his descendants to the fifth generation. 

A singular circumstance is related in connection 
with the selection made by Thomas Helm of his 
future place of residence. Before leaving Vir 
ginia, but while deliberating on the subject of a re 
moval, he had dreamed of just such a spot as that 
upon which his eye rested when he ascended the 
hill to which we have referred. The very spring 
at which he drank rushing out of its rocky bed, 
strong and clear was as the visionary fountain 
that had appeared to him in his dream. The co 
incidence startled him, and, although anything but 
a superstitious man, he accepted the omen as a 
happy one, and concluded to search no farther. 

This grandfather of Gov. Helm was just the 
kind of man to make his way in a new country. 
Daring, active, and possessing tastes suited to the 
life of a pioneer, he was soon the occupant of a 
strongly built fort, which he had erected for the 
protection of his family against the then frequent 
predatory excursions of roving bands of Indians. 
This fort was situated in the small valley which in 
tersects the hills traversing the farm now known as 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 15 

"Helm Place." Although Thomas Helm and his 
wife came of good families, they did not regret 
the hardships encountered in the "wilderness" of 
Kentucky. Gradually the Indians left the state, 
and Mr. Helm built a comfortable house beside the 
old fort, which served them for a residence the 
remainder of their days. 

When a boy Gov. Helm was a great favorite 
with his grandparents. His grandfather was the 
oracle of the neighborhood on all matters con 
nected with the Revolutionary era and the Indian 
troubles of Kentucky. It was at the knee of his 
venerable progenitor that he drank in the history 
of his country, and learned to appreciate the sac 
rifices made by the patriot band that achieved our 
liberties. His maternal grandparents were John 
and Mary Larue, who had emigrated from the 
valley of the Shenandoah, Va., in 1784. 

Mrs. Larue was a beautiful and gifted woman. 
The county in which they lived, adjoining Hardin 
County, was named for their family Larue 
County. Their daughter, Rebecca Larue, was 
a babe when her parents came to Kentucky, 
having been born in Frederick County, Va. She 
afterward became the wife of George Helm and 
mother of Gov. John L. Helm. 

No man in that section of country was more re 
spected than George Helm. He filled, at different 
times, various offices, civil and legislative, in the 
service of his fellow citizens. 



l6 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

John Larue Helm, the father of Lucinda B. 
Helm, was born on the 4th of July, 1802, at the 
old Helm homestead on the table-land of " Mul- 
drough s Hills," one and one-fourth miles north 
of the village of Elizabethtown. The country at 
that time was sparsely peopled. The war-whoop of 
the red man had then scarcely ceased its echoes 
through the forests, and herds of w r ild animals 
wandered over woodland and prairie, fearlessly and 
almost undisturbed. The country embraced a ter 
ritory which is now divided into three counties and 
parts of others, and the inhabitants consisting then 
of a few hundred are now numbered by thousands. 

John L. Helm lived with his parents and grand 
parents up to the age of sixteen, and for about 
eight years attended various schools in the neigh- 
hood. With a mind naturally bright and strong, 
and remarkable habits of industry, his advance 
ment in knowledge was swift and easy. He was 
at his books in the morning before others had 
arisen, and long after they were sleeping at night 
he was at them again, storing his mind with the 
wisdom of the past. Before the age of sixteen he 
had a knowledge rarely acquired by men at that 
period of the history of his country and the char 
acter of its institutions. He had scarcely reached 
the age of twenty when death deprived him of his 
father, and he was not only thrown upon his own 
resources for subsistence and further necessary ed 
ucation, but suddenly found himself the main sup- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 1 7 

port of his mother and the younger children. This 
phase of the bereavement, however, proved to be 
a blessing in the making of his magnificent man 
hood. The members of the family found their 
hearts more closely drawn together in their afflic 
tion, and, mutually striving to lessen each others 
burdens, they lived on in hope of a better future. 
This came at last, principally through the un 
flagging energy of the elder son. His nobility 
of character was further exemplified by his 
assumption, a few years later, of the entire in 
debtedness of his father s estate, which he paid 
off out of the first-fruits of his legal profession. 
After he had become prominent in political circles, 
and a man of some means, he became very much 
attached to a young lady, who was the daughter 
of Hon. Ben Hardin, one of the most celebrated 
lawyers and orators that Kentucky has ever pro 
duced. At one time Mr. Hardin was an opposing 
attorney to a lawyer from Pennsylvania in an im 
portant case. The Pennsylvanian found himself 
so badly discomfited in the contest that he soon 
returned to his native state. His name was James 
Buchanan, afterward President of the United 
States. Mr. Hardin had a pleasant home that had 
become the accustomed stopping-place of Meth 
odist ministers. He used to say: "My wife is a 
member, and I am an outside pillar of the Meth 
odist Church." 

This young lawyer, Mr. John Helm, made fre- 
2 



1 8 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

quent visits to the home of Hon. Ben Hardin, and 
laid siege to the heart of his eldest daughter, Lu- 
cinda. She was a beautiful young girl, with rare 
intellectual gifts. He had met her accidentally 
one day when he had called to see her father on 
business. She was only fourteen years of age 
then, and while he was in the parlor she went in 
to show her father a map she had drawn. All of 
her studies were under the immediate supervision 
of her father, to whom she was devoted. Mr. 
Helm said he loved her at first sight. There was 
something irresistible about her even at that early 
age. As she grew older she was still Vnore attract 
ive, and her career as a young lady was a brilliant 
one. She spent several winters with her father at 
the capital, and also in visiting Mrs. Maj. William 
Preston and other women of prominent social 
standing in Louisville. An extremely rich man 
sought to gain her affections, but she said he had 
very little sense, and she realized then how intol 
erable a married life would be for her unless the 
virtues of the man lay in his character rather than 
in his estates. Mr. John Helm persevered in his 
attentions to her for seven years ; but at the end of 
that time he claimed her for his own, and they 
were married at Bardstown, Ky., in 1830. The 
happy and gifted young couple went to Elizabeth- 
town, while Mr. Helm began to build their elegant 
residence in which they ever afterward lived. 
This residence, situated about one and one-fourth 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 19 

miles from Elizabethtown, and known as "Helm 
Place," is still the home of their children. The 
entrance to the grounds is about a fourth of a 
mile from the house, the approach to which is 
made beautiful by an overarching avenue of 
Scotch fir-trees, which continue to the summit of 
the hill, where it opens into a circle leading to the 
house. It is a typical " old Kentucky home," built 
of brick, with spacious rooms and broad verandas. 

Mrs. Helm was delighted at the prospect of 
keeping house in their beautiful new home. The 
sterling worth of her character could hardly be 
overestimated. She was a devoted and helpful 
wife, and as her husband steadily rose to promi 
nence she was his most fitting companion. 

With a noble ancestry, equal to that of her hus 
band s, she was by birth and every right which 
society recognizes entitled to all the social prestige 
that can be given one. Tall, stately, and hand 
some, she was indeed a queen among women, 
a noticeable figure in any assemblage of cultured 
and elegant people. 

In the relation of mother she showed such wis 
dom and beauty of character that her large family 
of children were devoted to her, and have kept 
her before their memory all down the years as 
their ideal of womanhood. She was such a potent 
factor in molding the characters of her eleven 
children that we insert a few pen pictures of her 
methods and her home associations. 



2O LUCINDA B. HELM. 

The subject of this biography has stated repeat 
edly that she owed all the worth of her character 
to the teachings of her wonderful mother. The 
noblest attributes of that mother s womanhood, 
the brilliant luster of her intellect, the charms and 
graces of social culture all found their highest 
expression through her motherhood. Its respon 
sibilities, cares, joys, and privileges superseded 
all else with her. Her sons held all womanhood 
in chivalrous reverence, because they accepted her 
as its type ; while her daughters felt that with such 
a type before them they must needs aspire to the 
highest to reach her standard, and to fall below 
was to fail in life. 

Miss Mary Helm, in writing of her mother, says: 
" Instead of my mother pining for the opportu 
nities of social life, from which she became in a 
measure debarred by her large family of children 
and by living in her country home, she made that 
home bright by her wonderful flow of joyous spir 
it, humor, and repartee. There was no such thing 
as a dull hour when mother was in the house; in 
her absence, the sun was in eclipse. In our child 
hood she was the merry companion of our games; 
as school children she gave a strict supervision to 
our studies. After lessons were over, in the eve 
ning came those delightful hours of reading and 
conversation that I shall never forget. Ah ! Chris 
topher North never presided over more delightful 
noctes ambrosiance. Her knowledge was lavished 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 21 

upon her children, who thrilled under her exqui 
site reading from the master minds of literature, or 
glowed with the ardor that longed to emulate as 
she recounted the deeds of the world s heroes. I 
can never forget how my childish heart swelled 
until it overflowed in tears as she told us of Martin 
Luther before the Diet of Worms. Moral cour 
age she held the highest, yet to fail in physical 
courage was a disgrace. 

"My mother was given to hospitality, enter 
taining with a grace and dignity that made her an 
elegant as well as charming hostess. Parties, teas, 
and dinings of the formal kind were frequent; but 
what she enjoyed most was the informal coming 
together for the day of her chosen friends. There 
were many occasions when, for weeks at a time, 
the only limit to the guests was when the last bed 
was full. Her children were also at full liberty to 
fill the house with their friends; and, whether they 
were old or young, she was the center of attraction 
for them as well as for her own family, and en 
joyed all the fun as much as any one else in the 
house. 

"My mother was a born commander, without 
the slighest element of a tyrant. Not only her 
own children, but everybody s children obeyed her. 
They could not help it, and they did not want to 
help it. Consistent, prompt, and systematic, she 
had well-defined laws for governing her family and 
house. My father left all domestic matters entire- 



22 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

ly to her. His admiration for her was unbounded. 
What she did could not have been better done; 
what she said was beyond question the right thing. 
With the children he was always her stanch sup 
porter, never entertaining for an instant any ap 
peal from her decision. Besides raising eleven 
children to maturity, and giving them attention in 
every line, she was a most thorough housekeeper, 
and trained her servants to perfection, not only 
for present service, but the young for the future. 
Cooks, laundresses, waiters, maids, and seam- 
tresses all received their training from her per 
sonally. It was a fine model of an industrial 
school, and all were devoted to her. 

"Every spring and fall she cut out with her 
own hands all the garments worn by the negro 
women and children, and the shirts for the men 
(my father owned sixty negroes); she attended to 
the picking of the wool, the spinning, and the 
knitting into socks or weaving into cloth. By her 
servants (the word slave was never heard) she 
was regarded as something beyond human. Be 
sides training them in material things, she instilled 
moral and religious truth in every way possible. 
She encouraged their confidence, but never 
brooked familiarity. Quick to defend one who 
was mistreated or oppressed, she was the Cour 
of Appeals for final settlement of every case 
where overseer, parents, children, or the strong 
abused their power. When sickness came she 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 23 

nursed them all with tender carefulness. At one 
time there were five of her own children and ten 
of the negroes very ill with scarlet fever, and she 
gave every dose of medicine day and night, going 
with a lantern from cabin to cabin all through the 
night; and so successful was her care that all re 
covered. 

"For years Sister Lucinda was almost an in 
valid, needing her care day and night; and later, 
when I became a helpless sufferer for many years, 
she went through it all again. For eighteen 
months she was never out of the sound of my 
voice, and for five years never left me for longer 
than an hour. During all that time she kept up 
my despairing heart with her indomitable courage 
and unfailing hope, turning my morbid thoughts 
to brighter things outside of self, leading them 
into fields of literature and art, history and fancy. 
She was the most wonderful combination of an 
encyclopedia and a magician ! But when the 
darkest hours would come, and my rebellious soul 
refused its God, with a firm hand she held my 
spirit in check while her own faith took hold on 
God in prayer. Oh, those prayers ! I have never 
heard anything like them. They had to be an 
swered, and they -were." 

Thus this grand, broad-natured woman gave 
herself to her children in such a way that in after- 
years they naturally became distinguished for 
their mental and moral worth. 



24 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

The eldest son, Ben Hardin Helm, educated at 
West Point, afterward a lawyer of high standing, 
was finally a brigadier-general in the Confederate 
service, and fell at the battle of Chickamauga. In 
1861 he became a brother-in-law to President Lin 
coln, having married Mrs. Lincoln s sister. The 
President, who was his personal friend and ad 
mirer, offered him the position of quartermaster- 
general of the United States army at the begin 
ning of the civil war; but Mr. Helm declined, 
tendered his services to the Confederacy, and was 
killed when in command of what was known as 
the "Orphan Brigade." 

Lizzie Barbour Helm, their eldest daughter, 
married Hon. H. W. Bruce, who was a member 
from Kentucky of the first permanent Congress 
of the Confederate States, and is at present chief 
attorney of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. 

George Helm, now dead, was a lawyer, and a 
man of very noble character. 

Their fifth daughter, Emily Palmer Helm, mar 
ried Martin Hardin Marriott, who died young, 
[and she has for two years managed the Industrial 
Department of the Scarritt Bible and Training 
School, in Kansas City, Mo.] ; while Misses Mary 
and Lucinda Helm have been known and loved 
in Methodist Church circles all over our Southland 
for many years. Thus is strikingly shown that for 
generations back the Helm family has been distin 
guished for strength of mind and nobility of charac- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 25 

ter. These qualities were illustrated in a marked 
degree by the beloved founder of the Woman s 
Home Mission Society of the M. E. Church, South. 
With the mind of a lawyer and the heart of a saint, 
she gave her remarkable intelligence, energy, and 
faith to the establishment of a work that has iden 
tified her inseparably with the history of American 
Methodism. 



CHAPTER II. 

GIRLHOOD. 

"JVo one is born into this -world ivhose -work is not born ivith him. 1 1 
LoivelL 

IT was said by Lucinda Helm s mother that she 
believed little Lucinda was converted before 
she could talk, so marked was her individuality 
even in infancy, and so devout her instincts be 
fore they could hardly be called "beliefs." Prayer 
was to her little mind a most sacred thing, and 
she became conscious of a higher Power in her 
life almost as soon as she was conscious of her 
mother. When as a very small child she was wil 
ful or obdurate, she could not be corrected as the 
other children, but the mention of God in prayer 
made her perfectly submissive and obedient. Be 
fore she was old enough to go to school she taught 
herself to read, and the Bible was her text-book. 

It was a matter of remark by the other members 
of the family that little Lucinda, a mere prattling 
infant, should open the old family Bible, and at 
her mother s knee learn the letters and spell out 
the words. 

She writes in later years of the joy she experi 
enced in the gift of her first Bible. She says : 
" When I was very small my father brought home 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 27 

one day some Bibles. He gave each of my two 
older sisters one, and I thought that was all; they 
were always coupled together. But there was one 
more. When I took in the idea it was for me I 
sprang up with a bound of joy. My mother had 
told us stories out of her big Bible, and now I had 
a little one all my own ! I shall never forget my 
delight as I hugged it to my heart, or my father s 
merry laugh at my impulsiveness. How I loved 
that Bible, loved to find the stories, loved to know 
my father brought it to me! With what zest I re 
peated the lines: 

Holy Bible, book divine, 
Precious treasure, thou art mine! 

Many times in after-years in the agony of sorrow 
I have soothed myself to sleep by holding it to my 
heart as I did that first day it came to me when a 
little child." 

The honesty, simplicity, and frankness that 
characterized her during her entire life was stri 
kingly prominent in her childhood. Absolutely 
faithful to her convictions of right and wrong, even 
in childhood, she resolutely refused to compromise 
any matter of principle, and would endure with 
unflinching steadfastness popular disfavor, if need 
be, to maintain the right. She has told us that 
when childish difficulties arose in play she invari 
ably chose the side of the weak ones or those in 
disfavor, and used every means her little brain 
could devise to properly balance things. A ver- 



28 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

itable peacemaker and missionary she was from 
the beginning. Her love for books and study was 
all-absorbing. Everything interested her. The 
world was a sort of fairy-land, out of which she 
would often weave wonderful stories, to the great 
delight and entertainment of her child friends. 
She never had robust health after she was four 
years old, and when she was eight the family phy 
sician told her mother that she might die any mo 
ment from heart-disease or she might possibly live 
for fifty years. 

Although often prostrated by illness and always 
very delicate, she advanced rapidly at school. 
When but a little child she stood at the head of a 
class of nearly grown boys and girls, her blue 
eyes sparkling with intellectual ambition, while 
her poor, weak heart beat so hard and fast that 
her little white apron would quiver from its puls 
ing. Many times she had to run aside from her 
frisking, romping playmates, and rest under the old 
apple-trees in their shady back yard. One would 
hardly have thought, seeing her then so sweet and 
fragile like the blossoms that fell upon her, that 
she would after all have a career of wider useful 
ness than any of her companions. The favorite 
playground for the children was a large garden 
back of the house; and as their mother was a nat 
ural florist and horticulturalist, their yard was bril 
liant with flowers and shrubs from early spring 
until snow. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 29 

The old-fashioned garden was divided into 
squares, each square bordered with flowers of ev 
ery variety, and there were summer-houses dense 
ly covered with honeysuckles and grape arbors. 

Little Lucinda loved the old-fashioned flowers: 
the daffodils and morning-glories. The wide, 
well-kept walks made splendid race-tracks for the 
children and their friends in the neighborhood. 
In the lower part of the yard was a large spring, 
and the brook that flowed from it was to them en 
chanting in its sparkling beauty. They made sail 
ing-vessels in which they fancied themselves 
" storm-tossed and wrecked on cannibal islands." 
Lucinda could excel all the others in making 
cataracts and sailing her little bark boats as she 
accompanied them with wonderful made-up fairy 
tales of adventure about them and their crew. 
She was so imaginative, and read so many stories 
from "Arabian Nights" and other child-lore, that 
she was unanimously chosen as the best at making 
up stories, half the charm of them being in the fact 
that she and the others too were so carried away 
in fancy that for the time being it was reality to 
them. 

All the children had their little negro maids, 
who played with them, and Lucinda was much at 
tached to hers, and continued so until the maid s 
death, which occurred soon after she became 
free. 

An important personage, who figured largely in 



3 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

the home of her childhood, was old Aunt Gilly. 
She was nurse to all the eleven children; but little 
Lucinda was preeminently her " chile," partly be 
cause her ill health so frequently made her require 
a nurse s care. 

The children often had night-schools " in a small 
way for the negroes, and here Lucinda was in 
her element, especially on Sunday afternoon, at 
which time she was superintendent and principal 
teacher. At their prayer-meetings they would get 
her to come and read the Bible for them, then 
they prayed one after another, and when they 
prayed lovingly for " little Miss Cindy," who had 
read God s Word to them, it made her very hap 
py. She says in speaking afterward of those 
days: "They continually looked to me for this 
service. If one of the older ones sat spelling out 
the words in her Testament on a quiet Sabbath 
afternoon, it came very natural for me to sit down 
by her, take the book, and read the precious 
words to her. I learned to find the most comfort 
ing passages that told of God s wonderful love 
and his bright promises of the < happy land of Ca 
naan." 

Of those early years of ministry to the negro 
servants and others she again says: " More times 
than I can count did God speak through my child 
lips to the blind, the sick, the sinful, the sorrowing, 
the old, the dying speak to their hearts through 
me with a meaning I could not then comprehend, 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 3! 

though the words passed my lips. It was God 
speaking to them, not I. He was using my voice 
to say his own words." 

When she was about eleven years old her father 
became Governor of the state, succeeding J. J. 
Crittenden, who resigned to accept a place in 
President Taylor s cabinet. He removed his 
family at this time from their country home near 
Elizabethtown to the seat of government at Frank 
fort. Here she was brought into contact with un 
accustomed gaiety, calculated to fascinate a young 
and ardent nature, but she was glad when the 
family returned at the end of a year to their beau 
tiful old home. Her father, after serving the first 
term as Governor, applied himself to his pro 
fession for the three years following, and then 
became President of the great Louisville and Nash 
ville Railroad, of which he was practically the 
originator. The first train that crossed the Roll 
ing Fork into his native county bore the Presi 
dent of the road. He was a proud man that 
day, and justly so. He had lived to serve the ma 
terial interests of his people, to see his own be 
loved county wedded to the beautiful Ohio, fifty 
miles away, and his heart dilated with a sense of 
pleasure as his lifelong friends and neighbors, 
from the positions they had taken up beside the 
track all along the course, waved to him their 
congratulations as he was swiftly borne on his 
way to Elizabethtown. How r proud little Lucinda 



32 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

was of her " great" father! She wrote a beauti 
ful little article when she became older, and called 
it " My Father," showing how his love was to her 
typical of the fatherhood of God. 

Although she frequently took the leadership in 
play with other children, she was by nature sensi 
tive and shrinking. Her bravery was always the 
bravery of nerve. The make-up of her character 
was particularly attractive and sweet to her broth 
er George, who was dearer to her than her own 
life. She began to study drawing and painting, 
and developed much talent in that direction. He 
was very proud of her work. For hours they 
would wander together over the wooded hills or 
through the overarching avenue of Scotch fir-trees 
with her sketchbook in hand, selecting scenes for 
her sketches suitable to their tastes. His character 
was pure and exalted, and accompanied always by 
a chivalry equal to a knight of old. Lucinda 
thought him perfect, and lavished the strength of 
her affection upon him. The first great sorrow that 
ever touched her life was the death of this brother, 
which occurred when she was about sixteen. For 
a time she felt completely lost. No one could 
take the place of her beloved brother George. 
Having loved with such devotion a man of his 
character, she involuntarily measured all other 
young men she met after that by his standard. 

As she blossomed into young womanhood her 
sweet face, winsome manners, and intelligent con- 






\ 



L. 



LUCINDA HELM AT THIRTEEN. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 35 

versation made her much sought for and admired. 
She enjoyed at that period, as well as in later life, 
intellectual and cultured society. She put no nar 
row restrictions about a religious life, but at the 
same time stood firm for the maintenance of cer 
tain principles in those who professed to be Chris 
tians. She was fond of horseback riding and of 
shooting-parties, but she refused to dance or en 
gage in any games that seemed to her inconsistent 
with a right Christian life. During this period, 
although she might have chosen many times a fu 
ture in which ease and pleasure would have been 
hers, her predominant ambition was, as in her child 
hood, to be useful to her friends and associates. 

When Lucinda was eighteen years old she 
quietly made up her mind to join the Church. 
She did not at this time experience any definite 
change of heart. This troubled her considerably, 
but she said: " I certainly love God above and be 
yond all things else in life, and I can not remem 
ber the time when I did not." When she was 
told that many of the best and holiest men and 
women in the Church could not give any clearer 
evidence of their conversion than that, she ceased 
to fear, and trusted. Her definite choice for God 
at this period, when a life of gaiety and ease was 
offered to her on all sides, made a marked im 
pression on her associates. She said that her re 
fusal to dance often gave her the coveted oppor 
tunity to speak of Christ to young men over whom 



3 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

she exerted much influence. Yet there was never 
a trace of " sanctimoniousness " or " cant " in her 
word or manner. Her religion was from the be 
ginning to the end of her life a genuine, natural 
acceptation of God as her Father, and this con 
viction was as deep and all-absorbing in the mold 
ing of her character as if she had fought for it 
amid throes of doubt and unbelief and rebellion. 
Her faith was so ingrained in her nature even be 
fore she experienced the ecstatic joy that came 
later, that for one to refute the fatherhood of God 
was in her sight to undermine all truth that gave 
hope to the world. 

One social evening there were several young 
men present, one of whom was especially gifted 
and intellectual. He was very much attached to 
Miss Lucinda, and she admired him except for 
his absence of all spirituality. In the course of 
the conversation he began to advance skeptical 
views views which she heard him express for the 
first time. At first her face quivered with pained 
surprise, but as he went on she began to combat 
his arguments with historical and scriptural proofs. 
Growing more and more earnest, she became 
unconscious of herself, and with uplifted head, 
her cheeks glowing, and her eyes brilliant as stars, 
she grew eloquent in proving to them that Christ 
was the Son of God. This was but one example 
of her loyalty to God anywhere and under any 
circumstances. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 37 

There was a definite set time soon after this 
incident in which it fully dawned on her that her 
ideals of earthly happiness as she had dreamed of 
them and wondered about them, and grew lovely 
at the very thought of their rose-tinted beauty, 
could never be realized. These sacred pages of 
her life recounting the struggles of a high, lofty 
soul with self we shall not scan, but the outcome 
proved her to be conqueror. For several years 
there was a sweet, pensive longing for some 
thing that would give expression and currency 
to the throbbings of her eager spirit. Sweet, 
young, and gifted, yet she was not satisfied with 
the pleasures of the world. Her great heart had 
weighed them and found them wanting. She shut 
herself up alone one day. It was a golden eventide, 
and a tremulous stillness pervaded the place. 
She spent hours in meditation and prayer. The 
surrender of herself soul, mind, and body to 
her Heavenly Father was complete. All her de 
sires, plans, hopes, ambitions, were given entirely 
to him. A voice seemed to speak to her: "Thy 
Father loves thee with a jealous love. He wants 
thee now and forever all to himself" The words 
were like a triumphant burst of music to her spirit. 
She was filled with ecstasy. She arose and said: 
" It shall be ! I will be his as never before. His 
work shall be mine, his creatures shall be mine to 
love, to serve, to save." Her spirit was illumined 
like that of the Maid of Orleans in the prophetic 



38 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

vision of what she might do for her divine 
Lord. 

Nothing looked impossible. The possibility of 
most untoward circumstances only spoke a larger 
hope to her elated spirit. She did not really see 
the streak of sunlight on the floor. She was in 
wardly seeing the light of years to come and feel 
ing the way they might be filled with joyful de- 
votedness. Under the rush of solemn emotion in 
which thoughts became vague, she could but cast 
herself with a childlike sense of reclining into 
the lap of divine consciousness which sustained 
her own. 

In the days that followed a great peace was in 
her heart, and a light in her face that kept it radi 
ant. She was possessed by the fact that a fuller 
life was opening for her. She was going to have 
room somewhere for the energies which stirred 
uneasily within her, and which nothing she had ever 
known had yet satisfied. The realization that God 
loved her with a close, jealous love fired her spirit 
to live on the heights and to stay there, and so she 
did. Soon after that she had a beautiful dream, 
which she relates as follows: " I stood alone in a 
church. The closed doors shut out every sound 
of life. The bare, cold walls lifted themselves 
high above me. The dim evening light came 
through the tall, somber windows and fell upon the 
empty pews ranged in their long lines as still as 
though no motion or sound of life had ever passed 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 39 

through them. All was still, and I was there alone 
a part, as it were, of the great stillness. The 
sudden consciousness that I was in the temple of 
the living God filled my soul with awe. I felt that 
I stood in the outer courts of God s great presence- 
chamber; that I was near the unseen, the mighty, 
the holy God. I felt the majesty of his power. 
My heart beat low. I scarcely breathed as I 
looked toward the altar where his word lay closed, 
clasped. But from its passive presence by the 
wordless influence of the Holy Spirit there glided 
into my soul a great consciousness of God s love, 
of the crucified One who through blood and tears 
told of this love. God had come into his temple 
softly, and as a loving Saviour had drawn near to 
me. Peace soothed my awe-bound heart, and my 
spirit, freed from fear, was transfused with the 
quiet, holy joy of love. I was in the presence of 
One who loved me. The mighty God before whose 
awful throne I bowed was my Father! He had 
opened to me the doorway of his glorious abode. 
I stood in the gateway of heaven, and the Son of 
God was at my side ! Holy peace, joy aye, rapt 
urous gladness filled my spirit as, motionless, I 
lifted my eyes to him that sitteth upon the throne 
and my heart in boundless love echoed the praises 
of those who stand ever before him crying, Holy, 
holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and 
which is, and which is to come. 

In the months that followed, a sweet, frail girl 



4O LUCINDA B. HELM. 

possessed by a noble ambition might have been 
seen every Sunday afternoon walking alone a 
mile in the country to an old farmhouse to hold 
an afternoon service. Men, women, and children 
from the country round about gathered to hear 
her. As she stood before them so quietly with 
her open Bible in her hand looking out over the 
little crowd of hungry-hearted people and speak 
ing to them words of hope and salvation, it was to 
them like a visitation from heaven. They flocked 
about her and told her their troubles and their 
secret fears. She comforted them and pointed 
them to the perfect Love that casteth out fear. 
No measurements of earth could calculate the 
results of those years of simple " wayside preach 
ing." Her mother desired her to visit one winter 
in Louisville, but upon arriving there, instead of 
going into a round of social gaieties, she went to 
one of the principal city missionaries, Mrs. Sad, 
offered her services, and during that entire winter 
proved one of her most faithful assistants. She 
learned in that early training much practical 
knowledge of city evangelization. But great 
trials and sorrows came to her when the civil war 
broke out. Their beautiful home of wealth and 
culture was invaded and their property taken. Her 
oldest brother went into the service of the Con 
federacy and was killed, and for a time her loved 
father was made prisoner, having been rudely 
taken from his home. Their slaves, some of 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 4! 

whom were dear to her heart, were scattered, and 
sorrow and loss were felt everywhere. The 
hearts of her father and mother were nearly 
broken at the death of their noble son, and Lucinda 
felt that their multiplied griefs must be a spur to 
her faith and Christian activity. 

She went to work. She became correspondent 
for a large paper published in England called the 
Western News, and sent frequent letters to it giv 
ing war items, etc. She suffered anxiety, priva 
tion, and sorrow; but with great zeal she worked, 
making lint and bandages for the wounded and 
clothes for the prisoners. The long-continued 
strain so affected her nervous system that she 
came near losing the sight of her eyes, and for 
more than a year faced the possibility of blind 
ness. What a year of sorrow was that! Be 
sides the physical suffering, which was some 
times excruciating, and besides the inexpress 
ible horrors and uncertainties of living in the 
midst of -war, she faced the very possible future 
of a life of blindness; and her vivid imagination 
pictured for her the long months and years of 
darkness dragging out their heavy length and 
bringing to her only the commiseration of her 
friends commiseration that was always so dis 
tasteful to her. Yet her faith wavered not. It 
was an extreme test, but she arose equal to it, 
and said to her Lord and Master: " This matter 
is settled between thee and me. Shall I receive 



42 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

good from the hand of my Lord, and not evil? If 
this is thy will concerning me, it is well." But it 
proved to be not his will, and, after going through 
heroic treatment, she recovered. Three years 
after the close of the war, and immediately prior 
to her father s death, he was again made Gov 
ernor of the state, the inauguration taking place 
on his death-bed. This was an impressive and 
long-to-be-remembered scene. Preparations had 
been made in the town for a grand display. 
Special trains brought in large numbers of friends 
and political admirers from Louisville, Frank 
fort, and other cities and towns of the state, all 
anxious to witness the inaugural ceremonies. At 
eleven o clock a procession was formed in the 
town, and, preceded by a band of musicians, 
took up its march toward " Helm Place." Be 
fore they had gone half the distance they were 
met by one of the physicians, who begged them 
to stop. He said the music and shouting would 
excite his patient to such a degree as to render 
him physically unable to undergo the fatigue of 
the ceremony in which he had necessarily to 
take a part. Only those officers of state whose 
presence was necessary were permitted to enter 
the sick-room. The inauguration of the dying 
patriot was a pathetic sight. Propped up in his 
bed, his features worn and haggard from dis 
ease and his hands lying in weakness beside him, 
it was a scene that filled the hearts of his devoted 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 43 

wife and children with anguish. But the old strong 
spirit shone out of his eyes, and he spoke to his 
friends as they approached his bedside, expressing 
his pleasure at their presence. On one side of the 
bed stood the dignitaries who were to administer 
the oath of office to him, and on the other side 
stood the loving wife and the attending physi 
cians, while grouped around were the members of 
his family, his two sons-in-law, and a few intimate 
friends. While the oath of office was being ad 
ministered everyone listened in breathless silence, 
and were duly impressed with the solemnity of the 
occasion. 

The following Friday morning he was dying. 
His family, a few intimate friends, and some of 
the old family servants were gathered together in 
the room. His brother read the Bible and prayed 
while they knelt about his bed, after which he 
asked the dying man if he was trusting in God. 
He answered " Yes" so clear and loud that it was 
heard distinctly throughout the room. To those 
dearest to him he had before professed his faith in 
Christ, but had not done so publicly up to this 
time. His daughters went forward and each im 
printed a kiss upon his pallid lips ; and the wife 
the faithful, devoted wife bent over him and said 
in broken accents: "Kiss me once more, my hus 
band." He pressed his lips to hers and kissed 
her for the last time. One more day he lingered, 
being hardly alive, and on Sabbath morning, as 



44 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

they watched by his side, his spirit departed to be 
with its God. Miss Lucinda was about twenty- 
eight years old at the time of her father s death. 
It marked an epoch in her life. Many changes 
came in the home, and she gave herself definitely 
to religious work in a fuller measure even than be 
fore. Her love for God and his cause broadened 
and deepened until like a holy fire it consumed 
every other wish and thought. 



CHAPTER III. 

EARLY MISSIONARY WORK. 

"In the measure in which thou seckest to do thy duty shalt thou 
know -what is in thee. But -vhat is thy duty? The demand of the 
hour" Goethe. 

A VERY prominent element in Miss Lucinda 
Helm s character, and one that made her es 
pecially successful in missionary work, was her 
practical good sense. 

Being as a girl imaginative and full of dreams 
and fancies, one would hardly expect to find that 
clear-sightedness and excellent " common sense " 
that always characterized her as a Christian work 
er. She did not brood over the past nor build 
"air-castles" for the future, but got her lesson 
from each passing hour. Her devotion to Christ 
had crystallized into a set purpose to forward his 
kingdom in the world, and with St. Paul she could 
truthfully say : * This one thing I do ! 

In all her writings for papers, both secular and 
religious, her style is noticeably clear and strong, 
and in her personal work her fine discrimination 
and good judgment, combined with a heart so full 
of Christian love that it could take in and " moth 
er all who came to her, made her a spiritual force . 



46 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

"There is no time," she used to say, * for specu 
lations on questions that make no essential differ 
ence concerning the present or the hereafter. 
Our religion is a matter of life and death, and the 
world is perishing for the want of Christian help. 
Let us reach out our hands in blessing; let us lose 
no time in our service for Christ." This spirit of 
earnestness and concentration made every work, 
no matter how dull and lifeless it had been or 
looked to be, blossom under her touch. 

She was remarkably successful as a Sunday- 
school teacher, and had much faith in the power of 
childhood. She formed various societies and liter 
ary " clubs " where she found it at all practicable, 
for she believed organized effort to be an impor 
tant factor in social and religious economics. 
One " society" known in Elizabethtown only by 
the name of " Miss Lucinda s Society " was com 
posed of small boys, the simple pledge of mem 
bership being that they would not use profane or 
indecent language and not play marbles for 
" keeps." Its influence for purity of thought and 
word among those young boys could not be cal 
culated. Rev. David M. Sweets, now pastor of 
Portland Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Louis 
ville, says concerning this little society: "I pre 
sume I was not more than ten years old when I 
was made secretary of the society. We used to 
meet in the old schoolhouse, and a great many 
boys attended. We all loved Miss Lucinda very 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 47 

much, and her influence among the boys was 
great. The object of the society was to train the 
boys into leading a practical Christian life, and 
the Boys Branch of the Y. M. C. A. of Elizabeth- 
town grew out of it. The memory of her unself 
ish life and loving interest in us will ever be an in 
fluence for good in my life, and I am sure many 
more of her boys would say the same." 

The method of Christian work that Miss Helm 
especially emphasized by tongue and pen was 
personal effort in the saving of souls. Her unu 
sual tact and judgment made her very efficient in 
direct appeals to the unsaved. She says in an ar 
ticle entitled "Apples of Gold in Pictures of Sil 
ver," published in the St. Louis Christian Advo 
cate in 1875 : 

" I was at one time frequently thrown in com 
pany with a talented but very old man with 
whom I had many a merry chat before I knew 
he was not a Christian. When I learned this 
from some one else for I am ashamed to say 
I did not discover it for myself, having never 
mentioned the subject to him I said something to 
him about his soul s salvation. He looked at me 
earnestly with some surprise. You never spoke 
to me that way before. No, I said, but I 
should have done so. He drooped his head and, 
shaking it slowly, said sadly, I wish you had, my 
dear young lady; I wish you had. My heart 
stood still as a sense of my neglect rushed over 



48 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

me. He was very old full fourscore, I think yet 
without the pale of salvation. His time was very 
short indeed, and I, as if I had not known the 
truth, had sought only to amuse him, my vanity 
perhaps pleased that he was so well entertained by 
what I said, and now as opportunity for doing 
aught to save him was well-nigh gone, his sad, 
gentle reproach was more than I could bear. 

" Was it too late? Possibly not. Every energy 
of my soul was aroused to the highest pitch. I 
-would be the means of saving him yet if God 
would forgive and help me. Thanks be to God, 
by his grace the work was done, and I had been 
taught a lesson I shall never forget. 

" We know not when our words may influence 
our fellow beings for good or evil, but the word 
must be spoken not only in due season, but fitly 
spoken, that it may be precious like * apples of 
gold in pictures of silver. As I write these words 
another friend comes before my mind s eye 
whose experience may illustrate this truth further. 
I knew and loved her in days gone by. She had 
a sweet, sad face, and her voice was low with a 
mournful cadence that, while it fell softly upon 
my ear, pained my heart. Upon her face there 
rested a shadow that troubled me. Wrapped in 
her own sad thoughts, she stood aloof from others, 
and I could not but watch her, irresistibly drawn to 
love her while we were yet little more than stran 
gers. Never shall I forget the shock I felt when 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 49 

one who knew her came and whispered : She is an 
infidel. 

"An infidel? So sad, and no God to turn to, 
bearing her heavy burdens alone, without a Sa 
viour to comfort ! My first impulse was to go to 
her and throw my arms around her and tell her of 
Jesus love, but I could not so recklessly break 
through the gentle reserve with which she sur 
rounded herself. I endeavored quietly to draw 
her into conversation upon topics that might open 
a way for me to approach her, but she would say 
but little. I did not seek a discussion or argument 
upon abstract views of truth, for sorrow was so 
deeply written upon her face that I was convinced 
reason had little to do with the matter. The 
trouble lay altogether with the poor aching heart. 
Day after day I strove indirectly to reveal to her 
the blessedness of God s love, and at night when 
I lay down, like a burden upon my soul rested the 
fear that before morning she might stand in the 
presence of Him she had denied on earth, for I 
had been told that every night she lulled herself 
to sleep with small doses of laudanum. In the 
room adjoining mine an immortal soul might be 
leaving earth unprepared to meet its Creator. In 
the silence of the night I listened if I might catch 
any unusual sound, and when morning came great 
would be my relief to find there was yet time. 

4 But what could I say that I had not said ? For, 
although I longed to know her sorrow, that I might 
4 



5O LUCINDA B. HELM. 

point her to Christ, I could not question nor ob 
trusively draw aside the veil behind which this 
delicate nature strove to hide its sacred grief, and 
yet without some further knowledge of the case 
my words were like seeds thrown to the winds. 
So I could only pray for her, and at last, in answer 
to my fervent prayer, God opened a way for me. 

"One came running to me saying: Miss 

is suffering from a sudden nervous attack, and I 
do not know what to do for her. By the time I 
reached her the room was full of people. Some 
were calling for remedies and some for the doctor. 
She was hiding her face and trembling from head 
to foot. Feeling satisfied that some new event had 
been recorded in the sad history I had been stri 
ving to read, I went quickly to her, and laying my 
hand lightly on hers, whispered: This is mental, 
not physical, suffering. I felt the quivering 
nerves relax and grow quiet, and knew I had not 
erred. You do not want a physician; you want 
rest, to which she assented. 

" Telling her friends she wished to be alone, I 
silently strove to soothe her. The way was now 
open. I had broken down the barrier between 
us by words I had never thought of uttering. 
From that hour she seemed to cling to me and 
find relief in unburdening her sorrow-laden heart. 
I found she acknowledged the existence of God, 
but stood in open rebellion against him, because 
his hand had touched the idol of her heart, She 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 51 

thought that God took pleasure in torturing her 
poor, stricken soul ! 

" Some time after that, as I prayed and strove 
for her, she came one day to my room and with a 
fond word put a tube rose in my hair and timidly 
kissed me. Then I was glad, for I knew I had 
won. A heart that could feel a sweet gratitude for 
a few words of sympathy could not long resist the 
great love of the Saviour who died for her, and it 
was true. She yielded completely and gave her 
heart and life entirely to Christ. After this I said 
to myself: Now do I kno2v when we are truly in 
earnest God will help us and teach us when and 
how to speak for him. 

Miss Helm was a quick reader of human nature. 
This was one of the secrets of her power as an 
organizer. She could select and enlist by some 
intuitive process the most suitable coworkers in 
every department of work she undertook, and her 
native tact and gentleness of manner made it easy 
for any one to receive training from her. 

When the Woman s Foreign Missionary Society 
was organized, in 1876, she was one of the most 
earnest and successful advocates of the cause. 
She believed in woman, and she believed there was 
no limit to what Christ would do for the world if 
we as his witnesses did our part. She would 
quote with deep earnestness and pathos those 
words of Bishop Galloway: " Upon this earth he 
has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no lips 



52 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

but ours, to herald his truth. How can we afford 
to waste such opportunities? " She wrote for the 
Woman s Missionary Advocate and. for the Church 
papers in the interest of foreign missions. She 
took every means to become well-informed, and 
her knowledge of the subject, accompanied by her 
fervor of spirit, made her work excellent. She 
took a great interest in the Woman s Missionary 
Advocate, and while her sister, Miss Mary, was 
Corresponding Secretary of the Louisville Confer 
ence, Miss Lucinda was the first in that Conference 
to send to the Secretary a paid-up list of subscri 
bers. The Louisville Conference money was the 
first received by Mrs. Manier (who was then the 
agent), and she has said to her coworkers that but 
for it she could not have met the expense of the 
first issues of the Advocate. In all Miss Lucinda s 
local work, both of a religious and social nature, her 
loved sister, Miss Mary, was her companion and 
coworker. After she became Secretary of the 
Woman s Department of Church Extension, and 
Miss Mary was Assistant Secretary of the Woman s 
Foreign Missionary Society, they had adjoining 
rooms, where they did their work, and gained 
much help from mutual consultation, besides the 
active help of attending each to the other s mail, 
etc., in the absence of one or the other. Thus it 
was that the two societies worked at that time hand 
in hand and heart to heart. 

Miss Lucinda edited the leaflets for the For- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 53 

eign Missionary Society, and in such an able man 
ner as to contribute largely to the interest of the 
work as it spread rapidly throughout the Church. 
Many of her articles and leaflets, although nearly 
twenty years old, would furnish excellent material 
for missionary workers to-day. One article, en 
titled " Seed-Time," was published in the Nashville 
Christian Advocate in 1880. In it she says: 

"We often hear quoted, in connection with mis 
sionary work, The harvest truly is plenteous, but 
the laborers are few. While in one sense this is 
true, it leaves an impression that is in a measure 
the cause of discouragement in foreign mission 
ary work. 

" The impression made is that the harvest is ripe 
and ready for the sickle, and we have but to send 
reapers to gather in abundant sheaves of precious 
souls, when the truth is it is still seed-time, and la 
borers are needed to go with brave, pioneer hearts 
to fell the great trees, to break up and prepare the 
ground for the seed they must sow, and leave to 
others in the perhaps far future the joy of reaping 
the harvest. And they should be content with 
this, for if all would be reapers, there would be 
no harvest to reap. And we who send out the la 
borers into the fields should be patient too, and 
not discouraged because we see not great results 
at once. What have we to do with the results? 
The command to us is: In the morning sow thy 
seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: 



54 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

for them knowest not whether shall prosper, either 
this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good. 
There is another source of discouragement that has 
a most paralyzing effect: individuals are apt to feel 
that what they can do is so insignificant, and 
amounts to so little, that it might as well be left 
undone. This is a great mistake. 

" Let one of the ladies in the smallest auxiliary of 
our Woman s Foreign Missionary Society one 
quiet soul who throws her pennies with her heart 
into the work compare her work and influence 
to a grain of wheat, a very little thing indeed. 
What could one poor, insignificant grain of wheat 
do in a great field? It is a plump, full grain, for 
a little deed done from sincere love to the Saviour 
is a perfect work. It is sown in rich earth ready 
for it. The Master watches it. By and by it 
grows and ripens, bearing many full grains, which 
in their turn fall, spring up again, and scatter a 
larger crop, and in time the single grain, the in 
fluence of a single humble life, has brought forth 
fruit a thousandfold. A touching incident before 
me further illustrates this. It was a time of fear 
ful persecution. A heathen queen, drunk with the 
blood of God s saints and thirsting for more, was 
on the throne. Decree after decree had gone 
forth, and thousands were the victims that had fall 
en before her cruel rage. Almost every mouth 
was stopped through fear, and scarcely did any 
dare to speak the hated name of Jesus. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 55 

"In the queen s palace, and allied to the royal 
family, was a little girl. She knew no religion but 
the worship of idols. One nobleman believed in 
Jesus, and a holy boldness was his. He ventured 
to speak to the little child about her soul and of the 
true God, and of his Son, who was sent into the 
world to save sinners. His earnest words made 
an impression, but the worthy man never saw any 
fruit. He sowed in bloody times. The harvest 
did not come in his day. But a few years rolled 
away, and behold ! the court of the palace is open 
and a multitude throng to see a sight never before 
witnessed in that land. A queen who bore the 
same name as the bloodthirsty queen that had put 
to death thousands of her subjects was about to 
profess her faith in the Christian s Saviour. 

" She was questioned as to her acquaintance with 
this religion of the heart, and, astonishing to relate, 
it was the little girl of the palace. The great Gar 
dener had kept sight of the little seed sown so long 
ago, and what a harvest it at last had produced ! 

Miss Helm was interested in all mission fields, 
and was very anxious for the Woman s Foreign 
Missionary Society to open work in Brazil. Be 
sides writing herself on this subject, she got Rev. 
J. J. Ransom, a returned missionary, to write two 
leaflets for her, as urgent appeals to the society 
and Church, for she saw away back there that it 
was a great opportunity for our Church, and she 
made strong appeals to arouse the women to en- 



56 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

gage in the work. She says in one of her leaflets: 
"There is in Brazil a conservative element that 
sees in Protestanism the combination of intellectual 
freedom and the comforts of a pure religion, and 
hence the great demand for Protestant schools. 
This demand must be supplied by some Protestant 
denominations. Nowhere is our influence as a 
society more sorely needed than in Brazil, where 
the women are either ignorant and grossly super 
stitious or have been infected with the infidelity of 
French literature. With such mothers, what must 
the future of that country be, unless the so-much- 
needed teachers from our Christian land be sent 
into their midst to mold the minds and win the 
hearts of the young?" She then speaks of the ap 
propriation of the Executive Association of the so 
ciety of $500 to aid the school at Piracicaba, a town 
in the southern part of Brazil, and of Misses Watts 
and Newman s noble work there, and later on she 
speaks of an appropriation made to erect suitable 
buildings for a large school. How delighted her 
heart was, in the years that followed, to watch the 
development of the work in that and other mis 
sion fields ! After her time became fully taken up 
in the great work of her life, her interest was 
still strong in the cause of foreign missions. Hers 
was no narrow, one-sided nature. If that judg 
ment was ever made of her, it was false. As Dr. 
Walter Lambuth said in speaking of her: " Petty 
jealousy and narrowness of view were impossible 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 57 

in such a nature." Her spirit lived in an atmos 
phere too high, too elevated for any such thing. 
She used to say, Every interest of the great 
Church to which I belong is dear to me;" and she 
labored under the commission, "Go ye into all 
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." 
During the last years of her life, when a meeting 
was held at the Methodist Publishing House in 
Nashville to consider the work of establishing the 
Korea Mission, although no other woman in Nash 
ville was present, Miss Lucinda Helm was there. 

Frail in body, but strong and loyal as ever in 
heart, she showed great interest in the projection 
of that work, and the first contribution that was 
made toward it was made by her, a contribution 
of $15. She says in one of her earnest appeals as 
Editor of Leaflets in the foreign missionary work : 
"Legendary lore says there was in ancient days 
a saint, a pure and holy man, who, praying in his 
cell, was blessed one day with a vision of his cru 
cified Lord. As he gazed enraptured, the mon 
astery bell rang for the hour of noon. It was a 
call to him to go feed the hungry and clothe the 
destitute, who at that hour thronged the monas 
tery gate. He heard the call, but hesitated. How 
could he leave the blessed Saviour, whose pres 
ence glorified his lonely cell? But the still small 
voice within whispered, Do your duty! and at 
its bidding he arose, turned from the beautiful 
vision, and went out to prove his love by obedi- 



LUCINDA B. HELM. 



ence to the Master s commands. His duty faith 
fully performed, he returned to his cell. To his 
great joy, the vision awaited him, and he heard 
from the lips of his Lord this declaration : * Hadst 
thou remained, I must have gone; because thou 
didst go, I have remained. Christians, when 
seeking at your Master s hand peace and joy for 
your own souls; when praying in }^our beautiful 
churches, listening with religious fervor to the 
organ s notes pealing forth loud anthems of praise 
to the Lamb of God, do you not hear the call: 
Go feed the hungry, clothe the naked, go preach 
to the poor and those in prison? And do you 
refuse to obey the summons? You have great 
joy in the hope of eternal life. You love the 
Lord who has so blessed you, and would forever 
dwell in his presence. < But whoso hath this 
world s good, and seeth his brother have need, 
and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from 
him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? 
Look at the millions of souls in heathen lands 
condemned to die! The Lord commands you to 
go teach them the way of salvation, to go bear to 
them his pardon, but you heed him not. All can 
not go in person, but all can help to send the mis 
sionary. Will you neither go nor send? Simple 
and plain is the command: Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 
You can not fail to understand it. Clear and loud 
the call is ringing; in the grandest churches above 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 59 

the great organ peals, in the lowliest places of 
worship, through the stillness of the closet where 
you kneel to pray. You can not fail to hear it, 
and truly if you obey not its summons if you 
make no effort to go forth to do your Lord s bid 
ding, he will depart and give you the desires of 
your hearts, but will send leanness into your souls." 

During Miss Helm s early missionary work she 
remained at " Helm Place " with her mother. An 
accident rendered Mrs. Helm an invalid the last 
years of her life, but as she lay upon her couch 
she was still the attraction of the household as of 
old. How sweet and beautiful she was in old age, 
and how precious to the hearts of the beloved sis 
ters, Miss Lucinda and Miss Mary especially, who 
had made no new home ties for themselves ! They 
clung to her, and served her with such willing 
hands and worshipful hearts ! Their mother used 
to say : " Queen Victoria is not better waited upon 
than I am." The years of suffering left her gen 
tler and more loving to everybody and everything. 
For three months before she died she was help 
less, yet never a murmur escaped her. The only 
wish she expressed was her last utterance, "I 
want to go to my heavenly home," which prayer 
was granted her on Christmas morning of 1885. 

After her mother s death, Miss Lucinda, desiring 
the wider opportunities furnished by a city for 
Church work, went to reside with her eldest sister, 
Mrs. Judge Bruce, in Louisville, Ky. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WOMAN S DEPARTMENT OF CHURCH EXTENSION. 

The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never flinches, the 
thought that never wanders these are the elements of success." 
Burke. 

THE interests of the M. E. Church, South, 
were supremely dear to the heart of Miss Lu- 
cinda Helm. Unlike those who stand on the out 
side and do their philanthropic work independent 
of the Church, sneering at its coldness and for 
mality, she believed in fighting error from the in 
side, and in conserving the best forces of the 
Church to resist the common enemy. She was not 
blind to its coldness, but she believed each one 
should do his part to make it otherwise. To her, 
Christ s philosophy, as embodied in his Church, 
is the only true philosophy of humanity; and, un 
less any philanthropy has as its basis and object 
the Christianizing of a community or people, it is 
worse than ill-spent, and but fosters all forms of 
discontent in its recipients. Therefore she be 
lieved in making all philanthropic and missionary 
work distinctively Church work; and she believed 
that in the Church, when it measures up to its 
high possibilities, there are riches in store for the 
world not yet dreamed of. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 6l 

To this end she wrote for the Church papers, 
holding up the highest standards for Christian 
workers as Church-members. Many of her arti 
cles appeared in the Nashville Christian Advocate 
and in the St. Louis Christian Advocate. Through 
them she became known to the entire Church. 
Many of the bishops and other dignitaries of the 
Church were her stanch friends. They realized 
that she was not only a consecrated but a very 
gifted woman. 

Soon after the department of Church Extension 
of the M. E. Church, South, was organized, in 
1882, with Dr. David Morton as General Secreta 
ry, she went to him and told him she wanted to 
assist in that work in any way she could. He ap 
preciated her words, and her assistance proved 
very valuable. She wrote in the interest of 
Church extension. Some of her articles were 
addressed to invalids, and were very touching 
and beautiful. In one of them she writes in 
the beginning of the year 1884: " I call upon you 
invalids, as those who abide in the inner chamber, 
those who are nearest and dearest to the tender 
heart of our Father, to continue to ask him to 
bless the churches we build in his name; to bless 
our feeble efforts to extend his kingdom in the 
world. I believe your prayers have ascended, 
and that they have aided in bringing down the 
rich blessings that have fallen upon the work of 
our Board of Church Extension, for God has 



62 



LUCINDA B. HELM. 



prospered it most wonderfully. I still call upon 
you, as the * shut-in builders, to lend your aid to 
this great work, to help by your prayers, your influ 
ence, and by every other way that God shall open 
for you in the building of the churches, so sorely 
needed in our Conferences, old and new, for in 
nearly all of them are places as devoid of the ben 
efits of Christianity as heathendom. I heard of a 
man the other day in one of these neglected spots 
who did not know what was meant by the word 
4 church. Can it be so bad as that, I said, 
and in our own midst? Oh, how we Christians 
have been wasting God s time instead of laboring 
with all our strength to extend his kingdom as he 
bade us do ! " 

In another letter to invalids she says: " Be not 
weary because the activities of life have left you 
stranded in a lone place. They are taken away 
that nothing may hinder your heavenward gaze, 
that you may nearer feel your heavenly home. 
Let me tell you of a case that has come to my 
knowledge through these letters of mine. Then 
perhaps some of you will feel as I did: humbled to 
the earth with the thought that we have done 
nothing, borne nothing for our Lord and Master. 
I stood appalled when I read this letter. I give it 
as she wrote it: I am one of those whom God 
has shut in for nearly thirty years. Over half the 
time confined to my bed, and now for more than 
four years not only shut out from all means of 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 63 

grace, but shut in the poorhouse. God has taken 
my dear parents, brothers, and sisters, nearly all 
who are dear to my heart. All are gone. I am 
left in this bleak world alone, yet in the language 
of Job I can say from my heart: "All the days of 
my appointed time will I wait until my change 
comes." If I can just be the means of doing 
some good while I suffer, it is all I ask. Bless 
God for my hope of heaven ! Oh, happy will be 
the day when we are shut in with Christ forever! 
I have in my poor, weak manner prayed daily, and 
almost hourly, since coming to the paupers home, 
that God would open some way of usefulness to 
me, and now I hail your request as a providential 
call. Please put my name on your list of " Shut- 
in Builders." This poor sister, deprived of ev 
erything but her God, in her eagerness to work 
for him has been willing to take even the little 
means that fell in her way for procuring the com 
forts and delicacies she so sorely needed. Against 
this I earnestly protested as not being right, but 
her desire to work for her Master knows no 
bounds, and she has sent to the treasury fourteen 
dollars, for some of which she has worked, al 
though she says: My fingers ached and throbbed 
as though an unhappy heart beat in every one of 
them. Yet she praises God that she still has the 
use of her hands." 

In another article, written by the distinguished 
invalid, Miss Jennie Casseday, who was an inti- 



64 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

mate friend of Miss Helm s, she says: "Dear 
shut-in sisters, did you know that in our Shut-In 
Band there is a branch called the Invalids Auxil 
iary of Foreign Missions, and that they support 
missionaries, and are doing a great work for 
Christ? I do hope to hear of you banding your 
selves together here in the South as the Invalids 
Auxiliary to the Methodist Church Extension 
Work, as our dear Miss Helm requests." 

Thus through Miss Helm s articles and person 
al influence she became recognized as a valuable 
worker in Church extension, and through her cor 
respondence in the interests of that work she en 
listed many invalid women and children to con 
tribute, although in small amounts, to the further 
ance of the cause two years after the Board of 
Church Extension was organized. Anything that 
pertained to the welfare of her loved Church was 
of vital interest to her. 

In 1885 Bishop R. K. Hargrove, while in charge 
of the Conferences in the West, reported to the 
Board of Church Extension that he had to abandon 
several important stations there because there w r as 
not a house to be found fit to accommodate a preach 
er and his family, and said: " Why could not the 
good women of the Church be induced to go into 
the work of building parsonages?" He had the 
year previous put the matter before the Woman s 
Foreign Missionary Society, and requested them 
to formulate some plan for building parsonages con- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 65 

nected with their work; but as they could not find 
it expedient to do so, he remarked to Dr. Morton: 
" It will have to be attached to Church exten 
sion." It seems from several records that Miss 
Helm had a plan in her mind of this sort for the 
women of the Church about the same time, and 
when the matter was mentioned to her she hearti 
ly approved of it. The thought in the mind of one 
of the authorities of the Church met her thought, and 
in her own words she " developed the thought into 
a living organization." She says afterward, in re 
ferring to that occasion : My previous study of the 
condition of our country had prepared me to be deep 
ly impressed by the accounts given me of the efforts 
our own Church was making to Christianize these 
barbarous elements in the midst of our civilization. 
Three thoughts took possession of me: i. The 
multitude of souls in easy reach of us dying with 
out God or hope. 2. That God seemed to have 
gathered them from every quarter of the globe 
into our midst, and that we should do our part in 
preaching to them the gospel of Christ. 3. That 
we women of the Church ought to come to the 
front and assist in providing homes for the preach 
ers so much needed to plant the Church of Christ 
in the midst of these people. I felt as if some 
propelling power beyond me had entered my soul 
and was moving me with an irresistible force to 
throw my life into this work of helping to redeem 
my country from the enemy of souls and to estab- 
5 



66 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

lish the kingdom of the Lord." Miss Helm was 
requested by the Board of Church Extension to 
formulate a plan including constitution and by 
laws for establishing a Woman s Department of 
Church Extension for parsonage-building, to be 
submitted to the stated meeting of the Board of 
Church Extension held in January, 1886. She did 
so in a clear, businesslike manner, and her paper 
was by the board referred to a committee consist 
ing of Bishop R. K. Hargrove (Chairman) and 
Rev. H. C. Settle and J. G. Carter, Esq. Her 
idea was to make provision in the constitution at 
that time for some phases of local home mission 
work, but this was strenuously opposed on the 
ground that it would embrace too much. 

In consequence the home mission feature was 
abandoned for the time, and a plan for a prospective 
Parsonage Society reported to the board at its an 
nual meeting in April, 1886. The report con 
tained a memorial to the General Conference. In 
response the General Conference which met in 
May, 1886, accepted the constitution for such a 
department, after making a few amendments. It 
was incorporated as a part of the constitution of the 
Board of Church Extension, forming Articles XL, 
XII. , and XIII. , and reads as follows: 

"Article XL The Board of Church Extension 
shall organize a department known as the Wom 
an s Department of Church Extension, the ob 
ject of which shall be to collect funds by pri- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 67 

vate efforts, personal solicitations, and member 
ship fees, donations, devises, and bequests, for 
purchasing and securing parsonages. All funds 
so collected shall be subject to the direction of the 
General and Local Boards of Church Extension 
for the object specified. 

Article XII. The officers of the Woman s De 
partment shall be a General Secretary to be ap 
pointed by the General Board, a Secretary and 
Treasurer for each Annual Conference, and a Dis 
trict Secretary for each presiding elder s district to 
be appointed by the respective Conference Boards. 

"Article XIII. The General Secretary for the 
Woman s Department shall conductthe correspond 
ence of that part of the work and furnish reports 
thereof to the Secretary of the General Board. 
The Secretary for each Annual Conference shall 
organize Parsonage Societies in the various charges 
and make reports of the work done in her Confer 
ence both to the Secretary of the Conference 
Board and to the General Secretary of this de 
partment. The Treasurer for each Annual Con 
ference shall receive the funds for the Parsonage 
Societies within the Conference, of which fifty per 
cent, shall be turned over to the General Board 
and the other fifty per cent, remain with the Con 
ference Board. The District Secretary shall aid 
the Conference Secretary in organizing Parson 
age Societies, and shall keep her informed of the 
work and needs in her respective district," 



68 LUDINDA B. HELM. 

One of the by-laws of the General Board reads: 
" The General Secretary for the Woman s Depart 
ment shall conduct the correspondence of that de 
partment, keep the Conference Secretaries sup 
plied with information of the general work, and re 
ceive from them reports of the work done in the 
Conferences. She may issue circulars, leaflets, 
reports, and other publications of interest to the 
work as it may require, or as the Board shall 
direct." 

There were also prepared at this time consti 
tutions and by-laws for the Conference Socie 
ties and the individual Parsonage Societies. Miss 
Helm was appointed by the Board at once 
as General Secretary of the department, and 
her work grew rapidly from the very beginning. 
She took hold of it, in the words of Dr. Morton, 
with "remarkable intelligence, energy, and faith. 
Frail of form, never knowing the blessing of good 
health, and shrinking from publicity, she neverthe 
less took up a burden from which a strong man 
would have shrunk, and with unfaltering steps and 
a courage that was the wonder and admiration of 
all who knew her she never laid it down until 
God had prepared thousands of willing hands and 
hearts to bear it." She was in her element when 
working in conjunction and devising plans with 
the master minds of the Church. Bishop Mc- 
Tyeire said: " This is just what should have been 
in operation years ago." From one Conference 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 69 

to another Miss Helm went, organizing Parsonage 
Societies and inspiring the women with a zeal for 
the work. 

Her report before the end of the first year was 
as follows: "In May, 1886, this new movement 
was determined upon and the duty devolved on the 
General Secretary from that time of giving to the 
entire Church the first information of the new 
work, its object and plan of operation, and to 
communicate with the Conference Boards and 
presiding elders relative to the officers to be elect 
ed by those boards. Giving this needed informa 
tion of a work so entirely new required much time 
and unremitting thought and labor, the writing of 
an immense number of letters and articles for the 
Church papers, as well as the preparation and cir 
culation of leaflets, etc. The Church has had 
within this year an opportunity to become well ac 
quainted with the objects and plan of the work. 
The interest is deepening. We may say an almost 
universal interest in parsonages has been aroused. 
Those acquainted with the history of the Church 
say that there has never before been such a gen 
eral awakening on this subject and such determi 
nation on the part of charges to provide their pas 
tors with homes. The more difficult task follows, 
that of molding this interest into a substantial, last 
ing form in accord with the constitution of this 
department of Church Extension, for with it comes 
a large burden of local needs." She reports that 



7O LUCINDA B. HELM. 

first year societies organized in 35 Conferences 
and 1,595 members of the Woman s Department of 
Church Extension. She says in her report for the 
second year of the work ending March 31, 1888: 

"The hindrances and discouragements all new 
enterprises must encounter we have had to con 
tend with, yet our year s labor, by God s bless 
ing, has borne fruit. What we have done may be 
judged from the following facts: 214 societies 
have been organized, reporting 3,529 members. 
The children are becoming interested and are do 
ing good work in sixty-nine places. Twenty- 
three parsonages have been aided. Leaflets have 
been prepared relating to the work, and 24,000 
circulated. The subject has also been kept be 
fore the public through the various Church papers 
and earnestly presented to individuals by personal 
letters. Our efforts to secure a loan fund, put forth 
only six months ago, have been so successful that 
we have reason to hope we shall have a loan fund 
for parsonage-building as large as that created for 
church-building. 

" We hear regrets on every side that this work of 
parsonage-building was not begun years ago. We 
hope, by God s blessing, to save the future from 
the experience of the past and the regrets of the 
present. We have this year at two places on the 
frontier been the direct means of saving the 
Church from a retreat. 

" Our preachers (truly home missionaries) no 




THE PREACHER S SHELTER OF THE PAST. 




A MODERN* rARSOX.Ui 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 73 

longer labor unknown to the sympathies of their 
sisters in the Eastern Conferences. Several boxes 
of clothing and other necessaries have been sent 
to those in want. Sabbath-school literature and 
other evidences of interest have been given, which, 
perhaps, may appear outside issues, yet they prove 
that the thought of providing homes has taken root 
in the hearts of our women and children. The 
benefit that our society has proven to be to the 
local work of the pastorates is shown in the report 
of one hundred and seventy-one added to Sun 
day-schools and the sum of special donations 
raised for local work amounting to $4,579.09, 
independent of the regular dues of the society." 

Such a report as this, at the end of the second 
year s organization, of a great work done entirely 
under the direction and supervision of one woman, 
shows how magnificently she was endowed for 
leadership. Her indomitable courage, clearness 
of vision, intellectual grasp of situations, and 
soundness of judgment made success imperative. 
When she was not traveling in the interest of the 
work, she was writing. All day long she would 
use her pen, and sometimes into the night. The 
literature sent out by her at this time shows not 
only her earnest spirit but the broadness of the 
field in which she worked and enlisted others to 
work. She says in one of her leaflets: 

" We have contributed largely to send the gos 
pel to the Indians, and many of them are still in 



74 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

such a state of heathenism that, as Bishop Gallo 
way says, the sight of them ought to stir the mis 
sionary fire of the Church everywhere. We have 
given as largely to other parts of the great West 
where, although it be in our own country, the 
heathen from every part of the globe may 
be found. We have also gone into the waste 
places in our old Conferences, and into the 
mountains to the ignorant and needy. How 
have we done this? By giving what we were as 
sured was the most immediate and imperative 
need homes. Dr. John, Secretary of the Mission 
Board, called the parsonage we built among the 
wild tribes the anchor for our mission work in 
that new field, and says of our new organization: 
It is a most important branch of missionary enter 
prise. No movement in our Church should com 
mand a deeper interest in the hearts of our people. 
It has been said: Christianize America, and the 
world is saved. Whether that be true or not, we 
know that within the bounds of the great expanse 
of territory we call with pride our country may be 
found many representatives of nations that know 
not God. How many have read of the heathen 
practises among the natives of Alaska, and know 
that Alaska is a part of our country slavery of 
women, infanticide, the burning of the widow on 
the funeral pile or the partial burning, which is 
worse still, and to which she is forced to submit, 
while her shrieks are drowned by the beating of 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 75 

drums, and other barbarities equal to these? One 
sickens in reading the details, and wonders that 
these creatures are human. But the love of Christ 
can reach even such and bring them forth purified. 
God help us to heed his commands! I entreat 
you, my sisters, to come and help us do that which 
you believe we and you should do, for the work in 
our country to be done is so great that every hand 
is needed to help." 

In another leaflet entitled " Is Christ among 
Us?" she says: "A District Secretary in Texas 
writes of one of our preachers who has gone to 
bed hungry one hundred nights this year. An 
other consecrated brother in North Mississippi, 
asking for a little help to seize an opportunity to 
secure a parsonage at a good bargain, says: 
4 My support will be very meager, and I can not 
see now where it is to come from, but God knows. 
The matter is with him. He says they have 
heretofore managed to live on their small salary 
and keep out of debt. The terrible yearly strug 
gle of these good men to pay rent and keep out of 
debt is ruining the effectiveness of many. How 
can a man study or preach as he should with such 
a burden on him? We are told that one of the 
ministers in North Carolina, when he reached his 
circuit of eight appointments, found no house that 
he could get to put his family in except a store 
house which had to be scoured, whitewashed, and 
hammered until it was fit to live in, and then there 



76 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

were rats enough after all that was done to almost 
distract them. He says that unless the people 
there are liberal it will take almost all the money 
he can get to pay the rent of that store-house, and 
is there any hope of his getting a parsonage?" 
And thus the letters poured into Miss Helm s office 
from all quarters the Indian Mission, Montana, 
Oregon, California, and all of the Southern states. 
Some of them were full of gratitude for what the 
Woman s Parsonage Society had done for them, 
and others were making earnest appeals for help. 
She wrote to all of them, and where she could not 
furnish help she encouraged these heroic men 
and their families by her strong Christian spirit 
and faith. 

In all her explanatory leaflets and articles, and 
in her plans for the establishment of new depart 
ments of the work she wrote with clearness, ac 
curacy, and complete mastery of the subject equal 
to a jurist. Discouragements were frequently pre 
sented, but she was determined not to heed them. 
She says: "We know a movement with an ob 
ject like ours can not be stopped. God will see to 
that. But we are restive under the fact that it 
moves more slowly than it should, because of the 
inactivity of those who should most vigorously push 
it on. If it were some general principle at stake, 
one might bear this with more equanimity, feeling 
that God will ultimately cause the right to prevail. 
But it is not that. It is little children suffering, 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 77 

weary mothers worn with toil, and husbands and 
fathers going about doing good with heavy hearts, 
not only for the privations they must bear but be 
cause of the burdens resting upon their families- 
burdens they are unable to remove, because their 
time is given to God s work. I can not calmly say: 
* All shall be well some time. I can not wait for the 
future. I must relieve my poor, tired, heart-break 
ing sister yonder, before she gives down under the 
weight of daily care. I want to lift the burden off 
of that godly brother that very one (not some 
future one I know not of), that he may do with a 
free heart and untrammeled mind the work of the 
Master. Faith tells me that God has heard their 
prayers and is urging us on to be his means of an 
swering them. But why, ask those who carp 
why are men and their families sent to such 
places where they must suffer? Why are they 
sent? Why is the gospel sent anywhere f Why 
have missionaries gone to foreign fields to be 
slaughtered? They go in obedience to the voice 
of Almighty God that in trumpet tones has pro 
claimed the command: Go ye into all the world, 
and preach the gospel to every creature ! They 
go because the Spirit of God will not let them stay. 
It is the grand policy of the Methodist Church to 
send the gospel wherever there is need for it, and 
our consecrated ministers go wherever they are 
sent, though they may know it involves suffering 
for them and theirs. With silent heroism they 



78 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

have endured for Christ s sake hardships that de 
velop noble characters. But away with the senti 
ment that applauds this nobility and does not re 
flect upon the attitude of those who can and do 
not relieve these oppressed ones. As their trials 
exalt them, our permitting such trials lowers us." 

At the close of the third year of the Woman s 
Department of Church Extension she says: 

" During the past year we have proved, we 
sincerely hope, the far-seeing wisdom of the words 
of our prince of bishops, McTyeire. He said to 
to the Conferences over which he presided: 
* Brethren, there is nothing before you more im 
portant. Never shall I forget the bright expres 
sion of pleasure on his face, nor his words of 
commendation about our work. They have been 
as a cordial in moments of weakness. The women 
of other denominations are awake and abroad in 
the land, pressing forward, extending the influence 
and bounds of Christianity as represented by their 
respective Churches. 

"Our society projects no work, sends no mission 
aries, but follows in the wake of every forward 
movement made by our Church. Our work is to 
build up, establish, and put upon a sure footing 
each post. The good we have accomplished this 
year has opened the eyes of our people to see as 
never before how the power of the Church to ad 
vance will be greatly increased by having a well- 
organized parsonage-building society. Eighty-one 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 79 

thousand one hundred leaflets of such a character 
as to be desired by other denominations have been 
freely distributed by our Secretaries, and we trust 
will be productive of great good. The total num 
ber of members at the close of this year is five 
thousand eight hundred and twenty-one, and the 
total amount raised by the Woman s Department 
for general and local work $9,607.25. There are 
also one hundred and forty-five names on the 
Preachers Wives Loan Fund, and many other in 
dications of increasing interest in new features of 
the work." 

In the fourth and last year of the society, under 
the limited title * Woman s Department of Church 
Extension, the increase in dues over the prece 
ding year was $600, the membership at the close 
of this first quadrennium was seven thousand two 
hundred and sixteen, and the amount of money 
raised for general and local work $14,554.31. 
This work during these four years was represented 
in thirty-six Conferences of the Southern Method 
ist Church, and more than seven thousand women 
were working together through Conference Socie 
ties and individual auxiliaries to establish homes 
for the itinerant ministry in the South, Southeast, 
and West. But the responsibility devolving en 
tirely, as it did, upon one individual was great, and 
the extreme pressure would have been unbearable 
many times had it not been for her indomitable 
courage and sublime faith. She realized that in 



8o LUCINDA B. HELM. 

the projection of this work she stood too much 
alone, although that realization never inclined her 
to withdraw her energies. Upon her devolved the 
duty of giving to the whole Church information of 
the work. Many emergencies and contingencies 
that could not be foreseen necessarily arose in 
this untried field, the responsibility of meeting them 
was great, and required wisdom and strength to be 
gained only from the divine Source. A suitable 
literature had to be prepared and every detail of 
the work provided for. Thousands of letters and 
postals were written. At the same time the subject 
was kept continually before the Church at large 
through the Church papers; leaflets, programs, 
and blanks were made ready each quarter in time, 
neglecting no minutiae that would render interest 
ing the monthly meetings of both adult and juve 
nile auxiliaries. Quarterly and annual reports were 
also promptly and carefully prepared. In the in 
auguration of the work a certain amount of travel 
ing had to be done by some one, but there was no 
one save the Secretary who, though shrinking from 
that ordeal, visited eleven Conferences ranging 
from Indian Mission to North Carolina. The of 
fice work that accumulated during her absence was 
met unaided. Only a few days during the entire 
time did she receive clerical assistance. It was 
the work of several officers and committees devolv 
ing upon one individual. Yet she gave her entire 
time, strength, heart, and soul for its success. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 8 1 

The Board of Church Extension desired to appro 
priate to her a salary of $600 a year, but she re 
fused to receive it. Dr. Morton urged her to take 
it, and said: "It is a debt, and when you die it 
can be collected." The only reply she made to this 
was to add a statement to her will which released the 
board from any indebtedness to her. She was so 
determined in this matter because some complaints 
had come to her ears about the payment of sala 
ries. Then, too, the collections of the Woman s 
Department were so small she said it would look as 
if she were working for financial benefit. 

Her desire was to give everything, even " all her 
living," to the Lord. To every call made by the 
Church she responded wherever it was possible, 
saying: " I meant what I said when I promised to 
support the institutions of the Church." When 
she published her little book " Gerard " she gave 
the Church Extension Society the first proceeds, 
saying: " I want to render to God the first-fruits 
of all I make." 

At the close of the first quadrennium she had 
been brought, through her extensive correspond 
ence and personal work, in touch with the entire 
field of crying need in all sections of the South 
and West; and, while her watchword was, "A 
parsonage in every charge!" she felt a burning 
desire to furnish more than a parsonage as she 
saw all that was thrown open to her gaze. Her 
articles and leaflets written at this time distinctly 
6 



82 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

show that nothing less than the fullest and com- 
pletest organized effort for home missions could 
satisfy her. She thought out new plans and 
prayed over them, and was determined to work 
for the enlargement of the charter of the socie 
ty. Everywhere she went, and upon all sides, her 
ears were filled with cries for help. The poor, 
the ignorant, the destitute, the depraved, the city 
waifs, mountain whites, negroes, Chinese, and Ja 
panese were making loud appeals, by their very 
existence, to the great mother heart of this woman. 
Although she knew from her past experience 
that obstacles and objections would be numerous 
on every hand in the broadening of her work to 
such unlimited bounds, she was now determined 
not to relinquish the plan. When she became 
convinced that it was an imperative need, and ap 
proved of by her Lord, she knew no such thing 
as fear. "This is our Father s work," she said. 
" He has given our Church money and Christian 
workers : what is man that he should oppose God ! 
She wept and prayed alone with God. She had 
given her means and her all, unreservedly, to him: 
what should opposition signify? He would make 
her work a success: what did the constant and 
life-long feebleness and pain of her body signi 
fy? She shut her ears to its cries. Her physical 
weakness was extreme, but that did not stay her 
nor induce her to stand and wait. Many a time 
she had to be propped up in her bed all night, with 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 83 

ice packed to her heart. When astonishment was 
expressed at this, she said: "It is my one slim 
chance to live, and I am going to live." "Why 
do you not stop such heavy work?" inquired her 
physician and friends. "You will kill yourself." 
"I know how frail I am," she replied, "but my 
frailty shall honor Jesus." Surely she realized 
the truth of the great apostle s words: "When I 
I am weak, then am I strong." As Dr. H. C. 
Morrison has said of her, "never in the history 
of our Church has a great brain sustained by so 
frail a body accomplished through arduous toil 
such a work, and like the immortal Watts she will 
live forever in the great heart of the Church." 



CHAPTER V. 

WOMAN S PARSONAGE AND HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 

i( All great ivork is at first impossible" Carlyle. 

IT was Miss Helm s determination to make a 
plea at the General Conference of 1890, through 
the Board of Church Extension, for the enlarge 
ment of the charter for woman s work. Her plan 
was that, without detaching the name " Parson 
age," this organization embrace other forms of 
home mission work; and while the work of 
building parsonages should still remain under the 
supervision of the Board of Church Extension, all 
other branches of the work should become inde 
pendent of that board and come under the man 
agement of a Central Committee composed of 
competent women. 

She presented her plans for the extension of 
the work to some of the Church authorities before 
the General Conference of 1890 convened, but 
even her stanchest friends thought it an unwise 
plan, attended with great risks. Again and again 
she went to Dr. Morton and some of the bishops, 
trying to show the imperative needs in our Church 
for a connectional organization known distinctive 
ly as home missions; but the objection was pre 
sented that the Church was not ready for such an 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 85 

organization. She was told that the Parsonage 
Society had hardly gotten a sure footing in the 
Church at that time, and by moving too fast, and 
undertaking to enlarge the work to such an extent, 
she would find it impracticable and calculated to 
do more harm than good. She insisted that it 
would not interfere with the parsonage work. 
She had found in her efforts to establish parson 
age societies that the women of the Church were 
organized into all sorts of other societies; such as, 
"Ladies Aids," "Pastors Aids," "Dorcas s," 
"Sewing Society," "Social Society," "Young 
Ladies Aids," all of which were doing home mis 
sion work in their own churches, and many were 
doing interdenominational work also. The wom 
en in many churches were supplying mere phil 
anthropic societies with the means to do the very 
things the Church is called to do, and, upon the 
ground that their entire time and means were ab 
sorbed in these things, they objected to the Parson 
age Society. 

As she had visited the different Conferences 
she had observed that some of the women of the 
Church were awake to the needs of established 
organized home mission work for the M. E. 
Church, South. Here and there expressions to 
this effect were reported to her. In the state 
of Georgia an appeal had been made to the 
women of that state to unite in forming in every 
Methodist church in Georgia a woman s Home 



86 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

Missionary Society. The appeal was strong, and 
signed by three of the most influential women of 
the Church. It had, however, met with little re 
sponse or encouragement from the women or the 
pastors, and, consequently, had proved unsuccess 
ful. Miss Helm s position was that if "home mis 
sions " was incorporated in the work of the new 
organization for parsonage-building and endorsed 
by the General Conference, all local church socie 
ties would become merged into that department 
of the organization, and thus do away with the 
objectionable number of societies. The charities 
of the church would be condensed and due credit 
allowed for the work being done by its members. 
Moreover, the women of the Church would by 
means of the proposed plan become larger in pur 
pose, heart, and work in learning the needs of 
the entire country. The objection was then made 
that, if there was a drain on the sympathies and 
pocket-books of the people for home missions, it 
would cripple the work of foreign missions. 
This objection Miss Helm refuted as wholly illog 
ical and unwarranted by examples given of home 
and foreign mission societies cooperating success 
fully in other denominations. She wrote articles 
on the subject, and conducted a large correspond 
ence, presenting the matter to the influential women 
as well as to the men of the Church. 

Bishop McTyeire said to Mrs. E. E. Wiley, in 
speaking of the work: " Have you ever met Lu- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 87 

cinda Helm?" She replied: "No, I only know 
of her." "Well," said the Bishop, with that 
peculiar, quizzical look of his through half-closed 
lids, " she is as keen as a brier. She is all brains. 
You ought to know her." Mrs. Wiley was then 
absorbed in the interest of foreign missions, and 
she became eager to understand the secret of Miss 
Helm s innovation. After she became acquainted 
with her and her great projects for the Church, 
she said: " Miss Helm seems to me in her deduc 
tive trend of mind to be in the center of a plan of 
mighty work for the Church, and from her frail 
fingers there goes out an electric current of spir 
itual power to its farthest periphery. I never 
knew any one to struggle through such difficulties 
under such untoward circumstances as she in her 
unselfish devotion to a cause in which she finds 
comparatively but little sympathy. To those of 
us on the outside the prospect of accomplishing 
what she proposed was as the frazzled edges of a 
forlorn hope. The Conferences did not seem to 
understand the work she proposed to do, the body 
of the womanhood of the Church was committed 
to foreign missions, and any thing that looked like 
a disturbance of the settled autonomy of the 
Church elicited a frown from the powers that 
be. But her keen eyes discerned where the 
walls of her beloved Zion were weakening, and she 
started with her bricks and mortar to the faithful 
workmen." 



LuctNDA B. HELM. 

Her letters, powerful like Paul s, went to hun 
dreds of representative women and to the ministry 
as well; but although some of them were largely 
in favor of her plans, there was but little sympathy 
manifested by the body of women as a whole, 
while many of the ministers throughout the Church 
were opposed to her plan, and even sent in appeals 
to the Board of Church Extension to " kill the 
new movement." Scores of them had objected 
to the Parsonage Society in the beginning; and 
now after that had gained a foothold, notwith 
standing their protests, they objected to the en 
largement of the work on the ground that if the 
needs of our country in every direction became 
known to the women of the Church, there would 
not be as much done for the building of parsonages. 
Miss Helm was assured that it would increase in 
stead of diminish that department, as well as every 
other department of Church work; and thus through 
months of vigorous appeal and agitation she stood 
bravely to her self-imposed task, until many of the 
women of the Church were brought up to her own 
high conception of the duty before them and how 
to meet it. 

Like a seed that sprouts from under the edge of 
some great boulder, the work would not "down." 
Women of influence began to stand shoulder to 
shoulder with their standard-bearer, and to realize 
with her what a broadening and deepening influ 
ence the proposed work might become to the 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 89 

Church. She was ever the pastor s earnest friend, 
although some pastors were too blind to see it. 
She says in one of her appeals: 

"Our work does not end with the building of 
parsonages. That should be only a part of it, al 
though a very important part, but further, our de 
sire is to organize around each pastor a society 
of faithful women filled with a zealous determina 
tion to do their part to bring their country to 
Christ. 

" Our constitution is founded on the commission, 
Preach the gospel to every creature. There is 
power in united effort. If we can enlist the wom 
en to undertake home mission enterprises, and 
then unite all their work, local and otherwise, un 
der one great connectional organization with many 
branches, it will give not only definite shape and 
regularity but overwhelming -power to our efforts, 
and we shall see far greater results in every line 
than at present. The policy of the Methodist 
Church is connectional, and far more good may 
be accomplished in conforming to this policy than 
in going contrary to it. Many of us are deter 
mined to do home missionary work. How can we 
willingly shut our eyes any longer to the palpable 
needs everywhere about us? 

" When it is known that in the one state of Ken 
tucky (and it is not behind others) there were at 
the time our Board of Church Extension was or 
ganized thirteen counties without a church of any 



go LUCINDA B. HELM. 

denomination, can we wonder that in these church- 
less regions the densest ignorance prevails? It is 
told by one who visited those mountain regions 
that a dying woman, when spoken to of Christ, 
looked at the speaker in surprise, and, raising her 
self up a little, asked: " Did he come before or 
after the war? " Such accounts more often cause 
laughter among Christians than the realization that 
such words as given by that dying woman are an 
accusation against them before the Judge of all the 
earth. The chaplains in penitentiaries through 
those regions say: * Ignorance, poverty, and 
whisky have made ninety-five hundredths of our 
convicts. These mountain people are not so vi 
cious as ignorant, and the forces of evil are con 
tinually present. Then let us glance at our Western 
territory. Every one knows that there are places 
to be found from which primeval darkness and 
heathenism have never been driven, and the influx 
of the Chinese with their idols and foul customs is 
so great as to alarm the government. How few, 
comparatively, of our people go into foreign fields; 
but see the thousands upon thousands of Christians 
here at home. God is distributing these idol-wor 
shiping Chinese as servants in Christian homes, 
and thousands are brought within easy reach of 
our churches, to which we may take them. God 
acts in no uncertain way. What he says in 
Scripture he speaks also in the strong, unmista 
kable language of facts, as the records of history 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 9! 

show. Not only do those at a distance need our 
home mission work, but it is equally needed right at 
our doors. Do you see that poor, little outcast 
crouching in the alley-corner because he has no 
home, driven to vice by misery? Do you see that 
poor, degraded woman, whose heart often throbs 
with the agony of remorse and despair in the midst 
of her guilt? Do you see that criminal in his cell, 
embittered toward the world because not a soul in 
it cares for him ? These are God s creatures. Have 
you no care for them, and yet profess to be God s 
child ? As members of the Methodist Church should 
not we do missionary work everywhere among the 
godless inhabitants of this land, and patiently labor 
and teach them the way of salvation? 

" This work can not be done in a day, neither can 
it be done by spasmodic, irregular effort, but can 
be accomplished only by united, concentrated, tire 
less effort of the Church." 

Thus, in this appeal through one of her early 
leaflets, we observe that she hoped for the most 
mature development of home mission work in our 
Church. One of her earnest coworkers, Mrs. J. D. 
Hammond, wrote an article on the work at this time 
which was afterward printed in leaflet form and 
widely circulated. In it she says : " There are those 
among us who oppose this society because they fear 
it will interfere with other Church work. Even the 
women, sometimes forgetting their righteous indig 
nation when some of the fathers and brethren in At- 



92 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

lanta opposed the Woman s Foreign Missionary 
Society on that same ground, look askance at this 
youngest daughter of the Church and wonder 
what the child is coming to with such lungs ! It 
would seem that this comes from looking at the 
matter upside down or crosswise or sidewise or 
somewise that is not square in the face. The 
Church s business is to save the world. The 
work is one work, and it can no more be prospered 
in foreign lands by stopping the work at home, 
than one s left hand can be prospered by tying 
up the right until it is paralyzed. Will it pros 
per China or Brazil to let the floods of ungodli 
ness gather in our Western country till they sweep 
away our outposts and rise in threatening power 
around our Eastern citadel? Is it good strategy, is 
it common sense, while throwing our forces over 
into China, to leave in between our advance-guard 
and the main body a vast region in possession of 
the enemy? May God forgive us for trifling with 
this matter as we have heretofore done." 

Miss Helm had published "A Warning," by 
Dr. Y. J. Allen, one of our greatest missionaries 
to foreign lands. In it he says: " If we value our 
Christianity at home and our efforts among the 
heathen in foreign lands, we should no longer 
close our eyes to the vital importance of the con 
test between Christianity and heathendom on our 
western coast, now attracting the eyes of the 
world. It is to the Church, and not to the civil 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 93 

government, that we must look for power to meet 
this issue as Christians should. According to the 
Word of God there is but one way to meet it: the 
Church must bring these heathen nations in their 
own land to Christ." So forceful were the an 
swers made to all objections, and so earnest the 
appeals, that many changed their views and began 
to see the urgent need for a woman s home mis 
sion organization in the Church. Great was the 
rejoicing among them when at the General Con 
ference of 1890 the seal of approval was conclu 
sively given, largely through the personal interces 
sion of Dr. H. C. Morrison, who was that year 
Chairman of the Committee on Church Extension, 
and the Parsonage and Home Mission Society was 
officially recognized as one of the connectional 
benevolences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. The following names were then proposed 
as constituting the Central Committee of this so 
ciety, and they were adopted by the board: Mrs. 
E. E. Wiley, President; Miss Lucinda B. Helm, 
General Secretary; Mrs. George P. Kendrick, 
General Treasurer. Managers: Mrs. R. K. Har 
grove, Mrs. Nathan Scarritt, Mrs. D. Atkins, Mrs. 
S. S. King, Miss Emily M. Allen, Mrs. Maria 
Carter, Mrs. Ellen Burdette, Mrs. John Carter, 
and Miss Belle Bennett. Shortly afterward Miss 
Bennett was obliged to resign, as she was agent 
for the Scarritt Bible and Training School, and 
the pressure of work in both became too great. 



94 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

Her sister, Miss Sue Bennett, was elected in her 
place, and after her death Miss Belle became a 
permanent member of the Central Committee. 
Besides these twelve names, the name of Mrs. 
Gross Alexander was added as Editor of Leaflets. 
Thus the great responsibilities of this work be 
came divided among a number of women, and 
Miss Helm had the wise counsel of those who be 
came her earnest and devoted coworkers and 
friends. The family of Mr. George P. Kendrick, 
who have an inheritance of devotion to the Church, 
rendered the most loving and faithful assistance to 
Miss Helm from the beginning. A room in their 
beautiful home was consecrated to Church work, 
and Miss Helm was ever a welcome guest there. 
Every development of the new organization was 
encouraged by the members of this Christian fam 
ily. The Board of Church Extension had no super 
vision of the work done by the Central Committee 
under the head of "Home Missions." The funds 
appropriated to parsonages, however, have from 
the beginning passed through that board, it acting 
as trustee of the society in all matters of legacies, 
holdings of real estate, and the administration of 
parsonage loan funds. 

In the fifth annual report of the woman s organ 
ization, which is the first of the Woman s Parson 
age and Home Mission Society, Miss Helm says: 
"The first annual meeting of the Central Com 
mittee was held in Chestnut Street Methodist 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 95 

Church, at Louisville, April 9-11, 1891. . . . 
Reports show improvement all along the line. 
Ninety auxiliaries were added during the year. 
A permanent loan fund of $3,000 is on hand. 
The increase in dues this year has amounted to 
$139.94. The Central Committee determined not 
to lessen its efforts to secure parsonages, which it 
deems a very important feature of our home mis 
sion work, but to stress more than heretofore 
other forms of home mission work also. These 
women have already created a wide-spread inter 
est and collected large funds to meet the demands, 
but the work to be done is great. If our country 
is to be brought to Christ, there must be no idlers 
in Zion. We have been encouraged this year by 
the manifestation of larger interest among the 
women of the Church than ever before. The 
added title of Home Missions to the society has 
interfered with no other enterprise, and has con 
tributed greatly to the awakening of a more gen 
eral interest in every line of Church work. Much 
credit is due to the President, Mrs. Wiley, who, 
during the last six months, has traveled a great 
number of miles and visited many of the Confer 
ences in the interests of the society. She arouses 
enthusiasm wherever she goes." 

Mrs. Wiley says of her work at this time: "As 
I journeyed through the Conferences, Miss Helm s 
letters and prayers followed me. Sometimes my 
way was hedged about, and instead of friends I 



96 I.UCINDA B. HELM. 

found and felt sharp arrows of the Mighty, with 
coals of Juniper! But her hand never left my 
pulse-beat, and her faith and love were to me as 
the oil of healing when the wound was sorest. I 
learned to lean on her. I forgot how frail she 
was. I thought her a Gibraltar. It was a source 
of refreshing surprise to me to note the breadth of 
the woman as she stood in the center of her great 
plan appropriating the inflowing elements of suc 
cess. No matter how various their forms, each 
had its place and part. If her judgment differed 
from that of others, she never failed to recognize 
and appropriate whatever of merit there was in the 
plans of others, and her counsel was so manifestly 
of the Lord that all felt its force. She was divine 
ly fitted for this work." 

A leaflet was published about this time giving 
Bishop Hendrix s views of the work under the en 
larged charter, and reading thus: "A modest 
pamphlet entitled The Fifth Annual Report of the 
Woman s Work (the first of the Woman s Par 
sonage and Home Mission Society), is on my table 
and sets me to thinking. It is the development of 
an idea in a good woman s brain to provide homes 
for our preachers, and in that limited form has 
borne fruit in many a charge that would still be 
without a parsonage save for this society. It has 
helped to establish the work of the Church in 
many places, and by enlisting more than seven 
thousand women and children to work for others 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 97 

has done much to develop their Christian lives. 
No other Church of which we have knowledge has 
been so favored. But worthy as is this specific 
work, the time has come, in the judgment of the last 
General Conference, to enlarge the operations of the 
Parsonage Society by adding to it the work of 
home missions in general. This will connection- 
alize all the hitherto local societies, which now, 
though doing no less in their own fields, will be 
prepared to aid in the general work as well. 
Every pastor who has a Pastor s Aid Society will 
find it wise to have it become an auxiliary of this 
general society, as helping to quicken the zeal of 
its members and to increase their efficiency in 
Church work even of a purely local character. 
Not only will it result in the building and equip 
ment of many parsonages and in the building 
up of many Sunday-schools and congregations 
by looking after the youth and the strangers, but 
in more earnest study of the Bible and in greater 
aptness in soul-winning. What an amount of work 
for the Master is possible for the Marys and Mar 
thas and Salomes of our day if intelligently or 
ganized and directed! Within the limits of our 
Church are four cities of a population of 200,000 
souls, three others with a population of more than 
100,000, seven others with a population of over 
50,000, and twenty-two containing more than 20,- 
ooo. In all of these cities we have a mission as a 
Church. Women missionaries should be employed 
7 



9 LUCINDA B. HCLM. 

especially trained for the work to be done. Mr. 
Wesley understood the great service which such 
noble women as Hester Ann Rogers, Mrs. Fletch 
er, and others could do wisely, and availed himself 
of and directed their labors. May we not hope 
for a new era in our beloved Church as we see our 
noble women becoming diligent in such labors? 
May there not be a larger number who can and 
will devote their entire time to this work? With 
out Lydia could Paul have planted the church in 
Philippi?" 

During this year of 1891 the "Angel Band 
Loan Fund" was established by Miss Sue Ben 
nett, although the name was given by Miss Helm. 
Twenty-one were recorded as members by the 
payment of $20, one of which was the name of 
Mrs. Helm, made by Miss Lucinda. 

She says, in speaking of these loan funds: " We 
are authorized to raise other loan funds also, such 
as Named Loan Funds, the donor or donors 
having the privilege of naming the fund, thus 
erecting a monument of good deeds to bear the 
name of the one honored." All the money do 
nated in loan funds was to be used exclusively for 
parsonage-building. This was also the first year 
in which a Conference Organizer was elected 
Mrs. Poynter, of the Kentucky Conference and 
great interest was exhibited for extending the 
work in the mountains of Kentucky. 

At the close of the next fiscal year, ending 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 99 

March, 1892, Miss Helm writes: "The places to 
which grants and loans were made for parsonages 
were scattered over fourteen states and territories 
this year, and the work of the Central Committee 
was highly commended by the Board of Church 
Extension. The Central Committee and the Con 
ferences and auxiliaries together helped one hun 
dred and thirty-five parsonages (more than two 
and one-half a week), to the amount of more than 
$14,000. This far exceeds our report in any pre 
vious year in this department of the work. Dur 
ing these six years since the organization of the 
woman s society more parsonages have been built 
than in all the first fifty years of Methodism. Not 
only have homes been provided, but boxes of sup 
plies and personal gifts been sent to supplement 
meager salaries." 

In speaking of the publications of the society 
for the year, she says: " More than fifty thousand 
excellent leaflets have been sent out by our editor, 
and the paper which is the official organ of the 
society, Our Homes^ the first number of which 
appeared in January of this year, has already been 
put upon a paying basis." 

The subject of the evangelization of the moun 
tain people of Kentucky attracted much attention 
at the meeting of the Central Committee, and we 
determined during this coming year to endeavor to 
raise funds for a mission in those mountains to be 
known as the " Sue Bennett Memorial." Miss 



IOO LUCINDA B. HELM. 

Sue Bennett, as Secretary of the Kentucky Con 
ference Society, was planning the mission when 
our Father called her home. Miss Belle Bennett 
subscribed to this mission $500. 

Miss Helm adds, in regard to the large fields of 
work before the society: "In viewing the work 
that has been accomplished we should consider the 
great field of labor in our large cities calling for 
the zeal and patience of consecrated Christian 
workers. We should have in all our cities trained 
Bible women, and, also, industrial schools with mod 
ern plans for Christian workers among neglected 
children." 

The next year her seventh annual report shows 
a decided if not a great advance. The increase 
of dues amounted to $936, and the grand total of 
funds raised by the entire society for all purposes 
showed an increase over the preceding year of 
$14,183.69. 

Experience each year demonstrated the fact that 
the amount given to help parsonages stimulated the 
people so helped to raise themselves double the 
amount granted them by the society. As an illus 
tration of this, one woman in the Northwest writes: 
66 In giving the subject much thought I have con 
cluded that the Woman s Parsonage and Home 
Mission Society gives us the easiest and most com 
plete solution of the question: < How can we be 
come self-sustaining? In our work on Oakland 
Circuit the $200 granted us by the Central Com- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. IOI 

mittee has enabled us to raise a $600 subscription 
for building, and we will have, when finished, a 
beautiful little home worth $1,000. Yet without 
aid from the society we could not have done any 
thing, but through the help and inspiration of the 
society our subscription has come not only from 
our own people but from others outside." 

Notwithstanding the phenomenal success of the 
work, Miss Helm sometimes received very discour 
aging letters from the brethren, written in a fault 
finding and dictatorial spirit; but she bore this with 
an extraordinary Christian grace. Upon one of 
these occasions she wrote to the President, Mrs. 
Wiley : " The brethren do not understand. They 
do not want us to help them, but I feel the Church 
is losing vantage-ground for lack of parsonages, 
and that hurts me. We must help them." Never 
was there a plea made to her from a homeless 
preacher s wife that failed to bring her to her closet 
in prayer, and prayer invariably reassured her and 
unburdened her trusting heart. 

At one time she accompanied Mrs. Burdette to 
a meeting of the Kentucky Conference, and upon 
their arrival appearances indicated a complete 
failure. There were but seven or eight women 
present. She said, after viewing the situation: 
"Let us go tell Jesus all about it, and get his 
help." She arose from her knees strengthened 
and encouraged. Like a little child whose troubles 
are instantly forgotten by a parent s caress, her 



IO2 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

spirit was reassured and rejoicing after coming, if 
only for a moment, into her Heavenly Father s 
presence. They went to work urging the women 
to attend the meeting. They talked and planned 
and prayed until after two o clock that night, and 
the next day they had a large audience. She 
wottld surmount obstacles and overcome difficul 
ties. 

In her seventh annual report she says concern 
ing the work specified under the head of " Home 
Missions:" This year our school in the moun 
tains of Kentucky has become a fact. Seven 
thousand five hundred dollars has been raised in 
the Kentucky Conference for the school, a beau 
tiful site donated, and the work of building will 
soon begin. It is to be an educational base 
from which our trained workers may go out as 
teachers among the poor and those without God 
through the mountain districts. We need also to 
undertake as a branch of our work Methodist 
missions in the evangelization of our cities. We 
should, as women of the Church, stop scattering 
our forces in little detachments here and there 
and serving as volunteers in the forces of other 
Churches or philanthropies, and firmly unite and 
cooperate with our pastors, going forward under 
the authority of our own beloved Church to do 
this great work." 

In this seventh year was held the first conven 
tion of the Parsonage and Home Mission Society. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. lC>5 

It convened at St. Louis, in St. John s Church, 
May 9, 1893, and lasted two days and evenings, 
Bishop Hargrove presiding. This convention was 
to be the test of how the organization would be 
received by the Church, and Miss Helm worked 
and prayed earnestly for its success. Those who 
had promised to take part in the program failed 
her at the last, and, in her own words, she "threw 
the whole matter over on God and trusted him for 
its success." Bishop Duncan made an address the 
first evening, showing the benefits accruing to the 
Church from good parsonages. Bishop Fitzgerald 
spoke, and awakened much interest in a mission 
for the Cubans. Dr. Allen, of China, spoke in 
the afternoon, showing how the work done in this 
country for the salvation of souls encouraged mis 
sionaries in foreign lands. Dr. Walter Lambuth 
awakened intense interest by his address on " City 
Evangelization." When Miss Helm saw the con 
tinued interest manifested all through the crowded 
house, and heard the charming words of these 
men and Dr. Mathews, Dr. Messick, and others 
heartily endorsing the Woman s Parsonage and 
Home Mission Society, she arose, and, although 
ever shrinking from public gaze, forgot herself, 
forgot her labors of mind and body. Her weak 
voice grew strong, her face lit up, and, as in ele 
gant English the words flowed from her lips, many 
present felt that the Spirit of God was upon her, 
and loud "Amens" were heard all over the room. 



IO6 TJtfCINDA B. HELM. 

With rising votes the women determined to unite 
all their local societies in the future under this 
connectional organization, and make a force 
strong enough to plan largely for Christ in the 
cities within the bounds of the Methodist Episco 
pal Church, South. It was a most successful 
convention from beginning to end, and the origi 
nator of it all said at the close, with beaming eyes: 
" God has answered our prayers. Our conven 
tion is a great success." It marked an epoch in 
the history of the society. 

Although this seventh year was largely in ad 
vance of any preceding one in the history of the 
society, Miss Helm s family and friends saw plain 
ly that the extreme pressure on her of editing with 
out assistance the paper, and doing the work and 
extensive correspondence of General Secretary 
besides, was fast breaking down her delicate con 
stitution, and could not possibly continue much 
longer. She told us one day how she had to be 
carried to her sister s home, and was so ill for a 
time that no one thought she could possibly recov 
er, yet she herself was confident that was not to be 
the end. " Well, for the sake of the work," we 
said, "if for no other consideration, will you not 
give up a part of it? " "If Mrs. Nathan Scarritt 
will be General Secretary," she replied, "I will 
resign; but I do not want any one else, and I 
know my Father is not going to take me home un 
til that place , as well as some others , is properly filled . 



HER LIFE A^D WORK. IO7 

Mrs. Scarritt, having the matter repeatedly put 
before her by Miss Helm, was finally induced to ac 
cept the office of General Secretary, which she did 
at a called meeting of the Central Committee Octo 
ber n, 1893. As Miss Helm retired from office she 
closed her annual report with the following words: 
" Without a dissenting voice the choice of the 
Central Committee, and the society at large as far 
as could be heard from, was Mrs. Nathan Scarritt 
as General Secretary upon our resignation. We 
give this part of our work into the hands of anoth 
er as a mother trusts her child to the guidance of 
another with clinging love but intense gratitude to 
God for preparing one so worthy to take charge 
of it. She is preeminently fitted to carry out the 
aims of the society, to inspire the women of the 
Church we love with a deeper love for souls and a 
vital interest in the salvation of our country. God 
be with you all ! " 



CHAPTER VI. 

FULL DEVELOPMENT OF THK WORK. 

"There is nothing so singular in life as this: that every opposi 
tion appears to lose its siibstance when one actually grapples ivith 
it."Haivthorne. 

AS the result of the persistent and determined 
efforts of Miss Helm and her coworkers year 
after year this great home mission organization 
is to-day one of the most potent factors for the 
extension of the kingdom of God in the entire 
Church. She saw with prophetic vision five 
years ago, when she resigned as General Secreta 
ry, the entire structure as it now stands, and real 
ized that it would require the incarnation of other 
lives besides her own to bring it to its fullest pro 
portions. She therefore rendered unremitting as 
sistance to the workers in their various fields while 
she poured the strength of her remaining life into 
her paper, which proved to be a constant stimulus 
in the advance of the work. The society is now 
firmly established, and with a membership of 
twenty thousand is doing much to help the needy 
and sorrowing in our South and West land. The 
day of beginnings is past, and plans are being de 
vised for extensive work in the future. In the 
place of one peerless woman standing alone ready to 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 109 

offer her life for this cause there are now hundreds 
of women giving their time, talents, and means for 
its advancement. 

The educational department is established on a 
firm basis. A magnificent school-building at 
London, Ky., for mountain boys and girls has been 
recently finished, and the property is valued at $20,- 
ooo. The society also owns a handsome school- 
building at Tampa, Fla., for Cubans, worth $7,000; 
an industrial school and home for orphans at 
Greeneville, Tenn., valued at $7,000; and a rescue 
home at Dallas, Tex., which when finished will 
be worth $15,000. The Sue Bennett Memorial 
School, at London, Ky., is, although in its infan 
cy, one of the leading institutions in the entire 
mountain region of Kentucky. This specific work 
was inaugurated chiefly through the efforts of Miss 
Sue Bennett; and, that her memory might be re 
vered by those benefited in the institution, it was 
named after her. 

The Superintendent of Mountain Work, Miss 
Belle Bennett, who is now also President of the 
society, says in regard to this school: " In Febru 
ary, 1896, the Board of Managers appointed by 
the Central Committee for the projected training- 
school at London, Ky., had a called meeting and 
ordered the work of building to begin. A splen 
did site, with twenty-two acres of land for campus, 
was purchased, and on June 25 the corner-stone 
was laid by Bishop E. R. Hendrix in the presence 



IIO LUCINDA B. HELM. 

of a large assemblage of deeply interested people. 
The work was pushed forward until late in the fall, 
with the hope of completing the building in time 
for occupancy in January, 1897. But the strin 
gency of the times rendering this impossible, it was 
decided early in December to open the school in 
the old school-building of the town. Prof. J. C. 
Lewis, recently of Ogden College, was chosen 
Principal. On January 5, 1897, with a faculty of 
three teachers, the school was opened with nearly 
one hundred pupils in attendance. The number 
continued to increase until a fourth teacher became 
a necessity. Nearly or quite one-third of the stu 
dents are public school teachers representing five 
or six of the mountain counties. These young men 
and women in their little schools in the future will 
come in contact with the people whom, up to this 
time, the Church has practically failed to reach. 
A special normal course will be given during the 
months of April and May. God has opened in 
this school a wide and effectual door through 
which the gospel of redemption may be preached 
to a much-neglected people." The large building 
has recently been finished, and the school is in 
operation there. It was a source of great disap 
pointment to Miss Helm that she was prevented 
from being present at the dedication of this build 
ing. In a letter, written in September, 1897, to Mrs. 
Sawyer she said: "That school has always been 
so close to my heart ? and it is a comfort inexpress- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. Ill 

ible to see it complete and a success before I go 
my way." 

The Industrial Home and School, at Greeneville, 
Tenn., was opened in August, 1896, and is under 
the auspices of the Woman s Parsonage and Home 
Mission Society of the Holston Conference. It 
owes its existence and success largely to the inde 
fatigable and enthusiastic leadership and labors of 
our former President, Mrs. E. E. Wiley. 

The property, consisting of a handsome new 
building of thirteen rooms and about sixty acres 
of land, was bought for $7,000. The farm pro 
duces supplies for table and stock. Four superior 
Christian women have the house in charge, in 
cluding the care and education of the children, 
who are taken from the ages of eighteen months 
to nine years. 

Mrs. Wiley writes concerning it: "Ours is not 
an institution. It is a home in all its ap 
pointments. The children have forgotten that 
they were poor and friendless. They sit at the 
table and are served as our own children. There 
will be no difference between this home and the 
best to which we shall commit them later. De 
mands for our children are coming in, and we 
shall put some in homes we select. Ten have al 
ready been put into good homes, and the names of 
thirty children are now enrolled. The girls are 
taught to sew, cook, and keep house generally. 
The boys do all outside work on the farm, and in- 



112 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

side work when needed. The larger children at 
tend church and are trying to be honest, earnest 
Christians. The outlook on the whole is good. 
Most of the children are easily led and quick to 
learn. We have no salaried women, maid or mis 
tress. All service is freely given in this home. 
The plan first agreed upon we have decided to 
change somewhat. There is great need for a 
school for girls from twelve to eighteen years old 
in our mountain population. They should be 
taught how the other half lives, and so from 
this plant we hope to establish helping schools for 
the mothers and daughters hid away among the 
hills. This can be done with but little outlay of 
money if wisely managed, and the talents needed 
are rusting in our cultured homes. Prayer, faith, 
work, and hard sense will remove the mountains 
for us." 

These are the beginnings of the work of this or 
ganization for the mountain people. The hope is 
to assist the Church to establish in the years to 
come educational centers in the entire southeastern 
mountain territory. There is no nobler work un 
dertaken by the Church anywhere than the open 
ing of civilization to these hungry-hearted moun 
tain people. Some important and interesting facts 
regarding them and the section of country in which 
they live are given in an article by our President, 
Miss Belle Bennett, from which we quote the fol 
lowing: 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 



Scientists tell us that heredity and environ 
ment are the master influences of the organic 
world; that these have made all of us what we 
are, and that these remain the great natural forces 
which shape our lives. Accepting this as true, 
let us look for a moment at the people and condi 
tions of life in these mountain parts of our country, 
and learn, if we can, what it is that makes this 
mission ground, and places a peculiar obligation 
upon every individual Christian and conscientious 
citizen. 

" In the last few years several learned gentle 
men have written voluminously to prove that these 
people who now live in the southeastern portion of 
Kentucky, in those counties that are distinctively 
mountainous, and also in that part of West Vir 
ginia immediately bordering on them, are not a 
people having the same ancestry and the same 
blood as those who live in the blue-grass region 
of Kentucky and in the Shenandoah Valley of 
Virginia. These gentlemen prove quite conclu 
sively to themselves that these poor mountain 
whites, as they are called, are the descendants 
of that destitute and semi-criminal class who were 
sold into service to pay their fines and the cost of 
their transportation into the colonies; or, so many 
of their names beginning with Me., they get their 
descent direct from the Scotch-Irish element that 
located in the Blue Ridge counties, moving back 
as the number of negro slaves increased and the 



Il6 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

country developed. We who lived in the more 
favored sections of these two states, under the 
very shadows of the mountain peaks, know the 
fallacy of these theories. It is true that the rigid 
caste system which slavery always engenders be 
tween the slave-holder and the non-slave-holder 
had its effect in driving back into the mountains 
many who, through poverty or for conscience 
sake, belonged to the latter class; but Kentucky 
was never a large slave-holding state, and to the 
present day her foreign-born population and the 
number of her citizens whose parents were for 
eign born is significantly small. These people 
have the same ancestry and the same inheritance 
as w r e. Surrounded by the same conditions of 
life, they would be the same people. Or let me 
reverse the picture. Take from us, or from you, 
in whatever section of the country you may live, 
the churches, the schoolhouses, and the good 
roads which make contact with your neighbors 
and the outside commercial world possible, for 
one hundred years, and think, if you can, what 
the result would be. Three generations of pover 
ty, isolation, and neglect have left them where we 
find them to-day dwarfed physically, mentally, 
and morally; their homes the same rude one or two 
roomed log cabins, lighted by the open door, that 
the early settlers found sufficient for their meager 
and temporary wants; large families of men and 
women, girls and boys, living in a single room. 



ttER LIFE AND WORK. 

In summer the little garden patch, which the wom 
en have made, some bacon, and occasionally a little 
fish or game, if the men about the place are not 
too shiftless and the river is nigh, make a full 
larder. In winter generally bacon, some lard, 
sodden corn bread, varied by a nondescript thing 
which they call biscuit, made from the heavy, 
black flour that has been ground in the old water- 
mills, some coffee sweetened with honey, sorghum, 
or no sweet nin , the ever-present * chaw of to 
bacco, and that scourge of the mountain, moon 
shine whisky, supply the cravings of the inner 
man. What shall I say of the household furni 
ture? Perhaps it were better left unsaid, as it 
rarely consists of more than a bench, a rickety ta 
ble, a chair or stool, and some beds. 

" In calling your attention to these facts I would 
not have you understand that all, or even a large 
majority, of the people in these mountains have 
suffered such degeneration or live as I have de 
scribed. Far from it. Possibly one-half of what 
are called the mountain counties on both the Vir 
ginia and Kentucky sides of the Cumberland 
range have made a wonderful advance movement 
in the last fifteen or twenty years. Good roads, 
churches, and schoolhouses have been built, vil 
lages and towns have sprung up, or increased their 
population and business until even the back coun 
ties are beginning to be aroused from their leth 
argy, and to feel the tremor of an impending 



LUCINDA B. HELM. 



change. Always, even in the darkest and most 
inaccessible parts of this large section of country, 
in the county-seats, and scattered here and there 
throughout the counties, there have been some 
men and women of strong intellect and character. 
They have made comfortable homes, good estates, 
sent their children away to school, and held an 
acknowledged leadership in politics and business; 
also in the barbarous feuds that have terrorized 
whole regions of country. 

"The Methodist circuit-rider has had his ap 
pointments among this people for three-quarters of 
a century, working under untold difficulties, but 
sowing the seed some on stony ground, some 
among thorns, and some, thank God! in good 
ground but the rocky ground has been the 
largest part of this harvest-field. The stubble of 
revival fires is always burning, but the great mass 
of the people still remain unchanged. Along the 
heads of the rivers, in the coves and narrow val 
leys, one-half the people can not read. The Holy 
Scriptures are as an unknown tongue. The Prim 
itive, or Hard-Shell, Baptist is the ruling denom 
ination, and in one county their leaders preached 
for seventy years without a church-house. 

" Within the last ten or fifteen years the public 
school system is beginning to make itself felt in 
these mountain wilds, and the members of the 
Parsonage and Home Mission Society who have 
been appointed to investigate, or who by reason of 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 1 19 

lifelong proximity are familiar with the conditions 
and needs of this section of country, believe that a 
wise and Christian use of this great governmental 
force is the best and surest channel through which 
to civilize and redeem this neglected people. Each 
of the different states through which this mountain 
chain extends annually spends from one to two 
millions of dollars on its public schools. By re 
cent enactments some of them have made it possi 
ble for the school commissioners to put a special 
tax on each district to build and furnish the school- 
house. These mountain people, even in the dark 
est localities, are by no means oblivious to the po 
tent influence of money, and the brightest boys 
and girls, the most influential families, want to se 
cure the salary paid to the district school teacher. 
In the thirty-two mountain counties of Kentucky 
alone there are two hundred district schools. In 
very many districts of the interior counties the lo 
cal surroundings are such that only the native-born 
teacher can fill the place. Of course they are to 
tally unqualified, and the rude people whose chil 
dren they are supposed to teach recognize that a 
fraud is being perpetrated on them. A sufficient 
awakening to this condition of things has taken 
place to make a change possible, and to prove a 
golden opportunity to the Church if she will but 
seize it. The mountains are demanding better 
schools; the teachers, many of them, earnestly de 
sire to be better qualified to hold their positions. 



120 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

"The states do not furnish training-schools for 
these teachers, and if they did, in some of the 
large towns or cities the poverty, want of proper 
clothing, and fierce pride engendered by lifelong 
seclusion, would prove an insuperable barrier to 
these mountain folk. To evangelize and educate 
them, Christian people must establish high-grade 
schools in some of the principal towns or county- 
seats, adding, where possible, a few industrial 
features, and seeing to it that the teachers are 
well-equipped, progressive teachers, and earnest 
Christian men and women, who can put their spir 
it, the Spirit of Christ, into these young teachers, 
who, going back to their respective homes, can 
have through the district schools opportunity to 
come into personal contact with every child and 
every household in the mountains. Let the houses 
in which these high-grade schools are taught 
their furnishings, their surroundings be object- 
lessons to the students, arousing in them the desire 
for better things, and creating a dissatisfaction 
with the old home life. 

" Believing this to be the most effective way in 
which we can work, as a mission board, our soci 
ety has established a school of this kind in Lon 
don, Ky., the people of the town and the women 
of the Kentucky Conference furnishing the money 
for grounds and buildings, the same to be given in 
fee simple to the society, which is to maintain and 
control the school. Other points in this mountain 




THE SUE BENNETT MEMORIAL SCHOOL, LONDON, KY. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 

range are pleading for the privilege of obtaining 
schools on the same terms, and urging that they 
will be entirely self-supporting in a few years. 
Our Church needs nothing so much as a united 
advance along all educational lines. These schools 
ought to be established, and with the cooperation 
of the Board of Education, correlated with such 
Conference institutions as it may direct. With a 
membership of 1,300,000, 900,000 of whom are 
women and girls, the Southern Methodist Church 
ought to do this work, and do it now. Our society 
is young and its collections small. Money we must 
have ; and if the Church could be aroused to its 
opportunity and to its duty, this would be poured 
into our treasury until we would not have room 
enough to contain it." 

Another important educational feature of this 
society is our work for the Cubans, who have 
come by the thousands from the island of Cuba to 
make their homes in an atmosphere free from op 
pression. At the second annual convention of 
the Woman s Parsonage and Home Missionary 
Society, which met at Nashville in October, 1894, 
Dr. Walter Lambuth gave, by request, an account 
of the conditions and needs of Cuba, and spoke 
of our mission as a Church to these neglected 
people. The soil had been prepared for this 
Cuban work several years previous by Dr. Pal- 
more, Bishop Fitzgerald, and others, and so great 
was the interest awakened at the time of this con- 



124 LUCINDA B. HELIV*. 

vention that the ladies decided, in behalf of the 
Parsonage and Home Missionary Society, to un 
dertake mission work among them at once. One 
thousand dollars was proposed to be raised by the 
pledging of one hundred , $10 shares. Within 
fifteen minutes more than thirty shares were prom 
ised, and the remainder was raised later on for the 
establishment of two Cuban schools at Tampa, 
Fla. The superintendency of the work was then 
entrusted to Mrs. M. A. Wolff, of. St. Louis, a 
wealthy and consecrated woman, whose daily 
prayers for years had been for the salvation of 
these oppressed people. 

In a small way, the work was begun the very 
next month, and a mission school opened at Ybor 
City, Tampa. Mrs. Wolff rented a building, and, 
by personal outlay of $200, fitted it for occu 
pancy, and two teachers who spoke Spanish were 
employed. 

The second mission school was opened at Cuba 
City, a suburb of Tampa, in December, 1894, * n 
the home of two Spanish women from Key West, 
Mrs. Rosa and Miss Emelina Valdes. They are 
earnest Christians, members of the Methodist Epis 
copal Church, South, and have taken the entire 
supervision of the school from the beginning. 

One hundred and fifty children of Spanish de 
scent were enrolled in the two schools the first 
year, and a gracious work accomplished. 

The American Bible Society donated $25 worth 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 125 

of Spanish and English Bibles, and the children 
were taught to read, and many of them to do ex 
cellent needlework, and other industries. 

The second year of the work the corner-stone 
of a new and commodious building was laid at 
Ybor City. This building, valued at $7,000, is 
known as the Wolff Boarding-School. It is now 
well equipped in every department, kindergarten 
and industrial work being carried on, besides the 
teaching of the English branches of learning. 

Cuban parents who send to these mission schools 
realize their extraordinary advantages, and, as a 
rule, the children manifest much interest in their 
studies and make rapid progress. 

Mrs. Wolff has traveled extensively through 
Florida, organizing Parsonage and Home Mission 
Societies and Epworth Leagues, and endeavoring 
to enlist the young people of Florida in work for 
the conversion of the Cubans. She has also had 
the supervision of the two schools until, in April, 
1897, on account of protracted illness, she asked 
to be relieved of her duties for a time, and Miss 
Mary W. Bruce, formerly missionary to Brazil, 
was put in charge of the Cuban Mission schools. 

There are eighty-nine names enrolled in the 
elementary and grammar departments of the Wolff 
Mission School, and thirty-five in the kindergarten 
department. The same pupils attend Sunday- 
school at the mission church in that place. There 
are one hundred pupils enrolled at the school in 



126 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

Cuba City, with an average attendance of seventy. 
The devotional exercises are conducted by the 
oldest pupils, who are showing great interest in 
the study of the Scriptures. There are Juvenile 
and Adult Parsonage and Home Mission Societies, 
and the Cubans are being taught to go out and do 
home mission work. 

Mr. and Mrs. Valdes have donated a valuable 
lot for the building of a new chapel and school 
room at West Tampa, which they have deeded to 
the Woman s Parsonage and Home Mission So 
ciety. 

The greatest need in our Cuban work to-day is 
better accommodations for the boys. Miss Bruce 
is making appeals for this; and if the Church will 
respond, a grand work may be accomplished. 

There are one hundred and twenty cigar-facto 
ries in West Tampa and Ybor City alone, and 
many young boys are at work in these. 

What an opportunity this need affords for some 
able man or woman or society to assume the sup 
port of a Cuban school for boys ! In the words of 
Rev. George B. Winton, missionary to Mexico, 
" the present need of the Cubans is the Church s 
opportunity." The impression which a little sym 
pathy and help will make now on the hearts of 
these exiles can hardly be overestimated. Every 
child educated or fed or clothed will become, in a 
sense, a missionary. Every family administered 
to will give us a center of future operations, and 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 127 

the doors of their homes will ever swing open to 
the preaching of the gospel. It is a time for sub 
stantial, material help the help of practical Chris 
tianity. The American missionary will be to the 
Cubans the representative of a people whom they 
already love, for the great heart of a people strug 
gling for freedom has felt the answering heart 
throb of another great nation rejoicing in freedom. 

For twenty-five years we have been in Mexico, 
training men, translating books, printing tracts 
and periodicals, and acquiring experience. All 
this is now available. We tried to enter Venezuela, 
but the time was not ripe. It was too far 
away, and supervision too costly. Now Cuba is 
ready to be the bridge to Venezuela, to Central 
America, and all Spanish America and if any 
part of America is our heritage as a Church, it is 
Spanish America. If it is possible for a Church 
to be effectually called, then this is our calling. 

The latest educational enterprise of the Woman s 
Parsonage and Home Mission Society is the estab 
lishment of schools in California for the Chinese 
and Japanese. This work was begun in 1896, chief 
ly through the solicitations of our enterprising Gen 
eral Secretary, Mrs. R. K. Hargrove. In making 
a tour that year, and also in 1897, through the 
West with Bishop Hargrove as he had charge of 
the Western Conferences they had opportunities 
to study the field. Two night-schools were opened 
at Salinas and Oakland. Since, another has been 



128 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

opened at Stockton, and work is being planned for a 
school at Sacramento and other points. The Central 
Committee has determined to labor for these foreign 
ers through night-schools and Sunday-schools, and 
group these together to be known as the Chinese 
and Japanese Department of the Parsonage and 
Home Mission Society. Rev. H. M. McKnight, 
the superintendent of the work, writes: "Noth 
ing in Salinas so interested the District Confer 
ence in 1896 as our mission school there. Our 
Chinese attended all the sessions as interested 
spectators. They sang and never let a collection 
pass unheeded. They held a street meeting in 
Chinatown, read the Scriptures in concert, prayed 
in their native tongue, sang in choruses," etc. A 
great work is before this society in the redemp 
tion of these foreigners for Christ. 

Besides the educational department of this 
great organization, very successful work has been 
done in the way of city evangelization. In Dallas, 
Tex., an institution is supported which has been 
doing a noble work for fallen women. Funds 
are now r being raised to complete a large building. 
The Treasurer writes: "This structure is mag 
nificent in architectural design and proportion, and 
ere long we shall have a house of mercy for the 
oppressed and erring of which our Church and 
even the state of Texas may be proud. The con 
struction and maintenance of it has been under 
taken jointly by the North Texas, Northwest 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 

Texas, and East Texas Conferences of the Wom 
an s Parsonage and Home Mission Society." 
Only last year sixty girls were rescued there, 
thirty-two of whom were converted. They have in 
connection with the Rescue Home an industrial 
school and kindergarten for street waifs. Anoth 
er large Rescue Home, under the auspices of this 
society, is located at San Antonio, Tex., and is 
doing a good work. A Door of Hope was estab 
lished four years ago at Nashville, Tenn., through 
the efforts of two city missionaries employed by 
the society, Misses Emma and Tina Tucker. 
Other city missionaries are employed at Nashville, 
Tenn.; Macon, Ga. ; New Orleans, La.; St. 
Louis, Mo. ; and other places. These missiona 
ries give their entire time to visiting jails, hospitals, 
and other charitable institutions, conducting Bible- 
readings, and, wherever practicable, establishing 
industrial and kindergarten schools. 

Besides these various departments of home mis 
sionary work in successful operation at this date, 
the society has not neglected the work of building 
and assisting parsonages. During the year 1897 
the amount loaned and donated by the Central 
Committee and the individual Conferences to 
gether was $16,621.81. In a letter received from 
the late Dr. David Morton, February 24, 1898, he 
says: "The showing of your work for the Church, 
in the matter of assisting parsonages, is certainly 
fine." 



132 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

During the last quadrennium twice as many 
have been aided as during the previous eight 
years, and since the beginning of this woman s 
organization assistance has been rendered to this 
department to the amount of between $30,000 
and $40,000. 

The outlook for this society is great. But if 
we would realize in the future our highest aim 
and become, as our President says, " a vital force 
in the redemption of the world," we must arouse 
and gain the cooperation of that great body of 
women who call themselves Methodists and have 
taken the vows of the Church at her altars. If 
every one of the nine hundred thousand women of 
Southern Methodism were an intelligent and active 
member of this organization, not only America 
but the uttermost parts of the earth would see a 
great light in darkness, and we might look for the 
speedy coming of " new heavens and a new earth, 
wherein dwelleth righteousness." 

At the annual convention of the society which 
met at Little Rock, Ark., in 1896, many testimo 
nials of love and appreciation were given to the 
beloved founder of the Woman s Parsonage and 
Home Mission Society. A beautiful address was 
made in presenting the matter of raising a Named 
Loan Lund in her honor by the payment of $1,000. 
Pledges were immediately given in response to the 
amount of over $700. Throughout the Church, 
East, South, and West, the strongest and best 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 133 

women and men in it had learned to know and 
love her, and it filled her heart with gratitude and 
sweet humility. 

Thousands now echoed the sentiment of Dr. 
David Morton s tribute to her: " When American 
Methodism begins to scan the records and monu 
ments of the present century as curiously as we 
are now scanning those of the century of Barbara 
Heck and Madame Russell, not less conspicuous 
among the names of the elect women who have 
not only wrought well themselves but have exhib 
ited the rarer grace of leadership, marshaling 
armies of consecrated women to peaceful victory, 
will be that of the indefatigable Kentucky woman 
whose name is now loved and honored throughout 
the entire Church." 



CHAPTER VII. 

EDITORIAL WORK. 

"How shall I do to love! Believe. Ho-v shall 1 do to believe? 
Love" Leighton. 

SOME of the ripest work of Miss Helm s fer 
tile brain was done through the paper she 
edited during the last six years of her life. She 
undertook the publishing of this paper in January, 
1892, soon after the formation of the Woman s 
Parsonage and Home Mission Society, and this 
was one feature of the enterprise that elicited 
much criticism. There was no money in the 
treasury for it, and many insisted that the organi 
zation was not large enough to sustain a paper. 
She felt confident, however, that it would add to 
the interest and extension of the work, and at a 
meeting of the Central Committee in September, 
1891, the decision was made and she took meas 
ures to arrange for its publication. 

She came to Nashville and spent a number of 
days with Mrs. Harriet- C. Hargrove and myself 
while she made arrangements at the Methodist 
Publishing House, and formulated her plans for 
the first issue of the paper. I remarked to her 
one day, as we were talking the matter over, that 
I did not like the title she proposed giving the pa 
per, Our Homes, and suggested in its stead " Our 



tiER LIFE AND WORK. 135 

Home Missions" or " Home Missions." She re 
plied: " No, it is the homes of our country I have 
been working for from the beginning; first it was 
homes for our preachers, and now not only for 
them but for the homeless, friendless, Christless, 
thousands everywhere, and I want even the title of 
my little messenger to bring that thought, the 
thouo-ht of home to the front." She decided to 

o 

make her paper an eight-page quarterly, the sub 
scription price to be twenty-five cents yearly. 
Upon her return to Louisville she prepared the 
first issue at the home of Mrs. George P. Ken- 
drick, that friend rendering her practical assist 
ance although the contributions and selections 
were made entirely by herself. Three years later, 
in order to be near the Publishing House, she 
made Nashville her permanent home. In her in 
troductory paper she says with her characteristic 
humility and sweetness of spirit: " Not as the as 
trologers of old seeking prophetic signs in the sky 
among the stars, but striving as the Master said, 
to discern the signs of the times, we come into 
the world of papers only to do the duty circum 
stances have made apparent. Ours is the first 
paper, so far as we know, printed by our Church 
in the interest of what we term " home mis 
sions," true home missions, we beg it to be un 
derstood, that do not hinder but rather build a 
stronger foundation under foreign missions, by 
removing that rock of offense to heathen lands: 



LUCINDA B. HELM. 



a disbelieving, unjust nation back of the mis 
sionaries sent to them. We would in our hum 
ble way encourage a deeper, tenderer love for sin 
ners by stressing personal effort in the salvation 
of souls. We hope also, by serving as a means of 
intercommunication, to unite the work our women 
are doing at home; to systematize, concentrate, 
and develop it. The method and system of our 
efforts will be plain to those who will read our col 
umns. Trusting we may ever show the spirit of 
the Master, we ask to be received in his name." 

In this first issue she gives an article on " Per 
sonal Christian Work," quoting as an introduc 
tion the following scripture: " He first findeth his 
own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have 
found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, 
the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus." 
Thus in her first paper she gave the keynote ac 
cording to her gamut of truth, for successful mis 
sion work, and she kept to the original theme 
when her pen made its last stroke. 

Her financial management of the paper was such 
that within six months of the time it was determined 
upon to have a paper it was put upon a paying ba 
sis. This very unusual occurrence proved but 
another illustration of her practical wisdom and 
economy. She never allowed herself or her work 
to accumulate debts, and her record is clear from 
beginning to end a record of faith, love, the sur 
mounting of difficulties, and final success. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 137 

She so arranged her paper as to accomplish a 
threefold mission: First, to represent the various 
departments of work carried on by the Woman s 
Parsonage and Home Mission Society as they pro 
gressed from month to month, including reports 
from the different Conferences relating to their in 
dividual work ; secondly, she culled from other pa 
pers and books of a high grade material along the 
line of home mission work which proved interesting 
and stimulating; thirdly, she gave her own editorial 
articles, which showed her to be abreast with the 
times, and far-sighted in her views of the problems 
of our country and how to meet them. From the 
first issue of her paper she alloted a space to the 
children. It is a matter of remark that during all 
her busy life she was ever mindful of children and 
invalids, and sought their cooperation in her work. 
The same spirit that showed itself away back in 
her childhood in the care of insignificant things 
that were neglected by others, made her a friend 
to the helpless in her ripe womanhood. She fre 
quently wrote the beautiful little stories for the 
children s department of her paper. In recogni 
tion of help given by children she never failed 
to give their reports. In speaking of assistance 
rendered by invalids she says in the April number 
of 1894: "When our Parsonage and Home Mis 
sion Society began its work, those who first came 
to its aid were our dear shut-in ones, and with the 
contributions sent by them we were able to give 



13 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

shelter to a number of our homeless brethren." 
In the Christmas number (1892) of her paper (the 
fourth issue) she gives an exquisite scrap of solace 
to homeless hearts. She says: 

" It may be that this little Christmas sheet will 
come under the eye of one in whose life even at 
this time when all make merry there comes no 
gladness. A heavy burden lies upon your soul 
this day, while memory s tears fill your eyes, and 
thoughts of the home of your childhood stir your 
heart and its ever-restless beating is a sad, sad 
prayer for peace. This day peace shall come to 
you, even you, for 

Restless hearts, God is Peace. 

Weary hearts, weary hearts, by the cares of life 
oppressed, this day you may find sweetest rest, for 
this day in the long ago came One who spoke as 
never man spake: * Come unto me, all ye that are 
weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 

Weary hearts, God is Rest. 

And you broken hearts, so desolate and lone, sit 
ting in the home whence joy is fled, bowed down 
by sorrow, listening to low voices from the past 
that o er your present ruins moan, to you this day 
speaks the Christ who came to bind up the broken 
hearted. Lift up your eyes. Heaven is around 
you, for he is with you. 

Broken hearts, God is Joy. 

No home where loved ones gather! No home 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 139 



where fond memories cluster ! A stranger at the 
banquet board, an alien at the fireside, a wanderer 
upon the street; God help you, homeless one, 
wherever you may be this day ! 

Homeless hearts, homeless hearts, through the dreary, dreary 

years, 
Ye are lonely, lonely wand rers, and your way is wet with 

tears. 

In bright and gladsome places, wheresoever ye may roam, 
Ye look away from earth-land, and ye murmur: Where is 

home; 

Homeless hearts, God is Home." 

In 1893 her paper was issued monthly, begin 
ning with the August number. The subscription- 
price was increased to fifty cents. There is a 
very marked advance shown through the paper 
this year in every line of work carried on by the 
society. Words of kind appreciation were sent 
daily to the editor for the good developed in dif 
ferent places through its agency. Women who had 
hitherto been content with their daily round of du 
ties, and had never thought it possible for them to 
branch out beyond these, were so inspired by read 
ing in its columns what others were doing, that 
the narrow circles of their own lives became wi 
dened, and they enthusiastically engaged in branch 
es of work represented by this connectional enter 
prise. Miss Helm solicited the interest of the 
" King s Daughters " societies (to which she be 
longed, always wearing the little silver cross), the 
Epworth Leagues, and other societies, and began 



140 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

to realize that this loved work of home missions 
in our Church was being recognized by many 
Christian organizations in the country. Exchange 
was made with a number of Northern and Eastern 
missionary publications, until Our Homes had at 
least a bowing acquaintance with many prominent 
workers in the great fields of Christian activity. 
Her bright spirit, even when she was attacked by 
criticism, and her quick, good-humored repartee 
were always refreshing. In an article published 
this year of 1893 in the Richmond Advocate the 
editor says: "Miss Helm, in making appeals 
through her paper for parsonages, now and then 
sends us harrowing accounts of women and chil 
dren, the wives and offspring of Methodist preach 
ers, living in sheds and bitten by hungry winter 
weather on the frontier. In Oklahoma, she says, 
Rev. Mr. Brewer leaves his wife in poor health in 
a tent, and he goes up and down that wild coun 
try preaching. She adds: In that bleak climate 
a delicate woman is in fearful condition without 
roof or shelter. No doubt of it. The next 
specimen is a wife and babes in an old abandoned 
house, little better than a shed, impossible to make 
comfortable in winter. Well, these tales are har 
rowing. Miss Helm s feelings were no doubt 
harrowed before she sent them, but the first in 
stance was given as a direct quotation from a let 
ter written by Dr. John, Secretary of the Board 
of Missions; the second taken from a letter sent 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 14! 

her by Mrs. Bishop Haygood, and I do not doubt 
the statements; but my idea as to how the trouble 
may be prevented is this: There are two or three 
sides to this question. In the name of humanity, 
why do men with a spark of mercy drag a deli 
cate woman and babes to such horrors? No man 
is called of God to be a brute. Go alone. Leave 
a wife under some roof in a Christian community. 
If a man intends to do this mission work, why 
does he hinder his work, disgrace himself, scan 
dalize the decencies of life, by persuading a good 
woman to marry him, and then haul the poor 
thing and her little ones among barbarians, with 
less comforts than a farm cow? When Asbury 
led his band of pioneers in blazing a path for 
Methodism in civilized Virginia and the Caroli- 
nas, only three out of eighty were married men. 
Marriage is a luxury. The advice of old Paul, 
as the sweet spinsters who prance on platforms 
sneeringly call him, seems a back number to the 
modern missionary. The Church needs single 
men. The good cause wanes because Methodism 
can not find a band of brave old bachelors as in 
the heroic age of the Church. There are evils in 
the celibacy of the Romish priesthood, yet men 
give credit for this self-denial. Its origin had 
high motive. There is leak and loss at this point 
in our Church." 

Miss Helm responds to the article as follows: 
" The Doctor is right. That is certainly the alter- 



142 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

native, if our parsonage-building movement is not 
by our ministers encouraged and kept up. The 
Methodist Church, if we understand the matter, 
is not quite ready to accept the Romish priest 
hood. Yet the Church can not step out of the 
forward march of Christianity. It must send the 
gospel, must carry forward the banner of Christ; 
and that * band of brave old bachelors, like many 
another good thing, appears to be altogether ideal 
and not ready for the present practical emergen 
cies. What then? Our Parsonage and Home 
Mission Society must come to the rescue. Its 
existence becomes an absolute necessity, for if 
men and their families must and will go into these 
places to carry the gospel to dying souls at any 
cost, we must help them. It is heroic to suffer 
yourself, but cruel to leave others to suffer, and 
the Doctor does not wish these wives and little 
ones to suffer. We will not mind about the im 
proper individuals who prance/ but at the same 
time appear to be carrying out the Doctor s idea of 
Pauline practise, because if they were so irrever 
ent as to call one of the inspired writers * old Paul 
they deserve to have the Doctor quote them, and 
that is all he does." 

The June number of this year is an extra pub 
lished to give the proceedings of the first conven 
tion, that met in St. Louis. It gives in full several 
addresses made, and is inspiring in its account of 
the phenomenal success of the work. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 143 

In the August number she says: "With this 
number Our Homes begins its monthly series. 
Eighteen months ago it began its existence with 
fear and trembling. It had faith enough, but was 
not sure of its * call. Before the close of the year 
friendly greetings from all quarters had given it 
much assurance. This year began propitiously. 
* Let us have a monthly was the demand from 
every direction. Feeling that it can in no future 
emergency be accused of rashness by the most 
cautious, strengthened by the honest conviction 
that its call was of God and that he will through 
its pages work good to many souls, it will try 
humbly and faithfully to be but an instrument in 
his hands for doing good." 

Words of earnest commendation like the follow 
ing from the Methodist Review of Missions were 
frequently sent to the now successful paper: 
"The St. Louis Convention, held in May, was so 
important that we give space to Miss Helm s re 
port. The Church a Missionary Society, and 
Every Church-Member a Missionary is their 
motto. Who dare be so small as to make invid 
ious comparisons in favor of or against home or 
foreign missions? The Son of man came to 
seek and to save that which is lost. A man may 
be as much lost in New Orleans as in Calcutta, or 
in the Pan Handle of Texas as on the steppes of 
Tartary. Away with the narrow-minded bigotry 
that looks askance at one who attempts to reach 



144 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

down and touch poor submerged women in the 
slums of our cities and canonizes the missionary 
who has lived and worked, perchance, in beauti 
ful Japan or sunny Mexico. Go on, brave wom 
en, until you have beleagured and taken every 
Southern city for Christ and converted every par 
sonage and home into a Christian stronghold." 

Her editorials toward the close of this second 
year are worthy of especial notice. In one of 
them she says: 

"Our Lord said, as he left this world, As 
my Father hath sent me, even so I send you; 
Preach the gospel to every creature. Do not 
let us be alarmed at the word preach. Would 
that so much precious time were not lost discuss 
ing words and privileges ! Preaching does not 
necessarily imply a large audience or a public 
stand. Christ preached one of his most spiritual 
sermons to one woman one sinful w r oman. Ev 
ery Christian man, woman, or child is not only 
free to preach the gospel, but under command to 
see that this gospel is given to every creature with 
in his reach. The knowledge of the way of sal 
vation is the key to the kingdom of heaven. It is 
in your hand. If you refuse to use it to open the 
kingdom to any soul as far as lies in your power, 
you have condemned that soul to death. 

" There is in this prosperous land of ours no town 
so small that you may not find many needing your 
ministration, and there is no city within our bounds 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 145 

so well supplied with earnest Christian workers 
but that there is need for more, need for you. It 
is appalling to think how many thousands are go 
ing down to eternal death within easy walk of our 
doors, while we God help us ! What are we 
doing? Enjoying ourselves! Dancing on the 
graves of the dead, making shrouds into ball- 
dresses ! Serving self as if we did not remember 
there was anything like sin and death in this gay, 
busy world of ours. Yes, ours, we think it is, to 
do with it as we choose. Perhaps it is persecu 
tion we need to purify the Church and arouse us 
to a remembrance of the value of the truth that 
has been committed to our care, or a little review 
of the history of the early Christians who were 
called upon to give their lives for the gospel s 
sake, who risked all their possessions to worship 
Christ, and preferred death to bowing to the false 
gods of this world, standing unmoved before the 
gaudy pageantry of its power. It is true that some 
are not idlers in Zion, some of us have tried faith 
fully to do our duty; but there were grievous ob 
stacles to be overcome, and it is sometimes diffi 
cult to know which way duty lies. Let us take 
counsel together as to how best to succeed in do 
ing this work for our Father and encourage each 
other to persevere, knowing that the truth as it is 
in Christ shall triumph at last. And let us keep 
his words in mind, as we know he was sent to 
suffer, sent to bind up the broken-hearted, sent to 
10 



146 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

preach the gospel to the poor, sent to seek and to 
save the lost. As my father hath sent me, even so 
send I yon. 

In this second year s paper she gives an ac 
count of the Scarritt Bible and Training School 
and much of the work done by the Misses Tucker 
and others employed by our society in city evan 
gelization. She makes frequent and strong ap 
peals for this work to be carried on more vigor 
ously by the society, and gives in the February 
number of 1894, and also in the June number, 
selections from the diary of the Misses Tucker in 
behalf of this work. No outcasts of society could 
become so degraded as not to elicit her pity and 
her help, inasmuch as the Master had reached out 
his hand to save them. In the June issue she 
gives a selection called " Homes for the Fallen," 
from which we copy the following extract: "On 
Thursday night, February 5, a young woman not 
more than thirty years old tottered into a wretched 
restaurant. She was dreadfully emaciated, but 
her delicate features indicated that she had been 
well born. She was poorly clad, but her clothes 
were clean. She dragged herself into the cheap 
restaurant and said to the keeper: John, I am 
cold and hungry; I want a cup of coffee, but I 
have not a cent. All right, you shall have it, 
he said. She sunk into a seat and as the coffee 
was brought drew from her pocket a dried crust 
of bread and tried to bite it. She had not strength. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 

She dipped it in the coffee and took a bite, then put 
the rest in her pocket, after which she stretched 
forth her hand for the coffee ; but it fell, and with a 
little scream she died. In her pocket were some 
Salvation Army leaflets and a card from the Sal 
vation Army on which was written: 

All have sinned 
Look! Unto me, 
Live! Jesus saves. 

This was all, except a piece of paper on which 
were the following lines: 

On the street, on the street; 
To and fro with weary feet; 
Aching heart and aching head; 
Homeless, lacking daily bread; 
Lost to friends and joy and name; 
Sold to sorrow, sin, and shame; 
Wet with rain and chilled by storrq ; 
Ruined, wretched, lone, forlorn; 
Weak and wan with weary feet, 
Still I wander on the street, 

On the street, on the street, 
Whither tend my wand ring feet. 
Love and hope and joy are dead, 
Not a place to lay my head; 
Every door against me sealed. 
Hospital and Potter s field 
These stand open. Wider yet 
Swings perdition s yawning gate ; 
Thither tend my wandering feet. 
On the street, on the street! 

On the street, on the street, 
Might I here a Saviour meet? 



I/J.8 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

From the blessed far-off years 
Comes the storj of her tears 
Whose sad heart with sorrow broke, 
Heard the words of love he spoke, 
Heard him bid her anguish cease, 
Heard him whisper, " Go in peace." 
O that I might kiss his feet, 
On the street, on the street! 

The fathomless agony voiced in these lines gives 
us a hint of what this poor girl suffered, and 
yet we know her suffering is the suffering of tens 
of thousands, while many of us go along without 
the faintest idea of human brotherhood and sister 
hood when appeals are made to save the sinking 
masses." 

During this year of 1894 she received for the 
paper a number of strong articles from several of 
the bishops and other influential men of the 
Church in behalf of the great work carried on by 
the society. In one of these, by Bishop Gran- 
bery, he says, in speaking of the week of prayer 
appointed by the society: "Give ear, preachers 
and people ! A claimant presents herself to whom 
you have given too little time and money. She is 
the Parsonage and Home Mission Society. Have 
you accorded her recognition? Her petition just 
now is that one week, the Week of Prayer, may 
be set apart in all your pastoral charges for the 
benefit of the noble cause she serves. This week 
is to be employed in daily religious meetings, spe 
cial prayer, and cheerful donations. This society 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 149 

is endeavoring to provide a home for every mar 
ried itinerant sent forth to preach the word. Our 
women are doing good in behalf of foreign mis 
sions, but love of the heathen abroad should never 
be a plea for neglect of neighbors and countrymen. 
Preachers in charge, is there a Parsonage and 
Home Mission Society in your station or circuit? 
The Week of Prayer will furnish an excellent op 
portunity to increase its membership. If there be 
none, it will be a good time to supply the lack." 

One paragraph from Bishop Wilson s appeal 
reads: "The Woman s Parsonage and Home 
Mission Society begs a larger hearing from the 
Church. By every token it is entitled to it. Gov 
erned by no selfish motive, looking to no mere local 
interest, it proposes to contribute along its own 
line of endeavor (and that may mean of sacrifice) 
to the furtherance of the one great work of the 
gospel to which the entire Church is committed. 
Men and brethren, ye that fear God and love our 
Lord Jesus Christ, help these women who labor 
with us in the gospel." The paper kept before 
its readers in 1894 the Reading Course, which had 
just been instituted, gave the history and develop 
ment of the various loan funds, the reports and 
addresses of the second annual convention that 
met in Nashville, the new work inaugurated dur 
ing that convention, and other matters of interest. 

In the next year s paper the reports from the 
various Conferences and extracts from letters to 



I5O LUCINDA B. HELM. 

the General Secretary show an increase of work 
along each line. Frequent articles are given from 
the pen of the gifted President, Mrs. E. E. Wiley, 
who created much interest through her pen as 
well as through her earnest addresses in behalf of 
the work. 

In the May number Miss Belle H. Bennett 
writes strongly on "Our Opportunities in the 
Mountains of Kentucky." Miss Helm says, in 
making an appeal for that work in a later issue: 
"The offer of the people of London, Ky., to 
raise $20,000 for site and building for a high- 
grade school, if the Parsonage and Home Mission 
Society will raise an endowment fund of $20,000, 
was presented before the Central Committee by 
Miss Belle Bennett, the ardent friend of our moun 
tain regions. She has studied the situation and 
become more and more impressed with the obliga 
tions resting upon Christians to aid these people 
in surmounting the many natural obstacles to their 
progress. The small endowment of $20,000 should 
be easily raised. The expressed interest of friends 
from every quarter point to early success in secur 
ing this endowment, which will make the school 
self-supporting. All who wish to remedy the neg 
lect of years toward these needy ones in our midst 
should rally at once and act without delay. God 
only can calculate the harvest of souls that may 
be gathered through the agency of this school. 
Pray for it, friends, everywhere, and work for it. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 

The need is imperative that we women of Southern 
Methodism should rally with a God-loving enthu 
siasm to the help of our poor young sisters cut off 
from the opportunities and prosperity of other re 
gions of the South. Our superintendent of the 
mountain work, who is loved and admired by the 
whole Church, is throwing the full force of her 
strong character into this work for the mountain 
people, because she loves and sympathizes with 
them in their sore straits. She has made many 
untold sacrifices for them. We must not close 
our eyes to this much-needed work. Our helpless 
sisters are reaching out their hands to us in mute 
appeal to be lifted out of their ignorance and pov 
erty. How dare we turn our backs upon them? 
Will God forgive us if we do not help them now? 
Delay means that many more shall suffer and be 
lost while we wait for what? God s hand is not 
shortened. It is our feeble, pulseless hands that 
are at fault. Reach them out to save. Lift them 
up to receive. Fill your hearts with love to God 
and man, that divine life may flow through every 
pulse-giving power from on high." 

Surely such strong appeals as this, coming 
through the organ of the society, had much to do 
with the permanent establishment and success of 
that school, and will help to mature plans for rais 
ing the much-needed endowment. 

Besides writing about every department of the 
work, she kept the hearts of her readers turned 



J 5 2 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

toward the ever-living Source of success through 
her editorials. Her earnest heart-cries for the 
home might be heard as an undertone through all 
her writings. She who found her own home in 
doing the will of God had the profoundest sympa 
thy for those who knew no happy shelter they 
could call home. In one of her editorials in the 
July number of 1895 she says: 

"It should be the first mission of every woman 
to win her home for Christ. It is well to under 
take great things for God, but not well to overlook 
the seeming little things that, done for Christ s 
sake, may become greater than we could plan. 
While the hearts of children are tender their in 
nocent eyes look up to their mother s and their 
little hands cling to her, and then is the mother s 
opportunity. Those precious souls then are hers. 
Claim them for Christ, O Christian mothers, be 
fore the world draws them away from you or 
the evil one plucks them out of your hand. 
These lives are as potter s clay in your hands 
then, and every touch of your fingers will show 
when age has hardened them. A mother grew 
angry with her baby boy for pressing the tip of his 
tiny finger into the yet soft paint on the door. 
The painter was gone. It could not be remedied. 
The print of the little finger must remain, and the 
print of her anger and injustice remained on his 
soul. Go away, she said as he clung to her, 
crying, not knowing how to explain that he did not 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 153 

know it was so Very wrong, and he wanted her 
love. Go away, she said then and many times 
afterward, when consumed with household cares 
or selfish entertainment. And he went away, and 
continued to go away from home until she would 
gladly have seen his soiled footprints upon the 
daintiest carpet in the house she had striven to 
keep spotless, while she had let the pure white soul 
become sullied with sin. Awakening too late to 
use the mother s love for which the baby had plead 
ed, she begs in quivering tones of her pastor: Oh, 
save my boy ! 

"Will he come back, or will he go away forever? 
The mercy of God is great. The most hardened 
may be won back by prayer and faithful, watchful 
love. On you first, mother, wife, sister, depends 
the winning of your home for Christ. Be Christ s 
representative in your own home. Be the watch 
man in that home, ready to call for God s help at 
the least appearance or dread of evil. When our 
homes are Christ s, our country will easily be won 
for him." 

Although Miss Helm kept the interests of the so 
ciety ever before the Church through her paper, 
she did not devote the entire space to its work. 
Her sympathies were broad, and she gave her 
readers, as often as possible, articles and selections 
on the temperance movement, Salvation Army 
work, kindergarten methods, and other philanthro 
pies of national interest. She also gave sketches 



154 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

of the lives of prominent writers, and selections 
from their works: Helen Hunt Jackson, MissF. R. 
Havergal, Madame Guyon, " Sister Dora," Rev. 
F. B. Meyer, and others. Her book reviews were 
especially good. She reviewed the books in our 
Reading Course and other philanthropic works, 
and also gave selections from Tolstoi s writings, 
Ian Maclaren s, and others. An account of the 
life and work of her intimate friend, Miss Jennie 
Casseday, was given in one issue of the paper. 
We copy the following beautiful extract relating to 
the work of the Louisville Flower Mission, estab 
lished by Miss Casseday: " The members of the 
Louisville Flower Mission while making their char 
itable visits see and hear many pathetic things. 
One day a lady went to the western portion of the 
city to take a basket of groceries and fruit to a sick 
woman. Making a mistake in the address, she 
found on getting off the car that she was not in the 
right place, so she stopped at a house to make in 
quiries. She was told that, although the person 
she was seeking did not live in the neighborhood, 
there was a family on the opposite side of the street 
that was certainly suffering. Accordingly she 
crossed over, and found standing at the gate a little 
golden-haired fellow about four years old. He 
was looking anxiously and expectantly down the 
street. When he saw her his countenance bright 
ened, and, looking earnestly into her face, said 
in an awe-struck tone, * Did God send you? 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 155 

1 Yes, God sent me, was the reply. * Have you 
brought the bread? Receiving an answer in the 
affirmative, he rushed into the house crying joyfully : 
Mama, mama, God has sent the bread. The 
lady followed him into a room where a poor wom 
an lay sick and suffering. By her side was a baby 
only a few days old, and another of two years was 
sitting on the floor. They had no coal in the house, 
and nothing to eat. The father was out trying to 
find work. When the children had cried for 
something to eat, the poor mother had told them 
to be good and God would send them bread. The 
little fellow had been out at the gate watching ever 
since." 

In the August and October numbers of 1895 are 
given accounts of the Cuban Mission schools; the 
proceedings of the third annual convention of the 
society, at Asheville, N. C. ; the address in full of 
H. B. Someillan, the converted Spaniard, and his 
grand work for his countrymen. In her account 
of her visit to the Cuban schools we have a fair 
view of their present prosperity and her gratitude 
for it. While in Florida she met Dr. Buckley, 
editor of the New York Christian Advocate, and 
gave him some account of our work for the Cu 
bans. He was very much interested, and gave a 
favorable notice of it in the Christian Advocate on 
his return to New York. Miss Helm writes from 
Florida concerning the Wolff mission school: " It 
was a treat for me to go into Miss Perrin s kinder- 



156 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

garten room and see the large number of little ones 
being led gently by kindergarten principles to a 
knowledge of the truth by a woman so admirable 
in Christian character. In a room where higher 
branches are taught, a girl was at the blackboard 
explaining the construction of an English sentence 
with such ease and understanding that a lady who 
accompanied us whispered : 1 1 could not have done 
that myself. These girls are also being taught the 
power of sincere, frank, straightforward Christian 
womanhood. The opening for good is incalcula 
ble. 

" Does this work not repay us for the outlay of 
funds, and should it not be a comfort to our be 
loved Mrs. Wolff, who, led of God, laid this mis 
sion on the hearts of the women of the Church 
and has contributed so largely her time, strength, 
and money for its success? " 

The April number of this year is made up en 
tirely of contributions by some of the leading men 
of the Church: Bishops Key, Hargrove, Hendrix, 
Fitzgerald, Granbery, Duncan, Dr. David Mor 
ton, Dr. Barbee, and others. It is also illus 
trated by their photographs, and closes with a selec 
tion from President Cleveland s address on " Home 
Missions," given at the meeting of the Board of 
Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in 
New York City. This is a unique number, and 
many extra copies were sold. About this time there 
were many papers and journals issuing "woman s 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 1 57 

editions" to raise money for their various enter 
prises, and it was Miss Helm s happy thought to 
vary the matter and get out a "man s edition of 
her paper. It gives a consensus of opinion by 
some of the dignitaries of the Church concerning 
the " Parsonage and Home Mission Society," its 
history, its field, its successes, and its possibilities. 
The Wesleyan Christian Advocate, in speaking 
of this edition, says: "The special edition of 
Our Homes, issued the ist of April, is certainly a 
beautiful and attractive paper. The editor, Miss 
Helm, has made a success of every number, and 
deserves the thanks and abundant patronage of 
the Church for her noble work. In this special 
issue, besides the range of articles, she has the 
best pictures of our bishops we have seen." 

The St. Louis Christian Advocate and a num 
ber of other papers gave frequent complimentary 
notices of Our Homes. One Alabama paper says 
of it: "Our Homes is doing good work as a lit 
erary power in our Church. The man s edition 
is a new venture in periodical literature, and is a 
fine specimen of a paper, whether considered as 
to its variety and range of articles, illustrations, or 
its general appearance." In the December num 
ber of 1896 she gives an article on missions for 
the Chinese in California, in which she says: 
"As we read of the work done and yet to be done 
for the Chinese, a burning desire fills our hearts 
that our women too may enlarge their efforts for 



15 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

these needy people. God has sent them to us to 
receive of us the bread of life. Shall we say, Let 
others give it, or shall we be eager to serve at the 
Lord s table?" She then quotes from two leaf 
lets op the Chinese in California, the last one 
being the sad history of a Chinese slave girl, called 
"A Sketch of Ah Yute." It brings out vividly 
the horrors of the slave practise among these 
young girls, and how this one was rescued by 
home mission workers, and became a Christian 
just before her death. 

Miss Helm was greatly rejoiced when the so 
ciety, in 1896, opened schools at Salinas and Oak 
land, in response to the energy and efforts of our 
General Secretary, Mrs. R. K. Hargrove, and 
every feature of the work in those schools was of 
deep interest to her. She made appeals for the 
Chinese mission work in her articles published in 
Church papers before the Parsonage and Home 
Mission Society was ever organized, and in the 
last paper she ever sent to the press, December, 
1897, she gives a selection from the Pacific mis 
sion about that work. There was no class nor con 
dition of mankind, no race nor color, that did not 
have the sympathy and consideration of this great 
hearted woman. In the September number of 
the last year she writes a very suggestive article on 
the "Negro Problem.* We quote a few para 
graphs: "In missionary work in Northern cities 
the foreign element gives problems hardest to 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 159 

solve. We of the South find in our negro element 
one of our hardest missionary problems. It has 
been complicated by certain theories and senti 
ments inconsistent with facts. . . . But, re 
gardless of causes, of misunderstandings, or of 
prejudices, we must remember that the worse their 
condition, the more they need our help as Chris 
tians, the more incumbent upon us is the duty of 
lifting them up. They need religious instruction. 
That they are capable of reaching a higher stand 
ard of character is shown by their record in the 
past, and by those who to-day are benefactors of 
their race. The work of such men as Rev. Book 
er Washington should prompt us to help this race 
more actively than we as women of the Church 
have done. God help us to do it !" 

In one of her editorials we have an example of 
her ability to think in philosophic lines. It is en 
titled " Omega," and is as follows: "If a God 
did not make this universe, believe me, this great 
self-developing universe must ultimately make a 
God. If, as the theory of evolution would lead us 
to believe, some incomprehensible force in crude 
atoms could produce man man with the mental 
power to comprehend the wonderful revelations of 
science, man with the spiritual force to conceive 
the idea of the God of Christianity, such a man 
as Jesus of Nazareth who shall say that this mar 
velous evolution shall stop there? Whose hand 
has been reached out to stay its onward progress? 



l6o LUCINDA B. HELM. 

Whose voice shalt say: Thus far shalt thou go, 
and no farther? Shall not the self-propelling de 
velopment go on until the innate force of man 
shall evolve the good that his mind has conceived 
as surely and as substantially as the mindless be 
ginnings have evolved the real man as he is, sur 
veying, weighing, judging all things? The dis 
tance from man to God is not so great as from the 
protoplasm to the mind of the scientist and the 
philosopher. Thus the theory of evolution, even 
as held by materialists, would bring mankind to 
Christ Jesus and through him to the Omega and 
he shall be able to say: In the beginning before 
the world was, I am, for he himself was in that 
first movement of life that was to result in the all- 
comprehending spirit mind. He shall be able to 
say: I was in all. My love was through all. I 
was the force, the Alpha that bore on the process 
of development until it reached the Omega. In 
me all things end. Around me all things circle. 
With me all things began, and without me there 
was not anything made that was made. From God 
there is no escape. Conceal him in force, and 
he reveals himself in results. Who can fail to 
recognize the fact that, trusted to even a blind 
force, man has attained to that high plane of de 
velopment that stands midway between God and 
man in Jesus of Nazareth, before whose sublime 
character infidels bow as to the peerless among 
men, and in the fulness of time God, uniting him- 



HER LIFE AND WORK. l6l 

self with man in the God-man, has opened the 
way for man to become a new creature." 

The paper for 1897 gives her last work. There 
are many valuable contributions from her pen 
during this year, but we think we can discern a 
minor strain through all the halleluiahs. Her 
health was extremely delicate; and, although she 
made no complaint, she said to us more than once : 
" God is preparing my paper. I just have to lie 
down and ask him to arrange it." 

The April or Easter number is especially attract 
ive. One selection of poetry is entitled "What 
Christ Said to Me," and is as follows: 

I said, " Let me walk in the fields;" 

He said, " No, walk in the town." 

I said, "There are no flowers there;" 

lie said, " No flowers, but a crown." 

I said, " But the skies are black, 

There is nothing but noise and din;" 

And he wept as he sent me back. 

" There is more," he said, " there is sin." 

I said, " But the air is thick, 

And the fogs are veiling the sun;" 

He answered, " Yet souls are sick, 

And souls in the dark undone." 

I said, " I shall miss the light, 

And friends will miss me, they say;" 

He answered, " Choose to-night 

If I am to miss you, or they." 

I pleaded for time to be given; 

He said, " Is it hard to decide? 

It will not seem hard in heaven 

To have followed the steps of your Guide." 

She gives a sweet, pathetic picture of the mis- 
11 



l62 LUDINDA B. HELM. 

sion of a flower under the caption " Cast Down: " 
" It was an early spring day. There was still a 
lingering touch of winter in the chill air. Through 
thin clouds the sunlight came weak and pale. 
The leaves underfoot had lost the crisp rustle of 
autumn, and lay sodden and heavy on the earth. 
The world looked gray and sad. On a decaying 
log at the edge of the woods on the brink of the 
hill sat a man. He was growing old. His life 
had been full of sorrow. He had borne it brave 
ly. He had burdened no one with his grief, but it 
had sunk into his heart like the sodden leaves 
upon the earth. He had come out of the dull 
house to seek comfort in nature. He looked 
slowly around upon the scene, but it gave him no 
pleasure now. His head sunk upon his breast 
and he sat in deep reverie. He remembered the 
day when earth was bright and beautiful to him, 
and his heart buoyant with the light of the Chris 
tian s love to God. The light had faded and the 
joy gone. All was death within, without, above, 
below. A mourner he sat by the grave of the 
love that once bade him look up to God and smile. 
He moved his feet slowly among the dead leaves. 
They so aptly expressed to him his own life. With 
a start of surprise he saw peeping out from under 
the leaves a violet, fresh and blue. Could it be 
that under the dead leaves of sorrow and discour 
agement in his own soul life and love were hidden 
as the violet under the leaves that he need but 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 163 

throw aside? He looked up as one awakening 
from sleep. The sun was shining warm and 
bright. There was a movement in the air as if 

t? 

the buds upon the trees were breathing new life. 
A bird overhead began to sing. He stooped and 
picked up the violet. With a grateful smile he 
looked over the beautiful earth, and at the sky so 
blue and bright. The tiny flower had brought its 
lesson of divine love, blooming above and beneath 
the sorrows and cares of life." 

The October number of this last year is one 
of the most beautiful and instructive ever given 
her readers. In a very effective article entitled 
"If Ye Love Me" she gives as an advanced 
idea of Church work the one known as the 
" Institutional Church" and the description of its 
methods of work in the Grace Baptist Church of 
Philadelphia, known as " Conwell Temple." This 
church has developed a wider system of ministries 
than can be found anywhere else in America. 
When a person connects himself with it he is given 
a card of membership and receives a book contain 
ing a schedule of the different ways of working, on 
which he is invited to indicate the work he will 
undertake. The principle of this church is to 
minister as far as possible to every kind of human 
need. Miss Helm adds: "Our Southern Meth 
odist Church is an institutional Church in one 
sense. It is well prepared, with its many institu 
tions, to become a strong working force for Christ. 



164 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

With its Parsonage and Home Mission Society 
and Epworth League, if thoroughly vivified and util 
ized by stirring and spiritual pastors, it could do 
much of the work of the new institutional Church. 
Here too our Church Extension Board comes for 
ward to aid in building up the Lord s kingdom ; and 
to carry the good news to the uttermost parts of the 
earth, we have our vigorous Woman s Foreign 
Missionary Society; and fostering all at home and 
abroad, the General Board of Missions. As our 
Church government is in no sense congregational, 
it is equipped on the idea that the world is our par 
ish. But there needs to be through the whole a 
pervading spirit uniting all departments in this 
great work to make it move forward an irresistible 
force for Christ." 

She gives, in an article that follows this one, the 
large scope of work possible and intended by the 
Woman s Parsonage and Home Mission Society. 

It may be truly said of Miss Helm that she went 
to her desk as to an altar, and her prayer concern 
ing her paper was: " Help me, O Father, to make 
Our Homes a voice that shall be heard throughout 
the Church in defense of the weak and helpless, and 
of entreaty for the outcast and sinner." And sure 
ly her prayer was answered. We give as a last 
selection from her editorial work one of her great, 
heart-throbbing calls to keep close to God. * Come, 
tired hearts," she says, " let us rest, and think of 
our Father s home. You have labored all the 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 165 

year for your Lord. You are weary in the con 
test with sin and sorrow. You are heartsore from 
great sacrifices made for truth and righteousness 
sacrifices that went deep into your life. God only 
knows how deep, but he does know. He knows 
all the pain, the weariness, the tears, the sorrow. 
You weep silently on your pillow when the dark 
ness covers you as a veil; but he sees, he listens, 
he speaks: Be still and know that I am God. I 
have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore 
with loving-kindness have I drawn thee ? Is suf 
fering the language of love? you moan. Yes, it 
was your Saviour s language. Shall you not speak 
in the same language back to him? It must needs 
be so, beloved. He who strives to reach heaven 
through this world where sin reigns must stem a 
current as strong as death, and break through a 
net the meshes of which are closely interwoven 
between one s own sin and the sin of others until 
his very heart-strings break in the struggle to be 
free and press heavenward, But Christ came to 
pass on before us that we might see the way by 
the light of his radiant love. He suffered that we 
might know he understands all about our suffer 
ings. But for him suffering would have no mean 
ing, sorrow no hope, truth and love no triumph. 

" Perfect through suffering, our salvation s seal 
Set in the front of His humanity; 
But if, impatient, thou let slip thv cross, 
Thou wilt not find it in this world again, 



l66 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

Nor in another. Here, and here alone, 
Is given thee to suffer for God s sake. 
Canst thou not suffer then one hour? or two? 
If he should call thee from thy cross to-day, 
Saying, " It is finished that hard cross of thine 
From which thou prayest for deliverance," 
Thinkest thou not some passion of regret 
Would overcome thee? Thou wouldst say: 

" So soon? 

Let me go back and suffer yet a while, 
More patiently; I have not yet praised God." 

" Let us then, beloved, learn our lesson well while 
we are here. Press forward bravely, true heart. 
The goal is worth all and more than you can be 
called to endure, for remember he said: I go to 
prepare a place for you. 

" O precious Saviour, a place for me? a place in 
my Father s house prepared by thy loving hands? 
How beautiful ! how blessed to contemplate ! 

Jerusalem, the golden, 

I toil on night and day, 
Ileartsore each night with longing, 

I stretch my hands and pray 
That midst thy leaves of healing 

f t5 

My soul may find its rest 
Where the wicked cease from troubling 
And the weary are at rest. 

"And we are coming nearer to it, sisters, day by 
day. We see its foundation of glittering gems. 
Like a great inverted rainbow, all glorious to be 
hold, formed by the light of God s smile on earth s 
sorrow clouds, it encircles Zion, city of our God. 
Beyond the gates of pearl we catch entrancing 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 167 

glimpses of the white forms of those who have 
gone before us. They stand by the great white 
throne. Under the leaves of healing they walk by 
the river of life clear as crystal. As a whisper of 
peace to our souls we hear the voice of the Infi 
nite say : God shall wipe away all tears from 
their eyes; and there shall be no more death, nei 
ther sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any 
more pain: for the former things are passed 
away. " 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TWILIGHT. 
"77/e -weary sun hath made a golden set." Shakespeare. 

ERE the lengthening shadows of evening gather 
about this noble life, let us take our last view 
of Lucinda Helm as a woman ^ separate and apart 
from her identification with Christian work; and 
catch, if we can, the charm of that personality 
that so vivified everything she touched, and not 
only won for her hosts of friends, but united them 
to her in an indissoluble bond. In the first place, 
we observe the superior gifts and graces illustrated 
in her personal friendships. She was true to her 
friends, whether in their presence or absence, 
seeking their welfare at all times before her own. 
Faithfulness was woven into the very texture of 
her being. She lived in an atmosphere too high 
for duplicity or selfish interests of any sort, and 
no absorption in the great cause for which she la 
bored made her forget or neglect the obligations 
of personal friendships. Her honesty and trans 
parency of nature as exhibited in this relationship 
made her peculiarly lovable. We leaned upon 
her. We weighted her unintentionally but in 
stinctively with responsibilities. We carried to 
her our burdens, feeling sure always of her direct 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 169 

communication with the great Burden-Bearer. Her 
loving sympathy at all times, her profound adher 
ence to the right, her gentleness and her unwa 
vering faith made her friendship invaluable. No 
wonder that all our Gordian knots were given into 
her patient and skilful hands. When she was 
called home scores of women throughout the en 
tire Church sustained a. personal loss. 

One of the most beautiful characteristics of her 
nature was cheerfulness. Although frail and del 
icate throughout life, her spirit so completely dom 
inated her body that she never complained or was 
gloomy, and rarely alluded to her ill health. She 
possessed an elasticity, buoyancy, and joyousness 
that seemed perennial. How we shall miss her 
exquisite sense of humor that frequently dispelled 
our perplexities! Often, after spending a night 
of sleeplessness attended with pain, she would 
come into the family the next morning as fresh 
as a dewdrop and relate some bright incident, or 
in some other way put the entire household in a 
delightful humor. Upon surprise being expressed 
at her cheerfulness, she would say : " I never could 
mope; I am so glad the morning has come." 
She instinctively recognized the best there was in 
every member of a family, and honored it, thus 
becoming a perpetual benediction in one s home. 
Little children bloomed about her like flowers and 
wreathed about her like vines, while the aged 
found her ever their thoughtful and considerate 



I7O LUCINDA B. HELM. 

friend. In society she was a pleasing conversa 
tionalist, and showed herself well versed on the 
topics of the day. 

We remember seeing her upon one occasion at 
a social gathering. She was dressed with her ac 
customed exquisite taste in black satin with trim 
mings of dainty white lace and a bunch of violets. 
Her grace of person and her witty, vivacious con 
versation made her universally admired. Stran 
gers remarked: "Who is that sweet woman? 
She is quite irresistible." Her delicate taste and 
refinement forbade her making any reference to 
her religious work when there was no occasion 
for it. She did not oppress strangers with details 
of her mission and try to convince them of theirs. 
In short, she was not a " hobbyist." 

Humility was a very marked and ever-present 
characteristic of her nature. So far from being 
elated and filled with a spirit of self-righteousness 
because of her marvelous success, she seemed to 
grow humbler as her pathway widened toward the 
infinite shore, and to sink out of her own sight as 
she got a larger vision of the meanings of life. 
She did not talk much about religion unless the 
way was opened for it, but she lived it and breathed 
it and knew no life outside of Christ. Without ma 
king any effort to do so, she frequently put truths 
into a concise form that crystallized in one s mind 
to stay. For example, her criticism of those who 
taught promiscuously "faith healing" was given 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 

in one sentence, and contained more than whole 
sermons of denunciations: " They have too much 
faith in the faith instead of in God." A promi 
nent trait of Miss Helm s character that com 
manded universal esteem was her independence of 
thought. Dr. Alexander says, in speaking of her: 
" She was what few people are or ever become: 
a thinker, original and independent. She ac 
cepted nothing because somebody else thought it 
or said it. It must become clear to her own mind. 
She considered and canvassed and settled for 
herself every item of her theological belief, and 
accordingly had a form of statement for each doc 
trine she accepted that was peculiarly her own. 
This does not mean that she was unreceptive or 
not open to conviction. Whatever was made clear 
to her thought as a correction of her views she 
welcomed as such. But I have met few people in 
my life who, in the investigation of new views or 
doctrines, could ask more searching questions or 
apply more rigorous tests, and I have in more than 
one instance had to abandon or modify views that 
were brought under the test of her penetrating 
thought. I should say in estimating her character 
that she was predominantly intellectual, although I 
say it with a good deal of hesitancy, for there are 
not many who have the intensity of nature and the 
depth of feeling which she had, and fewer still 
who are as spiritual as she was. The simplicity, 
purity, and beauty of her faith were almost ideal. 



172 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

She said at one time that she had never been with 
out the consciousness of the Fatherhood of God 
since her early childhood, and added: * Those 
two words, " my Father," are to me the sweetest 
words in human language. 

The last distinctive feature of Miss Helm s re 
markable personality to which we call attention 
was her profound appreciation of the love of her 
friends. One would not expect that a woman 
with such a career as hers would have been melted 
to tears by the gift of a flower. Yet this was re 
peatedly the case. Love never grew old to her, nor 
ever came as a matter of course. It was as fresh 
and refreshing as the morning dews, and she always 
received it with gratitude. Her nature made it a 
necessity for her to love, and love went out from 
her great heart naturally and broadly like a full- 
flowing river; but when she realized the response 
in other hearts, it gave her a sense of sweet sur 
prise and delight. How her friends valued her 
letters! Some of them were poems in prose, and 
all were pervaded with love as genuine and full 
for each as if bestowed on no other. The follow 
ing extracts are but a few of the many that could 
be given to illustrate. 

Upon one occasion, two summers ago, she 
wrote from her old home at Elizabethtown : 
" Dear, dear friend, it is a lovely Sabbath 
evening, and as I sit here enjoying it all it seems 
so appropriate that I should be writing to you. 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 173 

Everything around me is so beautiful, and the 
birds are singing softly, one at a time, as if not to 
break the quiet of the evening. It reminds me of 
Mrs. Southey s little poem on " Sunday Evening," 
beginning 

There s a sacred, soothing sweetness 
In a Sabbath eve like this. 

The old place here is looking particularly beauti 
ful this summer. It is kept in such exquisite or 
der, and the flower-beds are so bright with their 
wealth of flowers. It is all very restful, and I only 
want to look and breathe. Your sweet letter was 
a cordial to my heart. I am so thankful that there 
are some hearts into which I can creep down and 
be at home. Is there anything like the goodness 
of God? I should like to spend a summer that 
suited both of us with you, and perhaps this may 
come to pass sometime, somewhere. In the mean 
time we will rest in each other s love and wait for 
our Father s direction." 

After her return from the seashore that summer, 
she writes: " I have thoroughly enjoyed my sum 
mer trips and visits, even if I have not gained in 
strength, and that is something in this life of ours. 
Everybody has been so sweet and loving to 
me. Truly God is good to me to give me so 
many kind friends. I do not deserve this, yet I 
am so glad of it. I was with such kind people in 
Wilmington, who did a great deal for my pleasure, 
and my stay in Beaufort, on the Sound, was like 



174 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

a dream. The sails on the beautiful water were 
so quiet, so soft, gliding on between the water 
and the blue sky; the yellow-green islands lying 
here and there like bits of fairy-land, smiling back 
memories of far-away childhood fancies, when only 
the murmur of the conch-shell was all I knew of the 
sea. I have brought some shells for little Ruth, 
and shall tell her of the sea as it was once told to 
me. I wonder if it will awaken the longing to see 
it as with me. I have much to talk about and to 
tell you when I see you." 

She wrote from Florida, in March, 1897: "I 
have accepted an invitation from Mrs. Hargrove 
to visit her during the time from my return to our 
going to the annual meeting. We want to consult 
each other about many things." 

She returned from Florida very weak and frail. 
Although she had in the spring expected to make 
other plans, she remained in Bishop Hargrove s 
home, a more than welcome member of the house 
hold, during the entire summer and into the au 
tumn, when she was called to her home above. 

Late in the summer she writes that she had been 
very ill, and had thought it was her last illness 
the end seemed so near yet her Father had led 
her out again, and she knew by that that her work 
was not quite done. She then adds: "Some 
times our Father draws us aside to rest a while 
with him. I am so glad you are having a rest in 
a sweet, quiet place. There must be a time for 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 175 

the still small voice to speak when our hearts can 
hear. The bustle of going, going, with the crowds 
and hearing only the din and noise about us not 
only wearies the heart, but it gradually weakens 
our powers of hearing the higher tones and deadens 
the susceptibility of our souls to impressions direct 
from God." 

As the summer waned she grew weaker, al 
though she continued her work and frequently at 
tended the Centennial Exposition at Nashville. 
But she seemed to be conscious, during the entire 
time, that the end was near, and to one friend she 
wrote, when on the very threshold of her Father s 
house, November 5: "I can not tell you how 
sweet your letter was to me. I thank God for 
prompting you to write it. To know that my 
spiritual sisters so love me is indeed a great re 
ward for the feeble efforts I have made to serve 
our common Lord and Saviour. If it is an ear 
nest of the heavenly love, how full of joy our 
Father s home will be ! I do not know, dear friend, 
whether my stay here will be long or short. It 
may be that my Master will see that it is necessary 
for his glory for me to drag along w r earily as now, 
using me, perhaps in ways I know not of, to help 
others in their journey homeward. If so, his will 
is mine. I know that he w r ill comfort and help 
me always; but should he deem it wisest to take 
me home very soon, I shall be glad. My heart, 
homesick, trembles with a strange joy at the bare 



176 LUCINDA B. HELM. 

thought of it. I wait his commands, hoping to 
hear the call: Come home. In the mean time 
knowing that I am going some day helps me to be 
brave and cheerful as the days go by. His child 
should not mope and fear because he asks her to 
wait a while and to do him a bit of service that 
perhaps another can not do. I have but weak 
ness, yet he uses it. I am sick, yet he sees that 
some one looks after my comfort, and so he uses 
that too. My poor woman s heart longs for love; 
he lavishes it upon me through the Comforter and 
through my dear sisters in his love. My heart is 
resting and waiting for him." 

The last text marked in her Bible was on No 
vember 12: "I must work the works of him that 
sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when 
no man can work." And she did work, even at 
her office, on that day and on Saturday. During 
the Sabbath she remained in her room. What 
transpired in the sanctuary of her soul during that 
last Sabbath it is not for us to know, but we may 
be assured that her hand was laid in the hand of 
her Father while her spirit held sweet communion 
with him. 

On Monday the kind solicitations of her friends, 
Bishop and Mrs. Hargrove, were much appre 
ciated by her, but she expressed a desire to re 
main alone. And this she did during the entire 
day. Alone with the past as it came to her, 
flooding her with memories of far-off, beautiful 



HER LIFE AND WORK. 1 77 

childhood, of the girlhood possessed by a noble 
ambition, of the ripened womanhood filled with 
long years of toil and service in the Master s 
vineyard such willing toil, such happy service ! 
Alone with the future that could hold nothing but 
a fuller revelation of her Father s love; that even 
then glowed with the light of heaven as she 
watched with tremulous joy for the messenger 
who she knew would soon come for her. As 
the shadows gathered deep that night, in the hush 
of the valley of silence, an angel met her, bearing 
the tokens of a " golden bowl broken and a silver 
cord loosed," and she followed him without grief 
or fear. 

No tender yet sad farewell 

For her quiv ring lips was heard. 

So softly she crossed the stream, 
Twas scarce by a ripple stirred. 

She was spared all pain of tears, 
She was spared all mortal strife; 

It was not death she passed 
In a moment to endless lite. 

Weep not for the swift release 

From earthly pain and care, 
Nor grieve that she reached her home 

E er she knew that she was there. 

But think of her sweet surprise, 
The sudden and strange delight, 

As she met her Saviour s smile 

And walked with him in white. 
12 



IN MEMOR1AM. 



A SONG OF FAITH. 

EMILY M. ALLEN. 

January /, i8q8. 



" Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. xxi. 5.) 
The New-Year joy is on the earth again. 
Again we face the glorious, sun-flushed east 
Where gray Eternity becomes our roseate Time, 
That we may have companionship with it 
We lowly children of the Infinite One 
And come to know at last, through days and years, 
The vast inheritance that is our own. 
O joy of human life! O blessedness to be! 
Oh, sweet the things forever old yet new? 
That God is God is truth enough for earth. 
To this I hold, neath winter skies of gray, 
Mid wild north winds and leafless, shuddering trees 
Which usher in the year that is to be; 
And holding this, old things are all made new. 

And thou, beloved, with us here no more, 
On whom our changing years can have no power, 
Who knowest no time but Love s eternal Now, 
Couldst thou but speak from out the shining ones 
That haste in faith to do His loving will, 
Wouldst not thou say, "O friends, tis true! 
That God is God is truth enough for heaven. 
Be strong down there to work His loving will 
Among His sorrowful, poor, and sinful ones. 
If hearts grow faint at wrongs long unredressed, 
At old, old ills that keep the world in night, 
Oh, lift your faces to the light that falls! 
Remember God is God, and hear him say, 
Because I am I shall make all things new. " 

Memorial Number Our Homes.