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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 The Estate of 
 
 Preserved Smith 
 
g|.w^g„ Cornell University Library 
 Was it worth while? 
 
 oiin,an? ^^24 031 386 380 
 
„ r— 1 ggg| \g^ 
 
 Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031386380 
 
Theodore and Pundit. (See p. 74) 
 
 The Horse Which Never Grew Fat, (See pp. 94 and go) 
 
WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 The Life of Theodore Storrs Lee 
 
 BY 
 
 Some Friends of His 
 
 Aaaxwtatum l^viBS 
 
 New York: 124 East 28th Street 
 
 London : 47 Paternoster Row, E. C. 
 
 1915 
 
A 7^ 
 
 SIGHT, IQI 
 
 7/^7^ 
 
 Copyright, 191 5, by The ■ 
 International Committee of YouNg Men's 
 Christian Associations 
 
To 
 
 THE STUDENTS OF THE COLLEGES 
 OF AMERICA AND INDIA 
 
 Is Dedicated 
 This Life of a Fellow-student 
 
 Two things we can give in gratitude for 
 those who have helped us. One is to remem- 
 ber them. This is small. The other is to do, 
 according to the measure of our power, the 
 things they did. This is a continuing thing. It 
 means the loyalty of our spirits to those visions 
 and tasks which were the best of our friends' 
 lives. It means living and working that the 
 faith which inspired them shall continue and 
 increase on the earth. This is the real tribute 
 of friendship. 
 
 — R. C. Denison, 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 This little book is a tribute to one who made the 
 supreme sacrifice in response to the supreme call. His 
 was a short life, but it was long enough to reveal this 
 rare distinction. In the few years of activity which 
 he enjoyed after the discouragements of interrupted 
 preparation, he not only furnished a pattern of intel- 
 ligent missionary enterprise — winning the general es- 
 teem of an alien community — ^but in the completeness 
 of the devotion of the best that was in him to the ideal 
 of service he gave an example and inspiration to those 
 engaged in every field of worthy endeavor. We ea- 
 gerly estimate the gains along each line of advance, — 
 in the discovery of the secrets of nature, the conquest 
 of disease, the increase of useful activities, and the 
 elevation of standards of living, — ^but we realize that 
 these count for naught if the human spirit in the midst 
 of opportunity is enfeebled or corrupted; and an in- 
 eradicable instinct prompts us to reserve our highest 
 esteem for those indomitable souls who in heroic ef- 
 fort meet the final test of character. Theodore Lee 
 met this test. He gave himself — not weakly, but with 
 the strength of- unconquerable resolve — to the mission 
 to which he believed himself to be called. He brought 
 to the twentieth century the zeal of the first. Duty 
 controlled his life, but he met its severe demands joy- 
 ously. Conscience ruled him, but he remained tender 
 
vi FOREWORD 
 
 and loving. It was his absolute sincerity, the firmness 
 of his convictions and his deep human sympathy that 
 gave him his power over men. His memory is very 
 dear to his friends and it is the object of this record 
 to extend the influence of his life. 
 
 Charles E. Hughes 
 
 Associate Justice of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. 
 Washington, D. C. 
 November i, 1915, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Foreword v 
 
 By Charles E. Hughes, LL.D., Associate Justice 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 Washington, D. C. (cousin of Theodore Lee 
 by marriage.) 
 
 Chapter I. Boyhood Home and School Days 
 
 AT WiLLISTON SEMINARY I 
 
 By Rev. Samuel H. Lee, M.A., President Emer- 
 itus of the American International College. 
 Springfield, Mass. (Theodore Lee's father) 
 
 Chapter II. A College Man with a Genius 
 FOR Friendship, Amherst, 1900 .... 19 
 
 By Wellington H. Tinker, B.A., B.D., Religious 
 Work Director, Students' Christian Association, 
 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 
 (Class of '99 Amherst and class-mate at Union 
 Theological Seminary) 
 
 Chapter III. The Conscience of Union The- 
 ological Seminary 37 
 
 By Rev. Albert Parker Fitch, D.D., President 
 of Andover Theological Seminary, Cambridge, 
 Mass. (Qass-mate) 
 
 Chapter IV. Winning the Friendship of 
 Leaders in a Hindu Stronghold . . .51 
 
 By Rev. Alden H. Clark, M.A., B.D., Principal of 
 Union Training School, Ahmednagar, India. 
 (Class-mate at Amherst College, Utiion Theo- 
 logical Seminary, and Fellow Worker in the 
 Marathi Mission, India.) 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter V. The Weapons of Christian 
 Brotherhood - • - 73 
 
 By Rev. Alden H. Clark 
 Chapter VI. Campaigning for Christ . ;.. 85 
 
 By Rev. Alden H. Clark 
 
 Chapter VII. "Hands Across the Sea" . .117 
 
 By Rev. William Dana Street, B.A., B.D., Pas- 
 tor, Westchester Congregational Church, White 
 Plains, N. Y. (Brother-Pastor) 
 
 Chapter VIII. The Sword of the Spirit . .137 
 
 By Hannah Hume Lee, B.A. (Mrs. Theodore 
 Storrs Lee), Missionary at Satara, India 
 
 Chapter IX. Home Comings 149 
 
 By Rev. Arthur Dsborn Pritchard, M.A., Pastor 
 Westchester Congregational Church, Scarsdale, 
 N. Y. (Class-mate at Union Theological Sem- 
 inary and Brother-Pastor) 
 
 Conclusion. Was It Worth While? . . . 163 
 
 By Fred B. Smith, Former Secretary Religious 
 Work Department, International Committee, 
 Young Men's Christian Associations. Leader 
 of the Men and Religion Forward Movement. 
 (Fellow-Member of the Westchester Church.) 
 
 Appendix 
 
 177 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Theodore and Pundit Frontispiece 
 
 The Horse Which Never Grew Fat . " 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Theodore Storrs Lee 38 
 
 Temple of Gan Pati, Wai 54 
 
 With His Staff of Workers 96 
 
 The Two Pastorates 118 
 
 Mahars and Mangs 142 
 
 A Street in Satara 142 
 
 Breaking Ground for the New Bungalow . . 164 
 
 The Only Barber in Wai 164 
 
 IX 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 This book is not a memorial, nor written first of 
 all for Theodore Lee's family or friends. But it is 
 written for young men, especially in the colleges of 
 America and India, in the belief that, as Theodore 
 Lee's friendship was so inspiring to many young men 
 in his life, so the living page may bring yet others 
 into that friendship. 
 
 Eight authors have shared the task. The book, 
 therefore, is unusual in that its unity is not due to an 
 interpretation of Theodore's life by one mind, but to 
 the vivid and consistent impression which his strong 
 personality made on those who knew him. The table 
 of contents will show that these writers include wife, 
 father, class-mates at college and theological seminary, 
 and fellow-workers in India and at home. 
 
 To the editor has fallen the task of being the servant 
 of all in the general details, endeavoring to let each 
 writer tell in his own way his part of the story and yet 
 to achieve a continuous narrative. The only impor- 
 tant editorial changes have been the uniform omission 
 throughout the story of the first personal pronotm when 
 referring to the writers, and some necessary condensa- 
 tion in certain parts that the work in India might have 
 its appropriate space. So much material is available 
 that the problem has been to omit and every letter 
 quoted may be regarded as truly typical of many others. 
 
xii EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 The responsibility for the final choice of chapter titles, 
 illustrations, quotations, and the general arrangement 
 of the book is the editor's. A brief appendix is added 
 with the chief dates of Theodore's life and a few ex- 
 planations of places. 
 
 For one so young, Theodore Lee's life touched an 
 astonishing number of other lives. Each writer has 
 followed his own judgment in mentioning names. 
 Only in one respect has the editor found it necessary 
 to go counter to a strongly expressed wish : Hannah 
 Hume Lee, with her characteristic self-effacement, 
 would gladly be omitted wherever possible. Much 
 has been omitted, but no writer of Theodore's life- 
 stoiy could separate in it those whom God has so won- 
 derfully joined together. 
 
 William Dana Street. 
 
 White Plains, New Yorl^ 
 November i, 1915, 
 
BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS AT 
 WILLISTON SEMINARY 
 
We are often sympathized with because of his early demise. 
 There is deep affliction in the separation, but heaven is nearer 
 than India, and we are quite likely to meet him sooner than 
 if he had returned thither. His life was complete. "Being 
 made perfect in a little while, he fulfilled long years, for his 
 soul was pleasing to the Lord, therefore hasted he out of the 
 midst of wickedness." 
 
 — The witness of Theodore Lee's father, Samuel H. Lee. 
 
 XIV 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS AT 
 WILLISTON SEMINARY 
 
 Theodore Stores Lee was born in Cleveland, 
 Ohio, May 23, 1873. He was of that substantial 
 stock which settled Connecticut in the seventeenth 
 century and through the eighteenth carried the colony 
 forward to a leading position in the American Union. 
 
 His great-grandfather on his mother's side was one 
 of the minute men at Lexington, 
 
 "Where once the embattl'd farmers stood, 
 And fired the shot heard round the world." 
 
 His paternal great-grandfather was a chaplain in the 
 army of Washington, and his paternal grandfather a 
 cavalryman in 1812. 
 
 This great-grandfather. Dr. Andrew Lee, was the 
 first and only pastor of the church in Hanover, Con- 
 necticut, for sixty- four years. He was a graduate 
 and a member of the corporation of Yale, but his Cal- 
 vinism, too moderate for his Alma Mater, was pleas- 
 ing to Harvard and gained from her the honor of 
 preaching the concio ad clerum and the degree of Doc- 
 tor of Divinity. 
 
 The coming of Theodore, completing with the 
 brother and two sisters a domestic quartet in quite 
 
2 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 ideal fashion, was very welcome to all concerned. To 
 the children he became an object of wonder and wor- 
 ship; over the parents he asserted the authority of 
 utter helplessness and need. 
 
 Theodore's parents, with a sense of responsibility 
 deepened by ten years of experience with children, 
 welcomed him as a gift of God, committed to them for 
 the realization of the high powers and possibilities of 
 a being created in the Divine image. Accordingly, 
 four months after his birth, he is brought to the house 
 of God to join the church of Christ upon the faith of 
 his father and mother, by baptism into the name of 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and is recognized 
 as the gift of God in his name, Theodore. 
 
 Here b^ns Theodore Lee's religious history. The 
 Christian home accounts for him. The unit of hu- 
 manity is the individual man. But the unit of human 
 society, the social unit, the primary, fundamental, so- 
 cial organization of mankind is the family. This in- 
 stitution, having for its constitution and laws the 
 covenant with God with its implications, is at once a 
 church of Christ with its spiritual and intellectual 
 power, and a state, an institution of rights, with its 
 governmental and economic order. The daily family 
 gathering for worship. Scripture reading — especially 
 reading in turn, song and prayer, qualifying for in- 
 telligent private and public worship; the three social 
 gatherings thankfully to receive all provisions for 
 physical needs, with the conversations on things great 
 and small, of common interest, the cheering joke, the 
 talk of books and the experiences with the outer world ; 
 the mutual helpfulness in the conduct of the home — 
 
BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS 3 
 
 too many servants are a calamity — ^the regular dis- 
 charge of ordinary duties, "enjoying each the other's 
 good" and suffering each the other's ill : in these on- 
 goings in the home in multitudinous varieties, in a 
 bright and cheerful Christian atmosphere, there is laid 
 a foundation deep and solid for a noble manhood and 
 womanhood. 
 
 There was no exceptional personal training in Theo- 
 dore's early life. He was the product of the sum 
 total of the influences of a Christian home. 
 
 His was a normal, joyous childhood. He met the 
 diseases and accidents incident to that period with 
 the usual number of marvelous escapes. Only once, 
 when diphtheria — "the pestilence that walketh in 
 darkness" — ^prevailed in the city, did the Angel of 
 Death apparently approach our door; but the blood 
 of the Lamb was "put on the two side-posts and the 
 lintel for a token" and the Dread Messenger passed 
 over the home. During this period he was healthy 
 and strong and as vigorous and hilarious in play as 
 any boy. 
 
 His school days began in Oberlin, and with them a 
 wider acquaintance with the world. One experience 
 he was never allowed to forget. Owing to Oberlin's 
 early espousal of the cause of the slave there was a 
 large population of negroes resident there. Their 
 children were very numerous in the schools. It was 
 customary and often necessary in identifying a person 
 to tell to what race he belonged. A college professor's 
 wife, making her first call on his mother, and waiting 
 for a little, fell into conversation with Theodore. 
 Learning what room he was in at school, she said, "I 
 
4 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 have a little girl there." Instantly he naively asked, 
 "White or colored?" 
 
 In Brattleboro, Vermont, at the age of ten, we find 
 him a bright, happy boy, with a face that won friends 
 wherever it appeared; innocent, unfamiliar with the 
 ways of the world, but being initiated into them. One 
 day a clerk in a hardware store requested him to do 
 for him an important errand — to go down to another 
 store and purchase a "three-cornered rat-tail file"! 
 As thousands of innocent ones before him, he fell 
 into the trap ; and tried to secure a tool at once round 
 and three-sided. When he understood it he entered 
 into the amusement which his proposal occasioned in 
 that store, and learned the nature of a practical joke, 
 which he was not wholly averse from perpetrating in 
 later years ; for though of profoundly serious nature, 
 and sometimes sorely depressed by physical ailment, 
 he was always keen to discern and quick to enjoy the 
 humorous side of things and contribute to it upon oc- 
 casion. 
 
 The family went to New Haven in 1885. During 
 residence there his health suffered in a peculiar way. 
 When he was about fourteen years of age he stopped 
 growing. His stature and weight remained nearly 
 stationary for two or more years. Then suddenly he 
 began to grow and shot up towards his six-feet-one 
 with amazing rapidity. This seemed to exhaust his 
 vitality; he was never really well afterwards. 
 
 He attended the public schools in the grammar and 
 high grades. He enjoyed his teachers and was an en- 
 joyable pupil, but it seems he was only moderately in- 
 terested or proficient in his studies. Nothing yet had 
 
BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS 5 
 
 waked him up. But some of his mates were worth 
 much to him. Among them was a son of President 
 Dwight, a son and daughter of Professor Peck, and a 
 son of Dr. Newman Smyth. In this period he began 
 to stand on his own feet and to select his companions 
 with care. 
 
 It was at this time, March 2, 1890, that, upon his 
 own motion, he united with the Center Church, under 
 Dr. Newman Smyth. The step was intelHgently and 
 thoughtfully taken. He confessed his faith in Jesus 
 Christ as his Saviour, and acknowledged his Heavenly 
 Father's ownership as his parents had done in his 
 babyhood. 
 
 It was in those days that his father's intimate friend, 
 Professor W. R. Harper, later president of Chicago 
 University, was creating great interest in Bible study 
 in the college and city ; and Theodore often heard him 
 talk over his plans in the home. The Bible to him 
 gained in importance. Lessons prepared by Professor 
 Harper were introduced by one of his seminary stu- 
 dents into Center Church Sunday School. Theodore 
 fortunately had Miss Morris — Mrs. President Had- 
 ley — for his teacher, whom he ever gratefully remem- 
 bered for awakening in him new interest in the Bible. 
 He studied his Sunday school lessons more than any 
 other. This was the beginning of the remarkable 
 companionship with the Book that characterized his 
 entire history. 
 
 The family hioved to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 
 May, 1890. Here he entered the high school but ill 
 health compelled him to withdraw. He continued his 
 studies, however, as he was able, under a private 
 
6 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 tutor. It was in this period that in the interests of 
 health he began to be regular in his habits, regular in 
 gymnastics and all kinds of out-of-door exercises, in 
 eating, sleeping, and studying. 
 
 In the autumn of 1891 he entered Williston Semi- 
 nary. During three years there he was seriously 
 handicapped by poor health, dropping out of class oc- 
 casionally a week or two, but was not obliged to aban- 
 don it altogether — a new experience for him. He was 
 more mature than most of his mates and was hungry 
 for knowledge. His scholarship was up to the aver- 
 age; when his vital forces were in full tide his rank 
 was above the average, when they were at low ebb it 
 fell below. Two or three years before he went to the 
 school, he had bought and used freely a small micro- 
 scope. This was his beginning in Nature study. And 
 now aside from his required courses he had great 
 pleasure in using a good instrument in the study of 
 zoology and botany. 
 
 He held his teachers in high esteem; he came into 
 close contact with them; his confidence was recipro- 
 cated; his sincerity and enthusiasm appealed to them 
 and they were always glad to render him personal as- 
 sistance. One of them writes, "He was fond of say- 
 ing — ^and who that heard him a few years ago at morn- 
 ing prayers in Williston can forget his spirited and 
 high-minded talk to the students and his genuine trib- 
 ute of gratitude to his teachers — that he got more out 
 of men while in Williston, at table, in teachers' and 
 students' rooms, than out of books." 
 
 His religious influence was extraordinary. He was 
 very active in the Young Men's Christian Association 
 
BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS 7 
 
 and inspired others. He was so active and conse- 
 crated that — ^his name then being Samuel Theodore — 
 the fellows putting together his initials called him "St. 
 Lee" ; they did it in jest, but he lived up to the title 
 and they honored him for the reality. In order to 
 lead them on in Christian service, he influenced mem- 
 bers of the Young Men's Christian Association to at- 
 tend the Student Conference at Northiield. 
 
 Out of the love of beautiful things he stirred up 
 the Association and others to set out vines around 
 South Hall. He raised the money among them and 
 procured the vines ready to be planted. The morn- 
 ing came when all were expected to share in the work. 
 But it rained and most of the students refused to go 
 out. But Theodore feared that the plants would 
 suiifer if delayed; and though he never heard of 
 Goethe's urgent counsel, "Be always resolute with 
 the present hour," he practiced it, went out with one 
 other fellow and did the whole job. Frail he was and 
 some feared for him, but the next day he was no worse 
 for it, and the fellows whose cuticle was too delicate 
 for a little extra moisture could hardly look upon the 
 forty ampelopsis Japanese ivy vines with unalloyed 
 pleasure. Now those brick walls are clothed in 
 luxuriant verdure. Not only so. There was elo- 
 quence in this beginning. Later, others were per- 
 suaded to adorn the other three Halls in like fashion 
 and in various ways to beautify the campus. 
 
 It is not easy to tell just when and where his mis- 
 sionary purpose began to emerge in his consciousness, 
 but it came into supremacy while in Williston. But 
 we know that his interest in missionaries began very 
 
8 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 early in the atmosphere of his home. During the 
 second five years of his life, his family resided in 
 Oberlin, a missionary town. Retired missionaries 
 lived there and were his parents' friends. Mission- 
 ary visitors were often in the churches and college. 
 A characteristic incident was when the Rev. Charles 
 Logan and his wife from Micronesia were calling one 
 afternoon. They rose to leave but were invited to st&.y 
 to tea. They excused themselves because their little 
 girl Beulah was alone at home. But Theodore inter- 
 posed, "Oh stay; I will go and get her, and you tell 
 more stories." Of course the missionary was glad to 
 satisfy such an audience. So Theodore went for 
 Beulah and had the stories. Always there were stu- 
 dents in college and seminary preparing for missionary 
 service. Exceptional interest was aroused by the or- 
 ganization one year of the band of young men to estab- 
 lish the Shansi Mission in China. Of these several 
 classes of persons many were often regular guests, 
 especially the members of that Shansi band. They 
 made a pet of the little boy. Two of them, Messrs. 
 Fay and Stimson, took their last Thanksgiving dinner 
 at the house. The prayers and thanksgivings con- 
 nected with the graduating of the young missionaries 
 impressed the entire community. 
 
 When he came to New Haven the same spirit per- 
 vaded the home and in some degree was prevalent 
 round about. One Sunday the Rev. Joseph H. 
 Twichell of Hartford had for his theme in the college 
 chapel the heroic life of Keith Falconer. Theodore's 
 mother read him the story. For several years his 
 father was closely connected with many city missions 
 
BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS 9 
 
 in New York, sending Christian young men from the 
 different colleges in New England into them for serv- 
 ice two months in the summer, raising the money for 
 their support while doing so. These students were 
 more or less in the home. Then his father became 
 president of the missionary college in Springfield. 
 
 At a meeting of the American Board in Brooklyn 
 Henry Ward Beecher accounted for the fact that he 
 and his brothers all became ministers by saying, "The 
 burden of my father's prayer every morning at the 
 family altar was for the coming of the Kingdom of 
 God. What else could we do?" 
 
 So far as we know no one in the home ever sug- 
 gested to Theodore that he might well become a mis- 
 sionary. His health would naturally preclude that. 
 But he always evinced pronounced interest in Chris- 
 tian work and occasionally in missions. When he was 
 about seventeen years old he wrote his sister from 
 Springfield, "Mamma sits here reading the Missionary 
 Review which she says is the best magazine that comes 
 into the house and I am beginning to think so myself." 
 But the definite authoritative suggestion that he give 
 himself to the foreign missionary work came directly 
 from a higher source. It was along in those days 
 when, imposing upon himself rules and regulations 
 for healthful living, he did not forget the hygiene of 
 the soul. He adopted the practice of spending a half 
 hour in communion with God, through the reading of 
 His Word and in prayer, before he left his room in 
 the morning. His day was before him; he contem- 
 plated it from the Divine point of view. He began 
 in the light ; he walked on in the light. This accounts 
 
lo WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 for Theodore Lee, for his spiritual eminence among 
 young men. We shall see its working through the en- 
 tire story before us. "Beholding as in a mirror the 
 glory of the Lord we are transformed into the same 
 image from glory to glory as from the spirit of the 
 Lord." 
 
 Now it is hardly credible that he should read his 
 Bible thus every morning, year after year, with ever 
 the inquiry, "Lord, what shall I do ?" and fail to offer 
 daily the one and the only specific prayer enjoined by 
 Christ upon His disciples, "Pray ye therefore the Lord 
 of the harvest to thrust forth laborers into His har- 
 vest"; or that he should rise from his knees without 
 hearing the great commission, "Go preach the gospel 
 to every creature." Yet his father was very much 
 surprised one day after he had returned from North- 
 field when he came into the study and said: "I 
 joined the Student Volunteers yesterday; it does not 
 commit me unless circumstances favor it." The 
 father's response was rather non-committal and feeble. 
 He expressed approval of the plan but was very doubt- 
 ful of its practicability in his case. But it was the 
 hour of destiny. The clock had struck. Theodore 
 had put his hand to the plow. That kind of purpose 
 in a young man gathers strength every day from all 
 things, favorable and adverse alike, is renewed every 
 morning and subdues circumstances to itself. 
 
 The three years after leaving Williston were years 
 of sore, unprecedented trial. He passed the exami- 
 nations and entered Yale in June. His ill-health had 
 not allowed him an unbroken school year since he en- 
 tered the high school in New Haven. Those who 
 
BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS ii 
 
 were his mates there were now nearly through college. 
 He was twenty-one years old. The struggle to get to 
 college had been long and severe. But he had won to 
 be disappointed. When autumn came he was wholly 
 unfit to go on. 
 
 So he stayed out to gain health. He made a busi- 
 ness of it. Diet, exercise, health-giving activities, life 
 out-of-doors, and for purposeful work book-selling, 
 because it would keep him going and occupied — ^but a 
 person with nervous dyspepsia would better not be- 
 come a book-agent. At the end of the school year he 
 was no worse and possibly a little better, yet not in 
 condition to take up the arduous labor of a Yale Fresh- 
 man. So, not to lose more time, he entered the Fresh- 
 man class in the American International College and 
 took the regular Freshman course. He had two class- 
 mates, fine fellows, a Frenchman, Telesphore Taisne, 
 who died in the winter of 191 3, pastor of the Congre- 
 gational Church in Durham, New Hampshire, and In- 
 structor in French in the State College; the other, an 
 Italian, Alphonse de Salvio, now Professor of Ro- 
 mance Languages in Northwestern University in 
 Evanston, Illinois. The three made a good class. By 
 reason of his familiarity with gymnastics, Theodore 
 was appointed Physical Director of the school and 
 drilled the students. As he lived at home and was not 
 obliged always to study and attend classes when he was 
 half sick, he accomplished his work very well. Yet, 
 though perhaps slightly better, he was not equal to go- 
 ing to Yale the following autumn. He took up the 
 Sophomore work in the home college, but in two weeks 
 was seized with malarial fever and brought very low. 
 
12 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 Yet he was up and about in two months, Hut unfit for 
 study. Whereupon, December i, 1896, he started for 
 Pine Bluff, North Carolina, to spend the winter with 
 his cousins, the family of the Rev. R. G. S. McNeille. 
 This was the most depressing point in his history. 
 Once seen, that white, cadaverous face, with its far 
 projecting eyes, sad beyond tears, speechless, well- 
 nigh hopeless, could never be forgotten. 
 
 However, the venture proved beneficial. In a home 
 with sympathetic friends whom he loved, working out 
 of doors in a vineyard, soil sandy, climate mild, he 
 gradually gained tone and strength. He came home 
 in May — ^not well, but better than he had been for a 
 long time. 
 
 In September he entered the Sophomore class at 
 Amherst. 
 
 We have said that these three years of delay were 
 a period of sore trial. Who can measure it? Were 
 his high hopes to be blasted ? Yet they were not lost 
 years. They were rich in their fruitage. 
 
 He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness for three 
 years to be tempted of the devil, tempted to abandon 
 the high endeavor to promote the Kingdom of God and 
 accept a lower, narrower activity advantageous to 
 himself ; but he had learned from his Master to quote 
 the word of God to the adversary, and vanquished him 
 with the sword of the Spirit. 
 
 We are told that we are determined by our environ- 
 ment — we are victims. Hardly. The determining 
 factor is how we meet, how we react upon our en- 
 vironment, what in our environment we choose to sur- 
 render to. A young man may be inevitably sur- 
 
BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS 13 
 
 rounded by vicious men; but he need not take them 
 for intimates. He may ally himself with true friends 
 and by resisting evil become strong in good. If a 
 young man have for his environment an enfeebled 
 body, unwelcome conditions, all kinds of obstacles, and 
 realize that the greatest reality in his environment is 
 God, finding in Him a refuge and strength, "he will 
 renew his strength, he will run and not be weary." 
 "All things work together for good to them that love 
 God" — even disappointments and defeats. 
 
 During these years Theodore was actively further- 
 ing missionary work. He interested those who were 
 near him. In the American International College he 
 was concerned in all religious services. He became 
 acquainted with young men of different foreign races, 
 learned how to meet the stranger, and he strengthened 
 many in a right purpose. One year he got several to 
 attend the Student Conference at Northfield, raising 
 the money in the city for their expenses. In the sum- 
 mer of 1899, with another intending missionary. Rev. 
 Edward Smith, now in China, he labored in churches 
 in and surrounding Palmer, Massachusetts, interesting 
 the young people and organizing mission study classes 
 — the results appeared in subsequent activities. 
 
 In the following summer, 1900, under the auspices 
 of the united Christian Endeavor Societies of Palmer 
 and Monson, he engaged for two or three months in 
 home missionary work in a neighborhood remote from 
 both churches among the hills, known as Silver Street, 
 holding services in the chapel, visiting homes, getting 
 the people out to attend them, organizing a Sunday 
 school which is still continued. In this work he re- 
 
14 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 ceived five dollars a week and to some extent, like the 
 schoolmasters of early days, "boarded round." He 
 once wrote, "This week I have been living with a saint ; 
 next week I am to live with the hardest sinner; I 
 don't know which I shall like the better." He was a 
 friend of sinners. 
 
 These were busy years. He adopted, under the di- 
 rection of Dr. Luther Gulick, an expert in physical 
 training, various expedients for the upbuilding of his 
 physique which no doubt relieved him in some meas- 
 ure of his particular disability, and at any rate de- 
 veloped in him great muscular strength. He lived out 
 of doors, much on his wheel or on his legs, on the 
 highways and in the woods. He found many ways for 
 diversion. He liked and had skill in mechanical work. 
 He constructed a work bench in the cellar, secured a 
 box of tools and made various things. 
 
 Here came in as a recuperative factor his love of 
 Nature. 
 
 "To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language." 
 
 That language Theodore listened to often and intently. 
 He heard the "voice of gladness in his gayer hours," 
 he felt the "mild and gentle sympathy in his darker 
 musings," but to him the natural world was not the 
 realm of death which the poet pictures. No, indeed. 
 It was instinct with irrespressible life. Nature's song 
 is a song of life. It gave vigor to his body and to his 
 soul. It shouted, "Live, live, live beautifully, live 
 abundantly, live gloriously, live forever!" 
 
BOYHOOD HOME AND SCHOOL DAYS 15 
 
 He never wearied of wandering around the fields and 
 forest summer or winter. Nature in all her aspects, in 
 the changing seasons, in the heavens above and the 
 earth beneath declared the glory of God. 
 
 He was very fond of the birds; he could not be a 
 scientific ornithologist for he could never kill a bird. 
 But with his opera glass he quietly pursued them. He 
 noted their colors, their structure, the sweep of their 
 flight, he learned their habits and habitat; he would 
 never disturb a nest. He knew their voices and songs. 
 
 He was deeply interested in trees. He made a 
 considerable collection of woods. In this work he 
 was much encouraged and aided by Mr. George S. 
 Lewis of the Springfield Republican, who was an ex- 
 pert in the business. He sawed and polished into uni- 
 form shape, as if for a museum, and in his old room 
 there are still seventy-five specimens of the different 
 woods of this vicinity, where he hanged them with his 
 own hand on the picture molding along the walls. 
 
 But the highest benefit of those three trying years 
 was in his own spiritual advancement. He developed 
 tremendous power of will. He was victor over cir- 
 cumstances. His sense of obligation to the right was 
 commanding. "Through suffering learned he obedi- 
 ence." "Tribulation worketh steadfastness, steadfast- 
 ness approvedness, approvedness hope, and hope 
 maketh not ashamed" ; that is, hope assureth triumph. 
 God's good pleasure became his own. To know that 
 his Saviour wanted a thing done made the doing of it 
 a pleasure. "His delight was in the law of the Lord." 
 
A COLLEGE MAN WITH A GENIUS FOR 
 FRIENDSHIP, AMHERST, 1900 
 
We loved him for his noble friendship, for his intimate daily 
 communion with his God, for his hatred of all sin and sham, 
 but some of us loved him even more for his tireless devotion 
 to those for whom none other cared, who were hungry and 
 sick and naked and far away. He was our friend and prophet 
 and missionary in Amherst years before it was his privilege to 
 go to India. 
 
 —The witness gf Wellington H. Tinker. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A COLLEGE MAN WITH A GENIUS FOR 
 FRIENDSHIP, AMHERST, 1900 
 
 In the fall of 1897 Theodore Storrs Lee entered the 
 Sophomore class at Amherst College. He was twenty- 
 four years of age, older in years and much older in 
 experience than most of his classmates. 
 
 As a boy in the New Haven high school, his great 
 ambition to train and strengthen his body for the time 
 when as a Yale man he should be eligible for the Yale 
 crew caused him to overdo. He never fully recovered 
 from this breakdown and came to college physically 
 handicapped though richly endowed in other ways. 
 His long struggle for health had deepened his sense of 
 the value of life and enabled him as well to reach a 
 very definite decision concerning his own life work. 
 He came to Amherst determined to prepare himself for 
 a great task, and this serious life purpose stamped him 
 immediately as a marked man among his fellows. 
 The rest of us were there for various reasons; he 
 was in college for business. 
 
 Singularly enough the life work to which he felt 
 particularly called was that of a foreign missionary, 
 notwithstanding the fact that the American Interna- 
 tional College, of which his father was president and 
 which he had attended for a year, was chartered to 
 
 19 
 
20 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 meet one of the greatest of all home missionary prob- 
 lems. In the presence of such unquestioned needs, 
 Theodore had grown to manhood. The great possi- 
 bilities of the home work gripped his imagination and 
 he thought seriously of giving his life to the cause 
 of the foreigner in America. 
 
 An intimate friend writes : 
 
 His missionary decision was due to no dis- 
 paragement or belittlement of home oppor- 
 tunities. It was based rather on a vividness 
 of imagination and largeness of outlook 
 which made him appreciate, as those of 
 smaller powers cannot do, the vastness and 
 compelling appeal of the great needs and 
 possibilities of the Oriental peoples. For 
 him no personal pull of affection could be 
 allowed to stand in the way of spending his 
 life in the most needy places, and his detailed 
 and careful study of missions served only to 
 deepen the conviction that the greatest prob- 
 lem of the Christian Church in America was 
 whether its vision were wide enough, its con- 
 secration deep enough and its brotherliness 
 practical enough to give adequate response to 
 the foreign missionary appeal. 
 
 To prepare himself for the finest, truest type of 
 foreign service was his constant endeavor. It is not 
 surprising therefore that Theodore found it difficult to 
 mingle freely with the younger, more carefree, less 
 earnest men of his class. Among them he became 
 known as "Missionary Lee." He seemed to them a 
 person apart ; as, indeed, they seemed to him. 
 
 Of course, in the small college community a strong 
 
A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 21 
 
 personality like Theodore Lee's could not fail to in- 
 fluence even the so-called sporty men, but the influence 
 was such as comes from casual contact. 
 
 Nor is it surprising that such a character should find 
 it necessary occasionally to act in open opposition to 
 the overwhelming sentiment of his classmates. Lee 
 had been in college scarcely a week before such an 
 occasion arose. A classmate describes the incident: 
 
 The annual cane rush between Freshmen 
 and Sophomores took place on the first 
 Saturday night of the school year. This cane 
 rush was dangerous and awakened brutal in- 
 stincts in some men. Some of the so-called 
 religious men did not believe in it, and yet, 
 because of the intensity of class feeling and 
 the fear that they would be considered physi- 
 cal cowards if they stayed away, most of 
 these men took part in the affair. Evidently 
 Theodore had had a talk with some of these 
 men and was aroused by the evils of the 
 rush and by the intolerant tyranny of the 
 class in this matter. He therefore refused 
 to go to the rush, thus consciously running 
 counter to the overwhelming sentiment of his 
 class and facing misunderstanding and un- 
 popularity at the very start of his college 
 career. 
 
 A second similar decision was when he deliberately 
 gave up attendance at all college games in order to 
 give the money saved to the support of the Amherst 
 Alumni Missionary. 
 
 He clearly recognized this as a sacrifice, 
 but his means were slender and he felt that 
 the support of the College Missionary, which 
 
22 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 was then at a low ebb, urgently demanded the 
 full support of his college's loyalty and gen- 
 erosity. He later questioned the wisdom of 
 this decision, feeling that the loss resulting 
 from separating himself from the greatest in- 
 terest of most of his college mates might have 
 more than outweighed the help he had been 
 able to give the College Missionary; but, I, 
 for one was shamed into doubling my mis- 
 sionary subscription by finding out how gen- 
 erously he had given. 
 
 Naturally such actions did not add to his popularity 
 but that did not swerve him from his course. He was 
 fitting himself for the eternal war that right must ever 
 wage against wrong. What mattered it if the fight 
 began a trifle early! It would add to his experience 
 and train him for the harder battles that were sure to 
 come. There is no surer way of knowing, men than 
 by studying their habits and in the case of Theodore 
 this method of diagnosis is easy for his habits even 
 during college days were well marked. He was in- 
 dustrious by habit. The value of time was always a 
 factor in his thinking. Possibly the fact that he was 
 older than his fellows, but more probably the sense of 
 all that needed to be done, made him relentless in his 
 determination to utilize each waking moment and oft- 
 times impatient with those whose sense of the value of 
 time was far less keen than his. This explains in large 
 part his attitude toward the lighter side of college 
 life. It was not that he particularly felt its badness, 
 but that it was so insipid, so unworthy of the time and 
 money and strength put into it. 
 
 He would often change his work, but rarely stopped 
 
A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 23 
 
 working. Even during his long walks, one could tell 
 by the rapid, earnest way in which he was striding 
 along that his brain was working at some diificult prob- 
 lem. A classmate writes of him: "I never saw him 
 anywhere save as he sat or stood bolt upright." He 
 had so schooled himself to his tasks that he was ready 
 at a moment's notice for whatever demand might be 
 made, and this readiness showed itself even in his 
 posture. 
 
 Let it not be imagined though that his absorption 
 in work had dimmed his sense of humor, or lessened his 
 charm as a companion. Few men could surpass him 
 in the art of telling a story and none in the enjoy- 
 ment thereof. An old college mate, after a lapse of 
 nearly twelve years, writes that one of the things he 
 remembers about Lee is a "story that still lingers with 
 me. It was ridiculously absurd but was related with 
 all the imaginative details and dry humor that charac- 
 terize a good story teller." 
 
 Lee had cultivated also the habit of thoroughness. 
 No detail was unimportant if in his judgment it was 
 essential to the complete understanding of the subject. 
 This exceptionally rare trait among college men was 
 well illustrated in many ways. His health demanded 
 that he take light but regular exercise. Accordingly 
 he purchased dumb-bells and Indian clubs and with 
 great thoroughness went through with his exercises, 
 rarely if ever missing a day. Another instance much 
 to the point is given by a friend. Lee had been greatly 
 troubled by certain reports that had reached his ears 
 concerning a well-known resort in Northampton. He 
 had never seen the place personally and he disliked to 
 
24 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 pass judgment until in some way the report had heen 
 ratified. So writes his friend "Lee came back early 
 from his Thanksgiving vacation and stopped over night 
 at Dick Raha's, Northampton, that he might see how 
 the other half lived. He never did anything super- 
 ficially, no matter how small or insignificant it might 
 be." 
 
 Possibly the outstanding illustration of this habit 
 of thoroughness was Lee's faithful adherence to daily 
 Bible study. Long before he came to college, he had 
 formed the habit and all through his course it was his 
 regular practice. He felt that he could not be a thor- 
 ough Christian unless he kept himself in closest con- 
 tact with his Lord; and this he believed to be im- 
 possible, at least for him, unless each day he opened 
 the pages of the Book and dwelt in quiet reverence 
 upon the life and teaching of his Lord. If it was 
 right for him to give careful attention to his body and 
 resolute attention to his mental development by faith- 
 fully preparing his college work, it was also essential, 
 he believed, to feed his spirit life each day under the 
 leadership of the Master Teacher. His Bible was al- 
 ways upon his desk, and again and again I have found 
 him poring over the Book. He fed upon its great 
 themes as few college men have done, and the strength 
 and beauty of spirit that such food always develops, 
 .one could see in his face. 
 
 His Christian faith was of such supreme value to 
 him that he felt constrained to propagate it, and the 
 method that he chose was usually the method of friend- 
 ship. It became his constant habit. Many a time 
 did he seek out men in lonely rooms, bewildered 
 
A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 25 
 
 or weakened by the college struggle. Many a quiet 
 talk did he have as he and his selected companion trod 
 his favorite walk. No one else in college had so many 
 intimate talks with so many men; and no one else 
 brought such strength and courage to those who were 
 tempted to give up boyhood standards in the freedom 
 of the college environment. 
 
 It was not the college man alone that absorbed his 
 attention. His interests were as wide as the needs 
 that he saw. A characteristic incident is described by 
 an eye witness. 
 
 Lee was going to attend an important mis- 
 sionary convention in Northampton. The re- 
 sponsibility of the meetings rested very 
 largely upon his shoulders for he was to be 
 the presiding officer. During the ride from 
 Amherst, he was thinking earnestly of these 
 meetings and planning for them. As we got 
 off the train and went through the station, 
 Lee excused himself for a moment, crossed 
 over quickly to a poor old woman who was 
 trying to carry a burden all too heavy for her, 
 swung it upon his shoulders and carried it to 
 the place she was going. Later he joined the 
 fellows as if nothing really great had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 Naturally, Lee was led to give a great deal of his 
 time to the promotion of interest in missions among 
 the students and here also his chief method was per- 
 sonal work. So insistent was he at times in presenting 
 the subject that one of the fellows states "During my 
 freshman year I lived in actual terror of Lee and no 
 more dared to be absent from mission study class than 
 
26 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 to be away from my regular college classes." Another 
 writes : 
 
 I well remember the first time when Theo- 
 dore Lee and I had an extended talk together. 
 He was the one who sought the talk, walking 
 with me from a class to my distant fraternity 
 house. His object was to enlist me in a mis- 
 sion study class which he was starting. The 
 part of the interview which especially served 
 to perpetuate it in my memory was its closing 
 moment. He had presented telling argu- 
 ments for mission study ; but I was not at the 
 time greatly interested and had combatted 
 some of his statements, thinking them narrow 
 and, perhaps, unfair to the general run of the 
 fellows. He turned to me to say good night 
 and giving me that strong warm grip which 
 was so characteristic of him and looking 
 straight into my eyes, in his typical way, said, 
 with a genuineness that one could not fail to 
 feel in all that he ever said or did, "I wish I 
 had your broad-minded way of looking at 
 things." I did not take any credit to myself 
 from this remark. I was "one of the fellows" 
 through and through, and so could naturally 
 interpret them, but Theodore Lee's large- 
 minded fairness spoke in the words as his 
 warm heart spoke in his grip and look. It 
 was only natural that I should try to meet 
 him half way by deciding to join the mission 
 study class. 
 
 Another incident shows his persistence in advocat- 
 ing the consideration of the foreign missionary ap- 
 peal. A classmate was giving the matter very serious 
 thought at the end of his Senior year, but had reached 
 
A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 27 
 
 no decision. Theodore felt that the atmosphere of the 
 Northfield Student Conference might help this man to 
 a decision and so urged his attendance. Finally this 
 classmate decided that he could not afford the ex- 
 pense of the conference. Another man would have 
 felt compelled to accept this decision with regret. Not 
 so Theodore Lee. He immediately offered to pay all 
 the expenses himself. This classmate knew very well 
 that Theodore could not afford to do this and would 
 not accept the offer, but yielded to this last proof of 
 Theodore's urgent desire to have him go to Northfield 
 and went. At Northfield he made the final decision 
 that led to a missionary career already rich in solid 
 accomplishment. 
 
 Another writes : 
 
 To Theodore Lee more than to any other 
 human agency I owe the greatest single de- 
 cision of my life. For three years and more 
 he labored with me. Naturally enough he 
 was the first man to whom I told my decision 
 and then he replied, his face fairly beaming, 
 "I have been praying for you for years." 
 
 He could not win men without loving them, and 
 under the spur of his purpose, his capacity for friend- 
 ship knew no bounds. The following incident is most 
 characteristic: "I was walking to chapel one very 
 cold morning with my overcoat unbuttoned. Theodore 
 caught up with me and noticing my coat, carefully 
 buttoned it and then chided me gently for wasting so 
 much animal heat and thereby running the risk of wast- 
 ing time, by being sick." Another writes. "He was 
 
28 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 always so respectful and courteous that even the worst 
 men in his class rarely took any offense, so apparent 
 was it that he was thinking of their highest welfare." 
 It was this devotion to the men in college that led 
 him into the holy of holies of many a man's heart, caus- 
 ing many of us to feel in a very real way the sentiment 
 expressed by Mrs. Browning 
 
 "The face of all the world. 
 
 Is changed, I think, 
 
 Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul." 
 
 The genuine tenderness of the man appears in a 
 letter written, to be sure some years after college, but 
 reflecting nevertheless, his deep affectionate nature. It 
 reads : 
 
 Dear Old Trueheart : We are so very joy- 
 ful that you have found your own. How you 
 helped and comforted me in my anxious love, 
 and strengthened my faith and prayed with 
 and for me. Dear old chap, I have not been 
 so glad over anything for years. 
 
 Tennyson in his "In Memoriam" gives the line that 
 came to many of his friends as we saw our friend 
 pass on into the other world. 
 
 "Wherefore the man that with me trod 
 
 This planet, was of noble type. 
 
 Appearing e'er the times were right. 
 That friend of mine who lived in God." 
 
 But Theodore's outstanding characteristic was his 
 habit of faith. He was by no means unaware of the 
 philosophical and critical problems of his day, and their 
 
A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 29 
 
 bearing upon the wisdom of a child-like faith in sub- 
 jective and objective answer to prayer, to say nothing 
 of the difficulty of believing in a personal God. His 
 method of approach however was pragmatic, and dur- 
 ing all the dark days of his intellectual wanderings in 
 the class-room, he^as being sustained and strength- 
 ened by what he firmly believed to be the actual result 
 of his faith in a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering 
 God. One of his professors testified, "I was always 
 impressed by his simple and sturdy faith which was of 
 the kind to remove mountains." 
 
 On one occasion during our Senior year, 
 Lee invited me to take a walk with him, and 
 our conversation naturally turned upon the 
 questions which were of great interest to us 
 both, namely, some of the subjects and prob- 
 lems which we were discussing in psychology. 
 We had reached that point in the course 
 where doubt had been cast upon the existence 
 of any personal divine Being, and the capacity 
 of the human mind to know anything except 
 what was based on experiences gained through 
 the senses. I recall as we were passing by 
 a large tree that Lee turned to it and said, 
 "God is as real to me as that tree." 
 
 Alden Clark, now a missionary in India and possibly 
 Lee's most intimate college friend, writes. 
 
 Probably the most coveted honor of the 
 Commencement season is the Hardy Prize for 
 excellence in public debate. Theodore had 
 not shown preeminent ability as a debater but 
 was chosen one of the six competitors for this 
 Hardy Prize. As he thought about it he saw 
 
30 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 that the prestige of winning a debate where 
 success would depend on ordered reasoning 
 would help the foreign missionary cause, if 
 so pronounced an advocate of foreign service 
 as he should carry off the prize. His own 
 missionary decision had been based on bal- 
 anced reason. He had presented his case to 
 the reason of his college mates in season and 
 cut for three years. Here was his final 
 chance to win for his chosen cause public 
 prestige, for he was aware that many in col- 
 lege still looked upon him as a missionary 
 fanatic. Meditation and prayer brought the 
 conviction that it was God's will that he should 
 win this debate, and he set about his prepara- 
 tion with minutest care, but with utter con- 
 fidence that he was to win. I tried to dis- 
 suade him, feeling sure that such faith was 
 mistaken and was doomed to disappointment, 
 but my protests were without eiifect and my 
 open lack of faith did not blunt his trust. 
 The debate took place. It so happened that 
 I was on confidential terms with one of the 
 judges and tried to find out the result before 
 it was publicly announced. The reply he 
 made was, of course, guarded and I misunder- 
 stood him to imply that Theodore had failed. 
 I went to Theodore with this supposed in- 
 formation in order to prepare him for a dis- 
 appointment, but my inference did not shake 
 his assurance of success, and, sure enough, 
 when the result was announced he had easily 
 won the coveted honor. 
 
 Theodore was by no means perfect. His nature was 
 so intense and his vision of the goal to be obtained so 
 clear that now and then he drove both himself and his 
 fellows too hard. His nature was fearless. Personal 
 
A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 31 
 
 consequences had little or no weight. If in his judg- 
 ment a thing needed to be done and there seemed to be 
 no one else ready or willing to do it, no matter how 
 great the opposition, Lee was always ready for the 
 fray. 
 
 Guiney in his great poem entitled "The King" pic- 
 tures vividly Lee's attitude. 
 
 "While kings of eternal evil 
 Yet darken the hills about, 
 Thy part is with broken saber 
 To rise on the last redoubt ; 
 
 "To fear no sensible failure. 
 Nor covet the game at all. 
 But fighting, fighting, fighting. 
 Die driven against the wall." 
 
 Men might question his wisdom and his tact but no 
 classmate ever questioned his courage. He was a 
 Puritan in the finest sense of the term and if occasion- 
 ally he failed to reveal the tender human side of his 
 nature, it was due, not to the lack of that element, but 
 rather to his belief that just then, under those circum- 
 stances, the sterner work or act was more essential. 
 
 This stem, uncompromising attitude Theodore 
 showed more markedly in the presence of the more 
 vulgar sins and temptations of college life. It was due 
 in no small part to the fierce struggles through which he 
 battled in his own inner life. 
 
 "Well, let me sin, but not with my consenting, 
 Well, let me die, but willing to be whole : — 
 
 Never, O Christ, so stay me from relenting, 
 Shall there be truce betwixt my flesh and soul." 
 
32 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 He was so passionately in search of righteousness 
 that it hurt him fearfully to see men deliberately choos- 
 ing the evil. 
 
 "I shall never forget the loathing with which Lee 
 described the sin — not the sinner — which a poor chap 
 at East Northfield confessed to him in one of his talks. 
 It was my first summer conference at East Northfield, 
 and yet the one and only speech that I now recall was 
 Lee's description of that fellow's awful plight." No 
 deadlier enemy of vice ever entered Amherst College. 
 The fellows were so aware of it that in his presence 
 unclean things were rarely if ever mentioned. A col- 
 lege mate writes, "When his tall, rigid form moved 
 through a company whether in the fraternity house or 
 on the campus, we all felt instinctively that here was 
 one who could be relied upon for truest, staunchest 
 friendship, and unbending integrity." 
 
 My sorrow at hearing of Theodore Lee's 
 untimely death was mingled with gratitude for 
 the fact that it had been my privilege to know 
 so white a soul. Like ozone, he unconsciously 
 purified the atmosphere wherever he went, 
 and I know of no one to whom I can more 
 fitly apply the words of Sir Galahad, "My 
 strength is as the strength of ten, because 
 my heart is pure." 
 
 It was this purity of heart and soul that made him 
 painfully conscious of evil in whatever form it may 
 have appeared and compelled him to wage stern war- 
 fare against it, asking no quarter and giving none. 
 
 His method of attack, however, was always con- 
 structive. He spent little time in merely decrying evil. 
 
A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP 33 
 
 Few college men knew as well as he the political, so- 
 cial, and moral problems of his day. He had studied 
 them the world around, and pledged his life to work 
 for their solution, but so convinced was he that Jesus' 
 program was the only permanent panacea, and that 
 the point of greatest human need was the place above 
 all other places where this program should first be 
 presented, that he gave himself untiringly to this single 
 aim. "One thing I do" was his watchword and night 
 and day he lived in utter loyalty to it. He suffered 
 physically and mentally but he never lowered his 
 standard or stopped in his endeavor. 
 
 "He was a hero; I do not think I have ever known 
 a more consecrated life," writes one of his most inti- 
 mate friends in college. His health was such that it 
 often seemed doubtful to all save to him whether the 
 foreign board would be able to send him to the field. 
 A less determined man would have thought it the part 
 of wisdom under such circumstances to say as little 
 as possible about his life purpose. Not so Theodore 
 Lee. His purpose was God given, and he was 
 straightened until it should be accomplished. The 
 sturdy onward drive of such a life it was a rare 
 privilege to witness. Punch's lines regarding Living- 
 stone's death might well be applied: 
 
 '"Tis the last mile of many thousands trod. 
 With failing strength but never failing will. 
 
 By the worn frame, now at his rest with God, 
 That never rested with its strife with ill. 
 
 "Or if the ache of travel and of toil, 
 
 Would sometimes wring a short, sharp cry of pain. 
 From agony of fever, blain, or boil, 
 
 'Twas but to crush it down, and on again." 
 
THE CONSCIENCE OF UNION THEOLOGICAL 
 SEMINARY 
 
A manly man he was, of noble frame. 
 Deliberate, well poised with ample power. 
 That rose to meet the shock of sudden need. 
 
 A man great hearted, ardent, vivid, pure. 
 With many a tender thought and impulse keen. 
 And tidal rush of feeling, broad and deep. 
 
 A man devout and prayerful, serving God, 
 Loving his word and people, all his work 
 And all his workers, be they high or low. 
 
 A champion, born for fray; ne'er turning back 
 Because the strife was hot, but striking hard. 
 And fighting on, though left to fight alone. 
 
 A friend he was, how many mourn that friend 
 So steadfast, so abounding, full of cheer, 
 And strength and eager service of the soul. 
 
 The college and the church, the town, the hills. 
 Men, rich and poor, friends, near and far will feel, 
 In coming days a growing sense of loss. 
 
 For him the gain. Set free from bonds of flesh, 
 'Rapt from the fickle and the frail, may he 
 A servant strong abide with Thee, oh God." 
 
 S. G. Barnes. 
 
chapter: III 
 
 THE CONSCIENCE OF UNION THEOLOGICAL 
 
 SEMINARY 
 
 Theodore was graduated from Amherst in the 
 Spring of 1900, and entered Union Theological Semi- 
 nary the following Autumn with the class of 1903. 
 The institution was then in its old quarters; a rather 
 somber group of buildings, constructed of brick and 
 sand-stone, and of a semi-Gothic appearance. There 
 were some thirty men in his class and they repre- 
 sented, on the whole, a group who were above the 
 average in both intellectual and personal qualifications. 
 The first few weeks of seminary life, with its abrupt 
 change from the joyous and irresponsible freedom, the 
 pagan wholesomeness of college life, are trying ones. 
 The class included graduates from many and diversi- 
 fied institutions, representing widely scattered locali- 
 ties and varying degrees of preparation, and all felt 
 rather on trial with one another in those opening 
 weeks. 
 
 Theodore did not immediately take an unquestioned 
 place among the men in the front ; frail in health and 
 modest, for all his spiritual aggressiveness, his leader- 
 ship was more of the real than the apparent sort. 
 The writer's own first contact with him was most 
 characteristic of his nature and spirit. There were 
 
 Z7 
 
38 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 no elevators in the old dormitory but there was a 
 freight lift, up which trunks, and other heavy pieces 
 of luggage, could be somewhat painfully pulled by 
 hand. Down in the basement one day, just after the 
 term had opened, was Theodore, standing at the bot- 
 tom of the lift and vigorously pulling on the rope to 
 help another man with his slowly ascending goods. 
 This was not precisely the sort of exercise one would 
 prescribe for a boy with a weak heart, but it was quite 
 in keeping with his nature to throw himself with gen- 
 erous imprudence into any opportunity to serve. One 
 remembers that first impression of Theodore as of a 
 clear eyed, resolute, and extraordinarily vital youth of 
 unusual volitional power. His simplicity, his un- 
 swerving directness, the mature poise and steadiness 
 of his nature, were at once perceptible. 
 
 Indeed, in the early days of acquaintance at Union, 
 Theodore seemed chiefly the Puritan. The sense of 
 the immediate leadership of God, that bright and in- 
 exorable will to do right, the austere devotion to duty — 
 these are the things which in the beginning stood out 
 clearest in his life at the Seminary and they were, of 
 course, its fundamental characteristics. His ruling 
 passion was not for wisdom nor learning, conscientious 
 scholar though he was, but for truth and duty. He 
 was glad to do God's will. He saw life primarily in 
 terms of righteousness; therefore he seemed chiefly 
 the Puritan because it was the ethical sense which was 
 strongest in him. He was the conscience of the Semi- 
 nary in his three years of student life there, and not 
 infrequently many of his classmates were faintly ir- 
 ritated with one who was almost no less exacting with 
 
Theodore Stores Lee 
 
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE SEMINARY 39 
 
 others than with himself. To those who had come up 
 from the gracious, careless life of some of the col- 
 leges there was something almost as startling as it 
 was arrestive in his high, undeviating will. He in- 
 sisted that nothing mattered so much as fidelity ; that 
 nothing was so important as the transmission of an 
 ethical and spiritual message and the emancipation of 
 the race from ignorance and sin. Men might be 
 happy and might be learned but first of all they must 
 be right; right with their own souls, right with God. 
 But, as one came to know Theodore better, it was 
 a surprise and a joy to see the variety of his inter- 
 ests. His was no narrow or puritanical nature in 
 those student days. That cultivated indifference to 
 beauty, that self-righteous depreciation of the lovely 
 and gracious and creative aspects of life, which is so 
 repellent a characteristic of the merely pietistic type, 
 had no place in this rich and abounding personality. 
 Thus his love of nature was one of his happiest char- 
 acteristics. He was a very keen observer of every- 
 thing in the out-door world. One learned many things 
 from him, even in walks about Central Park, where 
 these excursions revealed a really intimate knowledge 
 of trees and birds, and a keen interest in shrubs and 
 flowers. Again, he was very sensitive to the noble 
 and enlarging influences of music and the drama, 
 painting and sculpture. He writes in one of his let- 
 ters: "There is nothing I enjoy more than vocal or 
 instrumental music. I may not always be an intelli- 
 gent listener and I know that much escapes me, yet 
 I enjoy it all with savage delight !" Again he gives a 
 party in his room one day, taking his friends with him 
 
40 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 afterwards to see the Morality play of "Everyman," 
 and refers in his letters to the pleasure and inspiration 
 which the performance afforded. A close friend of his 
 has written of the delight that he took, in these days at 
 Union, in the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts and 
 of how they two went together one day to see Barn- 
 ard's great statue, "I feel two natures struggling with- 
 in me." Afterward they spent the remainder of the 
 day among the other sculptures of the museum and his 
 friend, who was something of a connoisseur in these 
 matters, writes of Theodore's intelligent admiration 
 and instinctive understanding of these works of art. 
 The same thing came out in him when once attend- 
 ing a concert of the Musical Arts Society. These 
 concerts attract only the cultivated lovers of classical 
 music, but Theodore enjoyed the evening with dis- 
 criminating appreciation. 
 
 Another most lovable, though often disconcerting 
 trait, which appeared in these student days was his 
 unconventional directness of manner which sometimes 
 expressed itself in writing in a sort of quaint and 
 hearty humor. Thus he would whimsically make 
 light of his physical ailments, never disguising them, 
 but frankly and humorously accepting them. He had 
 great vividness of speech at times, of this half amus- 
 ing, wholly direct sort. Thus he writes when work is 
 pressing hard and his health uncertain: "I feel like 
 a man swimming in sea-weed." And another time re- 
 ferring to some seminary tests he says: "I came 
 through my examinations swimmingly — ^that is, with 
 my nose above water !" Again he writes referring to 
 his health, "My head is above water, although once 
 
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE SEMINARY 41 
 
 or twice during the month the waves have come up 
 and filled my eyes and nose and I thought I was 
 drowned. Now 1 know enough to hold my breath and 
 tread water." 
 
 But the noblest attribute of Theodore's seminary 
 life was his beautiful capacity for tenderness and af- 
 fection. In December, 1900, his sister, Grace, be- 
 tween whom and himself there had been a very close 
 and precious bond, died. Speaking of her not many 
 months after, he pointed to the bright red tie he was 
 wearing, saying that she had bought it for him and, 
 thinking it becoming, liked him to use it and so he 
 was wearing it for her. It was like his fine hatred 
 for pretence and mere convention that he expressed 
 his loving remembrance of his sister in wearing the 
 red tie, which she gave him and not the usual mourning 
 band. A letter written to his father and mother soon 
 after his sister's death brings out very beautifully the 
 tenderness of his nature. 
 
 I never left home with so much reluctance 
 or so much conscious love for those I was 
 leaving as last Thursday. You have lost 
 more in Grace than I can ever make up to 
 you, but I am conscious that I have gained in 
 love and affection and tenderness something 
 that has always been latent until now. We 
 all love you no less than Grace did and we 
 do not want you to think that you have lost 
 anything of warm affection or appreciation. 
 The best is yet to be, the last of life for which 
 the first was lived. 
 
 And there were times when he himself, with his 
 great capacity for outgiving, depended also upon the 
 
42 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 blessed human touch, craving the affection of his peers. 
 In a letter written during these days he says: 
 
 You cannot imagine how much it means to 
 one so conscious of faults, limitations of body, 
 mind and heart, to receive assurances of con- 
 fidence and affection. It is the love which 
 quickens one's heart and gives me confidence 
 in myself and hope for my work. 
 
 It is perhaps clear then, how rich and many sided 
 his student life was. Walking down Madison Avenue 
 one day and passing a very large and beautiful dwell- 
 ing which attracted his admiration and interest he went 
 up to the great entrance, rang the bell and asked the 
 well appointed man-servant who opened the door the 
 name of the owner. Having been told that it be- 
 longed to Mr. Louis Tiffany, he thanked the servant 
 and walked off again ! Yet this impulsive, direct and 
 unconventional man could be as tender and protective 
 of human life, as able to idealize and believe in it, 
 as any woman. It was shortly after this time that, 
 returning with Mr. Tinker from dinner one evening, he 
 came upon a man asleep on a rubbish heap who was 
 helplessly intoxicated. Mr. Tinker and he took the 
 man to the Seminary, fed him, put him to bed, re- 
 clothed him by means of contributions gathered from 
 the other members of the institution, kept him there 
 thirty-six hours and looked after him until he was on 
 his feet again. They did not lose sight of him but 
 encouraged him to make a fresh start at his work — 
 he was a carpenter — and to go back to his wife and 
 children and do something towards their support. 
 Nearly a decade afterward, when this man heard of 
 
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE SEMINARY 43 
 
 Theodore's death, he insisted on returning to Mrs. Lee 
 the ten dollars which he said Theodore had given him 
 out of his slender student's store, with which to make 
 a new start. 
 
 But the two great events which dominated Theo- 
 dore's life at Union Seminary were his acceptance and 
 subsequent appointment by the American Board and 
 his engagement to Miss Hannah Hume, the daughter 
 of the veteran statesman-missionary of the Bombay 
 Mission. Theodore had come up to Union an ardent 
 Student Volunteer, his whole life passionately set on 
 foreign missionary service. It was for some time un- 
 certain, owing to his precarious health, whether or 
 not he would be accepted by any mission board and 
 sent out to the fatigues and dangers of the foreign 
 field. Much of his conversation in those days had to 
 do with this, his heart's desire, of serving Christ in a 
 foreign land, and many were the disappointments and 
 delays which came to him before his acceptance was 
 secure. Nearly all of his letters make mention of his 
 ardent prayers that he may be permitted to undertake 
 missionary service and, in most of his intercourse with 
 his fellow-students, one felt that he never forgot that 
 life purpose and that he was always on the look-out 
 for new recruits whom he might win to the missionary 
 ranks. Unusual precaution was taken by the Ameri- 
 can Board over his appointment owing to what proved 
 to be, in him, a congenital weak heart. At one time, 
 after receiving a letter from the Prudential Committee 
 throwing some doubt upon his appointment owing to 
 this physical disability. Dr. Barton writes that he re- 
 plied with a courage that bordered upon the heroic. 
 
44 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 He then expressed the hope that, in response to eight 
 years of expectant preparation and prayer, the Lord 
 had some work for him to do in the place of greatest 
 need, and he declared his faith that he should yet be 
 sent into the foreign field. He gave as his reason for 
 wanting to go into foreign missionary work that the 
 need was so great while the numbers offering them- 
 selves were so inadequate. Also he said that he owed 
 it to Jesus Christ Himself, as well as to those who sit 
 in darkness, to pass on to them that which he had re- 
 ceived in such full measure. He used to talk much 
 about this sublime ambition. At one time, in true Puri- 
 tan fashion, he went through with a severe self-exami- 
 nation to ascertain whether or not his desire to be a 
 missionary was based upon any selfish motive. He 
 came to the conclusion that, if he at all understood his 
 own heart, his longing to go to the ends of the earth 
 was only that he might take a saving knowledge of 
 the Christ he loved and served to those who knew Him 
 not. It was therefore a never to be forgotten day in 
 his life when under date of April 8, 1903, he writes 
 "To-day I have had my examination before the Man- 
 hattan Ministerial Association and I suppose that the 
 Prudential Committee of the A. B. C. F. M. acted on 
 my application for foreign service yesterday." Then 
 on May 19th of the same year he writes, "I have been 
 accepted by the American Board and feel that God has 
 indeed been good to me." 
 
 But the most beautiful event of his Seminary years 
 was his meeting with the sister of his dear friend and 
 classmate, Mr. Ernest Hume. Miss Hannah Hume 
 had been graduated from Wellesley in 1900, the same 
 
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE SEMINARY 45 
 
 year that Theodore received his degree at Amherst. 
 After teaching for a year at Northfield she went to New 
 Haven to live with her aunt and grandmother and to 
 enter into mission work with the former. Theodore 
 had once said of Mr. Ernest Hume : "If ever I meet 
 a girl like Ernest I'll marry her, if she'll let me." It 
 was in May of the year 1902 that he first met Hannah 
 and at once, on his part, there was a consciousness of 
 profound attraction. For in a letter of about that time 
 he writes: "It makes me a lot of trouble this heart 
 of mine. I don't understand it at all. I am trying to 
 find out just what the matter is. Is it reality or an 
 illusion, fact or fancy, a sane man's vision or a lovely 
 dream? Such are my questionings. If I wake up I 
 think, and in the morning I think, and during lectures 
 I think. Perhaps there is nothing in it, but I wish 
 there was !" 
 
 In the Fall of that year, shortly after Thanksgiving, 
 1902, Theodore met Miss Hume again at a picnic held 
 in the November woods. At this gathering a picture 
 was taken of the party in which Theodore was sitting 
 on a fallen tree looking earnestly at Miss Hume. It 
 happened to be the best picture he had ever had and 
 his mother, when he got home, told him that if that 
 was the way he looked when he looked at Miss Hume 
 he had better keep on looking, and he replied "I intend 
 to." 
 
 For several reasons, however, there was not much 
 opportunity for further acquaintance or correspondence 
 during the Winter. But in the month of April, 1903, 
 both Miss Hume's aunt and grandmother died and 
 the way seemed clear for a more vigorous prosecu- 
 
46 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 tion of his suit. On his way home from the Semi- 
 nary that year, he stopped off in New Haven for two 
 days or more. Meanwhile his father had been anxious 
 over the thought of his going to the foreign field un- 
 married. He had chosen China for his lifework and 
 was already assigned to Shaowu. One day he went 
 into his father's study and showed him a letter from 
 Dr. Judson Smith, which read : "Tomorrow the Pru- 
 dential Committee will formally and finally appoint you 
 missionary to Shaowu. Have you anything more to 
 say?" Theodore said that he was going to telegraph 
 Dr. Smith, asking for a delay : "Why," said his father, 
 "it has all been settled these two months." Theodore 
 replied, "I am going down to New Haven to see Han- 
 nah Hume, and if she will go with me to the end of the 
 world it may be best for me to go to India." Two 
 days later he sent word that he had secured Miss 
 Hume's consent to be his wife and to accompany him 
 abroad. Theodore's assignment was then changed 
 from China to India. 
 
 This was all in June, 1903 ; they were married Octo- 
 ber 1st of that year in the United Church in New 
 Haven. In the absence of Miss Hume's father her 
 brother, Ernest, brought her forward and gave her 
 away. Theodore's brother, Gerald, escorted the groom, 
 and the marriage service was performed by the Rev. 
 Samuel H. Lee of Springfield, Theodore's father. 
 
 Theodore and Hannah went up to Pleasant Valley, 
 his mother's childhood home, for a brief honeymoon. 
 Theodore was ordained October 20th of this same 
 year and on November 15th he and his wife sailed for 
 India. 
 
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE SEMINARY 47 
 
 As one looks back over those three years of close 
 and beautiful association with this high and ardent 
 spirit one chiefly remembers the purity and the ten- 
 derness of his soul. Theodore was inexorable with 
 sin, but very tender with the sinner. There was not 
 the slightest trace in him of self-righteousness, noth- 
 ing whatever of the patronizing spirit. He was often 
 didactic, very strenuous in his demands upon himself 
 and his expectations of others, but always humble, de- 
 vout, absolutely honest and honorable in every human 
 relationship. During the Senior year at Union quite 
 a group of congenial spirits roomed upon the top floor 
 of the dormitory, "5th Avenue" they used to call it. 
 Each evening they met together for a brief prayer 
 meeting, nor could this devotional service ever have 
 been maintained in unbroken continuity had not Theo- 
 dore's vital glowing faith been ever behind it. Few 
 memories are at once so precious and so poignant as 
 those of these beginning days when all looked wist- 
 fully forward, from out the sheltering academic walls, 
 to the life of the Christian ministry. That his class- 
 mates were sometimes able to conceive of that life in 
 the heroic terms of a conquering and sacrificial service 
 was in no small measure due to the influence and per- 
 sonality of Theodore Storrs Lee. 
 
WINNING THE FRIENDSHIP OF LEADERS 
 IN A HINDU STRONGHOLD 
 
Stanza from the memorial poem in Marathi composed by 
 one of Theodore Lee's Indian friends, the distinguished poet, 
 Rev. Narayan Vaman Tilak. 
 
 ra^nrtr ?ft I^cyclr^ri thiadortidlvyavaUaA 
 
 T^in^h 'BTFTT JtrTT ksarcaika m geCi 
 
 ^f:\i\m ^1 ^\\^^ *\^ avarffadftardU jaarirambhitna 
 
 sTF ^(bC'll ^4|| Jl^rJI Jl cadhcUl svargim ramati 
 
 Sll'Vil *iyH*lH I JlcyS madhuaumanlm 
 
 m^ ^T[r *(^»il gandhita vara ajum. 
 
 Translation : (by Mr. Tilalc) 
 
 "A divine vine comes to this earth, and in a moment finds its 
 way upward ; it binds the heaven and the earth in its embrace, 
 and finally, reaching heaven, rests there. Its sweet blossoms 
 have suffused the atmosphere with their fragrance to this 
 day: that vine is Theodore Lee." 
 
CHAPTER lY 
 
 WINNING THE FRIENDSHIP OF LEADERS 
 IN A HINDU STRONGHOLD 
 
 We come now to what was for Theodore Lee the 
 beginning of the fulfilment of his life purpose. He 
 had given himself to the cause of missions with re- 
 markable intensity of devotion. Few men had over- 
 come such obstacles to the attainment of their aim as 
 he had. Who can adequately appreciate the emotions 
 that filled his heart as, after a safe journey, in Decem- 
 ber, 1903, the land of India came in sight ? * Can we 
 not picture his tall, erect figure as he looked toward 
 the land of his longings, his eyes and whole face lit 
 with the spiritual exaltation that came to him in times 
 of great significance? How great was his gratitude 
 to God for this culmination of the struggle and this 
 reward of the faith of a dozen years, he makes clear 
 in his letters. In one he says: 
 
 At the beginning of 1903 there were some 
 things written down in my diary that were the 
 simple claims of faith. Now, as I sometimes 
 look at it and think back a little, the way in 
 which all these have been realised is full of in- 
 spiration for both the present and the future. 
 We are here. Our connection with the home 
 
 * For account of the events immediately preceding his journey to 
 India see thie beginning of Chapter VII, "Hands Across the Sea." — 
 Editor. 
 
 SI 
 
52 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 land give us a sense of fellowship and sup- 
 port that frees us from the feeling that I 
 think must come to some missionaries, that 
 no one in particular cares much for them or 
 the work into which they are putting their 
 lives. 
 
 He did not come to his missionary career as most 
 men come, to find everything new and unexpected. It 
 had been one of his delights during all these years, not 
 only to read everything that came to his hand in regard 
 to missions but to seek out every missionary he could 
 find and, by questioning, find out many details of mis- 
 sionary life. Mrs. Lee had her store of childhood's 
 memories and family experience to contribute. His 
 mind and imagination had played upon all this mis- 
 sionary knowledge to such an extent, that, strange as 
 many things were bound to be to him, fundamentally 
 he felt himself at home in India from the start. Yet 
 he was the more able and alert to assimilate all new 
 impressions because he already had such an unusual 
 stock of missionary images and information. 
 
 Of the warm welcome and the garlandings by the 
 missionaries and Christian community of Bombay lit- 
 tle need be said. Mrs. Lee's grandparents 'and her 
 uncle and aunt had labored in Bombay for years, and 
 their memory was greatly revered. A cousin was at 
 the time a missionary in Bombay. Thus there was an 
 unusual personal warmth and sense of home coming in 
 the welcome. 
 
 It was quite to be expected that Theodore's ministry 
 should begin almost as soon as he landed and in per- 
 sonal work. On the first Sunday he gave in the high 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 53 
 
 school hall a talk on "Devotion to Christ," which had in 
 America brought some strong men to definite decisions 
 for the Christian life. There had strayed into the In- 
 dian audience an English soldier of dissolute life, 
 whose attention was arrested and whose will was 
 stimulated to fresh endeavor by the address. Theo- 
 dore gave himself to this man with the generosity that 
 always characterized his work for individuals. Not 
 only now but for a long time afterwards, by personal 
 intercourse and by correspondence, he conserved his 
 influence over this soldier. The incident, coming when 
 it did, had especial significance. It ushered in his mis- 
 sionary career with blessing and promise. 
 
 The next months were spent in the large missionary 
 center of Ahmednagar in the home of Mrs. Lee's par- 
 ents, Dr. and Mrs. R. A. Hume. Here language study 
 and general adjustment to life as Indian missionaries 
 were the first duties. Dr. Hume took his son-in-law 
 with him into the District and shared with him his 
 broad outlook and his rich experience of Indian peo- 
 ple and missionary problems. The young missionary 
 valued this rare opportunity to the full and not only 
 during this first year, but throughout his life in India, 
 turned to Dr. Hume for counsel in all critical matters. 
 
 Anyone who knew Theodore Lee will appreciate 
 that his interest could never entirely center itself in 
 language study. He could not keep himself from 
 active Christian service. His keen eye was upon all 
 the life about him, not only with a desire to learn, but 
 also with a view to help. His first printed letter was 
 an appreciation of educational missionary work, espe- 
 cially referring to industrial education. Soon the open- 
 
54 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 ing of the Ahmednagar Women's Hospital furnished 
 an opportunity for a long appreciative letter about 
 medical work. He came to see the need of having in 
 Ahmednagar a Young Men's Christian Association for 
 the Christian young men of every type, educated and 
 uneducated, with whom he contrived, by teaching a 
 Bible class, by occasional addresses through an inter- 
 preter, and by personal intercourse, to get into rela- 
 tions, and over whom he quickly secured an influence. 
 A trip to Vadala, in the heart of a great village work, 
 which had far outgrown the powers of one missionary 
 family adequately to supervise, made him want espe- 
 cially to invest his life there. Similar visits to other 
 stations made him realize in each some peculiar and 
 great need to which his heart responded. He wrote 
 that he wished that he had ten lives and could spend one 
 in work in each of these places. Indeed it was a mat- 
 ter of principle with him to keep fresh his sympathy 
 with the work of all his associates. He wrote "A Mis- 
 sion is an organism and you can understand the place 
 of our work better if you understand the work that our 
 other missionaries are doing." 
 
 But from the start the need of Wai had appealed to 
 him most vividly. Here again his own character was 
 revealed. Wai is a center of Brahminical culture and 
 of Hindu orthodoxy. It lies in the heart of a district 
 of similar type. Here results of mission work had been 
 few. Opposition and persecution had been keen. 
 Work here was like plowing the heavy Indian soil after 
 the tropical sun has beaten upon and baked the surface 
 for months. Vadala, which also needed him, was at 
 the opposite extreme, a place where friendliness pre- 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 55 
 
 vailed, and where on all sides people desired to become 
 Christian. The ground was soft and ready. Indeed 
 in many places all that was needed was to gather in the 
 crop. 
 
 Theodore clearly saw the strategic importance of 
 thorough work in the Vadala field, but the strategy that 
 called out his highest enthusiasm was to attack preju- 
 dice and Hindu orthodoxy in its citadel, to spend his 
 life in seeking to develop in Wai a state of friendliness 
 and receptivity and to win a Christian community such 
 as there are at present about Vadala and similar sta- 
 tions. Well he knew that the work would be discour- 
 aging and diificult, calling for faith, probably unnour- 
 ished by large visible results, but he felt that the Chris- 
 tian Church greatly needed the religious devotion and 
 sturdy character of the people of the Satara and Wai 
 districts, and that these districts most needed his 
 ministry. He wrote, "It is one of the toughest up-hill 
 places in the mission. On the other hand there is no 
 place where so much needs to be done." And again, 
 "These things have two meanings to us. First, that 
 the people will not be easy to reach, and, secondly, that 
 they have the stuff in them that makes them very much 
 worth all that it may cost to win them. This can be 
 done." 
 
 The Mission honored their strong inclination for Wai 
 by locating Mr. and Mrs. Lee in this station in May of 
 1904. 
 
 The desire to do the hard thing, shown in this prefer- 
 ence, was due to no mere evanescent, sentimental en- 
 thusiasm, but there was back of it the tenacity of 
 grip and the capacity for the daily round of duties of 
 
56 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 heroic and victorious faith. Theodore wrote in the 
 early days that he wanted to spend thirty years of 
 steady work in Wai. Soon after, in copying a long 
 sanitary report about Wai, he wrote, "I am trying 
 to find out all I can and hope in a few years to know 
 more about everything than any other man in the 
 place." In another letter, after speaking of the de- 
 lights of the journey out, he says, "It is a great priv- 
 ilege to travel, yet if I were given free passes on all 
 the steamship lines and railroads in the world I would 
 rather settle right down in Wai and spend a life of 
 full days working for men and Christ." 
 
 From these and many other possible quotations it 
 is clear that this man of apostolic spirit looked upon 
 his choice of Wai as a choice for life, if possible. He 
 approached the work there with that mingling of 
 poetic imagination, keen determination and personal 
 affection which gave a distinctive quality to his mis- 
 sionary attitude. Soon after arriving he wrote his 
 church a vivid description of its beautiful location, 
 nestling among the mountains, of its noble history, of 
 its five hundred priests, of its prejudices and its glar- 
 ing needs, and in this letter he expresses the spirit in 
 which he approached his work there in the following 
 pa.raphrase : — 
 
 "God gives all men all earth to love. 
 
 But since man's heart is small. 
 
 Ordains for each one spot shall prove 
 
 Beloved over all. 
 
 Each to his choice, and I rejoice 
 
 The lot has fallen to me 
 
 In a fair ground — in a fair ground— 
 
 Wai, far from the sea. 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 57 
 
 "God gave all men all earth to love, 
 
 But since our hearts are small, 
 
 Ordained for each one spot should prove 
 
 Beloved over all ; 
 
 That as He watched Creation's birth. 
 
 So we, in Godlike mood. 
 
 May of our love create our earth 
 
 And see that it is good." 
 
 One of the aspects of the situation which gave Mr. 
 and Mrs. Lee greatest satisfaction was the close as- 
 sociation it gave them with Mrs. Sibley and Miss Gor- 
 don, who had opened the Wai Station in 1892 and had, 
 except for times of furlough, been associated in its 
 work ever since. It was to their home that the Lees 
 went in Wai. These two ladies had in their charge an 
 orphanage, a station school, several day schools for 
 high caste girls, a group of Bible women and 
 preachers in Wai itself and a number of schools in 
 the villages about. Mr. Lee writes of them : "Though 
 they would prefer to have me keep silent, you must be 
 told a little of our colleagues here. They have built 
 up this work from far below the surface. The lofty 
 atmosphere of a beautiful, Christian home, which sur- 
 rounds these orphan boys and girls, emanates from 
 their loving and abiding lives." Then followed a 
 long and beautiful description of the missionary work 
 of these two devoted ladies whose quiet work, espe- 
 cially for the women in the homes of Wai, in the mis- 
 sion schools and in the district, formed an invaluable 
 preparation for the aggressive campaign soon to be 
 initiated among the men. 
 
 One sentence in this letter touches on an aspect of 
 Theodore's own character which might surprise those 
 
S8 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 who had known him only as an intense missionary en- 
 thusiast. He says, "If we get moody or blue, it will 
 not be because there is not an ample flow of humor at 
 our table." This flow of humor came from all sides, 
 but Theodore's contribution was not the least. Mrs. 
 Sibley and Miss Gordon had been praying for a male 
 missionary associate for years and they and all the 
 district workers welcomed the Lees with unfeigned 
 joy and thankfulness. 
 
 The opening events of his life and work in Wai did 
 not promise well for his popularity with the mature, 
 educated leaders. The first results of the coming of 
 the new missionary to Wai which were visible to its 
 citizens were a fresh vigor in the pressing of the street 
 preaching, the distribution of tracts, and the other 
 activities of regular evangelistic work. No amount of 
 disturbance or opposition was allowed by the intrepid 
 missionary for a moment to interfere with this work, 
 which was pressed in the very heart of the old 
 Brahmin quarter of the city. That the attitude of the 
 people was at first one of suspicion and opposition is 
 clear in many ways. Parents forbade their boys going 
 to visit the missionary. Brahmins roughly called 
 children from the crowd which was listening to street 
 preaching. Gangs of boys, almost surely with the 
 secret approval of their fathers, ran up and down the 
 street, shouting disrespectful comments in front of a 
 house where the missionary was showing lantern pic- 
 tures of Christ. Mission schools had to be closed be- 
 cause orthodox leaders induced parents to remove their 
 children. The entire outlook seemed dark indeed. It 
 almost looked as though the effects of the many years 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 59 
 
 of devoted service already spent in Wai, instead of be- 
 ing conserved and strengthened, were being dissipated 
 by the coming of the new missionary. What was it 
 that transformed all this and won for Theodore the 
 place that he so soon held in the esteem and affection 
 of the city's leaders? We shall now try briefly to 
 answer that question. 
 
 Much of the brief five years of Theodore's work in 
 Wai, 1904-08, especially at first, had to be devoted to 
 language study. Furthermore, his effective work 
 was cut into by a severe breakdown in November of 
 1906, the effects of which tried his spirit and hampered 
 his activity severely for many months and, indeed, ex- 
 tended to the end -of his missionary career. During 
 a part of the time, moreover, the missionaries and In- 
 dian workers of Wai and Satara were laboring under 
 the discouragement of knowing that their mission, on 
 account of financial difficulties, was considering giv- 
 ing to some other mission the work in these stations. 
 Yet, with all these obstacles, the influence which Theo- 
 dore Lee exerted in Wai and the district, during this 
 brief period, was of a quality and an extent which ex- 
 cite our wonder. 
 
 The first to feel this influence markedly were some 
 high caste young men and high school boys who began 
 coming to see him almost from the start. From two 
 to twelve of them came every afternoon. He was 
 well aware that the original motive of most was 
 merely to improve their English, but he welcomed 
 them, whatever their motive, in order that he might 
 have an opportunity of influence. These boys came 
 just as the day's language study was over and the 
 
6o WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 time for exercise, so necessary in India, had come, 
 but they were never turned away. Theodore wrote 
 about them : "If we have in any degree neglected our 
 health during the past year it is because we could not 
 bear to turn them away, even if it would have been 
 better not to have whipped up a tired brain at the end 
 of a hot day's study and cut exercise in order to talk 
 with them. But it paid." These hours when he 
 whipped up his tired brain to read and walk and pray 
 with these boys and young men were revolutionary in 
 the lives and ideals of some of them. This is what 
 Theodore means by saying, "It paid." Not one of 
 them has as yet taken the final step into open Chris- 
 tian profession, which would mean the uprooting of 
 all his social life and would bring upon him a subtle 
 and far reaching type of persecution, but some came 
 to love and worship Jesus Christ as the supreme re- 
 ligious teacher, and to see in Christianity the hope of 
 India. May the prayer and love and vital energy 
 which Theodore spent on these young men yet come 
 to its complete fruitage in fearless, open profession 
 by some of them ! 
 
 If one asks what it was that led these young men to 
 come day after day to talk with the Western mission- 
 ary, in something he wrote we have at least a partial 
 answer. He said, "I have been getting acquainted 
 with some of the most earnest young men. I like 
 them. They have something, perhaps, which I have 
 not and can help me in what I try to do." He liked 
 them and was frankly ready to learn as well as teach. 
 He sought real fellowship in a way so winning that 
 few could resist it. 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 6i 
 
 A few months after the arrival of the Lees in Wai 
 that city was visited by an epidemic of plague, which 
 Theodore thus describes: 
 
 The plague is all about us. Within a hun- 
 dred and fifty feet of our door a man has lost 
 his wife and three children, while he is left 
 alone with his mother. One of the boys who 
 used to walk and talk English with me is 
 convalescing, but his father and five uncles 
 with their wives are gone. The head of the 
 Government dispensary, the Secretary of the 
 Municipality, this one and that family — 971 
 up to this Thanksgiving day — are gone as 
 smoke and ashes to be reincarnated as dogs, 
 cats, cobras, or possibly a Brahmin. Some 
 at twelve and fifteen years of age are left to 
 Hindu widowhood. One has said, "Why did 
 He take my husband and six children ? Why 
 did He not take me ? Cursed be He." Most 
 of these people believe in a Supreme being 
 as absolutely as they believe in their idols. 
 Their faith is as strong and immovable as it is 
 blind and pessimistic. "To tarito, marito, 
 sarwa karito" — He saves. He kills. He does all 
 things. "If I am to die it is my nashib — fate. 
 I will not be inoculated." 
 
 Later on in his Wai experience came another similar 
 epidemic. These terrible visitations called out Theo- 
 dore's deepest sympathy. He sought to help in every 
 way in his power, among other things putting his own 
 conveyance at the disposal of the authorities. Such 
 acts served to show the leaders in Wai that they had in 
 their new missionary not merely an insistent and tire- 
 less Christian preacher, but a friend and public spirited 
 
62 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 citizen. This became more and more evident as his 
 service in Wai continued. He associated himself with 
 all the best interests of the town, was later appointed 
 a member of the Municipal Council, the body which 
 administers the Government in Indian towns, and was 
 chosen chairman of the school committee and member 
 of the small subcommittee called the managing com- 
 mittee, in whose hands most of the authority rests. 
 This involved a very large expenditure of time and 
 thought, but his aim to be the best citizen of Wai and 
 so win friendship and a sympathetic hearing for the 
 Christian message, led this intense young missionary 
 to accept it all gladly. 
 
 In a letter to Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall he tells of 
 these things in so interesting a way that we quote it 
 at length : 
 
 Today I want to tell you of the unusual 
 opportunities that seem to have come to me 
 this year. I have gone into politics with a 
 vengeance. I am a Municipal Councillor and 
 a member of the Managing Committee. 
 More than this, I was made Chairman of the 
 Municipal Schools. There is no place in the 
 city I should like more than this. While I am 
 only learning my work and am tried by my 
 mistakes and inefficiency, still I am very happy 
 in the opportunities that the position gives me 
 to influence the teachers and the boys of the 
 city. There are no more important people to 
 reach than these two classes and, that a great 
 work can be done by a sympathetic man with 
 Christian ideals, I am absolutely sure. I can 
 and will change the suspicious and bitter atti- 
 tude toward foreigners and Christianity to one 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 63 
 
 of trust and respect. This is but the door to 
 the place where the enquiring spirit is aroused 
 and I find myself talking about Jesus Christ to 
 someone who wants to hear and wants to 
 learn. 
 
 I shall as far as I have an opportunity- 
 make contact with school boys a means of 
 meeting parents and getting at them. 
 
 These positions have given me contact with 
 the leading and best and most thoughtful men 
 in the city. For example, I went to see the 
 Chairman of the Managing Committee. I 
 found him with a life insurance agent, his 
 father, an ex-secretary of Holkar and an 
 author. I did my business and then we all 
 had a long frank, intimate talk on the Christ 
 and His gospel. Not only are all the vernacu- 
 lar schools going to be under me and be my 
 great opportunity for influence and personal 
 work, but also the High School, that has the 
 picked boys who are going to have English 
 education and be the influential men in making 
 India and promoting the Kingdom of God or 
 opposing it, is coming under my influence. 
 
 What cannot God do? Why not look for 
 larger things than we ask for? Last year we 
 were distressed. Opposition, which is not 
 wholly dead yet, was spoiling out-mission 
 schools and was discouraging us. We could 
 do nothing but pray that they be spared. All 
 but one of them are going today. Two are in 
 poor condition, one is growing beyond former 
 proportions and the others have almost re- 
 gained their former standing. And last No- 
 vember, when I felt that the whole of Wai and 
 Satara depended on me, God took hold of my 
 heart and said "Stop." I came to feel that 
 there was One who would look out for Wai 
 
64 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 and the strain in my heart eased down. I 
 have not been of much use for a long time. 
 But God has, and instead of letting these mis- 
 guided people break up our Christian schools, 
 He has given all of their schools, their boys 
 and their girls into my hands. The two lead- 
 ers in the opposition voted for me. They 
 have been here several times. I talked two 
 hours and three quarters with one of them 
 the other day like a brother. I have not got 
 him yet, but he is learning. . . . 
 
 I am in very close touch with the leading 
 political agitators here. They are young men. 
 I am a young man and am American. I be- 
 lieve in liberty, but these fellows do not know 
 what it is. I talk by the hour with them and I 
 am delighted by the way they take my ideas. 
 The way to make India a free India is for 
 them to become morally free, free from igno- 
 rance, superstition, and vice ; free in the sense 
 that Christ spoke of in John 8 : 22. They be- 
 gin with politics. I ended with one yesterday 
 by giving him a copy of your lectures, which I 
 am tardily reading, absorbing their sweet, true 
 spirit and finding them very illuminating. 
 
 Some leaders just came to see me and I 
 spent two hours in answering the question, 
 "What is the secret of the power of the Chris- 
 tian religion ?" There were many other ques- 
 tions which arose, but, in an imperfect way, 
 I believe I made those gentlemen both see and 
 feel that the love of Jesus Christ for them and 
 the love of the disciple for Him, as the cruci- 
 fied and living Word, were the powers of the 
 Christian religion, which God was using to 
 bring the world to Himself. 
 
 The Chairman is an ex-professor of Elphin- 
 stone College and an ex-member of the Bom- 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 65 
 
 bay Municipality. At his request I have 
 loaned him a Testament, a copy of your last 
 lectures, and my copy of Fairbairn's "Philoso- 
 phy of the Christian Religion." He has begun 
 with Fairbairn. I pray that he may end up 
 with the Testament. 
 
 It was his vigor in street preaching, and the in- 
 exorable way that all conversations with the mis- 
 sionary led around to the claims of Christ to the com- 
 plete allegiance of Indians, that account for the vigo- 
 rous opposition at first. It is these also which make 
 more remarkable the breaking down of prejudice 
 against him and the development of his positive popu- 
 larity within the five short years of his stay in Wai. 
 
 Probably the greatest influence in the change was his 
 good citizenship. How he showed this in plague time 
 we have mentioned. He also allied himself with public 
 spirited citizens and succeeded in getting some liquor 
 shops removed from the town. In the same way the 
 public social evil was successfully dealt with. He 
 gave his influence and ability to the securing of needed 
 sanitary reform. It was partly by his help that the 
 fine new English school in Wai was started. He per- 
 formed his duties as Chairman of the School Committee 
 with great efificiency, visiting the thirteen schools faith- 
 fully and at irregular times, and enforcing promptness 
 and proper discipline among the teachers with strict- 
 ness mingled with kindness. A gentleman, for many 
 years a member of the school committee, says that Mr. 
 Lee was never angry, never partial, always kindly, and 
 was the ablest and most popular Chairman they had 
 ever had. But what did more than anything else to 
 
66 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 give him his position with some of the leading citizens 
 of Wai was his outspoken defence of the Municipality 
 against very grave charges on account of which its 
 privileges seemed on the point of being taken away by 
 the higher authorities. Many in Wai and in Satara be- 
 lieve that it was Mr. Lee's influence which saved the 
 city at that crisis from disgrace, and preserved to it its 
 Municipal privileges. 
 
 Yet his influence on the public life of the city was 
 not only due to the fact that he himself helped in many 
 ways, significant as was the service he was able to 
 render to the city. It was also that his words and ex- 
 ample helped to develop in some of the educated leaders 
 a public spirit which was new. Many of them gladly 
 acknowledge their debt to him in these matters. He 
 taught them, they say, that the position of a Brahmin 
 was not merely one of privilege but one of duty, that 
 they should be foremost in serving their city and land 
 and especially that they should not despise the outcaste 
 people but seek to raise them. 
 
 His staunch defence of Wai with the Government 
 gave Theodore Lee a .hearing in his attempts to inter- 
 pret the English Government as well as Western 
 democracy in general to the citizens of Wai. To one 
 who is familiar with the extent to which in times of 
 high feeling credulity is stretched in believing evil 
 against those of different opinion, even in the Western 
 lands, it will not seem strange that there is always a 
 vast amount of misunderstanding between patriotic 
 Indians and the English Government, misunderstand- 
 ing which at times breaks out in most extreme forms. 
 Happily the greater share in Government which has 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 67 
 
 recently been given to Indians is doing much to lessen 
 this misunderstanding, but Theodore Lee's service in 
 Wai was at a time when unrest and wild political prop- 
 aganda were on the increase. Wai was considered 
 to be a hot bed of sedition. Herein lay the chance so 
 effectively taken by this many-sided missionary to play 
 the mediator. Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall was so im- 
 pressed by this aspect of his work, during his visit to 
 India in 1906-07, that on his return to America he 
 made it the central point in missionary addresses to 
 Amherst students and to the people of the White Plains 
 Church. The leading citizens of Wai gratefully ac- 
 knowledge that Theodore Lee not only made them un- 
 derstand the West better, but that he made them under- 
 stand the British Government of India better. As one 
 of them wrote in a letter of warm appreciation to this 
 exponent of the West, — "Through this company of 
 yours I began to see the bright side of the Western peo- 
 ple and was enabled to write articles charitably, which 
 I scarcely did before." 
 
 And yet we must not attribute the remarkable change 
 of attitude of the leaders of Wai to their missionary 
 entirely to his public work. With many of them this 
 was undoubtedly the strongest influence, but with many 
 more there soon grew up a personal respect and af- 
 fection, due to his rare qualities as a man of religion 
 and to his own deep passion for personal intercourse. 
 Although intimate personal contact with the mature 
 leaders in Wai did not develop so spontaneously or so 
 soon as that with the boys and young men, yet it de- 
 veloped along similar lines and with marked effect. In 
 many cases he sought out these men in their own 
 
68 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 houses, as well as receiving calls from them. One 
 of the leading gentlemen recently said, "Mr. Lee was 
 not only a friend in my house, but he was a familiar 
 friend, visiting us about once a week. He tried to 
 gather the thoughts of others, and wanted to learn as 
 well as teach. His conversation produced the desire to 
 think of other religions. He convinced us that ours 
 was not the best. He lent me many religious books 
 which I read with my friends." Another said, "He did 
 not spend his time in fault finding. Even the orthodox 
 leaders were friendly to him. He brought out re- 
 ligious points in a manner not offensive, emphasizing 
 points of agreement, like the need of a Guru (religious 
 master)." From these quotations and those already 
 made from the letter to Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, it 
 will be clear that his public service only partly ac- 
 counted for Theodore's influence with the leaders in 
 Wai. Those with whom his influence was deepest were 
 attracted to him not only as a citizen but as a man of 
 God and a single-minded disciple of Jesus Christ. 
 
 We must now jump over intervening years. The 
 mission felt compelled to send the Lees to Satara in 
 1909, and their close connection with Wai ceased at 
 that time. More than two years later a cable message 
 from America brought to the people of Wai the news 
 that their one time fellow citizen had died while on fur- 
 lough. That many should express a sense of loss 
 might have been expected. The length and great ap- 
 preciation of the obituary notice in the Wai paper en- 
 titled, "Rev. Mr. Lee gone to be with Christ," though 
 certainly unusual and very gratifying, was not, per- 
 haps, unprecedented. The most noteworthy aspect of 
 
WINNING HINDU LEADERS 69 
 
 the city's attitude to this foreigner, who had some years 
 before spent a brief period as its citizen, was that his 
 death was looked upon as a reason for pubHc mourn- 
 ing. All the Municipal Schools of Wai were closed 
 on the day when the news of his death reached the city. 
 We have made many inquiries but have heard of no 
 other city which has ever shown the memory of any 
 missionary such honor as this orthodox stronghold thus 
 showed to the memory of Theodore Lee. In his five 
 short, intense years of service in Wai he had overcome 
 prejudice and won a hearing for the message of the 
 Master, such as he himself had at first thought it might 
 take fifty years to do, and at his death the city rose up 
 to pay a unique and impressive tribute to his memory. 
 
THE WEAPONS OF CHRISTIAN BROTHER- 
 HOOD 
 
A prayer from one of the early scriptures of Hinduism. 
 ^ERTrTt TT tl'nH'-i asat(rmt sad gamaya 
 
 rFFrt TT StrtfrRFT tamaso mdji/oUr gamaya 
 
 HrMlHI ^^'Tft yFI*T tnrtyor *na 'mftqim gamaya 
 
 Translation from the Sanskrit: 
 
 " From the unreal lead me to the real. 
 From darkness lead me to light. 
 From death lead me to immortality." 
 
 — Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad. 1.3.27. 
 (Sacred Books of the East. Vol. xv.) 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WEAPONS OF CHRISTIAN BROTHER- 
 HOOD 
 
 This chapter is devoted to a consideration of certain 
 of Theodore's characteristics and methods of work, 
 which are grouped together here as a sort of appendix 
 to the narrative of the preceding chapter. 
 
 We may well begin with the hard struggle which 
 tested Theodore's own powers as a student — that most 
 difficult and most necessary first problem, the language. 
 He had come to the field later than most men. He had 
 no great aptitude for a foreign language. He knew 
 from the start that here was to be one of his great 
 problems. He set about solving it with the same 
 method, determination and quiet enthusiasm with which 
 he had attacked every other hard problem of his life. 
 From the start he put a strong emphasis on the Biblical 
 vocabulary that he felt must always be his specialty. 
 Here is a thoroughgoing programme which he laid out 
 for himself after some experience had given him an un- 
 derstanding of what he needed. We may be sure that 
 he spared no pains in carrying it out : 
 
 "i. Get vocabulary of Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
 
 John, Acts, the Third Reader. 
 2. Write all kinds of sentences and stories in 
 Marathi, 
 
 73 
 
74 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 3. Write out parsing in Marathi. 
 
 4. Read aloud at sight, close book and repeaS 
 
 and write what has been read. 
 
 5. Get sentences. 
 
 6. Hear, see, think, speak, write, act a new 
 
 word or construction. 
 
 7. Don't be afraid or ashamed to make mis- 
 
 takes. 
 
 8. Write something, which is an expression of 
 
 your own thoughts." 
 
 There are two aspects of his language study besides 
 its inherent difficulty to him that make it worthy of 
 mention. One was his untiring faithfulness in it and 
 the other was his emphasis, even here, on the spiritual. 
 He was, perhaps, more keenly aware than anyone else 
 of the obstacle that the language presented, and he set 
 about making up for any defects of ear and tongue by 
 sheer power of enthusiasm and will. Toward the be- 
 ginning he wrote: 
 
 Every trip that I have taken and every 
 work that I have seen has sent me home to sail 
 into the language with greater earnestness. 
 If only theological seminaries could give to 
 the students the incentive to study Hebrew 
 that I find for the study of Marathi, there 
 would soon be no room at the top of the 
 classes. Motive makes the study easy. One 
 regrets not that he has to study whole days, 
 but that he cannot study whole nights also. I 
 am to be congratulated that I am to have a 
 first class opportunity to study in Wai. 
 
 Even after he had been a missionary for over five 
 years and had gone to the exacting work at Satara, he 
 
THE WEAPONS OF BROTHERHOOD 75 
 
 would still take from one hour to two hours in the 
 middle of the day, when interruptions were least fre- 
 quent and when a regard for his own physical need 
 would have led him to rest, for work on the language 
 with a "pandit." About this time he wrote from the 
 hill station of Mahableshwar, after a year of peculiarly 
 exhausting work, when most men would have sought 
 a period of entire rest, that he had just completed 
 reading the New Testament in Marathi. After the 
 early part of his voyage home, dragged down as he 
 was by the fever that finally brought him to his death 
 bed, he wrote that he had just completed reading 
 Romans in Marathi. Anyone who has taken an ocean 
 voyage in a semi-invalid condition will appreciate the 
 inflexible determination that lay back of that bit of 
 language study. 
 
 The spiritual emphasis in his study is clear from this 
 constant use of the Bible. He committed to memory 
 and had at command a large amount of his Marathi 
 New Testament. A remarkable fact was that early he 
 developed an ease and command in prayer in Marathi 
 which was superior to his fluency in speech, and which 
 was an inspiration to the Wai workers. They told him 
 with wonder that they could follow and share his 
 prayers far better than his conversation. Writing 
 about his language he once said : "I have no reason to 
 be discouraged and hope in time to give my message, not 
 only in Marathi, but in the language that is superior to 
 the tongues of men and of angels." That he succeeded 
 was made evident by the way the Brahmins of Satara 
 would stop to listen to his street preaching. What was 
 it that attracted these people, so fastidious as to their 
 
76 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 language and so proudly superior in their religious atti- 
 tude? We have asked a number of the Brahmin 
 leaders in Satara about this. From their replies we 
 have concluded that it was in part that Theodore had a 
 thoughtful, carefully prepared message, which he was 
 able to give in well selected, forceful language. But 
 it was also that his Marathi was transfused by his 
 personality, that he had a genuine spiritual message, 
 such as India will always listen to, that he spoke, as 
 had hoped, "not only in Marathi but in the language 
 that is superior to the tongues of men and of angels." 
 
 Personal dealing with individuals was from his high 
 school days onward his dominant passion. He loved 
 this work, and he spent on it such constant thought 
 and prayer and study as almost to insure it suc- 
 cess. Not only in dealing with the young men of 
 Wai, but in his relations with the leaders in the town, 
 the Christian workers, and in his friendships formed 
 with leading men all over the district, the power he 
 exercised over individuals is remarkable. But be- 
 cause of Theodore's remarkable attractiveness to the 
 young men of Wai, let us take time now to dwell on 
 this ability as it showed itself in his missionary work. 
 
 Among his notes on personal work are the follow- 
 ing : — "Say not only, 'I will do you good,' or 'it will be 
 good for you,' but also, 'you will do us good,' and 'it 
 will be good for us.' The altruistic motive as well, 
 as the sense of need, must be appealed to. To do this 
 takes away any suggestion that 'I am better than thou,' 
 or superior in any way, as well as being a frank state- 
 ment of our inter-dependence, and of the truth that 
 God blesses us in bringing blessings into the lives of 
 
THE WEAPONS OF BROTHERHOOD ^^ 
 
 others." "Pray always first and last. Never appear 
 hurried or vexed by an interruptor. God sent him 
 and this is your opportunity and duty." "The loving 
 tone and silent prayer do more than argument." 
 These quotations show the spirit in which this per- 
 sonal worker approached his work, the spirit of con- 
 ciliation, of frank willingness to learn and receive help 
 as well as to teach and give the spirit of brotherly 
 love. No one who has ever known him will suspect 
 for a moment that this meant any softening down of 
 his clear-cut conviction that the only satisfactory re- 
 sult of personal work was an out and out profession 
 of Christ by those with whom he dealt, and none of 
 his non-Christian Indian friends had any misconcep- 
 tions on this point, but all were attracted by his cour- 
 tesy, his candid open-mindedness, and his evident inter- 
 est in them. 
 
 Another thing which gave power to Theodore Lee's 
 personal work was the amount of study he put upon 
 it. In his filing case, there is a thick package of 
 cards containing questions which were commonly 
 asked him by those with whom he talked. He never 
 rested content with his off-hand attempt at a reply, 
 but noted these questions and read and talked about 
 them and formulated and reformulated his replies in 
 writing. He has extended clippings and notes of his 
 own on how to meet one who asked why Christians 
 eat meat; on idolatry, on contrasts between Christi- 
 anity and Hinduism in marriage, funerals, etc., on the 
 saying so common in India that all religions are really 
 the same; on why one who believes should be bap- 
 tized, and on many other questions raised by honest 
 
78 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 seekers. Here are his notes on two sayings of similar 
 meaning of Indian non-Christians. 
 
 Saying: "All roads lead to the same city." 
 Answer : "I want the best, straightest, surest road, 
 not one that goes wandering around in unhealthy 
 swamps, hard hills, and brambles. Some roads lead 
 to brotherhood, others to caste division." 
 
 Saying : "All religions spring from the same root." 
 Answer: "Things springing from the same root 
 bear the same fruit. By the fruits we know the 
 roots. The fruits of Hinduism are caste division, 
 poverty, ignorance, polytheism, idolatry, the pride of 
 the Brahmin, and the degradation of the outcaste. 
 The fruits of Christianity are liberty, social and edu- 
 cational progress, brotherhood, honor for women, edu- 
 cation, social purity, etc." 
 
 He not only gathered and formulated all he could in 
 English for answering questions but he had his most 
 apt and able Christian worker write out for him a long 
 list of answers to such questions in Marathi, as such 
 answers not only helped him in his vocabulary for such 
 work, but gave him insight into the best Indian modes 
 of approach to the regular objections. Theodore 
 wrote this rule for himself, "In meeting questions or 
 objections give first the best reasons or arguments you 
 can, then illustrate, preferably from some object near 
 by and visible, that the object may be a continual re- 
 minder of the truth, then illustrate from the life of 
 Christ and enforce by some of his words or other 
 scripture." One further rule which he might well 
 have added here was, "Always give or lend anyone, 
 who has shown a genuine interest in Christianity, 
 
THE WEAPONS OF BROTHERHOOD 79 
 
 some book which will serve to clarify and clinch 
 your argument." Few who talked with him deeply on 
 religious things got away without taking with them 
 some portion of the Bible in which he had pointed out 
 some special passages. Many took also such books as 
 "On the Threshold," by Hunger, "The Fight for 
 Character," by Henry Churchill King, Dr. Charles 
 Cuthbert Hall's Lectures, various Lives of Christ, 
 Fairbaim's "Philosophy of the Christian Religion," etc., 
 all freely lent from his library. 
 
 From all this we see that personal work was to Theo- 
 dore no haphazard undertaking but a vocation and an 
 art, whose technique as well as whose spirit was a mat- 
 ter of constant care. But what cannot well be made 
 clear by quotations is the way that he studied not only 
 each question raised and the broad problem of the best 
 means of approach to men, but how he also gave earnest 
 thought to each man or boy with whom he was work- 
 ing, recording his observations on each in writing and 
 pondering his peculiar needs and the special avenue of 
 approach to his mind and heart. Above all Theodore 
 relied in personal work on prayer. He prayed for each 
 one of those with whom he was dealing in detailed and 
 most earnest intercession. 
 
 So intimately connected with his method in personal 
 work that it cannot rightly be considered separately 
 from it was his study of Indian conditions and espe- 
 cially of Indian religion. His notes on the god Krishna 
 and on the Bhagavad Gita were especially full, since he 
 found the Gita used most widely as a book of devotional 
 inspiration among the young men with whom his per- 
 sonal work was most intimate, and because these men 
 
8o WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 tried to give to Krishna the place of Christ. His eye 
 was keen to detect quotations from Indians which 
 would be effective in personal work like Mozoomdar's 
 saying, found among Theodore's notes: "The New 
 Testament is the source of a hundred developments of 
 personal, social, and spiritual reform among Hindus," 
 or the following from the Swami Vivekananda: 
 
 Only I want that numbers of our young 
 men should pay a visit to Japan every year, 
 to whom India is still the dreamland of every- 
 thing high and good. And you, what are you ? 
 . . . Sitting down these thousand years with 
 an ever increasing load of crystallised super- 
 stition on your heads, for a thousand years 
 spending all your energy upon discussing the 
 touchableness or untouchableness of this food 
 or that, with all humanity crushed out of you 
 by the continuous social tyranny of ages — 
 what are you? And what are you doing 
 now? . . . 
 
 Promenading the sea shores with books in 
 your hands — repeating undigested stray bits 
 of European brainwork and the whole soul 
 bent upon getting a thirty rupee clerkship or 
 at best becoming a lawyer — the height of 
 young India's ambition. Come, be men! 
 Come out of your narrow holes and have a 
 look abroad. See how nations are on their 
 march. Do you love man? Do you love 
 your country ? Then come, let us struggle for 
 higher and better things; look not back, no, 
 not even if you see the dearest and nearest 
 cry. Look not back, but forward. 
 
 Here is a quotation from a Hindu newspaper of 
 which Theodore made many copies, evidently to give 
 
THE WEAPONS OF BROTHERHOOD 8i 
 
 to some of the most sympathetic of those with whom he 
 talked. (The figures are now out of date on account 
 of the census of 191 1.) 
 
 Thirty centuries of Hinduism : Two hun- 
 dred and eighty-six millions population: two 
 hundred and forty-six millions unable to read 
 or write : forty million of women secluded in 
 zenanas : twenty-seven millions of widows : 
 six millions of widows under fourteen years of 
 age : two and half millions of wives under ten 
 years old: fourteen thousand widows under 
 four : fifty millions of out caste pariahs. 
 
 But he was frankly eager to know the best of India's 
 religious attitude and literature, not only to find argu- 
 ments and contrasts and to be able to refute, however 
 strong that purpose always was, but also to understand 
 and appreciate and so to be able to establish more points 
 of contact with non-Christian Indians. In his files the 
 first slip on Hinduism contains this sentence. "Be sure 
 to use the latest books," a rule which he followed 
 faithfully. The file contains many quotations from In* 
 dian religious books, both in English and Marathi, 
 which are evidently recorded for their inherent worth. 
 He writes: "All we study of Hinduism and every- 
 thing we write and say should be sympathetic. De- 
 nunciation will not win. Only by presentation of 
 Christ to the conscience and to the spirit can a man be 
 won. When Hindus in ignorance misrepresent their 
 own religion a scholarly knowledge can be used with 
 great effect. We cannot be just unless sympathetic." 
 He therefore preserved and studied with thoughtful 
 care criticisms of Christian writings and addresses 
 
82 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 which he found in non-Christian Indian papers; not 
 that he thought it possible entirely to avoid such criti- 
 cism, but that he wished to seek to avoid antagonisms as 
 much as possible. 
 
 As what has already been said makes clear, he did 
 not interpret the word sympathy to exclude keenest 
 criticism, especially of the most glaring abuses of 
 Hinduism. He discerned clearly that the awakening 
 conscience of educated Indians was growing ready to 
 assent to such criticism and might be stung into action 
 by its wise use, yet sympathy was, after all, the domi- 
 nant note of his study of Indian religious beliefs and 
 practices, as it was the dominant note of his contact 
 with those; who held the beliefs and engaged in the 
 practices. 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 
 
The process of the conversion of India to Christ may not 
 be going on as rapidly as you hope, or in exactly the manner 
 that you hope; but, nevertheless, I say, India is being con- 
 verted ; the ideas that lie at the heart of the Gospel of Christ 
 are slowly but surely permeating every part of Hindu society 
 and modifying every phase of Hindu thought. And this pro- 
 cess must go on, so long as those who preach this Gospel seek 
 above all things to commend it not so much by what they say, 
 but by what they do, by what they live. 
 
 — Sir Narayan Ganesh Chandavarkar, 
 Justice of the Bombay High Court. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 
 
 So far we have taken a glimpse of Theodore Lee in 
 one aspect only of his missionary work. His influence 
 with the educated and high caste people of Wai was 
 certainly most unusual yet he himself regarded other 
 sides of his work as of at least equal importance. In- 
 deed, as one considers his manifold activities it is im- 
 possible to say which of them is most distinctive, 
 original, and effective. He was an untiring evangelist 
 and an enthusiastic village worker, he was an inti- 
 mate friend and inspirer of Indian preachers and teach- 
 ers, he was a man of great influence with Europeans, 
 both offlcial and unofficial, he maintained a strong hold 
 on individuals and churches in the home land by means 
 of a voluminous correspondence. He faced each op- 
 portunity for service with unabated enthusiasm. He 
 brought to bear his great originality, his intense and 
 striking personality, and his unusual efficiency on every 
 type of work which presented itself. No wonder that 
 the frail physical machine gave way after a few short 
 years ! 
 
 Even before he had secured any considerable use of 
 the language Theodore began to press vigorously the 
 evangelistic work. He could not himself preach, but 
 he could run the magic lantern for his preachers, he 
 
 8s 
 
86 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 could not speak Marathi, but he could stand by, hoping 
 that some one would come to whom he could speak in 
 English ; he could distribute tracts and sell or give away 
 portions of the Bible; he could seek and obtain en- 
 trance for the lantern even in the Brahmin homes of 
 Wai ; and all these things he did from the very start. 
 
 He was not content with haphazard evsmgelistic 
 efforts. At least three days before each street preach- 
 ing engagement he gave out a topic to the preachers 
 and asked them to select suitable hymns and care- 
 fully to prepare their addresses. On the day of the 
 service he had a preliminary meeting with his Indian 
 associates, made sure that the hymns were all chosen 
 and were familiar, and reviewed with each his line of 
 thought, making fruitful suggestions. Opposition and 
 ridicule did not daunt him. He would go into the very 
 heart of the high caste quarters and begin an evangelis- 
 tic service, with no more than two or three people for 
 an audience, the haughty Brahmins passing by with 
 open sneers and contemptuous smiles on their lips. Be- 
 fore the service was over many would be crowded 
 around, some at least in earnest attention, and Theo- 
 dore's keen eye would be picking out the most promis- 
 ing person with whom to engage in personal conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 Religious festivals with their holiday crowds occur 
 frequently in the villages around Wai. Be the village 
 near or far, accessible or inaccessible, such festivals 
 found the Wai missionary and his preachers prepared 
 and waiting, with the magic lantern, in a well selected 
 spot. So long as the crowd would listen the message 
 would be given, the preachers taking turns in speaking. 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 87 
 
 but Theodore standing alert, hour after hour beside 
 the lantern, sliding in the pictures of the Life of Christ. 
 The preachers tell of many such services, which lasted 
 for several hours. At least once he stood six hours, 
 the crowd lingering till two o'clock in the morning. 
 Often it was midnight before the light was put out and 
 the weary party could start on its slow journey back 
 to Wai. 
 
 But, aside from these special occasions, the ordinary 
 routine of the week included four days for evangelis- 
 tic work, two in outside villages and two in Wai. 
 The party would single out two villages and go there 
 on a certain day of every week for a month, then turn 
 to two other villages for the next month, thus pro- 
 ducing a cumulative impression and cultivating fa- 
 miliarity and friendships. The hill station of Ma- 
 hableshwar being within the Wai field, Theodore took 
 charge of Christian work there during the hot season. 
 In regard to the work which he conducted here after 
 being in the country about two years he writes, "We 
 have never enjoyed anything in the world as we have 
 enjoyed showing pictures of the Life of Christ to a 
 hall packed full of men and boys, most of whom have 
 never heard of the Divine love expressed in the Son 
 before." The Sunday school at Mahableshwar, under 
 his hands, was packed to the doors. He went from 
 house to house, inviting the children and chatting with 
 the parents, and visited the Government day school 
 classes in order to get to know the boys better. While 
 the Sunday school was in session he reserved for him- 
 self, when possible, the congenial duty of sitting near 
 the door of the chapel and entering into conversation 
 
88 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 with any passer-by who was attracted to come and look 
 in. 
 
 In all his village evangelistic work he used substan- 
 tially these same methods ; going in person from door 
 to door of the village to call the people to the service, 
 and using the service as a means for himself getting 
 into close, personal touch with leading citizens and 
 earnest enquirers. Here are one or two typical cards 
 in his file of the villages and individual villagers in his 
 district. 
 
 Kavathi, — ^Jan. lo, 1908. 
 
 Population — ^2,000. 
 
 Patil (head-man) — ^Tukaram, friendly, 
 bought Script. 
 
 Scripts sold — 12 Gospels. 
 
 60 men and 15 women listened well. 
 
 Preached three times — Prodigal Son, Bread 
 of Life, "Master." 
 
 Sap, — February, 1910. 
 
 Two main families, Kadam and Shinde. 
 Had good time. 
 
 Subject: — Christianity Oriental, not Euro- 
 pean. 
 
 A Rajput from near Delhi all ready to be- 
 come an enquirer. Send Hindi Christian 
 books to Manoharrao to sell to him . . . sent 
 Feb. 18. Motilal Pardeshi and School Mas- 
 ter listened well. Send them Marathi "Com- 
 parison of Religions" . . . sent on February 
 18. 
 
 Raghoba Panaskar of Pimpri: Is a well to 
 do man. Owns 52 acres of land. The 
 preaching impressed him strongly. After we 
 went away the people had a discussion among 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 89 
 
 themselves and this man tried to prove that 
 Christ was the Saviour and strongly opposed 
 the other party. When we again met him he 
 told us about the discussion and how he had 
 strongly held to our side and asked us to give 
 him a fuller and detailed knowledge of the 
 Saviour about whom we had preached, which 
 we did. He asked us to come again and again 
 and tell him of it. He is courageous and says 
 that he is ready to come forward and be a 
 Christian, even if the whole village is against 
 him. 
 
 Theodore was constantly studying how to make his 
 message come home to the minds and hearts of the 
 people. Here is a rough sheet of notes which he calls 
 a "sermonette for farmers while weeding," based on 
 Christ's parables, yet adapted to occasion and audience. 
 
 Our lives are like a field. In our natures 
 there grow good qualities and bad. The good 
 are like the good grain and the bad are like 
 weeds. Unless the weeds are taken out they 
 will crowd the grain and eat up all the good 
 fertility of the ground. But the field cannot 
 rid itself of the weeds, nor can the good things 
 uproot and throw away the bad. 
 
 Our natures, our characters, our minds and 
 hearts are a field. Love, joy, peace, patience, 
 goodness, meekness, are the good grain. Sel- 
 fishness, anger, quarrelsomeness, pride, un- 
 truthfulness, cruelty, ignorance, and supersti- 
 tion are the weeds. The good cannot over- 
 come the bad alone. 
 
 The owner and master of our lives is God. 
 He has sent his Son into the world to make 
 us able to pull up the weeds and make the 
 
9d WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 good grow. We must simply oKey the Mas- 
 ter, do as He says, trust Him, pray to Him, 
 and then our natures will become good. 
 
 When Theodore was given charge of work in both 
 Wai and Satara, in 1908, a generous White Plains 
 parishioner gave him a new motor cycle, which meant a 
 great deal to his health and efficiency. One of his first 
 concerns was to turn to religious account the curious 
 interest aroused in the villages by his appearance on 
 this wheel. The result was a carefully prepared little 
 gem of a sermon which he delivered wherever he went 
 and which is still remembered and appreciated all over 
 the wide district. He gives us a brief outline of the 
 points he made, but, to appreciate the effect, one must 
 visualize the scene, with a group of gaping villagers 
 squatting about, and the tall, smiling missionary pa- 
 tiently explaining and illustrating the uses of the vari- 
 ous parts of this wonderful machine, then turning them 
 into a parable. 
 
 He writes : 
 
 The thing I like most about the motor 
 cycle is that it is going to let me get at people 
 more. At present it is serving as a text, with 
 its front wheel signifying the guiding Spirit 
 and the back the body. The petrol signifies , 
 that which we all have from below and the 
 electric spark that which must come from 
 above to make life and power. The light sig- 
 nifies our need of the Light of the World, the 
 horn God's warning in the voice of others and 
 in conscience, and the pong, pong, pong that 
 it makes as it goes along the road I give all to 
 understand means, "God so loved the world, 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 91 
 
 etc," because it was given as a gift to Christ 
 who has done so much for the givers. I have 
 used it as a talk five times in the last ten days 
 or so and am reviewing the talk so that there 
 will be none of the twenty-six grammatical 
 mistakes I made the first time I gave it. 
 
 It would be a great mistake to suppose that Theo- 
 dore's interest in these villages and villagers was merely 
 that of an intense religious propagandist. There was 
 a human kindliness and camaraderie about it that sel- 
 dom failed to win friendship. When walking or riding 
 through the district he greeted every one he met, 
 whether personally known to him or not, with a kindly 
 "Salaam." Whenever he stopped to eat a picnic meal 
 he would invite the curious farmers who gathered 
 about to come and sit down near by and he would 
 soon have them laughing and talking with him. He 
 once wrote to his church: "A missionary without the 
 ability to laugh or to make others laugh would wear 
 out in a month out here. There is a mental and nerv- 
 ous strain due to isolation that needs relaxation. And 
 a smile and the power to touch the native's sense of 
 the ridiculous is the first step in winning his friend- 
 ship." Certainly in all his relations in India his kindly 
 drollery and shrewd New England humor were con- 
 stantly helping him to a happy relationship in informal 
 friendliness with the people. 
 
 Theodore showed his loving interest everywhere he 
 went by trying to help in sickness and indeed by offer- 
 ing every aid in his power. A large community of tan- 
 ners, a despised caste, is to-day devoted to his memory, 
 not only because he mingled with them in loving 
 
92 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 friendliness, but because he helped them in many prac- 
 tical ways, among other things securing some machin- 
 ery from America for their trade. About another 
 group he writes : 
 
 Again I have been interrupted. The gar- 
 deners have come. The new Mahableshwar 
 motor road is to run straight through the 
 splendid black rich garden land that they have 
 worked since the time of the Peshwas. They 
 do not own the land. It is owned by the 
 Brahmin Inamdar. To him will go all the 
 compensation that will be given for the land 
 taken. They will lose their livelihood. 
 "What can we do ?" they ask. I do not know 
 what they can do. But this morning I wrote a 
 statement of the case and a petition to the 
 Chief Secretary of Government at Poona, and 
 we are praying that the course of the road may 
 be changed a little, so that it may run through 
 ordinary grain fields, instead of through the 
 best garden land. 
 
 The intercessions of the missionaries were effective, 
 the road was deflected and still another group was won 
 to a friendliness which Theodore took care to culti- 
 vate, and afterwards to use for the great cause which 
 he had nearest to his heart. 
 
 His agents remember with affection how he played 
 marbles with the children, who came to look upon his 
 visit to the schools as an especial treat. He himself 
 gives us something of the secret of his popularity with 
 the children in a letter home. He wrote : 
 
 To warm the children up, I put them 
 through the little system of calisthenics I use 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 93 
 
 every morning and night. They enjoyed it 
 hugely and then sang with a sincere happi- 
 ness that reminded me of the college song, 
 "Teacher, teacher, why am I so happy, happy, 
 happy in my Sunday school ?" But, whatever 
 may be the thought of the college fellows in 
 America, I know that for these poor children, 
 the sons and daughters of naked, ignorant, 
 superstitious parents, this little school is the 
 door to a joyous life. Their parents do not 
 know how to feed them properly and they 
 are frequently sick. There are among them 
 some very lovable boys and girls. I wanted 
 to take every one of them in my arms and give 
 such a blessing as the Master gave. 
 
 One must know by experience the filthy and even 
 diseased state of many of these children to appreci- 
 ate the large-hearted love, the Christ-likeness of spirit, 
 that shines from this last sentence with its spontaneous 
 desire to take all these children into his arms. Prob- 
 ably some of those whom the Master blessed were 
 filthy and diseased! 
 
 No account of Theodore's work in the villages would 
 be complete which did not give a picture of its strenu- 
 ousness. His Indian fellow workers still shake their 
 heads and draw in their breath at the memory of the 
 pace he set them. When on tour among the villages 
 he would often start at five in the morning, walk to a 
 village, gather the people, hold a service, and talk with 
 individuals, walk to another village, and then another, 
 there, perhaps, adding the inspection of a school. 
 Taking what rest he could get under some tree at noon, 
 he would continue the process until evening, doing 
 effective work of a peculiarly trying nature in six or 
 
94 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 more villages in the course of the day. One preacher 
 tells with awe how they started out one morning and 
 were caught by a heavy rain in the midst of villages, 
 whose only connecting link is thick, sticky, clay roads. 
 Theodore would not turn back, but completed the day's 
 programme. Another time, after a day's round of 
 seven villages, when this preacher was completely ex- 
 hausted, Theodore took the eighteen-mile bicycle ride 
 to Wai and back, because something imperative called 
 him there. His associates emphasize how careless of 
 food or shelter this indomitable missionary was when 
 "on tour." 
 
 Early one morning, after having come from a long 
 hard trip on his motor cycle the night before, Theodore 
 Lee was getting the machine ready for another run. 
 "Sahib," said one of his workers, "at least give your 
 horse a rest." "No, no," replied the indefatigable mis- 
 sionary, "if I did, he would get fat ;" and the machine 
 started out amidst the peals of laughter of the listen- 
 ers. As they looked from the tubing of the machine 
 to the tall, wiry form of its owner, it was as easy to 
 think of the one growing fat from an easy life as the 
 other. 
 
 The results of all this labor and all this love, spent 
 so freely on the villages around Wai and Satara can- 
 not be recorded in figures, and probably the greater 
 part of the results was of such a nature as to escape 
 all definite notice: tens of thousands who had heard 
 for the first time that there is a loving Heavenly Father- 
 and a Divine Saviour ; many hundreds who had felt the 
 personal touch of kindliness of this zealous foreigner ; 
 scores who had had intimate talks with him and had 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 95 
 
 received gifts or loans of religious books; Bible por- 
 tions sold in large numbers throughout the district; 
 tracts scattered far and wide; whole communities 
 brought to a sense of persond attachment and obliga- 
 tion. Village leaders, who had formerly always per- 
 secuted the Christian preachers, now invited them into 
 their homes. Many, who formerly would not let the 
 shadow of a Christian fall on them, came up to take 
 tracts from their hands. It was a marvelously efficient 
 work of preparing the soil and sowing the seed through- 
 out a large and populous district. 
 
 We may well allow his Indian associates to add the 
 last touch to our hasty sketch of this aspect of Theo- 
 dore's missionary work. In a testimonial of respect 
 which they gave him on his leaving the country for his 
 first furlough they said : " 'The spread of the Gospel 
 is my first work,' this being your conviction, you suf- 
 fered the heat of the sun, thirst, cold, rain, exhaustion, 
 and you suffered all willingly. Your joy, zeal, and 
 readiness in this work have been an example to us 
 all." 
 
 Theodore Lee would have been the first to disclaim 
 that he was ever the chief agency in the Christian work 
 in Wai and Satara. He and Mrs. Lee laid great em- 
 phasis on the Indian Christian workers — ^teachers, 
 preachers, Bible women, colporteurs and pastors — and 
 regarded them as the most important agency in this 
 work. Each one of these workers was to them an ob- 
 ject of constant thought and prayer. Before coming 
 to India at all Theodore once remarked to the writer 
 that he looked forward to becoming an influence rather 
 than a power in the foreign field, meaning that he an- 
 
96 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 ticipated that limitations of health might prevent his 
 leading such an active life as many missionaries lived, 
 but that he hoped to accomplish his work by quiet per- 
 sonal influence. What has already been said about his 
 missionary work shows how mistaken he was in regard 
 to its activity, but he was not mistaken in feeling that 
 his greatest accomplishment would be through personal 
 influence. Naturally those who felt his influence most 
 and gave most sympathetic response were his Indian 
 associates in Christian work. 
 
 He selected these workers with very great care and 
 demanded and secured much hard work from them. 
 He also demanded a high standard of personal life. 
 Each worker, in coming to the field, signed a paper in 
 which he agreed to work in any capacity or place where 
 his services were needed, to keep out of debt, to live in 
 willing cooperation with the missionaries and other 
 Christians of Wai or Satara, and, in general, to further 
 the Kingdom of Christ in every way in his power. At 
 first many were inclined to look upon this young mis- 
 sionary as a rather severe task master, but when they 
 came to feel the friendliness and helpfulness of his 
 attitude to them, and when they realized how much 
 more he demanded of himself than he did of them, they 
 generally willingly fell in with his plans and lived more 
 strenuous lives than they had ever known before. 
 Theodore kept careful records of each worker. Each 
 had a definite detailed programme of work and gave 
 a detailed written report at the end of each month. 
 Regularity and faithfulness in work were qualities 
 which seemed to this missionary of very great impor- 
 tance and it was difficult for him to be lenient with a 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 97 
 
 worker who failed in these. He paid visits at irregular 
 intervals to all the schools under his care and kept care- 
 ful notes of their progress. Once, when the master 
 was absent without excuse Theodore himself conducted 
 the school and he even sent the master home when he 
 did appear. Afterwards he was sorry for having pub- 
 licly humiliated this teacher and asked his pardon. 
 Perhaps there was nothing that endeared Theodore 
 more to his Indian fellow-workers than his quickness 
 to acknowledge a fault and to ask their pardon for the 
 slightest wrong he had done them. Here are two ex- 
 tracts from letters home, showing Theodore's attitude 
 
 to these workers. "In my estimate of I am apt 
 
 to be biased because I love him so that I do not see or 
 care to see his faults." " — : — and I are not tem- 
 peramentally sympathetic. It would be easy for me 
 to misjudge him and do him and the work wrong by 
 hastily dismissing him. I am trying to get all the 
 beams out of my own eyes and to see all the good there 
 is in him and his work." A young village teacher tells, 
 not only how the missionary helped in sickness in a 
 peculiarly tender way, but how he took the young 
 worker off into the fields for an intimate talk and, 
 putting his arm around him and expressing apprecia- 
 tion of his work, prayed with him in such a loving way 
 that that afternoon forms one of the memorable events 
 in the young Christian's life. Entrusting responsibility 
 to workers, intimacy of social fellowship with them, 
 appreciation of their good points, generous sympathy 
 and help in time of need, these were some of the 
 means used so successfully by Theodore Lee. 
 He would march right into a smoke filled room, sit. 
 
98 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 Indian fashion, on the floor and begin playing with the 
 children. He would forego the privilege of a "Eu- 
 ropean" railway carriage and ride with one of his 
 workers, crowded into the "native" compartment. At 
 his first meeting with the Satara workers in his study, 
 when all were wondering about this new missionary, 
 he put them at their ease by refusing a chair and sit- 
 ting cross-legged on the floor in their midst, asking 
 them to regard him, not as their superior, but as a fel- 
 low preacher of Christ's Gospel. Once when he and 
 Anandrao Hiwale were oflE on tour together and there 
 was only one cot — ^the missionary's — ^Anandrao came in 
 late at night to find Theodore rolled up in a quilt on 
 the floor, leaving the cot empty. When Anandrao tried 
 to protest against Theodore's sleeping on the floor, the 
 only reply he could get, in a tone of well-feigned irri- 
 tation, was, "Go away, I'm asleep." 
 
 Theodore was the life of the parties which went with 
 him on tour. His jokes kept all in good nature. He 
 would rout them all out bright and early in the morn- 
 ing, so that they might make an early start on their 
 round, but he did it with so much fun as to open the 
 day pleasantly. Once, when all were returning tired 
 out from a long, full day, there was considerable grum- 
 bling at the hardness of their work, and ordinary meth- 
 ods of getting the party into good temper did not work. 
 Theodore succeeded in restoring it, however, by pro- 
 posing that, when they reached camp, he and Anan- 
 drao should have a wrestling match. Anandrao is a 
 very short, rotund figure. He and his six-foot-two 
 missionary, walking side by side, were always a hu- 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 99 
 
 morous spectacle, but the thought of a Avrestling match 
 between them was so much funnier that all grumbling 
 and sense of fatigue disappeared in the shout of laugh- 
 ter that greeted the suggestion. 
 
 But, remarkable as was Theodore's capacity for get- 
 ting into close touch with his workers, there is no need 
 to say that the end in view was not merely pleasant 
 social intercourse ; it was to deepen their spiritual lives 
 and inspire them with greater zeal. On his missionary 
 tours more memorable than the jokes were the prayer 
 meetings. Prayer was his breath of life and few Chris- 
 tian workers ever left his presence without an intimate 
 mutual prayer. Part of the time in Wai the mission- 
 aries and the Indian workers held daily prayer meet- 
 ings of marked power. All enquirers and workers 
 were not only subjects of deep prayer by the mission- 
 ary, but they also found in his fellowship a new power 
 in their own prayer life. 
 
 Bible study was another subject in regard to which 
 he created fresh enthusiasm, and in which his example 
 was an inspiration. He would suggest helpful topics 
 to be worked out from the Bible in the monthly meet- 
 ing. Wherever possible he himself held Bible classes 
 with his workers. He urged the committing of Bible 
 portions to memory. As the Hindu has a religious 
 poem which he repeats during his bath, so he urged 
 the Christians to repeat at that time the 13th chapter 
 of 1st Corinthians. Many of those who worked with 
 him bear testimony to his deep influence on their 
 prayer life and their Bible study. They also speak of 
 his determination that they should keep out of debt, 
 
loo WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 his emphasis on regularity, and his joy in evangelistic 
 work as some of the qualities which aif ected them most 
 deeply. 
 
 Rev. Prasadrao Makasare, the pastor of the Satara 
 church, loved Theodore Lee as a brother, and felt his 
 influence to a peculiar degree. He still cherishes many 
 letters filled with loving sympathy and wise suggestion, 
 which he received at various times from Theodore. 
 These letters were signed, "Fraternally and affection- 
 ately, Theodore S. Lee." Prasadrao says that Theo- 
 dore is still alive to him and their friendship is now 
 even more significant than before. Rev. Anandrao Hi- 
 wale, who took over charge of the Satara District when 
 the Lees went on furlough, wrote Theodore many ques- 
 tions in regard to the work, which he answered from 
 shipboard in a truly Pauline letter, packed full of prac- 
 tical wisdom and wise suggestion on a wide range of 
 missionary topics. Theodore concluded this letter with 
 these words : " I have answered all your questions in 
 order to help you, but not to hamper you. In most 
 things use your own judgment. Most difficulties are 
 overcome by caring for one's own spiritual tone and 
 that of those with whom you work. So go ahead and 
 the Lord bless you." It is Anandrao's testimony that 
 the presence of this strong, loving, enthusiastic, de- 
 voted missionary is vividly real with all the workers 
 still. Here, in his influence on the personal lives, 
 habits, and ideals of a small group of Christian work- 
 ers, we find some of the deepest and most abiding re- 
 sults of Theodore's missionary career. 
 
 We have now seen Theodore Lee with the higher 
 classes, with the villagers and with his Indian Christian 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST loi 
 
 associates. There is in India another small but impor- 
 tant class of people, who were attracted to him to a 
 very unusual degree — the Europeans, both official and 
 unofficial. The devoted Anglican, Bishop Pirn, felt 
 this attraction and showed unusual interest by inviting 
 this young missionary to his table at the hill station and 
 seating him at his right hand, in order that he might 
 enquire more fully about his work. The Collector or 
 highest British official of the District, Mr. Arthur, 
 showed in many ways his high regard for this strong 
 young missionary. He writes : 
 
 Both my wife and I held Mr. Lee in the 
 highest esteem. When he was in Wai we 
 used to look forward with great pleasure to his 
 occasional visits to Satara. Wai is a center 
 of orthodox Brahminism and it says a great 
 deal for Mr. Lee that he worked harmoniously 
 with different classes in a place where it is by 
 no means easy to do so, and that without any 
 weak giving in to what he did not approve. 
 . . . My wife and I feel a personal loss by 
 his death. 
 
 Mr. Campbell, a civilian on special duty, who made 
 Satara his headquarters, writes : 
 
 His house was always open to me ; and he 
 was the most open part of his house. His 
 frank honesty was just the kind of fresh air 
 which, sparkling with an energetic keenness, 
 would electrify the responsive spirit of stu- 
 dents. I think all the European community 
 that knew him respected him highly, and I 
 think he often regretted that his main mis- 
 sionary work necessarily kept him from seeing 
 
102 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 more of them. ... It has been happy for me 
 to recall and collect a few thoughts on an old 
 friendship. ... I do not feel that anything I 
 could write would do justice to Mr. Lee alone 
 or to our friendship together. 
 
 In Satara Theodore was a prominent member of a 
 group of earnest Christian Europeans who met regu- 
 larly for Bible readings and he enlisted members of 
 this group in teaching Bible classes for Indians. 
 
 The writer has thought much on the question what 
 it was in this missionary that attracted Europeans to 
 such an unusual degree. His life was wholly diflferent 
 from theirs in most external ways, more so than that 
 of most missionaries. Probably his force of character, 
 his straightforwardness, and his obvious enjoyment of 
 sociability had something to do with this result, but the 
 main reason for his marked influence with Europeans 
 seems to us to have been the quiet and unconscious 
 Christian heroism of his life, a heroism which made an 
 appeal to all strong men and especially to those of 
 earnest Christian character. 
 
 One more aspect of Theodore Lee's influence de- 
 mands special attention, his very unusual relationship 
 with a large circle of correspondents in America. He 
 was an insatiable letter writer. Where he found time 
 for his home correspondence is a mystery, but his let- 
 ter record book shows a great many names of those 
 to whom he wrote frequently. The writer, while on 
 furlough, several times met people in unexpected places 
 who enquired for Theodore Lee, and who often said 
 something like the following, "He writes me most en- 
 thusiastic and interesting letters about his work. I'm 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 103 
 
 afraid I'm not as faithful as I ought to be in answer- 
 ing, but tell him that his letters do me good." His let- 
 ters and report to his church at White Plains and to 
 various societies and individuals in that church were, 
 we venture to believe, as full, as vivid, and as effective 
 as were ever sent by any missionary to any church. 
 But his relation to his church is dealt with at length in 
 a separate chapter. We here add a few quotations 
 from letters received by Theodore from college and 
 Theological Seminary professors, from pastors, lay- 
 men and lay-women in many places in the home land. 
 Many of the letters he received were so intimate that 
 it would seem profanation to publish them, but we have 
 selected a few, which can fittingly be put into print. 
 
 "Your reports have been a stimulating influence to 
 me in my own work. I only wish that you were near 
 enough to shame me more often and make me a more 
 devoted and more effective follower of the Master. I 
 do try; but when I think of your life, I feel that I 
 have been an unprofitable servant and belong away 
 down at the foot of the table instead of in the rather 
 prominent position in which I sometimes seem to be." 
 
 "It was so good of you to drop me a line. Your 
 work has been a great inspiration to me. It has been, 
 in fact, a large factor in the life of our church." 
 
 "I cannot tell you how interested both and I 
 
 are in what you are doing, nor how proud we are of 
 the success which you are meeting, and the sacrifices 
 which you so gladly and continuously make for the 
 sake of the Kingdom. We men who are not on the 
 firing line, but who hold the fort amid the desert of 
 indifference, gain more inspiration and courage than 
 
I04 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 you can conceive of from the news of the men who 
 are doing the pioneer work." 
 
 "Just a word to thank you for the pamphlet con- 
 cerning your work. It is one of the best and brightest 
 reports I have ever seen and I enjoyed it hugely. It 
 must be easy to be blue and to slide into ruts in such 
 an inexhaustible parish, though we all do that occa- 
 sionally. But I could not find a bit of it in your report 
 — only joy and courage, together with a certain conse- 
 crated boyishness and bubbling enthusiasm which will 
 do more good at home and abroad than many medi- 
 cines, and make you a living epistle of the good tidings 
 to the lives you touch. I did not mean to say all this ; 
 but it's true and you won't mind." 
 
 "God bless you, old fellow, for your note of cheer 
 and for your faith that climbs in spite of the thousand 
 and one things that would drag it to earth. It makes 
 me ashamed of myself for the blue days that come to 
 me sometimes even here. It is as I have often said, 
 Theodore, that you fellows who have gone to India and 
 China are doing just as much for us men in the 
 homeland — perhaps more than you could possibly have 
 done if you had stayed here, for I never receive a let- 
 ter from you or or , without being shamed 
 
 for my sluggishness and filled with a new devotion to 
 my Master and to His work." 
 
 "You were indeed good to write such a beautiful and 
 sympathetic letter so immediately after receiving mine 
 and I thank you from my heart for your understanding 
 of the matter." 
 
 "Of course I do not mind your saying that you pray 
 for me. I only wish it could give me a little of your 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 105 
 
 faith and more strength to resist the flesh and the 
 devil." 
 
 "I am in your debt for such a weaUh of loving 
 thought and for so many dear letters and messages 
 that I hardly know where to begin." 
 
 Are not these quotations, which could easily be multi- 
 plied, enough to make vividly clear that ten thousand 
 miles of distance could not prevent many from turning 
 to this true Christian friend for sympathy, understand- 
 ing, and help, and that the inspiration of his personality 
 was constantly at work in the lives of scores and 
 hundreds of those who were living on the other side of 
 the world? 
 
 We have taken a quick glance at some of the more 
 noteworthy aspects of the influence of Theodore Lee. 
 In so doing we have paid little attention to historical 
 sequences, though we have referred to the fact that the 
 Lees went to Wai in 1904, soon after arriving in India, 
 and that, after five years, they were transferred to the 
 neighbouring city of Satara. Satara is a historic city 
 and the center of the district, a much larger city than 
 Wai, with flourishing high schools and many educated 
 and progressive citizens. Here Theodore found him- 
 self already known and popular because of his public 
 activities in Wai, and here he quickly established 
 friendly personal relations with the leading citizens, 
 was put on public committees and arranged for and 
 delivered public lectures. Many in Satara have told 
 the writer of their appreciation of their American fel- 
 low citizen. Two of the most prominent citizens, the 
 Rao Bahadur V. N. Pathak and S. B. Phansalkar, Esq., 
 High Court Pleader, expressed in writing their tribute 
 
io6 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 to his memory. We quote a few words from each. 
 "He was so sympathetic toward his native friends that 
 he spared himself no opportunity of coming in contact 
 with them and benefitting them both by word and ac- 
 tion." "There was a peculiar charm about his person 
 and manners which won the hearts of those who came 
 in contact with him. He was looked upon as the best 
 type of an American and was very much liked and 
 respected by the educated community." 
 
 Satara brought greatly increased executive and finan- 
 cial responsibilities, as well as increased work in con- 
 nection with the Christian community. These new 
 problems Theodore attacked with much thought and 
 prayer and with vigorous, loving activity. In Satara 
 the Lees found a boarding school for both boys and 
 girls. We have already seen enough of Theodore's 
 relation to Indian children to appreciate that he would, 
 in his own generous, original way, take these children 
 right into his heart, and see to it that their lives had in 
 them brightness and fun as well as hard work and 
 healthy Christian training. If space permitted we 
 would print some of his very interesting letters about 
 these children. 
 
 As one rapidly reviews what this missionary accom- 
 plished; with the high caste young men and leading 
 citizens of Wai, and later of Satara; as an evangelist 
 and village worker throughout a wide district ; as di- 
 rector and inspirer of Indian Christian workers; in 
 intimate touch with leading Europeans; through his 
 rare and beautiful correspondence with a very wide 
 circle at home; and in the various responsibilities of 
 Satara; it seems almost impossible to believe that all 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 107 
 
 this activity and this influence were exerted in seven 
 and a half short years. This accomplishment, in so 
 far as it deals with Indians, is all the more remarkable 
 to one who knows by experience the slow moving East, 
 and how persistent, patient and extended any efforts 
 must be if they are to have the slightest hope of affect- 
 ing the thought and lives of the people. But even 
 these short years of Theodore's life in India were most 
 seriously handicapped. After the first three years in 
 the country he had a sudden break-down in health, so 
 terrible that there were grave doubts whether he could 
 survive the shock. For many weeks he lay flat on his 
 back, for months his life was one constant fight for 
 health, and he was never again able to ride a bicycle, 
 climb a hill, play tennis, or do anything which involved 
 unusual strain on his heart. 
 
 This collapse came after a time of protracted and 
 unrelieved activity in mission work, of great anxiety 
 in regard to the mission's policy toward the Wai field, 
 which seemed in danger of being surrendered because 
 of the financial exigencies of the home Board, and of 
 intense personal suffering at the time of the birth of 
 the Lees' first child, Grace. 
 
 A tragic effect of this physical break-down was that 
 it brought with it deep mental depression, which was 
 wholly unnatural to one so full of enthusiasm and op- 
 timistic faith. How constantly this depression came 
 like a black cloud upon him and how terrible and in- 
 cessant was his struggle against it, no one can picture 
 or imagine. For such an intensely active man to feel 
 that the work to which he had desired to give a "life of 
 full days," to which he had wholly devoted all his 
 
io8 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 powers, might be his to do no longer, that he might be 
 doomed to look on as a spectator where his spirit longed 
 to be giving itself in the service which he knew so well 
 how to render, herein was the awful tragedy of this 
 time of semi-helplessness and inactivity. During these 
 long months little baby Grace was a wonderful solace 
 and comfort. She spent much of her time on the bed 
 by his side and he poured out on her the wealth of 
 affection which must needs find active expression. In- 
 deed the sweetness, peace, and beautiful Christian de- 
 votion of his home, which throughout his missionary 
 life were the unseen source of much of his power, 
 would seem to have been in this crisis one of the two 
 chief factors in his recovery. 
 
 The other factor was his unquenchable faith, which 
 shone into the clouds of depression brought upon him 
 by his physical condition, and finally burst through and 
 dispersed them. While Theodore was on his back in 
 Ahmednagar, soon after the break-down occurred. Dr. 
 Charles Cuthbert Hall, at that time the Barrows lec- 
 turer in India, made the hard trip to Wai in order to 
 see at least the field of his work. After this visit Dr. 
 Hall wrote him this beautiful letter of hope : 
 
 College House, Esplanade, 
 Madras, 3 Dec, 1906. 
 My dear Friend : 
 
 I have just learned, with feelings of deep 
 regret, that illness has come upon you and 
 that you are in Bombay, quite weak and pros- 
 trated. I must not write you a long letter, 
 for it would tire you to read it. But a little 
 word of love from one who has known you 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 109 
 
 long and intimately will be like a breath of 
 sweet American air, to give you new courage 
 and hope. Dear Lee ! how my heart goes out 
 to you in this trial, which comes at a time 
 when you have most wished to be strong, for 
 your Wife's sake, and your Baby's sake, and 
 your Work's sake. Well I remember the day 
 long ago when you came into my office at dear 
 old "700" with your face white and drawn 
 with disappointment, to tell me that the Board 
 would not let you go to India ! Oh ! how dark 
 everything seemed to you that day! And 
 now is another time of trial in which, as 
 then, you will be nobly patient before God, 
 and wait the unfolding of His Will. To 
 God's most gracious protection and comfort 
 I commend you and yours. "Let not your 
 heart be troubled" — "Oh! rest in the Lord 
 and wait patiently for Him." 
 
 Yours with constant remembrance 
 and very tender affection, 
 
 Chas. Cuthbert Hall. 
 
 On this letter Theodore wrote, "The last sentence of 
 this letter has meant as much as anything I have re- 
 ceived. I add to it the rest, — 'and He will give thee 
 thy heart's desire' — Wai." He prayed with all the 
 strength and intensity of his nature for recovery in 
 order that he might carry on his life work and he came 
 to believe that God had answered his prayer. How 
 great a factor in his recovery was his strong will to 
 live — for Wai, and his faith that it was God's will to 
 grant him this desire, no one can measure. There was 
 at this time a very strong opinion among some in his 
 home church that he ought to give up India and come 
 back to America. Its pastor wrote : 
 
no WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 Mr. still strongly feels that you ought 
 
 to come back to this country, if not for good, 
 at least temporarily. And he thinks there is 
 a good opportunity of developing work in the 
 Westchester Congregational Church, which 
 you, remaining one of his pastors, could 
 handle. I am sure he is right in this last idea. 
 I want you to feel sure that, if you think that 
 coming home would help you, this church 
 will gladly stand by you in it. We cannot, of 
 course, decide for you at this distance; you 
 and Dr. Hume and Dr. Beals must decide 
 what is best. 
 
 To leave India and go home to America, even to an 
 attractive work, was precisely what Theodore did not 
 want to do. His heart was in Wai, and he believed 
 that it was here that he could serve his Master best. 
 Medical advice said that the climate of India was not 
 unfavorable to his physical condition, although it clearly 
 warned him that, because of the trying conditions of 
 his missionary work, he would probably not last as long 
 in India as he would in America. But his deep convic- 
 tion of his call to missionary work made him ignore 
 the warning and emphasize the assurance in this medi- 
 cal opinion. Self sacrifice was wrought into the very 
 fiber of his being. The one question was, "where can 
 I serve best?" The cost was absolutely disregarded. 
 And Mrs. Lee was at one with him in this. His beauti- 
 ful home, his care of himself, and his deep faith won 
 a great victory. He recovered almost completely and 
 emerged from this terrible ordeal, mellowed in char- 
 acter and enriched in Christian experience, to spend 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST in 
 
 almost four years more of constant and active service. 
 Indeed it was in this latter period that occurred some 
 of the instances of strenuous work — ^his performances 
 on the motor cycle, and his tireless touring, of which 
 we have already spoken. 
 
 Just before starting on furlough, in 191 1, Theodore 
 was attacked by the fever which clung to him most of 
 the time until his death, some four months later. Al- 
 most to the very last day, his indomitable spirit tena- 
 ciously clung to the hope of returning to India. Not 
 long before going on furlough he had written a letter 
 to Dr. Barton in regard to the great financial burdens 
 of the Satara and Wai work. He had said that he did 
 not like this money raising, "but no man, having put 
 his hand to the plow and looking back is going to have 
 the joy of the Satara and Wai harvest. So we shall 
 pray and plow." In a letter dictated to a chum when 
 he was lying in the Presbyterian Hospital in New 
 York, a few days before his death, he says, "By the way 
 
 has just been in here this morning and he seems to 
 
 be having a happy and successful time in his Minnesota 
 parish. But, bless you, dear old man, I would not 
 swap all the helpful, congenial people he has in his 
 church for the tough nut I have to crack in Satara for 
 anything." And when the doctors finally told him that 
 all hope of recovery was at an end, he said, "I had 
 hoped to be buried in the Wai cemetery." When 
 Christian work began at Wai the only land that 
 could be obtained for a cemetery was a noisome spot, 
 near the place where the sewage of the city was 
 dumped. It was in this spot that Theodore wanted his 
 
112 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 body to lie, here beside the Indian Christian workers 
 whom he had loved, and in the land for which he had 
 gladly given his life. 
 
 And who can doubt that he is in Wai to-day ? His 
 body was laid to rest by the loving hands of classmates 
 and dear ones, after a beautiful and fitting ceremony, 
 in his own home city ; but his spirit is living in Wai and 
 in Satara in the lives of unnumbered Christians and 
 non- Christians, who gained something of his vision of 
 God in Christ and something of the Divine power for 
 daily living which was his. And his spirit will continue 
 to work in India until that day, so vividly before the 
 eye of his faith, when this great land shall become 
 Christ's and shall play its noble part in bringing the 
 world to His feet. 
 
 Did the sacrifice of such a life pay? We know the 
 sure answer that Theodore himself would make and we 
 cannot more fittingly finish this picture of his brief 
 missionary life than in the words of a poem, by Julia 
 Lamed, which he loved and copied with his own hands 
 into his book of religious poetry. 
 
 ,The eyes of man's anguish went up unto God, 
 
 "Lord take away pain; 
 
 The shadow that darkens the world Thou 
 
 has made; 
 The close coiling chain that strangles the 
 
 heart; 
 The burden that weighs on the wings that 
 
 would soar; 
 Lord take away pain from the world Thou 
 
 hast made. 
 That it love Thee the more." 
 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CHRIST 113 
 
 Then answered the Lord to the cry of His world, 
 
 "Shall I take away pain, 
 
 And with it the power of the Soul to endure, 
 
 Made strong by the strain? 
 
 Shall I take away pity, that knits heart to 
 
 heart, ' 
 And sacrifice high? 
 Will ye lose all the heroes that lift from the 
 
 fire 
 White hands to the sky? 
 Shall I take away love that redeems with a 
 
 price. 
 And smiles at the loss? 
 Can ye spare from your lives, that would 
 
 climb into mine, 
 The Christ on the Cross?" 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 
 
"All belong to one family, no matter what their religion or 
 language or color. The narrow relationships of the family 
 are not made less sacred or deep by embracing the broadest 
 relationship that a man can bear to the whole race." 
 
 — T. S. Lee. 
 
 "I am glad of the interest of which you speak and that it is 
 an interest in missions and not me. I am not a Hamlin, Hume, 
 or anything but a simple fellow who wants to do all that he can 
 for the divine Master. I do not feel as if I could do much, but 
 I shall try to keep my powder dry and see what the great 
 Captain can do with me in a Hindu stronghold. I would 
 rather be there than anywhere else." 
 
 — T. S. Lee, 1903. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 "HANDS ACROSS JHE SEA" 
 
 Theodore Lee was not only a missionary ; he was a 
 Missionary Pastor. The three chapters preceding have 
 told of his heroic work in India; this chapter is the 
 story of his fulfilling his ministry at the same time as 
 one of the pastors of a church in America. 
 
 In his last year at Union Seminary, Theodore made 
 many friends in a little Congregational Church which 
 had been organized the year before in White Plains, 
 a growing suburb twenty miles out of New York City. 
 This church began in a combination carpenter shop 
 and stable, suggesting both Nazareth and Bethlehem, 
 and during its first year conducted extension work in 
 a neighboring fire-engine house at Scarsdale. Theo- 
 dore's class-mate, Arthur O. Pritchard, during the 
 senior year, had charge of this extension work and 
 frequently invited Theodore to speak. 
 
 When Arthur Pritchard graduated in June, 1903, 
 the little church made bold to call him to be assistant 
 pastor responsible for local missionary work. As one 
 courageous act inevitably inspires another, his ordina- 
 tion made people ask, "What about the foreign field? 
 Can we not have Theodore Lee as our third pastor, 
 our Missionary Pastor, to represent us there?" At 
 this time the Westchester Church had one hundred 
 
 117 
 
ii8 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 and ninety-three members and a building worth $7,000 
 about one-half paid for! But they did it! On July 
 I ith, the American Board formally assigned Theodore 
 and his support to the little church. 
 
 To assign a "missionary pastor" to a church is often 
 merely a device to help raise money. The relation 
 is nominal. Not so with Theodore and the Westches- 
 ter Church. He had a vision of being truly a pastor ; 
 he would know and love all the members of his flock 
 individually; he would do his part in teaching and' 
 giving them spiritual help ; he would be familiar with 
 all the problems and purposes of his church ; and then 
 he would take direct leadership of the work in its for- 
 eign parish. But that work should be distinctly the 
 church's through him. On the other hand, the people 
 of the Westchester Church had a vision of loving and 
 supporting a pastor in its foreign parish in exactly the 
 same way they would love and support their pastor at 
 home; their foreign missionary work should not be 
 done impersonally and at arm's length but, incarnate 
 in Theodore, the church itself should be in India. 
 Thus the Missionary Pastor, constantly sharing other 
 responsibilities at home, would never come to think of 
 his home church as a mere pay-station for foreign mis- 
 sions ; and the church not alone would give more money 
 but through prayer and love would share the mission- 
 ary's real work of winning souls for Christ. 
 
 Older and more cautious missionaries might well 
 have said, "The missionary needs all his strength for 
 India — ^let the missionary board solve the home prob- 
 lems." And older and more cautious pastors might 
 have said, "The home pastor has quite enough to do at 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 119 
 
 home without entering into personal and spiritual prob- 
 lems abroad. If he leads his church in raising a gen- 
 erous subscription, he has done his part." But Theo- 
 dore was young and the church was young and, hand 
 in hand, they went forth with all the romance and all 
 the hope of a couple newly wed. "Theodore Lee" — 
 the music of that name sang in the church's ear from 
 the start; "Westchester Church" — Theodore had a 
 sweet joy and holy strength from his pastorate all 
 through the years in India. At the very beginning of 
 his pastorate, July 8, 1903, he wrote: 
 
 A missionary's first needs are spiritual. A 
 man may be adequately supported financially 
 and yet fail in his work because he is not up- 
 held by the prayers of those who are behind 
 him. 
 
 Personally I turn toward your church for 
 my support because I believe that from you 
 I shall receive loving prayerful support, be- 
 cause I am simply their own arm stretched 
 out to the sheep of another fold. 
 
 And on August 14, 1906: 
 
 Thank you for letting me know about our 
 home church financial problems. I cannot 
 help you as you do me, but I do want to be 
 appreciative and understand. I want Wai 
 in spirit and reality to be as helpful to the 
 home church as I want the home church to 
 be helpful to Wai. Get someone to write me 
 about all the schemes for work. And do not 
 ever let anyone get the idea that I am 
 simply the missionary of the Westchester 
 Church. I am, but I am more. I am 
 
I20 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 PASTOR. I spell that with big letters be- 
 cause the relation is precious to me and I am 
 as much interested in one branch of the 
 church work as another. 
 
 The days before Theodore's sailing in November 
 were all too brief. Into them were crowded many of 
 the most important personal experiences of life — ^mar- 
 riage, ordination to the ministry, settling in his pastor- 
 ate, and all the farewells. But he gave himself gen- 
 erously to his church, making two visits. On the first 
 visit, of three weeks length in September, Theodore 
 spoke to the Sunday school, young people, and ladies' 
 societies, gave addresses with the stereopticon, but 
 chiefly devoted himself to calling. He desired to go 
 out the personal friend of every family in his church. 
 His brother pastors made a schedule for him of calls 
 and dinners and luncheons in more than a hundred 
 homes. Very many people had never met a real mis- 
 sionary. Indeed, they rather thought a missionary too 
 saintly to be reckoned with in everyday life. Theodore 
 would go right into such a home, exchange jokes across 
 the table, sit cross-legged on the floor to demonstrate 
 how he expected to eat his meals in India — and come 
 away leaving a new friend. 
 
 On his second visit of a week's duration near the end 
 of October, Theodore rejoiced every heart by bringing 
 his bride with him. Married to each other, Theodore 
 and Hannah now were to be wedded to the church by 
 services of supreme meaning to all. First came his 
 ordination to the ministry, on October 20th in the 
 White Plains Church. Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, 
 D.D., of the Broadway Tabernacle, was Moderator. 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 121 
 
 The examination in the afternoon was full of spiritual 
 interest, provoking no discordant discussion. At the 
 ordination, in the evening, Rev. Charles Cuthbert Hall, 
 D.D., President of Union Theological Seminary, de- 
 livered the sermon from Romans 12 : 7, "Let us give 
 ourselves to our ministry;" Rev. James L. Barton, 
 D.D., Secretary of the American Board, gave the 
 charge to the young couple together; his classmate, 
 Rev. F. P. Young, of Brooklyn, sang; in the ordina- 
 tion prayer Theodore's father. Rev. Samuel H. Lee, 
 made the supreme gift of his son to Christ's work; 
 Theodore's brother pastor. Rev. Wm. D. Street, ex- 
 tended the right hand of fellowship, using John the 
 Baptist's words, "He must increase, but I must de- 
 crease." On Sunday morning, October 25th, Theodore 
 Lee preached and conducted his first Communion Serv- 
 ice as Missionary Pastor in his own church. It proved 
 his only one. Very impressive was his choice of 
 "Go, Labor On" as the final hymn together. 
 
 Go, labor on ; spend and be spent. 
 
 Thy joy to do the Father's will; 
 It is the way the Master went; 
 
 Should not the servant tread it still? 
 
 A few days later Theodore writes from the old home 
 in Springfield: 
 
 As I sit up here in the dear old room in 
 which my body and soul have lived and 
 grown for many years, thoughts that can- 
 not be expressed crowd into my mind and 
 somehow fill my eyes and throat. 
 
 But I would not stay here for anything. I 
 
122 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 am eager to go, but the going is made easier 
 because so many are thinking of me and ex- 
 pressing their thoughts so beautifully. 
 
 I cannot call myself assistant pastor, for at 
 present I am conscious that I am increasing 
 your duties rather than lightening them. 
 My chance and opportunity may come, how- 
 ever. 
 
 Theodore and Hannah sailed for India on Saturday, 
 November 14, 1903, by the steamer Minnetonka, leav- 
 ing New York shortly after noon. Anticipating this 
 hour, he had written : 
 
 I wish we might have some prayer to- 
 gether. My closest friendships and strong- 
 est ties have been formed on my knees. If 
 you or any of the others are at the steamer, 
 I wish that we might have some prayers. I 
 do not want to start like a tourist, but an 
 apostle conscious of his calling and its glory 
 as well as its seriousness. . . . 
 
 I should like to have an impression made 
 on the minds of all there that would lead 
 them to more serious living and perhaps some 
 to following. 
 
 A party of two score from the church, with many 
 other friends, gathered on the deck for the farewell 
 service. Theodore read Philippians 1:1-17; his 
 father and Mr. Street led in prayer ; all united in sing- 
 ing, 
 
 My faith looks up to Thee, 
 Thou Lamb of Calvary. 
 
 and Rev. Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall closed with prayer 
 and the benediction. 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 123 
 
 Thus they went forth, not for a year or ten years 
 as a merchant goes forth, expecting to return and to 
 enjoy his fortune, but for life, with the relief, at long 
 intervals, of a few visits home. Thus the long separa- 
 tion began. Could Theodore really be a pastor, seven 
 thousand miles away from his church? 
 
 The first forward step in cooperation was to com- 
 plete the family circle. In less than a year the Ameri- 
 can Board assigned Mrs. Lee also to the Westchester 
 Church to be "Missionary." From 1904 on, Theo- 
 dore's church assumed the family salary, looking upon 
 it as paid to their Missionary Pastor as to their other 
 pastors, and not divided between him and his wife ac- 
 cording to the missionary custom. 
 
 To make his missionary pastorate a success, Theo- 
 dore's first line of work was to acquaint his church 
 with its India parish. Here his genius as a letter- 
 writer served him well. 
 
 (December 19, 1904.) I should like to 
 make this district as much a part of the field 
 of the Westchester Congregational Church 
 as are White Plains and Scarsdale. I wish 
 that I could so connect you and the Wai 
 district that when I am through you will go 
 on sending men and money here till the na- 
 tive churches and schools are on their own 
 feet and are sending missionaries to places 
 that have had no White Plains Congrega- 
 tion behind them. This may be a dream, but 
 it is worth making a reality. 
 
 Seven large bound volumes of this correspondence 
 with his church and individuals in it have been col- 
 
124 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 lected. No place in all the world, not seen with their 
 own eyes, became so real as Wai and Satara. 
 
 Mahableshwar, May 13, 1904. 
 
 Dear Mr. 
 
 Wai will be a lonesome place because I 
 shall be the only white man in town. Let- 
 ters from the church will mean much to us 
 as they have so far. I don't need white 
 skins though, as a means of living. When I 
 see the possibility of the divine in every black 
 and bestial countenance and in every ignor- 
 ant and superstitious one, there is the same 
 fascination in them that marble has for the 
 sculptor or the supreme audience or class has 
 for the preacher and teacher. 
 
 Mahableshwar, June 10, 1904. 
 
 Dear Mr. 
 
 I wish you could just drop in on us ! Then 
 I could show you about Wai, take you into 
 the temples with their huge idols ; you would 
 see men and women bowing in prayer to 
 stones and trees. In the sacred river, you 
 would see them bathing their bodies, wash- 
 ing their clothes and drinking its waters. 
 Because its waters are sacred, they are good 
 to drink even though many drains empty 
 into it. Impure and infected water cannot 
 trouble them, they think, because the gods 
 know when they are to die and the presence 
 of a few million germs cannot affect the will 
 of the gods. 
 
 • ■■■•••• 
 
 Our mission bungalow is outside the town. 
 We cannot get a foot of land for the house, 
 a school or a church in the town. But wait 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 125 
 
 —more things are wrought by the prayers of 
 people on the other side of the globe than 
 some would think, and a fellow here needs 
 spiritual strength and robustness if he is go- 
 ing to overcome the bigotry and evil of these 
 people with the patience and gentleness of 
 Christ. 
 
 The usual way for a missionary to keep in touch 
 with his home church is by formal reports and general 
 letters. For a time the church received such quarterly 
 or semi-annual letters and printed them for general 
 circulation. They were well written and interesting, 
 but they were not read by the busy people composing 
 the church. No such formal letters are the secret of 
 Theodore's influence in the homeland. After a few 
 experiments, the church found that the best way of 
 conducting a news-service concerning India was by 
 quoting or re-writing paragraphs from private letters 
 upon its weekly bulletin. To select these was an op- 
 portunity for loving help on the part of the home pas- 
 tors. Here are a few specimens in 1907 : 
 
 Bulletin From Wai: — Mr. Lee has been 
 elected Chairman of the School Committee 
 for the Village of Wai. This position cor- 
 responds to Chairman of the Board of Edu- 
 cation in White Plains, giving him over- 
 sight of all the schools the government is in- 
 terested in in Wai. He has also been made a 
 member of the Managing Committee, which 
 apparently corresponds largely with our Vil- 
 lage Trustees. Certainly Wai is to be con- 
 gratulated. 
 
 Why Lee is Gaining a Reputation that 
 Counts. — "The day before yesterday we had a 
 
126 .WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 big fight for four and a half hours in the 
 Municipal meeting over charges of misappro- 
 priation against the municipal doctor. I 
 took his part finally though not at first, for 
 he is inefficient and I do not doubt has per- 
 sonally profited from misusing medicines. I 
 stood by him at the end because the other 
 side did some lying which I could prove. I 
 faced them with it and they got mad, but 
 when it came to deciding who should keep 
 papers that could be used as evidence, when 
 it came to naming the sub-committee which 
 should further investigate, the men who were 
 mad with me and others, named me. I re- 
 joice in these things because they are silent 
 tributes to my Master." 
 
 Governor Hughes' Share in Our Work. — 
 "Mrs. Chas. E. Hughes is my own cousin. 
 She is the same sweet, gentle, loyal woman 
 since she became the Governor's wife as she 
 was when I used to go to their home for din- 
 ner during Seminary days and enjoy an hour 
 with her "thought-stimulating husband. He 
 is an example of a minister's son, who has 
 kept his ideals and his force in spite of what 
 some people say about us. Mr. Hughes has 
 been many years in the law firm of my uncle, 
 Walter C. Carter. 
 
 I wrote a letter once in which I spoke of 
 the way some of the blind boys and girls are 
 taken up by the mission and taught some in- 
 dustry. I spoke of the possibility of my 
 helping to keep one of these boys from be- 
 coming a common beggar by using him as a 
 musician. This would present a contrast to 
 the blind who sit in public places in Wai cry- 
 ing for backsheesh. My mother read this 
 letter at Mr. Hughes' table in New York. 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 127 
 
 He said: 'That is the sort of thing I be- 
 lieve in. Ask Theo how much that will cost 
 and I'll do it.' And he did. The boy has 
 become a good musician, greatly helping in 
 the evangelistic services we hold on the street 
 corners. I am supporting him still through 
 Governor Hughes' gift. Perhaps he has for- 
 gotten this. If he has, that would be char- 
 acteristic also." 
 
 Perhaps nothing did more tb bind the work together 
 than the visit made to Wai by Fred B. Smith, a mem- 
 ber of Theodore's church who was making a world 
 tour as Religious Work Secretary of the International 
 Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associations. 
 
 2. 15. 05. 
 My dear Pastor: 
 
 I have been at Wai! Mr. E. C. Carter 
 kindly went with me and Lee was in Bom- 
 bay to meet and pilot us over. We left 
 Wathar, the railroad point, at 1.30 p. m. 
 Monday, changed the horses twice and 
 reached Wai at five o'clock. 
 
 Our first view of the parish was as we went 
 over the Ghat, one half way. It is a beauti- 
 ful valley about eight miles to sixteen miles 
 wide, and forty long. We were met at the 
 Bungalow first by Hannah Hume Lee, with a 
 cable from Mr. James G. Cannon, then by 
 Mrs. Sibley, Miss Gordon, Nanaji Gaikwad, 
 the Pastor, five of the men teachers, and six 
 of the native Bible women. . . . 
 
 We got back to the mission house for a 
 good dinner at 7.30. The rest of the eve- 
 ning we -spent in talking about all we love so 
 much in White Plains, To make it more 
 
128 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 real we got out the baby organ and sang, 
 "Eternal Father," "O Love That Wilt Not 
 Let Me Go," "The Son of God Goes Forth 
 to War," etc. Earnest prayers for you were 
 offered, and we got to bed for a good rest. . . . 
 
 Then came the breaking of the ground for 
 the new "Lee Home." Rev. Theodore and 
 Hannah turned over the first sod and with 
 Mrs. Sibley, Miss Gordon, a visiting mission- 
 ary, Miss Knight, Carter, and myself we held 
 a prayer-meeting of consecration for that 
 spot of ground to be their home. . . . 
 
 With our best clothes on we went over for 
 dinner with Nanaji and his wife. It was 
 great. We sat on the floor, ate our food 
 from plates of banyan leaves, and had a 
 genuine good time. I sat cross-legged like a 
 tailor, you may not believe me but you can 
 write and ask the Lees, for I did, and am 
 lame yet from the exertion. At ten o'clock, 
 we were back at the bungalow and here were 
 teachers and native workers waiting to say 
 good-bye. Out in the beautiful moonlight, 
 with the mountains round about us, we sang 
 "Blest Be the Tie that Binds Our Hearts in 
 Christian Love," prayed together, and said 
 our farewell. They said we had cheered 
 them but they had cheered us far more, for 
 as we drove away. Carter and I resolved to 
 live more truly the Christian life. We had 
 seen into the cost of winning the world to 
 Christ and it made us better men. 
 
 Rev. Theodore is just beginning to use the 
 language in public speaking and soon he will 
 be going full swing. He is a true. God-fear- 
 ing man, and will do grand work. Hannah 
 Hume Lee, how can I describe her ? She is a 
 "Maharani," a grand woman. Out in the 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 129 
 
 villages the women would come out to see 
 her and laugh like real people as she talked 
 so freely with them. Well may we be proud 
 of them both, and well may we not only pay 
 the salary amount needed, but also sustain 
 them as they seek to push the work out to 
 more of the 120 villages in that district com- 
 prising altogether 1,000,000 people. 
 
 I must wait till I get back to tell you more 
 about it. 
 
 Surely God is working here and our part 
 in it is blessed. 
 
 I am thankful that I am a member of the 
 church doing such a piece of work for the 
 Kingdom of God in India. 
 
 With wannest greetings and earnest pray- 
 ers. 
 
 Till we meet, 
 
 As ever, 
 Fred B. 
 
 By his letters, TheodMe not only sought to interest 
 his church in India, but most devotedly he tried to ful- 
 fil his pastorate by giving spiritual help and counsel 
 to individuals as he learned their need. How much he 
 did of this, no man can tell. Much also is too per- 
 sonal to quote, but the following will be a suggestion : 
 
 February 10, 191 1 — To a member of the church 
 whom he had first met seven years before and who 
 now was passing through great business difficulties : 
 
 People drift apart because of separation 
 by long distances. I have experienced this, 
 but I have experienced also the opposite thing 
 in having friendship grow while half a globe 
 apart. 
 
 It is because this has been the case with 
 
130 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 you that I feel so keenly your present diffi- 
 culties and pray from my heart that the 
 worry part may cease in trusting God so that 
 you can have the nerve to play the game with 
 all your manhood. 
 
 To the same friend, November 13, 1910 : 
 
 It is my earnest prayer that the great 
 difficulties you are having may prove a spirit- 
 ual blessing to you. You belong to God's 
 family and only the best can happen to you. 
 I have felt your fellowship in every one of 
 my difficulties — ^financial and physical. You 
 have taken hold with relentless grip and 
 helped me at the hardest times, in the hard- 
 est places, and you haven't finished yet — ^not 
 by a great deal. There must be better in 
 your trouble than gold because God and man 
 love you. What it is, perhaps at this dis- 
 tance I cannot see, but all the money in the 
 United States this year cannot be worth as 
 much or be of as much help to you as an in- 
 creasing sense of God's and man's love for 
 you, and increasing trust in your Father and 
 brothers and a greater nearness to them. 
 
 A few years ago, when I was flat on my 
 back and people looked at me with long faces, 
 and the best surgeon in Western India told 
 me I had better give up. Dr. Charles Cuth- 
 bert Hall, who happened to be in India, sent 
 me the familiar lines which became new and 
 filled with strange fullness of meaning to me: 
 
 O rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him, 
 And He will give thee thy heart's desire. 
 
 I took them in preference to the doctor's ad- 
 vice because it was broader and deeper and 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 131 
 
 met my faith for myself, for Wai and Satara, 
 and their people. So far they have proved 
 true and sure. I pass them on to you, not as 
 advice or accusation, not as pious twaddle, 
 but as a principle of life which gives a poise 
 and strength to one in times of weakness, 
 doubt, and failure; which enables one to be 
 strong in weakness, assured when questions 
 beyond our knowledge or strength to answer 
 arise; which brings us out at the big end of 
 things rather than the small when the way 
 seems entirely closed. 
 
 Look up. You are going to keep on play- 
 ing the man and the Christian for a long time 
 yet, for God and the world need you. Have 
 faith in God. 
 
 Gratefully and affectionately, 
 Thbxjdore Storrs Lee. 
 
 Beyond question to Theodore's own mind, the su- 
 preme thing which made his missionary pastorate 
 uniquely successful, was the fellowship of prayer. 
 Herein love found its daily expression. Hereby the 
 work at home and the work abroad became one. Day 
 by day, in private prayer and in family prayer, Theo- 
 dore remembered before the Throne of Grace, the home 
 church and its pastors and one and another of the 
 people who were on his heart. Day by day, in 
 many a home in America, every Sunday from the 
 pulpit, usually in the meeting of every organization, 
 Theodore was upheld in personal, loving prayer. 
 Again and again he declared that it was the prayers 
 and the love and the moral support of his church 
 beyond its financial support which gave him the 
 victory. 
 
132 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 February, 1906, after a hard decision about taking 
 on two new native workers : 
 
 This thing is going to come out all right. 
 I took two prayerful weeks to decide whether 
 to take the risk and I know that I did right to 
 take the men. You and I have done things 
 before with prayer. Other things are going 
 to happen too. Prayer and all the work we 
 are able to do brings to pass, and when I tell 
 you that after my dinner every night I walk 
 through the streets of a heathen city with all 
 their stench, so as to pray for half or three 
 quarters of an hour with the Christian men 
 in Wai, it means that there is both the de- 
 termination and the faith here in Wai that is 
 going to bring men to the one who loved us 
 first and who binds us closer together than 
 brothers though oceans apart. 
 
 Away on foreign lands they wondered "how. 
 
 Their single word had power." 
 At home the Christians, two or three, had met 
 
 To pray an hour. 
 Yes, we are wondering, wondering "how" 
 
 Because we do not see 
 Someone, unknown perhaps, and far away. 
 
 On bended knee. 
 
 Year by year, the mountain top of prayer and fel- 
 lowship has been the Union Communion Service held 
 on the afternoon of the last Sunday of September. 
 On that day at the appointed hour in Wai or Satara, 
 Theodore would gather the native Christians about 
 him: 
 
 On the day that you have the Union Com- 
 munion Service in White Plains I am plan- 
 
"HANDS ACROSS THE SEA" 133 
 
 ning to conduct the Communion Service and 
 preach here. Our thoughts will be with 
 you and you can rightly picture a grateful 
 company of a hundred or more gathered in a 
 simple old church with fifteen or twenty Hin- 
 dus squatting on the rear benches wondering 
 what it is all about. Even the brawling in 
 the adjacent saloon will not prevent them 
 from feeling the sweet solemnity of the 
 Khristi people's worship in the godless tem- 
 ple, but they will to some extent perceive the 
 unseen God. 
 
 At the same hour, the members of his home church 
 would gather. The quiet and holy beauty of the early 
 autumn afternoon makes a sanctuary of the country 
 hillside, threshold to the chosen one of their three little 
 houses of worship. Within, the Lord's Table is ready. 
 To the pulpit go the three pastors at work on the home 
 field, and with them a messenger from India. One 
 year it is Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, another, Dr. Rob- 
 ert A. Hume, Rev. Alden Clark, Dr. Lester Beals, 
 Miss Gordon, Rev. Robert E. Hume or yet others who 
 have seen Theodore and the India parish. The hymns 
 of Theodore's choice are repeated year by year, "Go 
 Labor On," "O Jesus, I Have Promised." A letter 
 is read from Theodore himself and then the messenger 
 of the day stirs every heart with some word of the 
 greatness of Theodore's work or the joyful responsi- 
 bility given to the church in its India parish. The 
 realization that love and prayers are pulsing out 
 to meet their own, encircling half the globe, binds 
 all together in mystic, holy communion reaching 
 up to the Christ, who alone is present with both. And 
 
134 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 then the bread is broken and the wine poured forth. 
 A hundred details more might well be written of 
 what the church did in trying to uphold the hands of 
 its loved Missionary Pastor. It gave in money far be- 
 yond what it had at first thought possible ; it perfected 
 the best business cooperation it could plan; it made 
 Theodore Lee a household word in every home. But 
 enough has been said to show the victory won by 
 Theodore Storrs Lee, Missionary Pastor. For his 
 spiritual influence in the lives of many individuals in 
 America was deeper than if he had remained at home, 
 while their returning love and sympathy lifted him 
 above all the loneliness of Wai. Beyond doubt, the 
 responsibilities which he assumed in the Westchester 
 Church made him the wiser and more eflicient mission- 
 ary abroad. And, on the other hand, the responsi- 
 bilities which the people of the Westchester Church as- 
 sumed in Theodore, their Missionary Pastor, led them 
 out of much of the natural but selfish absorption of 
 a young church in building up its own material 
 strength, out into a real obedience and love for the 
 Master's word, "Go ye therefore, and make disciples 
 of all the nations." 
 
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT 
 
A Secretary of the Board once expressed to me a doubt, in 
 the minds of some in the Board Rooms, as to whether Theo- 
 dore might not have lived longer had they not sent him out 
 to India. I am convinced that Theodore's unquenchable pur- 
 pose to be a missionary of the Cross of Christ, and his inex- 
 pressible joy in being one, prolonged his days. After the 
 serious illness of 1906, some thought it might be unwise for 
 Theodore to remain at his post. He felt a profound gratitude 
 to the true insight of the missionary doctor attending him — 
 whose life purpose was one with his own — ^because he never 
 suggested that Theodore should surrender his chosen task. 
 The influence of his life abides : 
 
 And doubtless unto thee is given 
 A life that bears immortal fruit, 
 In those great offices that suit 
 The full grown energies of heaven. 
 
 —The witness of Hannah Hume Lee. 
 
CHAPTER ,VIII 
 THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT 
 
 In writing of the inner life of a friend, especially the friend 
 who has been the closest of all, one has conflicting feelings. 
 There is the reverent affection which finds comfort in talking 
 about him. There is also a shrinking feeling, a feeling of 
 jnappropriateness, of a kind of irreverence, in making general 
 that which is most personal — as is the devotional life. This 
 latter I have tried to overcome in the thought that, by setting 
 down some record of Theodore's devotional life, I may share 
 with those who are reaching out to their life purpose some 
 inspiration which came to me, and that the things for which 
 Theodore lived may continue to make their personal appeal. 
 
 Hannah Hume Lee. 
 
 In going through Theodore's papers, one is amazed 
 by the abundance of his Bible study notes and slips. 
 He early formed and systematically developed the habit 
 of Bible study. It can be traced back to the note 
 books written in the New Haven school days, in a 
 distinctly boyish hand. He continued it with unwav- 
 ering purpose and uninterrupted faithfulness. His 
 Bible study note-books and' slips show spiritual develop- 
 ment. They are his spiritual diary, and record the 
 most intimate experiences of his life. They reveal his 
 soul struggles, and the way in which, through the 
 Spirit's guidance, he came into that "sureness of God 
 which is the home of the soul." He hungered and 
 
 137 
 
138 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 thirsted after God. To Jesus Christ as the revelation 
 of God he yielded full and free personal allegiance. 
 He liked to quote the lines by Richard Watson Gilder : 
 
 "If Jesus Christ is a man, 
 And only a man, I say 
 That of all mankind I cleave to Him 
 And to Him will I cleave alway. 
 
 If Jesus Christ is God, 
 
 And the only God, I swear 
 I will follow Him through heaven and hell 
 
 The earth, the sea, and the air." 
 
 Theodore's Bible study was intensely personal, the 
 kind that opened up the possibilities of the life hid 
 with Christ in God. He had a joyous, exuberant spirit 
 in his study of the Bible. There was also a practical 
 quality which applied the result of the study to daily 
 life. Theodore never seemed to lack time for his Bible 
 study. He took it. Because of the regularity and 
 method of his study, he lost no time feeling about 
 where to begin. He was constantly on the look-out 
 for new suggestions and outlines along the lines of 
 Bible study. His pocket Testament was used on every 
 available occasion, at home, on walks, on the steamer, 
 or the sick bed. Devotional poems and hymns, quota- 
 tions which ministered to the inner life, he collected and 
 placed topically in his files. Devotional poetry had its 
 own place in his devotional life. Among his best 
 loved hymns were the following : 
 
 Oh, Jesus, I have promised to serve Thee to the end. 
 Go labor on ; spend and be spent. 
 Oh, Master, let me walk with Thee 1 
 
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT 139 
 
 We have seen that Theodore's Bible study was per- 
 sonal. He also aimed to get from it that which would 
 help him in his mission work. A few slips from his 
 notes show this: 
 
 My most valuable notes on Bible Study. 
 What in this for me today ? What here for 
 others? What here to talk about today? 
 Object: Not knowledge, but inspiration, Di- 
 vine fellowship and acquaintance. 
 
 1. To become master of facts of life of 
 
 Christ. 
 
 2. To become master of principles of His 
 
 life and teaching. 
 
 3. To apply these to present day questions 
 
 and living. 
 
 4. To become filled with His spirit and pur- 
 
 pose. 
 
 5. To know Him no more after the flesh but 
 
 after the spirit. 
 Not for my self alone. Learn a verse. Re- 
 cite a chapter. Read a chapter. Apply it. 
 DO IT. So master details and principles of 
 life of Christ that you will naturally, spon- 
 taneously and habitually refer to them in con- 
 versation with both Christians and Hindus. 
 In this way you can help by turning their 
 thoughts toward Him. 
 
 I thank Thee, Father, for this Book. 
 With it I need never fear that I shall be with- 
 out a message for the lives of any to whom I 
 may have to speak. With Christ to preach 
 and speak about, why ever be anxious about 
 preaching? Keep your Bible study going and 
 you will never be without a message. 
 
 The habit of memorizing and meditation he found a 
 fruitful one. The truths of his daily study he stored 
 
140 ,WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 in his mind ; they touched the springs of his life ; they 
 vitalized his contact with men. Yet there was nothing 
 strained or formal about his religious life. It was 
 singularly spontaneous and outgoing, free from arti- 
 ficiality. 
 
 From Bible study Theodore invariably turned, with 
 even fuller joy, to prayer to the Father of his spirit 
 who, he felt, "is here in this room." He wrote: 
 
 No study of the life or person of Christ 
 — no matter how historically illuminating, or 
 how full of learning — is complete unless it 
 brings one so face to face with the person 
 and the life that the soul stretches out its 
 arms in yearning adoration. No daily study 
 is complete which does not at its close spon- 
 taneously burst into prayer. 
 
 Sometimes he wrote short prayers at the close of his 
 daily study. Prayer meant for him personal contact 
 with God. Prayer was the most vital part of his 
 daily life. In it he found his supreme expression. 
 There never seemed to be haste about his prayer, but 
 always that leisure, that "waiting upon the Lord," 
 which daily renewed his strength. There was an ex- 
 uberant joy with which he turned to prayer which was 
 marvelous. God gave him the talent of prayer, and 
 he, putting it out in ever increasing usefulness, brought 
 back to his Master a life of prayer. 
 
 Prayer for Theodore was an intense object of de- 
 sire, not alone for himself but also as a method of 
 work. He grew in the power of intercessory prayer. 
 He loved to pray individually and in detail for his 
 friends — ^giving thanks for their friendship and offer- 
 
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT 141 
 
 ing earnest and discerning petition for their lives. In 
 his work as a missionary he trustfully relied on prayer 
 as a method in soul winning. Many were the non- 
 Christians for whom he worked individually and 
 prayed unfailingly. It was a source of heartfelt grati- 
 tude to him to remember the answers to his prayer 
 for volunteers to the foreign field at a time in his life 
 when he feared that the great wish of his own heart 
 to become a foreign missionary might remain unful- 
 filled. 
 
 Theodore's prayer life gave abundant illustration 
 of the power of faith. His faith was rooted in 
 prayer. An instance of this may be seen in notes 
 made on returning to America on furlough, on the 
 study of Mark 1 1 :24. He writes : 
 
 Whatsoever you ask, believe you have re- 
 ceived and you shall have it. The belief is 
 not the denial of a fact, but rather the as- 
 surance that the petition is in accordance with 
 God's will, and that He is as disposed to give 
 as we to receive; our reception of the gift 
 depends on our holding on to His will. Now 
 the practical question is. What is God's will ? 
 Am I conforming to it? Through lack of 
 faith am I failing to receive and appropriate 
 for myself and Satara what I and Satara 
 need? Is it God's will that I should re- 
 turn, and that there should be better paid 
 work? More of it? More schoolhouses ? 
 A pastors' house? chapel? Hiwale's house? 
 Should I have a new lantern? New houses 
 for workers? i.e., $10,000? 
 
 Then apparently some days later he added to these 
 notes, with an assurance born of faith, "Yes." 
 
142 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 Shortly before returning to India Mrs. Lee showed 
 to their pastor Theodore's statement of needs for Sa- 
 tara, and the record of his faith that these needs would 
 be met. The money for the Hiwale house was already 
 practically secured. The next great need was a par- 
 sonage. God seemed to lay this need so on the hearts 
 of two or three individuals in the church, that the 
 canvassing of Saturday night and the prayer meet- 
 ing Sunday afternoon, before the service, were things 
 of power. At the Union Communion service, with 
 an unmistakable spirit of consecration, the members 
 of the Westchester Church pledged $i,ooo for the 
 parsonage. God is still answering this prayer of Theo- 
 dore's, both in material ways and also in the unseen 
 spiritual ways which He takes of working in men's 
 hearts. While Theodore was not permitted to re- 
 turn to Satara, yet his influence there is truly at 
 work. 
 
 A friend in writing of him expressed the thought 
 that "Theodore walked with God, yet was very hu- 
 man." It was this human quality, touched and illu- 
 minated by the Divine companionship, which made 
 his personal life, and his life in his home, so full of 
 radiance. There was much in his life of restricted 
 health which made for discouragement. He rose 
 above this courageously. He had within his sunny 
 spirit, to an unusual degree, the power of friendship. 
 An intimate friend of his once wrote to him : "Life 
 has a few priceless treasures to oifer. Few people 
 secure them. I count myself most blessed that one of 
 the rarest of these g^fts has been granted me in such a 
 rare measure in your friendship." 
 
Mahars and Mangs 
 
 Low caste Mahars refused to let lower Mangs stand by them. 
 Lee stepped in saying, "I am a Christian, count me as either." 
 
 A Street in Satara 
 
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT 143 
 
 I leave with thee a sense 
 Of hands upheld and trials rendered less, 
 The unselfish joy which is to helpfulness 
 Its own great recompense 
 
 The knowledge that from thine. 
 
 As from the garments of the Master, stole 
 
 Calmness and strength, the virtue which makes 
 
 whole 
 And heals without a sign. 
 
 Yea, more, the assurance strong 
 
 That love, which fails of perfect utterance here, 
 
 Lives on to fill the heavenly atmosphere 
 
 ,With its immortal song. 
 
 Theodore's devotional life brought to him a stead- 
 fastness of purpose, an earnestness which were clearly 
 evident. In one of his meditations he writes: "Oh 
 God, help me and give me the will to be painstaking 
 in little things." "If I have not the reason of the 
 philosopher, give me the vision of the little child. In 
 service and worship keep me one with Thee and my 
 fellows." There was much of overcoming in his life 
 — of anxiety, of impatience, of moods of despondency, 
 of distrust of himself and his own powers. Through 
 it he came into that abounding joy which he felt 
 should be the inalienable possession of every disciple 
 of the Master. Of himself he wrote : "Never regret 
 nor be discouraged because of your small talents. 
 Use what you have and you will have more." And 
 again "I cannot afford to be anxious about this, for 
 in it I must do my best and that cannot be done if I 
 dissipate my forces by being anxious." In a study 
 on Matt. 10:31 he wrote: "Fear not, ye are of more 
 
144 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 value than many sparrows. The Father watches me 
 and cares for me. I am precious to Him. Defeat, 
 pain, death, may be my lot, but I shall not be anxious. 
 My work may be a failure, but I will not fail. Thou 
 dost love me more than I love myself. Give me cour- 
 age to hope, strength to bear and do, and — if need 
 be — suffer. Today I will trust." 
 
 Linked to this earnestness of life, Theodore had a 
 ready humor which lent charm to his personality. In 
 him there was a happy mingling of the grave and gay. 
 He had a strongly marked individuality. His warm, 
 demonstrative nature often overflowed in merriment. 
 There was unity in his life; the same ardor with 
 which he enjoyed the birds and the flowers and all 
 God's out-of-doors went into his religious life. His 
 enthusiastic temperament drew no strained dividing 
 line between the secular and the religious life. He 
 loved a laugh and he often provoked laughter. 
 Shortly before sailing for the foreign field a service 
 of farewell was held in the Springfield Church with 
 which he had been connected. It was a serious oc- 
 casion. When Theodore rose to give his farewell 
 message he began in such a happy vein that it changed 
 the atmosphere from one of tearful solemnity to sunny 
 gladness. 
 
 This occasion was in a measure the culmination of 
 long cherished hopes which embodied his life purpose 
 to become a foreign missionary. This purpose was 
 one of the direct fruits of his devotional life. He 
 greatly prized and carefully preserved a letter from 
 his father written after Theodore had been absent 
 from home seven years. In it his father, writing of 
 
THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT 145 
 
 the Board's meeting in 1910, said : "A thousand times 
 I wished you were there; and the thousandth time I 
 was thankful that you are in India." It was a source 
 of satisfaction to him that his parents and family un- 
 grudingly shared in the dedication of his life to for- 
 eign missions. Yet when the time came to go, the 
 parting was very hard for him. In thus dedicating 
 his life he said : 
 
 I will endure being considered "only a mis- 
 sionary" that I may be able, as Paul, to write 
 some spiritual ideas in life and word. 
 
 In a letter to a sister he wrote : 
 
 Perhaps He has other plans for me than I 
 have. If so, I want to follow them. God 
 help me sacrifice as you did. You have in- 
 spired me to do my work perfectly. It is 
 glorious to do so even though it cost one's 
 life. 
 
 Theodore's missionary purpose gave him zest and! 
 objective in life. It was worth while to go without 
 the better spring overcoat and take one a little less 
 expensive when the difference in price between the two 
 was to go for missions. Student Volunteer Conven- 
 tions called out his ardent support in the work of se- 
 curing loyal and earnest delegations. When he him- 
 self could not go and his slender resources were used 
 to help students to go to these conventions where they 
 might have the stimulating ideals, his eager spirit 
 found ample compensation. His note-books show 
 careful and full preparation for the leading of mis- 
 sion study classes during seminary days. After ap- 
 
146 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 pointment to the American Board's Marathi Mission, 
 he studied its reports so thoroughly, and made him- 
 self so familiar with the needs and the opportunities 
 of the field where he hoped to be located, that his 
 talks with the lantern had not only the ardor of an 
 enthusiast, but also savored of the experience of a 
 returned missionary. 
 
 There could be no question in the minds of those 
 with whom he talked^ — even on slight acquaintance — 
 of the genuineness of his purpose. The words of St. 
 Paul in Meyer's wonderfiU poem found ready re- 
 sponse in his heart: 
 
 Faint to the flame that in my heart is burning 
 Less than the love wherewith I yearn for souls. 
 
 His complete dedication to the missionary task brought 
 joy and blessedness to his life. 
 
HOME COMINGS 
 
How can we get along without him? Many have asked this 
 question doubtless. I believe the death of such men always 
 gives one impulse to all who knew a man's heart and life, 
 to see that nothing for which he held himself responsible shall 
 lack or fail. 
 
 Theodore Storss Lee, Wai, March 29, 1907, 
 on hearing of the death of Myron E. Evans, 
 a dear friend and officer of the West- 
 chester Church. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOME COMINGS 
 
 It had been seven and a half years since Theodore 
 Lee had gone forth, but when the tall, straight figure 
 strode through the doorway all recognized the same 
 Theo who had gone to India in 1903: — somewhat 
 thinner, surely more weather-beaten, but with the 
 same frank, fearless face which characterized him. 
 There were marked signs of exhaustion and a look in 
 his piercing eye which was the index of trouble. In 
 response to his ruling passion, he had come from 
 Springfield the second day after landing to be present 
 at the annual dinner of the officers of the Westchester 
 Qiurch. The church had long anticipated this first 
 furlough, and he had often written of the privilege 
 which this would be in strengthening each other for 
 their common task. He had planned that this meet- 
 ing should be the first of his efforts to bring India 
 more vitally into the life of the Church, but it proved 
 to be the only time that he spoke publicly. 
 
 As he briefly outlined his hopes for the coming 
 year one saw that he was, as always, an "Apostle to 
 the Gentiles." The same love for the other man 
 which he had manifested in college, in seminary, and 
 in his pastoral visitation in White Plains and Scars- 
 dale in 1903, was still there. As was to be expected, 
 
 149 
 
I50 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 it was deeper, more balanced, less censorious and 
 crude than in student days, but it was there in all of 
 its dominating strength. 
 
 The following letter written in mid-ocean to Rev. 
 S. G. Barnes shows his deep love for India: 
 
 Royal Mail Steamship Carpathia, 
 April 1-15, 191 1. 
 
 I am much attached to the people of India 
 as a whole and more so to some individuals. 
 When India becomes Christian it will be 
 deeply and spiritually so. Japanese super- 
 ficiality will not pass there nor will the crude- 
 ness of our belligerent Occidentalism. I was 
 talking the other day with one of the most 
 brilliant educationalists in India, Professor 
 
 of Bombay University. He has been a 
 
 Christian and gone back because he did not 
 find in European Christians the freedom from 
 class and caste feeling he expected and be- 
 cause he did not find in them the divine Christ. 
 He, however, says that at heart he is Christ's 
 and I have had abundant evidence in work- 
 ing with him for a drunkard that his pocket- 
 book is Christ's also. In talking with him 
 he acknowledged that Christ would rule 
 India and when I said to him that the great 
 nations of the future were going to be great 
 because of efficiency in the arts of peace and 
 not because of battleships and dreadnoughts, 
 his eyes burned with the fire of his patriotic 
 soul. It is this that India will be and the 
 country which has once given Japan its reli- 
 gion and has given China one of hers will 
 again steer them into the open away from the 
 rocks of materialism and the fogs of vanity 
 which attract so many peoples always. 
 
HOME COMINGS 151 
 
 It is easier to write and think and see this 
 in the middle of the Atlantic than in Satara, 
 where all seem to be seeking money, land, and 
 women. 
 
 Hoping to see you sometime. 
 Sincerely yours, 
 Theodore S. Lee. 
 
 In private conversations he seemed deeply concerned 
 lest he should not present the cause with compelling 
 power. Even in the hospital he talked over a course 
 of mission-talks which he planned to give. Up to 
 the end he was the missionary pastor of Christians 
 in America and his last message to the Church was, 
 "In India we were supported by the love and prayers 
 of the Church. It was right to go." 
 
 Along with this dominating love for the people 
 whom he served, he preserved a very hopeful spirit. 
 The plans which he had made, some of which were 
 known only after his death, show that he had great 
 hopes for practical results. "He planned great 
 things for God and expected great things from God." 
 Even when confined to his room there was nothing in 
 the discussion of his plans which indicated that he 
 thought his illness more than temporary. In the hos- 
 pital on the day of his parents' golden wedding an- 
 niversary, a friend brought in a large bunch of golden- 
 glow. "This is the golden day," she said. "Yes," he 
 replied cheerily, "Mother wrote this morning that she 
 is coming down, and a few days of her nursing will 
 put me right again." Then he added enthusiastically, 
 "We are to have a big celebration in the fall." 
 
 The milestones of his first furlough were few in 
 
152 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 number. He landed with his wife and two children 
 in New York on Easter evening, April i6, 191 1, from 
 the steamer Carpathia. After a few weeks with par- 
 ents and friends they went to Lake Mahopac, New 
 York, where a bungalow had generously been placed 
 at their disposal by Mr. and Mrs. Franklin H. War- 
 ner, of the home church. This acted as headquarters 
 as it was within easy reach of White Plains and New 
 York, and from it they made visits to Springfield, 
 Boston, and the Adirondacks. 
 
 Theodore entered the Presbyterian Hospital in 
 July and died there August 24, 191 1. 
 
 The disease which ended his earthly service was 
 not of recent development. As a young man he had 
 sufifered from heart trouble, and in India had a serious 
 illness in 1906. Just before leaving India he was 
 much exposed to dampness and he thought that the 
 frequent chills which he had might be due to lung 
 trouble. Examinations allayed these fears, but while 
 in the Adirondacks the chills came on with greater 
 frequency and he at once returned to New York, 
 where the missionary room in the Presbyterian Hos- 
 pital was freely offered him. Dr. David Bovaird at 
 once diagnosed his trouble as malignant endocarditis. 
 "Theodore made a brave fight and he felt sure that 
 God wanted him to fight." The doctor too could only 
 labor on, hoping that his diagnosis might be disproved. 
 In their common struggle strong and tender friend- 
 ship sprang up between the doctor and his patient. 
 At first their fight seemed hopeful, as Theodore 
 gained strength, but suddenly on Monday, August 
 2 1st, he began rapidly to fail. Then, for the first 
 
HOME COMINGS 153 
 
 time, he learned the nature of his trouble and that 
 the end was near. 
 
 Mr. Street, who was with him these last days, 
 wrote : 
 
 He met this news with the same absolute 
 child-like faith that God's will was right. 
 There was no fear in his heart, and that sick- 
 room became the very portal of heaven. He 
 talked quietly with his wife and father and 
 mother, and said good-bye to the few friends 
 who, in this vacation season, could receive the 
 word. None but those who saw can ade- 
 quately testify to the peace and heavenly vi- 
 sion of that room. 
 
 About six o'clock in the evening of Thursday, 
 August 24th, he slept away with wife and parents 
 by his side. The father, who had given him to India, 
 well said in the first moments of separation, "When 
 we think how much he is needed here, how much 
 greater must be the service above." 
 
 A simple funeral service was held at the White 
 Plains Church on Saturday at 10 A. m. The service 
 was in the hands of his brother pastors of the West- 
 chester Church, President Albert P. Fitch, and Rev. 
 F. P. Young, pastor of the Bay Ridge Reformed 
 Church, Brooklyn. The Testament used was the same 
 one which Theodore carried in India and had used in 
 the hospital. The passages read were some recently 
 marked. II Tim. i 7-12; 2:1-13, 19b; 4:5-8, 17-18. 
 To these were added a few sentences he had jotted 
 down on a slip of paper : 
 
 "I am under orders. 
 
154 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 "I am living with Christ. 
 
 "Good is stronger than evil. 
 
 "The world belongs to Christ. 
 
 "The kingdom of God is coming." 
 
 Two hymns were sung: 
 
 "O Jesus I have promised 
 To serve Thee to the end," 
 chosen by Mrs. Lee as a favorite of Theodore's, and 
 
 "Go labor on, spend and be spent," 
 which he had chosen at the first comrnqnion service as 
 missionary pastor. Mr. Young, who had also sung 
 at Theodore's ordination, sang as a solo, "In the Secret 
 of His Presence, How My Soul Delights to Hide!" 
 These words were written by an Indian Christian 
 woman, Ellen Laximibai Goreh, and were greatly 
 loved by Theodore. 
 
 The church had been simply decorated with 
 hydrangea, golden rod, and wild carrot, and the offi- 
 cers of the church acted as pall-bearers. The spirit 
 of the service has been admirably expressed by Theo- 
 dore's father: 
 
 Those who led in the services were Theo- 
 dore's classmates, who had long known him 
 intimately, loved him with devotion, revered 
 him as the inspirer of themselves and others, 
 had visited him in his last days and witnessed 
 the victory of his faith to the end. The 
 dominant note in everything said on and 
 around the dying bed was of gratitude and 
 praise, of imperturbable peace and triumph. 
 This was impressively manifest at White 
 Plains, when the entire congregation, with 
 
HOME COMINGS 155 
 
 tear-filled eyes, sang two hymns with joy. I 
 have been in many scenes of affliction, but 
 this was the first time that I ever stood by a 
 sorely stricken widow who sang at the burial 
 of her husband, and that, too, in such a man- 
 ner as to inspire the father to sing beside the 
 coffin of his son. This was the feeling 
 prevalent not only there but through the 
 journey to Springfield and until the last word 
 of benediction in Oak Grove Cemetery. 
 Well was it written afterwards by Mr. 
 Young, "May it be certain to you all, as it is 
 to us, that we celebrated a true victory won 
 by Theodore." 
 
 At Springfield, on Monday, another service was 
 held at the old home on Wilbraham Road. This was 
 also conducted by intimate friends and classmates. 
 Very fittingly the service was opened by prayer of- 
 fered by Rev. J. R. Thurston, D.D., of Whitinsville, 
 Mass., who a short time before had buried his own 
 missionary son, Lawrence Thurston, after a brief pe- 
 riod of work in China. Mr. Pritchard read several 
 of the passages marked in Theodore's Testament, and 
 Mr. Young sang "Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me," "In the 
 Secret of His Presence," and "The Sands of Time 
 are Sinking." Wellington H. Tinker spoke of the 
 influence of Theodore at Amherst. In introducing his 
 remarks he read a letter from Professor George D. 
 Olds of Amherst, written to Mrs. Lee : 
 
 My Dear Madam: 
 
 The morning paper brought news to Am- 
 herst that was a great shock to me and to all 
 
156 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 the older teachers connected with the col- 
 lege. 
 
 Theodore was in my classes in college, and 
 I came to know him intimately as a scholar 
 and as a man. It was hard to divorce the 
 two — for earnestness, perfect poise, manli- 
 ness, carefully matured purpose and strength 
 of will, were manifest in all the relations 
 which he sustained to the college. 
 
 I recall vividly a talk that Dr. Cuthbert Hall 
 gave our boys one Sunday evening immedi- 
 ately after his return from India. Three- 
 fourths of it was devoted to the character and 
 work of Theodore Lee. Since then he has 
 been the pride of Amherst in the field of mis- 
 sions, and the college will hardly reconcile it- 
 self to the thought that he is gone. 
 
 Most cordially yours, 
 George D. Olds. 
 
 President Albert P. Fitch spoke of his life at Union 
 Seminary. 
 
 Dr. James A. Barton of the American Board paid 
 a high tribute to Theodore's work in India. In re- 
 ferring to his ability in personal work he said: 
 
 As an illustration of Theodore Lee's fac- 
 ulty of reaching the people, one incident will 
 suffice. He noticed a group of Brahmins as- 
 sembling daily under the shade of a large tree 
 not far from the missionary bungalow. As 
 occasion offered he drew near to the group 
 and entered into conversation with the leader 
 and was informed that the gathering com- 
 prised a body of men who met to discuss re- 
 ligious topics. Mr. Lee asked if he might sit 
 
HOME COMINGS 157 
 
 with them and listen to what was said. 
 They seemed much pleased and gave him a 
 cordial invitation to join the circle. He re- 
 frained from saying anything at first but lis- 
 tened carefully to all that was said. Not 
 many days passed before questions were re- 
 ferred to him for his judgment. This led to 
 inquiries regarding his own ideas of religion 
 and before they were aware of it, and yet un- 
 der the direction of their own questions, that 
 daily open air assembly became a voluntary 
 summer school of theology with serious 
 minded Brahmins as inquirers and the young 
 devoted Christian missionary as the natural 
 leader. His friendliness, frankness, tact and 
 sincerity won and held them and thus a new 
 door was opened for the entrance of light. 
 
 After an uplifting and comforting prayer by Dr. 
 Fitch and the benediction by Mr. Pritchard, the 
 friends withdrew to Oak Grove Cemetery. The 
 bearers were Rev. Messrs. Fitch, Pritchard, Tinker 
 and Young, Mr. Edward A. Appleton of Springfield, 
 Mr. Walter J. Lee of White Plains, Mr. E. R. Carter 
 of New Hartford. 
 
 The committal service was conducted by Theodore's 
 father, Rev. Samuel H. Lee. He spoke in part as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 What we had hardly dared hope, Theodore 
 returned on his first furlough to be welcomed 
 home by both his father and his mother. 
 For this our thankfulness is beyond words. 
 On his dying bed, repeatedly he expressed 
 his joy, "We are all here." 
 
 This was a year of signal interest with us 
 
IS8 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 in that we were celebrating in this very 
 month the fiftieth anniversary of our mar- 
 riage. In the very midst of this, while we 
 were sending to friends our greetings of glad- 
 ness and receiving congratulations from 
 them, the thunderbolt fell. "Death, indeed, 
 struck sharp on life," but life was not over- 
 come ; life was victor. "He that believeth on 
 me shall never die." Lightning? Is it not 
 beneficent? It clears the atmosphere of 
 things noxious. It flashes into our vision all 
 the objects about us, disclosing to us our rela- 
 tions to them and making our pathway plain 
 before us. So death coming close to us brings 
 things invisible into vivid clearness. Drawn 
 steadfastly to gaze into the Face of the Divine 
 Goodness, we reach certitude and peace. We 
 walk on in a clearer pathway, a more intelli- 
 gent relation to God and His will, to the in- 
 visible glories of the life immortal. 
 
 On the day when a part of the family ob- 
 served the golden wedding, the mother of the 
 household laid by every plate on the table a 
 piece of gold. Theodore was not there. 
 We waited for him on another day. But the 
 festivity is translated. We were waiting for 
 him. He now is waiting for us, not at any 
 terrestrial board, but at the "marriage supper 
 of the lamb." He has received, not a piece 
 of gold, but a crown, and to him is fulfilled 
 the promise, "To him that overcometh I will 
 give the morning star." As Ruskin has it, 
 "Shall we mourn for the guests of God ?" 
 
 A tablet was unveiled in the White Plains Church 
 on Jime 30, 1912, with this inscription: 
 
HOME COMINGS 159 
 
 IN LOVING MEMORY 
 THEODORE STORRS LEE 
 FIRST MISSIONARY PASTOR 
 
 WESTCHESTER 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 
 
 WAI AND SATARA INDIA 
 
 1903-1911 
 
 "Suffer Hardship with Me as a Good 
 Soldier of Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 2:3 
 
WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
Jesus, I have promised 
 To serve Thee to the end; 
 
 Be Thou for ever near me. 
 My Master and my Friend : 
 
 1 shall not fear the battle 
 If Thou art by my side. 
 
 Nor wander from the pathway 
 If Thou wilt be my Guide. 
 
 let me feel Thee near me. 
 The world is ever near; 
 
 1 see the sights that dazzle. 
 The tempting sounds I hear: 
 
 My foes are ever near me. 
 
 Around me and within; 
 But Jesus, draw Thou nearer. 
 
 And shield my soul from sin. 
 
 O Jesus, Thou hast promised 
 
 To all who follow Thee 
 That where Thou art in glory 
 
 There shall Thy servant be; 
 And, Jesus, I have promised 
 
 To serve Thee to the end; 
 O give me grace to follow 
 
 My Master and my Friend. 
 
 —Rev. John E. Bode. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 FRED B. SMITH 
 
 I HAVE three outstanding memories of Theodore Lee, 
 which if tested by the ordinary methods of human 
 intelligence may well give rise to the question sug- 
 gested by the title of this chapter, and open a flood 
 of dispute concerning the wisdom of his life plan. 
 
 I remember him first in 1903, as he was graduating, 
 an honored student, from Union Seminary, being or- 
 dained to the ministry and claiming for his bride 
 Hannah Hume. He was young, cultured, of a happy 
 personality, from a grand old New England family, 
 and with every asset, it seemed, to claim the very best 
 that any land could offer. Having chosen the min- 
 istry as his profession, naturally a hundred comfort- 
 able pulpits would welcome him. This time would 
 have suggested only a life of many years of marked 
 success and large popularity. 
 
 I remember him second in 1905, as I found him in 
 Wai of the Satara district in India, whither he had gone 
 in response to the call of the Foreign Missionary task 
 of the Christian Church. Here he was located twen- 
 ty-four miles from the railway, in a city of 12,000 in- 
 habitants upon the banks of the Krishna River, dedi- 
 
 163 
 
i64 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 cated to an alien faith, filled for the major part with 
 dirty, lazy priests and a starved, naked, poverty rid- 
 den people. He was the only white man for many, 
 many miles. His good wife and two other noble 
 white women were bearing with him the terrific bur- 
 den and responsibility. One night while I was there 
 one of the Hindu idols was taken out of the temple 
 to pass in review before the people in recognition of 
 some anniversary, the significance of which I do not 
 now remember. The streets were packed with a howl- 
 ing mob which seemed to have gone mad with a 
 frenzy of delirium. We sought a secluded place to 
 observe the spectacle and were quietly advised that no 
 missionary's life was safe when within reach of that 
 crowd. The night closed in a sensual revelry, the 
 details of which could not be told, much less written. 
 This was the highest expression of the religion of the 
 people to whom he had gone to minister. Here I 
 found this man, of such unusual talents, whom I had 
 met a few years before upon the threshold of his 
 career, quietly but fervently working out his destiny 
 as he sought the better destiny of this poor people. 
 
 I remember him third as he came home on furlough 
 in 191 1. There was a look in his face as of a man 
 who had fought and won. His soul was ripened and 
 richer. But there was also revealed in the first look 
 of that face the unmistakable signs of the time limit 
 upon his human life. I felt as I met him that his work 
 in India was finished so far as his personal contact 
 with it was involved. 
 
 Grouping these three impressions, it is not strange 
 that the question of the wisdom of his life plan is 
 
Breaking Ground for New Bungalow. (See p. 128) 
 
 The Only Barber in Wai 
 
WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 165 
 
 raised by some. To be blunt, the ordinary man of the 
 street would say, "Theodore Lee was a fool." We 
 must stand in appraisement, not swayed by sentiment 
 or too much emotion, but calmly to face this judgment 
 and to answer soberly whether Theodore Lee was 
 right or wrong. A true verdict ought to be gained, 
 for the sake of the Kingdom and for the sake of 
 others who must pass through similar experiences in 
 weighing the claims of the foreign lands which are 
 without the Gospel. But after seriously taking ac- 
 count of all involved and the result, I am prepared to 
 say that Theodore Lee's sacrifice was worth while, 
 even if the salient points of my three impressions were 
 to be augmented by many fold. 
 
 I am convinced of this because it was an expres- 
 sion of supreme heroism. Heroic decisions or deeds 
 are not involved necessarily in geography but are 
 always related to complete duty. It may be as critical 
 upon New York's Fifth Avenue as upon the island 
 of Borneo. But for Theodore Lee duty involved 
 India. I think it was in the first conversation of any 
 length which I ever had with him, just about the time 
 he graduated at the Seminary, that he revealed how 
 thoroughly convinced he had become that as for him, 
 for weal or woe, life or death, the foreign field was 
 his parish. If he had been of faint heart he might 
 easily have found an acceptable alibi. He could have 
 plead uncertainty of health, and with ease have found 
 capable medical advisers to confirm that disqualifica- 
 tion, for his physical status was such that only by the 
 exercise of his tact and genius was he finally approved 
 by the physician of the Missionary Board. He could 
 
i66 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 have plead family responsibilities to a father and 
 mother in advancing years whose comfort and care 
 demanded that he be readily accessible. Many would 
 have praised his loyalty to home and commended his 
 decision. He could have plead that, with his unique 
 talents, he might do more for the Christianizing of 
 India by remaining in the home land and influencing 
 other men and money to be sent out — a very popular 
 argument and one of the most subtle in the hour of 
 struggle over the Foreign Missionary call. He would 
 not have been bereft of sympathy had this been his 
 final answer. He could have presented the claims 
 for tJie evangelizing of North America as the fore- 
 runner of world conquest, and without which the non- 
 Christian continents and islands may not be possessed 
 for the Gospel. Hundreds would have spoken well 
 of his great consecration to the universal Kingdom of 
 Jesus Christ upon this platform. 
 
 Nevertheless Theodore Lee steadfastly set his face 
 to go forth to answer the cry for help from India's 
 300,000,000 morally destitute souls. His call was not 
 overwhelming from the human side. True the great 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 
 sions did open the door and point the way to the 
 Satara district, and also true that the Westchester 
 Congregational Church promised to share with him to 
 the amount of his salary, but all they had to offer 
 was a pittance for material support and assurance of 
 hardship, loneliness, and suffering. No committee of 
 influential citizens crossed land or sea to persuade him. 
 No promises were made of a suitable manse, large 
 appreciative congregations, fine music, competent 
 
WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 167 
 
 remuneration, and an annual three months' vacation. 
 He went to live in a borrowed cabin to minister to a 
 people who, if they could have spoken at all, would 
 have said they did not want him and would not hear 
 him and would drive him out if they dared. I cannot 
 easily forget the recitation I listened to from his own 
 lips in Wai of some of those testing times, after he 
 arrived on the field. He pointed to a row of palms 
 near the Mission Compound and told me of how 
 again and again he had gone there alone to walk up 
 and down fighting out the battle, not daring to con- 
 fide all that was in his heart to his own good wife, 
 much less to the people. At that time seeing his rather 
 frail physical condition, I raised the question of his 
 continuance in service in that climate. He waved it 
 aside without serious consideration; length of years 
 seemed only incidental in the presence of what was 
 clearly to him an immediate duty. 
 
 I saw Theodore Lee as he started for India. I saw 
 him there in action. I saw the conditions of the peo- 
 ple he went to win to Christ. I saw him as he came 
 back seven years later to die. I have read of the 
 heroism of Huss, Luther, Savonarola, Carey, Morri- 
 son, Livingstone, Pitkin and a host of others who 
 gave all to plant the seed of the pure Gospel, and with 
 all Christians I bow in reverence at their memory, but 
 I find nothing in their sacrifice surpassing the heroism 
 of Theodore Lee. 
 
 I am further convinced of the fact that he made 
 no mistake in the decision which led him to India be- 
 cause he was there given the opportunity to invest all 
 the talents he had in the supreme task of the Christian 
 
i68 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 Church. As long as sin, carnality, and human nature 
 last, there will always be ample ground to plead the 
 need of evangelization in any land this side the world 
 or the other, and to say that the supreme task of 
 the Christian Church is in one part of the world, does 
 not at all lessen the importance in any and every other 
 place. 
 
 But after every allowance has been made for the 
 intensity of the issues involved in the home countries, 
 we are brought in the twentieth century, as not hith- 
 erto, face to face with the solemn fact that Christian- 
 ity's final test is whether it has in it a dynamic suf- 
 ficient to reconstruct and transform the Orient. With 
 distance rapidly being eliminated by steam and elec- 
 tricity, the nations once widely separated are becom- 
 ing but a simple neighborhood. Uniform methods of 
 life are being adopted the world round. This finds 
 evidence in the political upheavals demanding a world- 
 wide democracy and a universal suffrage. It finds 
 added evidence in uniform methods of economics. It 
 is yet more apparent in the educational world where 
 degrees in one university are won upon practically the 
 same curriculum as in the university 10,000 miles away. 
 
 It is unthinkable that the races so being unified in 
 other realms can be kept for long segregated in re- 
 ligion. The day is not far distant when the world 
 at large will be swayed by one philosophy about God, 
 salvation, and eternity. The universal choice between 
 Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius or Christ 
 will be accentuated beyond understanding during this 
 century. Christianity must go forward in triumph 
 in the Orient, or eventually be found not anywhere. 
 
WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 169 
 
 Theodore Lee saw this, believed it, felt it, responded 
 to it, and took every capacity he had and invested 
 it in India because he was sure that, as far as he was 
 concerned, that was the place where he could make 
 the greatest contribution to the supreme task of the 
 Church. And, not only so, but as I observed him in 
 his actual life and work there, it seemed to me there 
 was an approach to the undertaking which in sagacity 
 was even beyond anything I had attributed to him. 
 His was not simply a sentimental giving of life without 
 great wisdom in the undertaking. 
 
 Others have written more fully of this, and there- 
 fore, I need add little but a personal testimony to this 
 phase of his life. I found him centering upon the edu- 
 cational problem. He had organized schools wherever 
 one was possible. He was gathering children to- 
 gether for secular training as well as religious in- 
 struction in private homes, in abandoned temples, in 
 old bams and wayside places, and in two or three 
 instances, where no building was available, the schools 
 were conducted out under the trees in the open air, 
 with little ridges of sand and dirt thrown up to mark 
 the line of the school enterprise. So pronounced be- 
 came his influence upon the educational life of Wai, 
 that they were compelled to call upon him to help ad- 
 minister that part of their public system, even though 
 they would one hundred times rather never have asked 
 a favor of him. He was intensely concerned, also, 
 about the social life of the young people. I remember 
 distinctly his talk concerning what could be done that 
 they might have a normal, reasonable, sensible social 
 relation. 
 
I70 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 In his more direct religious work he carried every- 
 thing in his thought from the evangelistic meeting on 
 the street to the large assembly with the stereopticon, 
 and to the closest continual work upon one individual 
 strategic man. I was amazed at the breadth of his 
 conception of the methods by which the Kingdom of 
 God would be established. Had he lived years enough 
 for the scope of his work to have been fully recog- 
 nized, I believe volumes could have been written con- 
 cerning the strategy of Theodore Lee's attack upon 
 Hindu India. 
 
 I am again, however, fully convinced that Theodore 
 Lee made no blunder when in 1903, amid all the diffi- 
 culties which surrounded him, he persistently pressed 
 on toward India, for by his life service, sacrifice, and 
 death he had the privilege of planting an eternal truth, 
 one which was not dependent upon his life for its 
 complete fruition. Any man whose life can be even 
 approximately appraised upon the day of his funeral 
 has had a pauper's career notwithstanding what the 
 seeming achievements are. The supreme test of life is 
 what it will produce in one hundred or one thousand 
 years. Whether it is in this world or the next, I am 
 fully persuaded that the doctrines he enunciated, and 
 the kind of life he typified before the people of India, 
 will best be appreciated one thousand years hence. 
 The truest evidence of this is the fact that following 
 his return on furlough, sickness, and death, the work 
 he had undertaken in the Satara district has been go- 
 ing steadily forward without interruption. 
 
 It would be unfair to attribute to him all the credit 
 for these results, for it seems in the good Providence 
 
WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 171 
 
 of God that no one man is ever permitted to do any- 
 thing entirely alone. Possibly there is in this some- 
 thing of the significance of the Trinity in the functions 
 of the Divine, not fully complete except in the circle 
 of the triune faith. But this is always exemplified 
 in human experience. Every worthy result or 
 achievement in the name of Christ traces itself to a 
 good many human agencies. This will be true in a 
 closer study of the Satara district when all of those 
 who shared in this beneficent, eternal work have been 
 reckoned with. I presume it will be necessary to go 
 back at least to the days when Carey thought, prayed, 
 pondered, and moved his will in action toward the 
 heathen world. I am sure it will be necessary to go 
 back to the historic haystack prayer meeting at Wil- 
 liamstown, for the soil of North America has been 
 enriched by that group of men who prayed there for 
 the evangelization of the world. I am sure Theodore 
 Lee's work could never be fully understood or ap- 
 preciated without ample recognition of the Westches- 
 ter Congregational Church, for this band of earnest 
 Christian people saw by faith their responsibility to 
 India and bade this man go forward as their rep- 
 resentative. 
 
 It is true, also, that the whole story could not be 
 told without recognition of the great Robert A. Hume, 
 Theodore Lee's father-in-law. I distinctly remember 
 the first words I ever heard fall from the lips of 
 Robert A. Hume in the year he preached in the White 
 Plains Congregational Church. Having known about 
 him and read of him, I was rather reluctant to go to 
 the service, for I had served in Christian work in the 
 
172 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 home country under rather affluent conditions, not 
 having known very much of hardship, and I felt the 
 comparison between his life and one like mine would 
 be severe, and I expected to hear him relate his hard- 
 ships and sufferings. But with the dignity of a great 
 soul he rose that Sunday morning, walked out to the 
 front of the pulpit, and, folding his arms quietly across 
 his breast, looked over the audience with a smile and 
 said, "Oh! it is so grand to be a missionary." Then, 
 while for an hour he told the story of India's desper- 
 ate need, there was never a whine or a snivel, but 
 rather something majestic in the honor which he 
 seemed to think had been conferred upon him, that he 
 was permitted to be a part of India's Christian pro- 
 gram. His presence then only typified all of his ca- 
 reer and, as the father-in-law of Theodore Lee, he 
 certainly has some part in all that Theodore wrought. 
 Beyond all others, when the story is completely 
 told, there must be sharp reckoning with Hannah 
 Hume Lee, his wife. Had she been less in character 
 these memories of Theodore Lee would probably not 
 be written. From her days in Wellesley as the fore- 
 most figure of her college generation, later to be 
 elected perpetual president of her class, to the time I 
 met her in her home and work in India, she has been 
 a leader of great events every hour. I was impressed 
 by her as I observed their life in Wai, that she was 
 primarily a noble housewife, her first care being to 
 those duties that have to do with making a home what 
 it ought to be. This was exemplified only recently 
 when she was called from all sides to be Vice-Prin- 
 cipal of the new Union College for Women at Madras, 
 
WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 173 
 
 a very great honor and one a woman whose mind 
 was primarily upon her public appearance would 
 have welcomed. She declined it positively because she 
 thought she saw in it an interference with her duties 
 as mother of her children, and in a letter explain- 
 ing why she could not accept the call, she said it must 
 be remembered that "I am first of all a mother, and 
 second a missionary." But, not seeming at any mo- 
 ment to neglect those cares of her home, she was 
 also a good Samaritan upon the streets of Wai. 
 Therefore, a large part of the wonderful life and 
 record of Theodore Lee is involved in the spirit and 
 consecrated life of Hannah Hume. 
 
 But summing it all up, notwithstanding the fact that 
 a self seeking, indulgent world would say that a man 
 conscious of the limitations which were so manifest 
 with Theodore Lee in 1903 was a fool to jeopardize 
 his future by going to India, I am clearly convinced 
 that he did the grandest, noblest, truest thing in the 
 world when he invested those seven years in India, 
 even though he might have lived three or four times 
 as many had he remained at home, for written over 
 him in great powerful lines is a testimony of contribu- 
 tion to the supreme task of the Church, which he 
 loved more than life, and of having planted an eternal 
 truth the value of which will be greater with every 
 passing year while time lasts. Of him it can be well 
 written, "He that doeth the will of God, abideth for- 
 ever." 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX 
 I. Dates for Reference 
 
 1873 — May 23, Theodore Storrs Lee born at Qeve- 
 
 land, Ohio. 
 1893 — Graduated from Williston Seminary. 
 1893-97 — Four years of ill-health. 
 1897 — Entered Amherst College as sophomore. 
 1900 — Graduated from Amherst College, Amherst, 
 
 Mass., aged 27. 
 1900-03 — Student at Union Theological Seminary, 
 
 New York City. 
 1903 — October i. Married to Miss Hannah Hume. 
 1903 — October 20, Ordained to the ministry in the 
 
 Westchester Congregational Church, White 
 
 Plains, N. Y. 
 1903 — November 14, Sailed for India, arriving at 
 
 Bombay about December 22. 
 1904 — May — ^to 1908, Period of work in Wai. 
 1906 — November, Severe sickness. 
 1909-191 1, Period of work in Satara. 
 191 1 — April 16, Arrived in New York City on first 
 
 furlough. 
 191 1 — August 24, Died at the Presbyterian Hospital, 
 
 New York City, aged 38. 
 1912 — ^July 3, Hannah Hume Lee returned to the work 
 
 in Satara with their two children, Grace, aged 
 
 six, and Theodore Hume, aged two. 
 
 "Herein is the victory even your faith." 
 177 
 
178 WAS IT WORTH WHILE? 
 
 II. Some Explanations 
 
 Satara. — Eighty miles south of Bombay is Satara, 
 an old Hindu capital, still a city of 22,000, and the 
 political and industrial center for a surrounding dis- 
 trict of over a million and a half. There is a native 
 Christian church of over one hundred members and 
 a station school, and work is developing in the vil- 
 lages, against decreasing opposition. 
 
 WoA. — The sacred town of Wai is twenty miles 
 north of Satara on the Krishna River, and has 12,000 
 inhabitants, with a population in the villages imme- 
 diately surrounding of 89,000. Three-fourths of the 
 city's inhabitants are Brahmins, and as a resort of 
 religious leaders from all over the country, and an 
 important place of pilgrimage, Wai has an influence 
 far out of proportion to its population. A city of gods 
 and temples, thronged with religious mendicants, it 
 is one of the hardest and most hopeful fields for Qiris- 
 tian effort in all India. 
 
 The Westchester Congregational Church, of which 
 Theodore Lee was Missionary Pastor, is located at 
 White Plains and Scarsdale, N. Y., growing suburbs 
 twenty miles out of New York City in Westchester 
 County. Organized in 1901, it has the unusual plan 
 of one church organization with three houses of wor- 
 ship. Theodore's influence, thus, was felt in three 
 congregations.