Once inside, they worked effectively with their unfortunate sisters and “the children of poor and careless parents” who were the chief targets of reform. Working in pairs, the women left Bibles and tracts, prayed with the sick, made note of children who belonged in Sunday school, and coaxed destitute, frightened mothers and daughters out of their houses and into church. In the process, they provided poor people, the men of their own class, and (just as important) each other with demonstrations of the dignity, competence, and spiritual courage of an emerging evangelical womanhood.
