Y. W. C. A. Biennial

To Philadelphia last week journeyed 1,700 women, young and old, as delegates from 600 communities and seven lands, to the biennial national convention of the Y. W. C. A. There many a one had her first chance to see a pleasant-faced Dutchwoman who is the distaff equivalent of the Y. M. C. A.'s Dr. John R. Mott-- president of the World Council which supervises the shelter, polite recreation and moral uplift of 1,000,000 women in 50 nations. Jonkvrouwe Cornelia M. van Asch van Wyck, 44, is a member of an ancient Utrecht family which has produced magistrates, deputies, mayors, a provincial president and a founder of the University of Utrecht. She has worked among girls for 25 years. Unsalaried, she presides over committee meetings and staff work in Geneva, travels about the world visiting national associations. Arrived in the U. S. after a 15-month tour of the Orient and Australia, Miss van Wyck declared last week that its Y. W. C. A. branches are the strongest in the world, that Germany's were a good second until Nazified. She told Y. W. C. A. workers in Philadelphia that, with strife threatening the world, their responsibilities are greater than ever before; that they will be judged everywhere as representatives of female solidarity, goodwill and Christianity. At a World's Vesper Service she warned her listeners against Christianity's competitors, Communism, Fascism and Naziism, which have "chosen the cheap and easy way of great promises for actual life which cannot be fulfilled.'' Most radical Y. W. C. A. change accomplished in Philadelphia was to abolish a requirement that three-quarters of all officers belong to churches eligible for membership in the Federal Council of Churches. Also it was proposed that local Y. W. C. A.'s be released from affirming in their constitutions "the Christian faith in God, the Father; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord and Savior; and in the Holy Spirit."

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