H ASIA -^,. ■» J. «?■-■■«■■■ ri(-U?6 Cent CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DS 421.0%'" """""''' '■'"'^" *"linjIlMlii™ii(iI'J,LfI?lf!" <" t^'e 2('tH cen 3 1924 023 648 839 im Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023648839 Across Imdia at the "DaNA^n of the 20^*^ CE/NTU-Rg 'HIS PIERCED HAND IS POINTINl, ll> THL \\OKLD H )R \\ HIGH HE DIED. ' CAREST THOU NOl ? HE UHISPEkS." [J>. 253. T (oS;«TJ(fcT, I6B5L.UJ C^SUSU 6T6iJ6(C5) a^SUCOT GSliOljSl-JrT^rTLQS?) v«»».™,«.^" Aijas. v.^i-rfr Across India s? at the Dawn of the 2 O^^ (entury By LUCY E. GUINNESS y ^ r* London The Religious Tract Society 56 Paternoster Row and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard 1898 A' CROSS INDIA the Sun is rising. How det-p the shadows He, how few are the points of illumination still, j^et how surely the Light of the world has dawned, and in what waj's we may help to bring the coming Everlasting Day, these pages seek to show. They are very simple pages, glimpses caught in a brief winter visit of three months, commonplace glimpses such as every one sees who has the privi- lege of visiting our vast Eastern Empire. As a traveller's tale their view is limited —Bombay, Poona, Anantapur, Madras, Calcutta, Darjeeling, Benares, Mirzapur, voila tout. But wdiere we did not go in fact, we have since gone in heart, and with the help ol Dr. George Smith's f' Conversion of India, of Mr. 1 ■A f I 'f f-i V PREFACE Wilder's Appeal fyo)ii India, and of every other Indian mission- ary book I could obtain, I have tried to bring together leading facts for the whole Empire, and to justify from the missionary standpoint the title Across India at tlie Dawn of the 20th Centiivy. I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. George Smith and Mr. Eugene Stock for much valuable help ; to the India Office and Home Office for assistance in statistical and educational questions 1 ; and to Mr. A. J. Knight for calculating the mathema- tical mysteries of my diagrams. For various illustrations my thanks are due to Mr. J. M. Dent, Messrs. Blackwood, Mr. Fisher Unwin, the Editor of the Daily Chronicle, Dr. George Smith, Mr. W. S. Caine, Mr. T. A. Denny, Bishop Thoburn, Mr. Dyer, Mrs. Menzies, the Church Missionary Society, the Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, the Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, the London Mis- sionary Society, the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Traffic, the Sunday School Union, the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, Miss Woolmer, Miss Spence, Mr. James Lee, Messrs. Bourne & Shepherd of Calcutta, and to Mr. Joseph Walton, M.P. Above all I am indebted to the Student Volunteer Movement of India and Ceylon for the central message of this book — the survey of unevangelised India, which, summarised and printed on the type maps of Chapters iv., xiv., xvi., and xxi., has been taken from their Appecd for India. As will be seen, Chapter xiv. is written by an abler hand than mine — the dear hand that carried me off unexpectedly to India. That journey, by the way, was unforeseen. On a dull November morning I had come down as usual, expecting the commonplace. The unexpected happened. ' Will you come with me to India ? ' father said. The question was decided about mid-day. At hve o'clock we started. May this book bring to many hearts just such a call to India — a call it may be equally unexpected, a call from a Father's Voice, a call that will mean going, giving, life-labour, and life-prayer. LUCY E. GUINNESS. ' A note will be found with the Index, respecting the statistics employed. ^ Chai TER VI. VII. , VIH. , IX. , X. , XI. , XII. , xni. , xi\-. , X\'. , X\I. , X\II. , xYin. XIX. , XX. , XXI. , xxn. , XX 1 11. , XXI\'. , XX\". , XX\"I. , XX\II. Note I.XDl-.. able of Contents Introductory — In the Kiern.m, City LlIAI'TER I. EOMIIAV, THE EyE OF In II. By the Western .Sea ,, III. Sun Worshii'I'Ers IV. Deyoiee.s oe East and We; „ V. Pages from I'oona In A Zenana Bungalow . The Shrines of I'oona Ramabai .... A LOFJGE IN the WlLDEKXESS In a Moffssil Mosoue By the Eastern Sea Associatign Work — 'from Smgre to S Neo-Hinduism .... Doomed, i;ut stii.i, Doml\anf Wedding and WiDowihmD Calcutta and Bengal Darjeeling .... Betu'ee.n Four I[1':.vfhendoms . The Focus of Heathen is.m in Ixr Within F'our Walls In the Nortii-"\\"est Inside a Famine I'oorhouse . The Riyers of the Unuaiekld L, ' Rl\ ERS OF LlYING WAIFR' ' If ' .... Conclusion The Beiiar JIissiox . PAGE ID ■ 17 24 30 35 44 ss 7- S4 92 IDS 120 130 I3S 146 157 J 66 I So iSS 195 202 210 222 22S -^34 242 250 -54 -55 257 ' Carest Thou Not ? ' 2 The Forum ir Sculpture from the Arch of Titus — ' Jude \ Capta ' 12 Tiara-Bearer to the Pope 13 Santa Scala . 14 The Columbarium . 15 Great Native Procession, Bombay . 16 The Queen-Empress of India . 18 Carvings from the Caves of Elephanta 19 Clock Tower and Secretariat, Bombay- 21 Snake Charmers 2^ Dr. Mackichan 2b Free Church College, P,onibay 27 A Parsee Family at Houie 31 Parsee Towers of Silence 33 Walkeshwar . Indian Fakirs . 36. 37 Self-Torture by Head Burial . 38 Indian Devotee sitting on Spikes -|i Weaver at his Loom 45 Road among the Ghauts 46 Sand Map of India. 47 IVIaratha Student 48 John R. Mott 49 John N. Forman 54 R. P. Wilder . 54 Young Maratha Brahman S'^ Zenana Visiting 59 Poona School Girls . 59 Gari and Bible Women h Malaysian Girl sewing ni Women cooking Worshipping Tulsi-tree hj Dr. Pauline Root . fa Dr. Julia Bis.se 1 68 ' At our Mother's knee ' 70 ^ ^--t. Gunputti 72 --__ __ « _ Golden Temple, Amritsa 73 T Flanimian Parvati Temple, Poona . Maruti .... Kali .... Poona Shrine . Ramabai .... Indian Widow . Widows in Ramabai's Home Famine Victims Ramabai's Poona Home . Soonderbai Powar and Raniab; Mrs. Hinkley . River Scene Street Crowd . L.M.S. Mission House, Bellary Bungalow, jMalvalli, INIysore Hyderabad Mouh'ies .... The Taj Mahal i\Ioslem Pilgrims at the Kaab IMohammedan W'omen . On the shore, Madras A Jutka Mountains of Trax'ancore Nestorian Tablet, JMadras Native Converts, Z.B.M.M. C.M.S. Divinity School, Madr Indian Sunday School Chiklren CIn-istian College, Madras Lord Kinnaird PAOK 75 75 76 79 8r 84 36 83 89 90 91 94 95 96 97 104 106 "3 4. 115 117 ii3 120 1^4 T26 127 131 133 ILLUSTRATIONS Y.W.C.A. Institute, Calcutta Miss Morley . Mrs. E. W. Moore . The Misses Kinnaiid Bengali Y.W.C.A. Memb- Head-burial Devotee Hindu Ascetic . Poems in Marble Temple Court at Little Conjee Idol-Worship . Woman of Tra\'ancore Hindu Crowd . River Scene, Indore Orissa An Indian Bride A Nine-year-old \\'\fe Indian Bride and Brideg A Bride of Eight High-caste Child Wives A Star Photograph . The Hooghly, Calcutta Street Scene, Calcutta Post Office, Calcutta General View, Calcutta 1 )acca William Carey Darjeeling Peasants Thibetan Pra>cr W'liecl Prayer Flags . A Uandy . Loop on Darjeeling Line Sunrise among tlie Himalayas 135 136 J 37 140 14^ 143 14S 149 150 151 154 155 156 r V-l 160 160 163 167 169 170 171 173 174 177 100 182 1S2 I 84 IS4 Miss Annie Taylor . Traders' Encampment at Gnatung Kinchinjanga Range Buddhist Priest Buddhist Temple and Lamas, Darjeehnj Festival at Benares . Mosque of Aurangzeb, Benares Washing in Ganges . Burning Ghats, Benares . General View, Benares A Fakir, Benares Gosiiin Temple, Benares . A Fuel Seller . Working Gad . Rope AJakers . Women grindmg Corn The Palki-Gari ' Waiting for i,"OU ' . Cawnpore Memorial Sunrise on Mount E\'erest Himalayan Village God . N'anga Parbat . Sirrat, in Baltistan . Street Scene, Lahore Mountains of Ca^ilimere . Street in Lahore >'amine Bovs . _V Miizapur Sufferer In the Mirzapur 1'i.iur-liouse Famine Sufferers Alango Gusor . Godaxery Irrigation \\'orks Canal from the Ki^tna Sir Arthur Cotton ' Rivers of Living \\'ater ' ' Like a River Glorious ' . I'llgrims entering Mc-cca , Opmm Slaves . ' And He cometh and findeth them asleep ' Our Long liome ' . . 186 187 189 190 191 194 196 197 198 199 200 201 203 203 204 , 205 207 209 21 1 213 214 215 216 216 21S 219 223 224 225 227 22^ 234 240 247 2-19 Diagrams Authority. Conversion of India, p. 20S . Pop. of India and of globe. Ik'ok, Wliltaker's Diagram. Area of bidia and habitaljle globe. Statesman' s Year Alnwuiack . . . ■ ■ 3. Comp. Populations. Census Returns . . . ■ ■ A\'erage Bonil)a\' Ministers, 39,000. Statesman's Year Book, 189S, luissionary Missionaries, 291. Decennial Conjerence Statis- parish. tical Abstract ....... 5. Comp. growth of P.each, Cross (ind Trident, p. 26 . '-'hristianity, Hin- duism and Islam. Indian and British Strategic Points in tlie World' s Conquest , Mott, p. 29. Figures from India Office and Education Depart ment, Whittihall ■AGR 18 Students. -^ /■ Growth of Student "^k Federation. II^L S. Non-edueated Wo- SV men and girls, q. Woman's parish. 10. fiinduPop. of India comp. with that of United Kingdom. 11. Comparative Populations. 12. India's millions and Mission- aries. 13. 60 years' growth Native Chris- tians. 14. 40 years' growth Communi- cants, India and Burma. 15. 40 years' growth Native Or- dained Aiinistry. 16. 20 years' increase Christian Church in India. 17. Average parish Hyderabad. i3. Moslem Pop. of India. 19 ^S: 20. Indian Sunday Schools. 21. Indian Women and Widows. 22. Indian Distances. 23. Pop. Calcutta, etc. 24. Growth of Uganda Church. 25. Religions of India. Plan of Bombay City Map of Bombay Presidency Map of Mysore Moslem Map of the World Ten Years Retrospect, Mott. Report to AX'ilhams- town Convention, July, 1897, p. 24 . India Statistical Abstract, 1S93-4, p. 32 Calcutta Statistical Tables, 1890, p. 60 Broadly speaking 'iw^ times as great. Hindu Pop., 208,000,000. United Kingdom Pop., 40,000,000 Mr. Holt Schooling ....... Conversion of Tndiii, p. 144. (Estimate tor close of century) .......... 1830, Conversion of India, p. 137. i860, Statistical Tables, p. 53. 1890, Statistical Tables, pp, 6^,, 46 . Conversion of India, p. 204 ...... Co)!versi<'n of India, p. 206. C\i\>zu.\X';i Statistical Tables, P- 52 (Jrois and Trident, p. 90 . 64 69 74 93 100 lOI Statistical Abstract, '94, p. 1, and Appeal for India, Wilder, p. 6 . 105 Statistical Abstract, p. 25. 57 000,000 Hi unday School Union . . 123 129 Statistical Abstract, '94, p. 26. (Enlarged estimate) . 164 Stanford .... 167 Census Returns 171 Church IMissionar}' Society . 230 Census Returns 232 Maps I\Iap of Cashmere and Katfiristan 17 Map of South and Central India . .1^2 42 Map of Bengal ..... 175 105 Map of North West India . . . 217 116 Map uf Indian Rivers and I'^uiiine . . 233 24b 9 ■4^, ^^, IN IHE ETERNAL Introductory The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. St. John IS \ THE Kingdoms of this woiid are be- come the kingdoms of our Lord and of Llis Christ.' One day tliat word shall sound like a clear trumpet note across the world. And it will be ti'ue. To hasten that day, to help to bring it, in our own hetirts and in the hearts of all — Ibr this we live. * * If you are going to India or the Far East, and can go by Brindisi, do. Go, if you can, with a week to spare, from Brussels to -Si ' Bfile, and south througii Switzer- ' \ ■ land and Northern Italy to Venice or Genoa. Spend a night at ^lilan, auA' other nights you can upon the road. the Italian lakes ; see the Duomo and \ I les, and, above all, see Rome. 10 CITY II You are starting out, it may be, for a missionary life-work. You are going to face and light tlie idolatry that lives. See, first, the ruined temples of a dead idolatry. Realise what has been. It shall be. THE FORUM. Few things impress one more in the Eternal City than tlie traces of a vanished Pagan- ism. The broken statues and ruined halls of the Vestal Virgin's temple, the silence of the Forum, where Cicero's voice rang; the fallen capitals and columns, altars and arches of shrines to Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, and the rest of the old long-dead ' Inmiortals ' ; the vast denuded spaces of the Caracalla Baths, once glorious in mosaic and marble ; the still triumphant records of Severus', Titus', and Constantine's arches ; the soul-stirring memories of the ruined Colosseum ; and the appealing silence of the Columbarium — that heathen house of the dead, with the Vale of its hopeless inscriptions — all resuscitate the long- vanished world of pagan Rome. One fancies Nero moving through the palace that he built ; Marcus Aurelius thinking his great thoughts as he paced beneath his gateway in the cit}^ wall — through which we drove in our shabby little modern victoria ; the worshippers passing up the Via Sacra between the temples now left desolate ; the courts of justice solemnly pronouncing the verdicts of old Roman law, where now glib guides show travellers round the ruins. The athletes wrestling in cro\vded arenas ; the priests serving in silent temples ; the ^vhite-robed Vestal virgins keeping lonely night vigils by their never-dying- fire, or freeing prisoners by a word as thej' passed in their puritv along the streets of Rome ; the festivals, the funerals ; and, above 12 THE NEW IDOLATRY all, the actors in the Colosseum tragedies, the cries, the frenzy, the agony, the deaths — all these things live again. In thought one sees the martyrs stand by those wild beasts' dens, through which you still can walk, surrounded by the lofty tiers of the amphitheatre in their voiceful vacancy. And a wonder and awe hll you as you begin to realise the conquest won by Christ when paganism — tliis paganism, ancient, cultured, reigning, wealthy, the faith of the world's empire — fell before His cross. The miracle of this overwhelms you. One sees something of what it meant that art, prestige, learning, social custom, a nation's prejudices, as well as all the natural opposition of the heart, should have been arrayed against the martyrs of the Catacombs in vain. It presses in upon you. You feel it was Divine. Perhaps as much as the sense of a vanished paganism, the presence of a new paganism impresses one at Rome, and the 111' y^ wiv»--rf* " [ V — ht' SCULPTUKE FKO.M THE ARCH OF TITUS — JUDEA CAPTA. " li^' i SHALL PASS AWAY m ^L ^ realization that it too is necessarily destined to pass away. You stand amid the relics of past empires. You see in vision what shall be, the ultimate triumph of the Spiritual. The Arch of Titus stands close to the Colosseum, re- cording the whole bygone Jewish system, the story of vanished ages — a world of faith and feeling, national ritual and experience, gone almost as much now as the pagan power before which Judaism fell in the days of Titus. That pagan power is to-day only a dream linger- ing among its ruins. And the empire that followed it — what can one say of the riches of the Vatican, the uninspiring magnificence of St. Peter's, the gorgeous tawdry ' church ' interiors with their images and idols, gold and scarlet, tinsel and flowers, candles, curtains, mass performances, costly sculptures, marble pavements, chanting priests, and sacrificing altars? You look and look, and ask yourself a hundred times what possible connection these things have with the teachings of Jesus Christ? The New Testament recurs to 3'ou with its simple light, and you stand in silent wonder that a system of this sort could have sprung from such a source. This was the new Rome that replaced the old, and that is ^_-^__ ^'^s^/tr^^^ TIARA-BEARER TO THE POTE. M THE KINGDO^JS SHALL itself replaced in part already by modern government. We made our little trap stop close to the Palace of tlie King on the summit of the Quirinal Hill, from which one sees across the city tlie dome of St. I^eter's rising. There the_v stand, frowning on each other, King and Pope, mutually defiant, each claim- ing" temporal sovereignty. But the temporal power of the Vatican has vanished, as you realise in passing the fine municipal buildings and new law courts wliich the Go^'ern- ment is putting up now at heavy expense, totally ignoring the claims of the Papacy. Even clearer than the voice of modern Rome in proclaiming the vanishingness of papal empire is the silent utterance of the simple ascent of tlie Santa Scala. The marble steps, covered witli a wooden case to protect them from the wear of praj'ing knees, rise as they rose when Luther climbed them kneeling, and stopped midwaj^ arrested by the message ' The just shall live b\' faith.' What an impression the place gives of the triumph of the Spiritual Kingdom ! Just as you feel the contrast of the pagan Columbaria with the Christian Catacombs — the one so hopeless, the other so amazing in the confident faith of its dove of peace, palm br;inches of victory, anchor of hope, and monogram Iclitlitis enshrining the name of the Saviour of the world — so at the Santa Scala. In the Catacombs you are con- scious of the presence of a new spiritual realm, wholly BECOME- 4^1S.' 15 THE COLUMBARI unknown to that sad paRim 7-alc in ccleninm ; and at the Santa Scala in the same way 3^011 realise, in contrast to the toilsome works and penances of Rome, the beauty of Christ's kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy. You stand, so to speak, at the modern birthplace of spiritual liberty. And from that spot the heart goes out to the millions scattered all over the world, whom Jesus has set free. One feels the light and air, the liberty that knows no toil up sacred stairs, no need of priest or mass. One hears a silent death-sentence pronounced on papal Rome. And from this place you look forth on a missionary life with courage and with confidence in God. The darkness is passing away. Even now the true light shineth. Since the day that Luther knelt here, the Protestant nations of Britain and America have been born. One hundred millions strong, they lead the world. Yet this change, with all its missionary meaning — the hope of heathendom — is but a little stage in the great work of the ages. We are cal led to take part in it. Slowly it is achieved. One da 3" the ringing- trumpet tone will sound its final record — ' The kingdoms of //lis ivorld are become the kingiioms of oni' Lord and of His Christ: GREAT NATIVE PROCESSION, BOMBAY. 18 Chapter BOMBAY, THE EYE OF INDIA Full day behind the tamarisks — the sky is blue and staring — As the cattle ciawl afield be- neath the yoke, And they bear one o'er the field path, who is past all hope or cariny", To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke. Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly — Call on Rama, he may hear, perhaps, your voice ! With our hymn books and our psalters we appeal to other altars, And to-day we bid good Christian men rejoice ! Kipling. TNDIA, India, India! How one falls in love with it! The busy, bright folk — every varied sort and kind ; dignified and dirty, richly clad and naked, servile and proud, con- jurer and devotee ; brilliantly dressed ladies, and gruesome naked beggars protruding deformed limbs, — impossible to count them, describe them, write them down ; inevitable to wonder at and love them all ! We have only just landed. Fleeing the hotel, I have found my way down to the beach, and am sitting scribbling to you with the grey incoming tide of Back Bay before me, a few last sunset clouds hanging over the Indian Ocean, and the green heights of Malabar Hill opposite across the water, grey in the fast falling twilight. Parsee priests, venerable in long white flowing gar- ''' B iS OUR INDIA— ONE-FIFTH OF ments, and Romanists in black gowns, and all manner of Bombay people, in all manner of costumes, from the habits of the Mem SaJiibs cantering along the sandy beach, to the scant inches of apron worn by minute brown bairns, pass across this oriental scene, under the evening star, hung far above like a lamp in the cloudless blue. I am writing now by moonlight. The flame-line along the sea horizon is slowly dying out. The four-faced handsome clock-tower has just struck six, and the great city behind me, ending another hot Decem- ber day, begins to feel the benediction of the soft, warm evening wind, steal- ing down the Alaidan, as they call this sea-front with its grassy links. Stars come out one by one, strange stars that look on India — on the 800,000 of Bombay, lying here rife just now with the plague, and on the 300,000,000 of the Empire, stretching away, away . . . the Empire wiiich, a single land under a single Queen, comprises one-fifteenth of the area of the habit- able globe and one-fifth of the human race. Oh, how utterable it is ! These people ! These multitudes of people ! One begins faintly to realise what missionary work must mean ; mis- sionary work, that singu- lar undertaking, which is either the most astound- ingly impudent and foolish and hopeless thing in the world, or else the sublim- est service which human THE QUEEN-EMPRESS OF INDIA. THE RACE iq CARVINGS FROM THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA : AND PAKVATI. hands can touch. Think of it for a moment. An liour's steam run from this beach would bring you to the great cave- temple of Ele- phanta, hewn out 1,000 years ago, and haunted by the memory of centuries of Hindu worship: — 'As the travellers enter its gloomy depths, the desolate silence wraps them round with a heavy, irresistible oppression. So dreary are the shadowy spaces, so hopeless the massive rock-hewn columns, so daunting the immovable weight of the darkly impending roof, that the visitors can hardly rouse themselves to find out what manner of place they are in, . . . With eyes growing used to the darkness they gaze awhile in silence ; till the immovable expression of the colossal countenances' — the figures and histories of the Hindu gods carved — 'above them seems to cast a spell on their vague imaginings, and to carry away their minds as captives into a mythic region of ancient fable where the light is more dim, the shadows are more confused than even in the gloomy depths of this abysmal rock-hewn temple.' Those ancient Hindu fables and the philosophies connected with them have ruled this immense empire for 3,000 years, and to-day rule in India over 200,000,000 minds. Is not the pro- gramme of Christianity that lies behind foreign missions astound- ing ? To attack and overthrow the faith thus enshrined for ages, the hoary faith that is the creed of four out of every seven of the inhabitants of the British Empire ; that Hinduism which ' terrifies the sinner by its long list of interdictions and punish- ments — "commit not this or that oftence, lest j'ou suffer the torments of awful hells ; lest 3'ou be born again in some lower condition : kill not, lest you become a dog ; steal not, lest you MAKKIAGE OF SIVA 20 BOMBAY, A JEWEL IN THE become a rat ; restrain your worst appetites and passions, lest 5'ou become an impure devil or malignant demon in j'our next state of existence:"' to substitute for fears like these the love made known by Jesus, is it not sublime service, an end worth livino- for ? Yesterday's Times of India prints a capital account of Bom- baj', from an address hy Lord Harris, the recent Governor here. 'Imagine,' he says, a 'great city of tJoo.ooo souls lying on the sliores of a beautiful sea, glorious in the monsoon, backed by grand mountains with many a castellated peak, nestling in palm groves, with hundreds of sea-going and coasting vessels anchored in its harbour, with two busy lines of railway, with broad thoroughfares, and grand buildings ; with a most active and intelligent mercantile community, both European and native ; with its lawns crowded day and night with pleasure and leisure seekers, and its brightness added by the most brilliantly dressed ladies in the world, the Parsees. Imagine it if you can ; I don't think you can. I have seen many great cities of the East, and I have not seen one that could touch Ijombay. ' You know how it became British, as part of the dowry of Catherine of Bra- ganza, who married Charles II. Previous to that, Cromwell had thought of laying hold of it ; and in those times our ministers were a little vague as to its where- abouts, for they described it as "near Brazil." And when we took it, it was a poor kind of place indeed ; only a scrap of an island, with the sea racing between it and other little islands which have since been connected. Only a little port with a few houses around it, and a population of about 10,000, mostly vagabonds. Pretty unhealthy too, smelling strongly of decaying fish. It killed oflf se\en governors, an ambassador, and an admiral in three years. ' It doesn't sound much of a place to fight for, does it? But we had to, and we did. ' ON THE SHORES OF A BEAUTIl'UL SEA.' PJRITISH CROWN 21 ^^^^l^^^^^^^ ejfet^iSaktaj^Wi^ .rt.iiiat, built at a cost ot ^i ^io.ooa, stanris next to the University Senate H.ili, Library, and Clock Tower, tine bulidings designed in French style of the 13th ceiui.ty. ' The Dutch banged at us from the sea, and the Mogul Admiral, the Sidi of Janjira, battered at us ; but we clung to it like grim death, sometimes short of men, sometimes of money ; pestilence in- side, bad times and enemies outside ; con- scious that as the Tapti silted up and the glory of Surat faded, Bom- bay, the one great natu- ral commercial harbour ot India open to the sea, must become a jewel in the British Crown. 'The cleverest races in India have made it a busy mart ; the public-spirited and the philanthropic have spent their money in adorning" and endowing it. They have started about loo cotton-spinning mills, which consume over 3,000,000 cwt. of cotton ; and the port of Bombay has a sea-borne trade of about 100 millions of pounds. She has three daily European newspapers and a crowd of weekly vernacular newspapers, a university, several art colleges, a veterinary college, technical and art schools, which latter has turned out most of the masons who have decorated the public buildings. She has boys' and girls' schools in quanti- ties, clubs of all kinds, both native and European, social, yachting, cricket, foot- ball, swimming, boating, and golf; three fine volunteer corps, one mounted, one artillery, one rifle — in fact, in every way you can think of, Bombay is as busy as it is possible to be, and in appearance magnificent. ' I may be a little partial, but I really do not know a sight more creditable to British capacity for administration than that of a cricket match on the Parade Ground at Bombay between the Presidency Etiropean Eleven and the Parsees. Splendid buildings frame one side of a triangle, the ornate dome of the Railway Terminus almost dwarfed by the size and chaster style of the Municipal Hall, whilst hospitals, colleges, and schools complete the rank. From ten to twenty thousand spectators preserve for themselves an orderly ring, watching with the most intense interest an English game played between Englishmen and natives in a thoroughly good sporting, gentlemanly spirit. ' The motto of Bombay, Urbs pri)iia in Indis^ is lully justified. Taking into consideration her picturescjueness, position, trade, population, wealth, municipal government, and the activity, education, and natural intelligence of her people, ( LOCK lOWFR A\U SFCRCIARIAT, EOMKAY. 22 'RAMA IS TRUE! Bombay is pucka, as the Hindustani has it— "quite first class." She has sent over to England the only nati\'es of India who have succeeded in getting into the House of Commons, one as a Liberal and the other as a Conservative, and— still more famous in the athletic world— she sent us the champion batsman for 1896.' ' Urhs prima ! ' mutters my friend here, a magistrate I'rom North India; 'Pucka, forsooth! If you put that in your hook, Miss Guinness, you'll make the Anglo-Indians smile, and cer- tainly oflcnd Calcutta people ! ' But my appreciation of Bombay and faith in the good nature of unknown Ctilcutta folk, is strong enough to accept Lord Harris's panegyric, pucka and all. It is this beautiful citj', the second largest in the British Empire after London, and the greatest cotton market in the Dombay . Jamaica . Li\'erpooI , COMTARATIVE POPULATIONS. world after New Orleans, that is smitten now by plague, eighty or ninety dying every daj'. Last night on the hotel veranckih we saw a native funeral pass, such a strange picture — warm Indian darkness shrouding the wide boulevard and tropical trees, white electric light fling- ing heavy shadows on the motley dresses of the passers-by ; and then the sudden break of a little group hurrying forward singing as the}'' bear their heavj' burden on their shoulders down the road. The dead is wrapped in a simple cloth — no attempt at a coffin, only a gaily-coloured shroud — and goes, accompanied by a strange monotonous song, rather a cry than a song, ' Ram is true ! Ram is true ! Ram the great is true ! ' to the burning ghats by the sea. We passed them the other evening. Driving along the sea front we came to a long wall, where at a half-open gate a lurid flare of red li^ht struck out across the road. Great tires were RAMA IS TRUE!' burning" inside, a wondering what could be, we stopped look. It was burning ghat of Hindus; a large spa^ I should think of several acres, with people standing close along the wall (mourners come to see the last of their loved ones), and in the centre an extraordinary vision — great piles of wood alight and flaming against the black night skj^, weird, unclad figures moving darkly among them, heaping up fuel, stirring the fires, and shouting at their work. In each pj're a corpse was being consumed. We stood there for a moment, and then passed out into the quiet darkness under the stars. ' Rama is true ! Rama is true I ' It echoes across India in every Hindu dirge. With a falsehood ringing round them our brothers pass away. What thousands are being carried to these ghats during the plague ! What thousands will be carried there during the next few months ! How many of these thousands have died as they have lived, ' without hope, without God ! ' I \l.l 1 ll.IIRES, NG UP FUEL — ' Chapter 1 1 BY THE WESTERN SEA He must reiyii till He hath put all enemies under His feet. ELOW the wide hotel veran- dah, when the boats come in — a pretty frequent when at Bombaj' — oriental magic pjr- Ibrms for a few pice. .Semi- naked iuqj,leis, conjurers and athletes display then staithnsj, stock-in-trade b;fore each new ship s comp mj'. Basket tricks, sword tricks, and a score of others, culminating with In- dia's far-famed feat of vanishing, are here done in the open air and on the common road. Watch this gathering crowd. What a varied medlej^ ! ' Africans of man}- tribes, representatives from nearly every European country, from America, China, and tYom the islands of the sea ' walk these broad boulevards, or stand ' Gathered to watch some chattering snake-tamer Wind round his wrist the living" jewellery Of asp and nag', or charm the hooded death To angry dance with drone of beaded gourd.' About a hundred languages, leai'ned books affirm, are spoken in Bombay ; but from the officials of the handsome Secretariat, and of the magnificent Post Oflice, where j'ou call for your home letters, down to the irrepressible pedlar, who incessantl_y urges curios, smoked spectacles, jewellery, white umbrellas, topees and trinkets upon you, all Bombay seems to employ your English mother tongue. The persistent ' boy,' for instance — .sketched above in his spotless and tightly-fitting turn-out — the middle-aged ■ boj',' who attaches himself to 3'ou as a personal attendant, fol- J \ -TO WAICH THE CHATTERING SNAKE-TAMER. lows you everywhere, and will not be gainsaid, takes the box seat and interprets to the coachman when you drive, deftly waits at table, and stands outside _your door anxious to attend to your least wisli, brings your afternoon tea unasked, and in a score of skilful ways insinuates himself into 3'our service, speaks Englisli fluently. 26 WHO? AND WHY HERE? There is another Bombay world, of course, but we have scarcely seen it. The great native quarter, ravaged by plague, I am not allowed to visit. The same cause prevents our seeing much of missionary work — schools and colleges are closed and folk away. The day we landed father spoke at the pleasant American JNL E. Church, and later called on the leaders of the C.M.S., met the newly arrived workers of the Bombay Settlement, British College women come to work lor the women of India, and saw the fine Free Church College and Mission House. Just a day or twos brief glimpse, but it lives in one's memory. Among pleasant Indian pictures that mission house comes back to me. Again we are driving through the balmjr darkness of an Indian winter night, driving in an open trap, dressed in summer things, along the moon-lit sea front. The wheels grind crisply on the gravel of a carriage sweep, and stop under the trailing creepers of a wide portico, where in a glow of lamp-light on the dark verandah stands the stately figure of the Free Church Col- lege principal. His cordial voice, and the sweet face and motherly kindness of Mrs. Mackichan, welcome us to the first Indian missionary home we have seen. The spacious, airy drawing-room, cool matting and light furniture, the quiet dining-room beyond, with its pretty lamp shades and simply but perfectly appointed table, the plea- sant evening meal enriched bj- the cultured conversation of our host, the chat and music afterwards, Paderewski's music played by the daughters of the house, who have just arrived from their school days at 'home,' the calm of evening worship, the stroll in the garden under the stars by the fine adjoining college buildings, with the music of the sea waves playing just across the road, the kindh^ farewell wishes and invitation to re- turn — the memory of it all shines in one's thought. And a vista LiK. MACKICHAX. AT THE GATEWAY 27 THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, BOMBAY. of far vision opens out in answer to tlie question, ' Wiio are tliese friends ? Wliy here ? ' We are standing at tlie gateway bj^ wliicli Europe enters India. And tliere lias come from Europe to tliis old world of the East, something immeasurably greater than government, educa- tion, commerce, or modern thought ; there lias come, there is daily coming, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Because of the existence of that Kingdom, because of its irresistible power and world-wide destiny, these forces are at work. So far back as 1S13 that com- ing Universal Empire began to reach Bombay. The dry list glows with interest, as j'ou think of what it means : — Began work in 18 r3, the Baptist Missionary Society. 1820, the Church Missionary Society. 1823, the Church of Scotland Mission, 1S27, the Tract and Book Society and the American Board. 1829, the Free Clrurch Mission. 1834, the Society for tlie Propagation of the Gospel. 28 'A GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED 13egan work in 1872, the Methodist Episcopal Mission. „ 1897, the Bombay Settlement. Churches for English residents, a pretty Y.M.C.A. centre, Zenana work, medical institutions, Salvation Army barracks, street and bazaar preaching, schools of all sorts, and busy mission presses, are among the active Christian agencies here. And if you look away beyond the city to the Bombay Presidency, another half-dozen good names join the list : — Began work in 1S37, the Basle jMissionary Society. ,, 1840, the Irish Presbyterians. „ 1852, the American Presbyterians. „ i860, the Christian Vernacular Education Society ,, 18C5, the Indian Female Normal Schools. ,, 1893, the Australian Mission. How many they seem, don't they ? But when you recollect that the Bombay Presidency numbers, in the j^ear 189S, 33,000,000 souls, and has onlj" some 300 workers — on an average one Christian worker to about 110,000 of the population — the}- shrink to their true proportion. Onl_v the fringe of the harvest field is touched here, and the labourers are but few. Un.Cci MVemf^e Jarish -f- Nissionaru The work is slow and hard. This western seaboard section is one of the most barren of Indian mission fields. It has as yet no record such as that of tlie Punjab and Telugu churches, with their thousands turned to Christ from idols. But it will have one day. For the plan of which these efforts form part is the great plan of the ages, and the simple Christian forces which we see here at work are ' in the publicly expressed belief, even of ptireh' secular statesmen, destined to develop until they bretik up the heterogeneous mass of Hinduism, Mohammedanism, and Fetishism, WHEN IT IS GROWN- 29 as they did when set in motion by our Lord and His apostles in the heart of the Roman Empire, at Jerusalem and Antioch in the East, at Rome and Spain in the West.' Already you can see it coming — coming, assuredly coming. Although in this dawnlight of the 20th century, the Christians in India are only 2h millions among 300 millions, they are in- creasing twice as fast as the Moslems or Hindus, who outnumber them more than 100 times. They increased twice as fast in the last decade, and will do so with an ever-ascending geometric COMPARA- TIVE INCREASE 1SS1-91. Christianity- Islam . 10 -70 % HiKDt/isr>\ . $ ratio, until, like Europe's ancient paganism, Hinduism one day falls with a mighty crash. ' Were the Government of India to do now exactly what Constantine did, the next generation would see more Christians in India than all Europe saw till the final settlement of the northern races in their new seats.' For ' Christianity has introduced a thin wedge into Hinduism which every year's progres-; is driving- farther and farther into the heart of the vast corrupting, cracking mass,' and ' which will, one day, no doubt far distant, hut still clearly realisable bj' faith and common sense, bring all India to the feet of Christ.' ' ' Dr. George Smith, Essciys. 30 BY GRACE ARE YE Chapter III SUN WORSHIPPERS Behold, at the door . . . were five and twenty men, with their backs toward the. temple of the Lord . . . and they worshipped the sun. . . . Then said he unto me. Hast thou seen this, O son of man? — EZLkll L IT is sunset ; we are standing on tlie green lieiglits of Malabar Hill ; behind us, stretching out to the horizon, lies the blue Arabian Sea, melting into the Indian Ocean, and washing the western shores of India in a single line of i,ooo miles from this green hill down to Ceylon. Behind us stand the Parsee Towers of Silence, the last home of so many thousand dead. Gay flowers, graceful ferns, and palms, and garden- walks are round us; far below lie the factories and chimnej's of Bombtiy, pretty bungalows half buried in foliage, and out on the harbour vessels and fishing- boats. Warm waves are lapping lazily along the sandy shore. Close to the tide-edge of the crescent bay, a few yards' space between each man, stands a line of silent worshippers with their backs towards the city and their faces to the sea, praying towards the sinking sun. They are Parsees, Persian in origin, Zoroastrian in faith, despising idolatry, indifferent to Christianity, clever and successful business men. They follow still a faith first preached 3,000 3'ears ago ; and for a thousand years have formed in the midst of the Hindus a separate nation, peculiar in race, religion, and social life. SAVED NOT OF WORKS' 31 Zoroastrianism explains the old problem of the existence of evil by a very simple theory, i.e. that life is ooverned by two hostile principles, good and evil, which have produced the world. All that is good comes from the former, all that is bad from the latter. The history of the world is the history of their conflict. Such is the general theory. Its practical application brings one back to the old impossible task of saving oneself by good works. Zoroastrians believe in the immortality of the soul, and in heaven and hell. ' Your good thoughts, good words, and good deeds alone will be j'our intercessors.' There is a bridge in the Unseen World dividing heaven from hell. After death — The soul of every man has to give an account of its doings in the past life. Meher Daver, the judge, weighs a man's actions by a scale-pan. If a man's good A PARSEE FAMILY AT HOME. 32 'PHILOSOPHERS TAUGHT THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, actions outweigh his evil ones, even by a small particle, he is allowed to pass over the bridge to heaven. If his evil actions outweigh his good ones, even by a small weight, he is not allowed to pass over the bridge, but is hurled down into the deep abyss of hell. If his good and e\-il deeds balance each other, he is sent to a place known as Haniast-Gehan, corresponding" to the Romish Purgatory and the Mohammedan Aeraf ' Such is the hiith of the.se sun worshippers, or fire worshippers as they are called, from their reverence to fire as the most perfect symbol of the divine glory. Such are the thoughts that fill the minds of the earnest souls among them who, out of the 27,000 Parsees in Bombaj', come down to pray where the warm waves wash the quiet shore here every night. 'Save yourself!' — the knell rung out to sin-stained hearts by Romanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, is the message of Zoroastrianism too. ' Save yourself ! ' — the message of every faith except that which proclaims Christ the Saviour. As yet but few Parsees have come to Him. 'Their prosperity, their energy, and the prospect of advancement,' writes Mr. Wilder in his Appeal for India, ' have made many of the younger men materialists. In other cities of the Bombay Presidency and in Feudatory States, there are 29,000— a total for India of 76,000 Parsees. Workers among them should be well educated, and should have a strong personality, to pierce the crust of indifference and worldliness. The ranks of Parseeism are yet unbroken, save in a very few instances.' At night the darkness of the long Maidan is dotted by dozens of glowworm-like lamps set on the ground, and round each a group of Parsee men and lads sit, pltiying some complicated Indian sort of chess. Wc spent an evening among them; they seemed perfectly familiar with English, and gave us a cordial welcome, appearing much interested in all that father said. Parsee ladies are well educated, and free to go about just as they choose, but know comparatively little English, as I found on making acquaintance with some on the beach. The Towers of Silence, close behind us here, look mucli less dreadful than the Hindu burning ghats, but are really more repellent, I think. Believing in four sacred elements— earth, water, PROPHETS THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY' PAKSEE TOWERS OF SILENCE, MALABAR HILL, EO-M liAY. U-'roiii a /■aiutin^ by ihc C/u'i'alL-r LKillon.) air, and fire — Parsccs sliriiilc irom tainting- any ol' tliem b_v tlie toucli of death, and g'i\X' their tlead in consequence to vultures. ' Amid this lovely garden sloping down to the ocean, live low circular structures of solid granite rise solemnly out of the foliage. Ranged round the summit of these towers, crowded closelj- together, are rows of loathsome A-ultur^'S, whicli, black against the sunset sky, dominate the scene. These bh'ds are still and silent ; but when the gate is unlocked for a funeral, they begin to show signs of excitement, which increases as the procession winds 34 'INTO THE ETERNAL SILENCE - slowly up the lull. ... On reaching the house of prayer, the mourners enter and chant pra^^ers, "whilst the corpse-bearers enter the Tower of Silence with the dead body, which thej' expose naked on the sloping platform invisible to outsiders. The moment they withdraw, the rows of expectant vultures drop silently down into the tower, and in ten minutes have stripped ever}- particle of flesh off the corpse, reducing it to a bare skeleton before the mourners have linished their prayers. The skeleton remains three or four weeks exposed to the tropical sun, when the bleached bones are reverently placed in a centre well within the tower, where Parsees of high and low degree are left to turn into dust without distinction.' - On a stone slab near the entrance the dead are laid for a last farewell before being carried to the gate. We linger here a little among" the flowers, not far from the sacred fire that is never allowed to die. We look from the top of the hill once more on the worshippers along the beach, fastening" the sacred cord belt- fashion round them as the sun goes down, and turning home again — old men prostrate on the ground, apparently lost in devo- tion, slim bo3's led out to this strange rite, in which no woman joins. We cannot stay. The picture passes from us as we go down the hill ; bvit the fact lives on. To-night, as the sun rises on Europe, far off' across the -water, those dark eyes on the sea shore are watching it go down. From these seeking, Christless hearts rises the Zoroastrian prayer. Chapter IV DEVOTEES OF EAST AND WEST say, Come out of Emerson. X^-') !lt I- ;»v*f A wise and hardy physician wi ///((/, as the first condition of advice, HIS is the holiest place in all Bombay. The ture only shows you a little corner of it — one end of the beautiful tank clown to whose clear waters flights of wide shelving" steps lead, and where bathers and little cliildren play among letlec- tions of the cloudless skies and picturesque masonry. For the first time we stand within a heathen shrine. It scarcely seems a temple — rather a group of little temples rising among odd buildings, priests' houses, pil- grims' lodgings, na- tive homes. From time immemorial this Tank of Walkeshwar has been a sacred spot. One thinks how many pilgrims have tramped through wear}" journeys to reach these shining waters, how many anxious, clouded lives have been strained to the utmost to seek what here they seek but never find ! . ■'^^^'^a-:" ■i'^*'-"'^^^ ■t:i' '^. 'fS « ' WALKESHWAR. ?.6 'STRIVE F(.)R IJIiERATIOX FROM BIRTH Four or five of the weirdest fakirs, eox'ercd with liltli and ashes, sit at one end in the hot sun, lool^7'apJiCc{ J'roin li/d.) evil ; emancipation from it in tliis lite and in countless future lives IS }'our one hope. Detach yourself from earth — go without clothes; nave no home, no friends, no people ; do no work ; take no in- terest in anything at all;" enjoy nothing, feel nothing, hope for nothing. Detach yourself — to do this, suffer pain ; sleep on spikes, starve yourself, or eat carrion and nameless abominations ; hold your arms up till they wither, and the nails grow through the hand; do anything and everything to get rid of your supreme curse, conscious existence. ?.s SLAY THOU THE ENEMY— DEVOTEES SELF-TORTURE PY HEAD HURIAL- {Front a pliotogr-aph. ) -A FAKIR AT A FAIR. DESIRE ' (Bhagavad Gita) 39 It is difficult for us under the influence of Jesus Christ to understand and grasp this Hindu theorj'. To those who know and follow Him Christ makes sheer living beautiful, the service of His kingdom here a priceless privilege, and everlasting life beyond the gift of God to men. But to the Hindu living without Christ — as to some in our own lands who live without Him — mere existence seems a curse. This poor soul believes himself burdened with being because he is not good enough not to be. Hence he must accumulate merit, raise himself laboriously bj^ weary years of good works, until he can at last escape existence. 'The Hindu devotee,' writes Bishop Thoburn, 'flatters himself that he can by his penances of various kinds accumulate merit. The word penance to his mind conveys no idea of repentance, but solely that of a means of acquiring per- sonal merit. In the next place he is possessed with the idea that matter is in- herently evil, and that, since his union with a material body is the source of most of his misfortunes, he must make war on the body in order to liberate the soul. . No doubt a large number of both sexes choose a life of asceticism because they find it the simplest and easiest way of securing their daily bread, but many of them show abundant evidence that they are sincere in their purpose, and persist through long lives of severe suffering and privation in faithfully follow- ing the course which they have chosen. 'At nearly every great fair a number of men will be seen going through the self-inflicted torture of what is called the " five-fires." Four fires are kept burning constantly around the devotee, «hile the sun, which makes the fifth, pours down his burning rays upon the head of the sufterer. Others, for months at a time, never allow thernselves to lie down to rest, but permit themselves to be supported in a half-reclining position, or sometimes suspended upon a cushion, with their feet dangling down at a distance from the ground. .Some sleep on beds made of broken stone, others on spikes ; while others again seek torture for the body by abstaining from sleep altogether, or at least reduce their sleeping hours to the narrowest possible limits.'*' This nightmare dread of existence is the natural outcome of the transmigration theory, that saddest and most hopeless of all human explanations of life. Did you ever quietly think lor one minute what it would mean to believe that everything on the face of the earth was the body of some soul — stocks, and stones, and trees, and rivers; birds, beasts, insects, reptiles, men; mountains, 40 'LET US SHORTEiN oceans, grains of sand — all alike soul-houses ; and that human souls were ceaselessh' shifting through countless lives, and must for ever shift, according to their merits or demerits, among these ? Think what this faith would mean ! Transmigration we call it, and dismiss the idea with a word. But to believe that idea, to think that the souls you love best, and that death has called away, are pent up in some body, a jackal's, a cow's, a cabbage's perhaps, and will be bound there, feeling, sulTering, enjoying if they can, until death smites them once again, and once again they change their house and pass into some other form as coolies, kings, or what not, — to belie\'e that idea, what must it mean? Think of the burden of it, the endless, restless, weary round, from which is no escape ; the grip of f'~ate that holds you and drives you on and on ; the inexorable sentence, from which is no appeal, consigning you to grovelling reptile life or loathsome being. Who knows? You may be born to-morrow a leper, an idiot, a murderer, anything. Kdnua, 3^our fate determines what shall be. And your fate de- pends entirelv on your merits. There is no pity anywhere. There is no forgiveness. Trouble comes to A'OU to-day ? Ah, you earned it yesterday, back in your last body. Then you sinned, and you are punished now. It is so apparently just, this theory. It explains everything — all the crookedness of life, all the strange chance of destiny. It is so hard, so hopeless. Eighty-six million times a'Ou Avill be born and I'eborn, to suffer, live, and die. ' Let us shorten the eighty-six ! ' you say. What more natural ? You become a JaL-ir. By so doing you detach yourself. You gradually escape remcarnation. You gain a laint and far-off chance of sooner hnding rest — the oblivion of Nirvana ; not to be. Standing in this sunshine, looking down on the spectacle before us — on these sc;ircely human creatures, in their hlthiness and ashes, realise the burden of belief that makes them wliat they are ! THE EIGHTY-SIX!' 41 j^^^^ar^aj-^. The Ijurdeii uf belief lIkiI iiiuke^ tiieiii uliat Ihey are. INDIAN DEVOTEE SITTING OX SPIKES. (From a fliotosrafli ) And let your heart go out to the Hindus living in the Bombay Presidency only, in this one strip of country along the western coast, a land larger than Spain, running from the frontier of Beluchistan down to the nati^^e kingdom of iNIysore, and number- ing in all 33,000,000 people — district after district, Sind to the north, with the Indus flowing through its sandy plains, and the great port of Kurrachee threatening to ri\7il Bombay, Sind so largely unevangelised ; Kutch, by its hot gulf, without a mis- My\f OF JHE Bombay Presidei (W. kdia.) ^^ Showing the Spiritual Needs of a few Leading Districts. *' Tlie harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few : pray ye tliercfore the Lord of the harvest tbat He will send forth labourers into His barvest." In WADHWAN, GUZERAT, a Missionary writes : — "The people listened splendidly. They have never heard before in some cases, in others possibly once." In the Surat Collectorate " there are hundreds of vil- lages of aboriginal races as reachable as the Fijians wore, and with little or no re- ligion to destr'iy. Jii a- fan years these will liare hedniie llm Innanised, and then "n'ork among them will bo like knoclcing unr heiiils against a stone wnll. A Government official of one diatricfc entreats us to send men there, promising every assistance in bis power, and we cannot move. Why ? For want of men. We could keep two or three men busy at nothing else than translating and writing. The Bible revision is not expected to be finished in any one's lifetime, and all for lack of men. We have one man to do the worlv of a minimum of in Surat alone." ■WHERE ARE THE DEVOTEES OF THE WEST? 43 sionary ; hilly, sea-girt Kathiawar, with Imt three Christian workers to three millions, a million to a man ; and then the mountain country down the long line oF the Ghauts, thousands of villages and towns scattered among their heights or on their eastern slopes towards the Deccan ; native States, unreached or partly entered, Kolhapur opened by missionary work, Bhor and Phultan unentered, or just beginning to be reached by the new Australian Mission — let the darkness of these people's hearts come to you standing here. God forbid that the sense of it should ever pass away from us till we have done our part to bring them His 'great light.' We are looking on the deA^otees of the Eastern world. Where are the devotees of the AA'est ? IMany of them are toiling here in India and scattered in every land. Many are sleeping in distant lonely graves, manj" working bravely on at home. Are we among their number? Had we but one-half the devotion to Jesus Christ that the fakirs before us have to their gloomy faith, should we not do more to reach India's waiting millions ? Should we not hasten to give Him our time, our means, our strength, ourseh'es — to suffer daily loss in that devotion, and to sacrifice, it may be, all that we hold most dear — that we may help to bring these hearts the knowledge of His love ? 44 W'E LR'ED IN A CORNER, AND Chiqjter V PAGES FROM I'OONA May we never be content with small tliin^^s. . . . Let us ne\-cr lose the vision of GUI- possibilities, as with self-denial and praycrfulness we help to realise the plans of GOD. — J. R. MoiT. ^ wi^^M^ ~l^ i j^>^l ( >\\ sh ill I _,i\L ^ ou I LonLLption ot the streets of Poon;i crowded with Hindus ? I simply' despair. I never conceived it v\heii at home, or could conceive it. All these dark faces, white turbans, bare legs, open shops ; all this movement, crowding', straining ; all the dust, the neglect, the unpainted woodwork, the unfurnished rooms, the open- air life, the heat ; the strange tongues, the shouting of the drivers as they navigate the narrow, crowded streets, the cataract of souls and bodies, — heathen, heathen, heathen, in fact and aspect. All these temples, so small, towering, dark, repulsive; these priests, these htkirs, these mendicants ; this Babel of idolatry, this world of untaught, unholj-, unsaved, deluded mortals. Here they are, so real, so helpless, so forgotten ! ' Is it earth, or some other planet? We might be in Mercury as far as the heat is concerned — j'ct this is Christmas D;iy ! Tlie sun bitizes in a cloudless firmament, scarce a blade of grass is in the fields. The sunbeams go tlirough vou like the emantitions of a CALLED rr THE WORLD' 45 furnace; you hide from them all the central hours of the day, and onl}- walk abroad in the sweet early morning' or starry evening- — or if forced abroad at other times go under the pro- tection of a covered con\'eyance. Where are the snows of winter ? Where the fresh breezes of the home hills? Where the rains, the fogs, the frost, and the muddj- roads ; the fresh air, the cloudy skies, the warm wraps, the winter tires, the closed doors, the ■whole paraphernalia of indoor and outdoor home life? Not a trace ! Another sphere ! And yet on the same iilanet ! It seems incredible, yet all most real. Whj- did we not come before and see it, and feel it, and ponder it, and tr_y to help it? Why? We hardly know. We did not !'eti!isc the truth. AVe lived in a corner, and called it the woi-ld.' So Father writes, and gives you better than words of mine could, the impression of the novel world in which Ave are. We move among t/te Liglit of .\si(i people — 'The traders cross-legged 'mid the siiice and grain, The buyers with their money in the cloth, The war of words to clieapen tliis or that, The sliout to clear the road, the huge stone wheels, The strong slow oxen and their I'ustling loads, The singing bearers with the palanc|uins, The broad-necked hamals sweating in the sun, The housewi\es bearing water from the well With Ijalanced chatties, and athwart their hips The lilack-eyed babes ; the fly-swarmed sweetmeat shops, 'Ihe N\eaver at his loom, the cotton-bow Twanging, the millstones slowly grinding meal. . . . The blacksmith with a mattock and a s]5car Reddening together in his coals, the school Where round their Guru, in a gra\'C half-moon, The Sakya children sang tlie mantras through. And learned the greater and the lesser gods ; The dyers stretching \\aist chnhs in the sun Wet fi-om the \-ats — oiange, and rose, and gicen ; The );rahnian proud, the martial Kshatriya, The humble toiling Sudra ' W r.A\'EK At HIS 1,OOM. 46 SIX ABLE-BODIED MEN Here they all are. Only not ' Sakya children' of that old Benares storj", but little urchins of Marathas who usually adopt any imaginable position except that of a ' grave half-moon.' Indian bairns are so delightful and so odd. If there is any- thing odder I think it is the housemaid staff of this hotel — where, by the waj', we have fallen among Parsees. How I did laugh on arriving in my wee room (which is almost filled by its bed and mosquito curtain) to see, when I turned round from undoing my hat box, no less than six able-bodied men busjr housemaiding for me. Two Parsees, three Hindus, and one Englishman were making the bed, and putting on the dressing-cover, apparently quite unconscious of the effect they produced. The room was so small, and they all so busj', officious and polite! There seems to be no woman in the place, except one solitary ' sweeper ' who round ni the moi nmg to the back verandah, theie aie numbers of men, all attentive, silent, deferential, — youths, middle-aged men, gre3--headed veterans, and one or two bent, decrepit, touch- ing old dears in white 1 rocks and turbans, quite pathetic to watch ! 1 n g a- mono- the BUSY HOUSEMAIDING 47 fine heights of the Western Ghauts, 2,000 feet up from the sea level at Bombay, one of the most beautiful railway lines in the world has brought us to the old capital of the Maratha Kingdom, famed for her warriors 100 years ago, in the da}'s of Warren Hastings. And here amid December heat that makes life toler- able only with open doors and windows, and comfortable only with a punkah zmllalis help (walla/i, by the way, is a delightful word attachable to almost any office, from gari wal/a/i — coach- man — up to hahy-zvallah), the veil has been lifted for us, in a most pleasant visit of ten days, from two far-reaching sections of mission service. I, staying with Miss Bernard at the Scotch Church Zenana house, am living amid feminine affairs ; while Father, at the Wilders', is at the headquarters of work for college men. Of all sorts of other good things we have had glimpses — of MAP OF INDIA IvIAUE IN THE SAND AT FOO.NA «V MK. HEVWOOD OF THE C.M.S. 48 THE STUDENT WORLD OF INDIA the C.lM.S. Divinity School next door, in charge of Mr. and Mrs. Heywood from Bath ; of the Australian Mission with its pretty and useful hall ; of the dear Salvation Army leaders ; the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, represented here bj^ the active and gifted Sorabji familv ; the Scotch Church friends — Free and Established — with their excellent schools and hospital; and linalhr of a whole Conference of earnest American Methodists gathered from Western India to meet our special friends, Bishop and Mrs. Thoburn. All these Ave have seen, and I would try to tell j-ou about them if such things had not been often better told before. Two efforts, however, we have had time to study, and of them I ' can- not but speak.' * * '-^ A crowded noisy street outside ; within, a lamp- lit, low-roofed stage, a sense of gloom, heat, _, , . .. ._, darkness; and beyond tile line where footlights ought to be, a cavernous ; • hall, brightened by white or gaily-coloured gowns of Hindu students — dark laces and gaj^ turbans in a dim, flickering light. = We are in the Poona : nati\'e theatre, the oddest ■ place, big, ramshaekled, dirty, with air and day- light coming in through great holes in the roof, \ M\k\iiiA ^TUDEM. two galleries supported by roughly-cut wooden pillars, the whole dimly illuminated by candles hung high up in big glass bowls. Hundreds of men. AND ITS WIDE INFLUENCE 49 mostly yovmg students, are there ; no women among them. Cus- tom prohibits feminine foll^ from attending general meetings. We are face to face with a section of the student A\orld of India, the 16,000 j'oung men studying at this moment in Indian colleges granting the B.A. or some professional degree, and the 70,000 students of the two highest classes of High Schools. Be- sides these men in training India has tens of thousands of young fellows who have passed through college, so that these intelligent faces represent a great and growing company. Statistics show that over 20,000 Indian college men passed entrance examinations in the ten 3'ears ending 1SS2-3. Between iSSi and 1S91 they increased to over 40,000. The number taking the B.A. degree alone in the ten years ending 18S2-3 was 2,391. In the decade ending 1S90-1 it had increased to 7,159- These figures, compared with those of the United Kingdom, are well worth thoughtful notice. We have as many univer- sity students in India as at home. As Sir Charles Aitchison remarked : — ' We are rapidly raising up in India a class of men as highly educated and cultured as the generality of the young men who leave the schools and colleges of England . . . men of the press and of the pen ; writers of native literature; with whom rests the control of the destinies of India. Their influence Avhether for good or bad is very great, and must be increasingly felt.' Nearly all the most important posi- tions in the Civil Service, which are open to Indians, are filled by students. ' In attending- the Indian National Congress,' writes Mr. Jolin R. iilott, ' I was impressed by the large niunber of delegates holding university degrees. More arid more India will be governed, 50 liNDIA HAS THE LARGEST and its thought-life moulded, by the student class. The burning question is, Shall this leadership be heathen, agnostic, or Christian ? It certainly will not be Christian unless there be in the present generation a great increase in the number of Christian workers among students.' What faith shaU the students of India hold? This question is one of the gravest that India has to meet. The da)^ lias long since gone bj^ in which we might expect the influence of her leaders to be that of the old regime. With fourteen million readers, and a million tidded every y^ear ; with 153,000 Educational Institutions ; four and a half million students at primary schools examined by Government inspectors; and 17,000 College Students; with 6,000 volumes pouring every j'ear from her jDress, and an annual college and university output of 2,000 educated young men — 13S0 B.A.s in 1S97 — India is fast leaving behind her the days when IMacaulay described her learning as ' medical doctrines Avhich would disgrace an English farrier, astronomj' which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding-school, history abounding in kings thirtj^ feet high and reigns thirty thousand years long, and geography made of seas of treacle and oceans of butter.' But what shall take the place of the old abandoned notions? As we look across the footlights into this dim theatre pit, we feel part of the answer is before us. Eor what has brought us here to-night? The Student \'olunteer Movement of India and Cevlon. an organisation as wide as the Indian Em.pire in its scope ; as lofty in its standards as the teachings of Jesus Christ. In 1S96-7 its leaders held in eleven weeks, five young men's con- ferences in important centres — conferences attended by men re- presenting a kirger number of educational institutions than were represented that year at the student gatherings of Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland combined. Nearly all the sixty Missionary Societies at work in India were I'epre- sented, over 300 missionaries attending, among them mttny of the foremost educationalists of the countr3\ The subjoined STUDENT POPULATION IN THE ORIENT Students of East and West 51 £ NOTl Kingdom teaching : :;. — The above figures approximately represent the number uf SuidciUs at Uni\'ersities in the The London University, which is only an examining body, and has no resident students i itaiT, is not included in the hst. 52 STUDENT VOLUNTEERS table shows the signihcance of this movement among College men. Number of schools and colleges represented 20 18 22 25 35 120 student delegates 75 100 127 157 300 759 missionary societies 21 9 12 27 19 52 missionaries present 50 60 ^S 78 65 311 „ other workers 25 50 5 5 35 120 Total number of delegates 150 210 190 240 400 1190 Number accepting Christ 5 15 20 4 32 76 ,, volunteering 4 21 29 31 42 127 ,, deciding to keep the Morning Watch 35 157 114 101 170 577 'We have the names,' writes ^[r. Mott, 'of 127 student delegates wno at these conferences decided to devote their whole lives to Christian work in India. No pressure was brought to bear upon them save that of the Holy Spirit speaking through the Word of GOD, and the spiritual needs of India. Emphatic testimony was repeatedly borne by the missionaries to the ability and character of these \olunteers. In India, in a special degree, the inducements are great to lead students to enter distinctively secular pursuits. This splendid offering of men constitutes the vanguard of a Student Volunteer Movement for India. ' After counting the cost, 577 delegates entered into covenant to keep the rilorn- ing Watch. This signifies their purpose to devote not less than half an hour at the beginning of each day to devotional Bible study and comiriunion with God. Their names were placed in the hands of leading workers at difterent centres, who will see that they are guided and encouraged in carrying out this resolution. This result will be a cause of greater things; because it is the very opening of the channels of life and power. ' Seventy-si-K students for the first time accepted Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour. A much larger number who had wandered from Him returned to their .allegiance. Among the number who took this stand were not only agnostics, but also Hindus, Mohammedans, and Buddhists. In no country have I seen students accept Christ with greater intelligence, with more purpose of heart, or in the face of so great difficulties.' To-night's meeting does not stand alone. It is part of a world-wide movement, born only recently ■• but now a potent factor in College life of East and West. At Oxford and IN INDIA 5; Ten years' Growth STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT r^^ ^P 1887 Inter-Collcgiate Christian ■ Movements. 1SS7, 3 1897, 19 iSQy Pamphlets and Periodicals. 1SS7, 4 1S97, 83 1887 1897 Summer -'.:,:.. ^ Schools. ^- ■_ ^[**^v, ,^' ; 1SS7, 1 1S97, 27 1897 National Secretaries. 1887, 3 1S97, 27 1897 [See A Ten ]\-ars' RelrospL-ct, Gencriil Secretnry'5 /TfAK-^ to the Willi.imstown Convenlioii, World's bruDiiiNT CHR[sri.\.\ I-euekation, July. 1^0;, 1 1887 54 'REJOICING THAT THEY WERE COUNTED JOHN N. FORIIAN. One of the first S.V.M. Travelling Secretaries. Cambridge, Edinburgh and Dublin, in Yale and Harvard, Wellesley and Girton, Newnham and Mount Holj'oak, in university halls and class-rooms as different and as far apart as Pekin and Chicago, Calcutta and Durban, Mel- bourne and Yokohama, Constantinople and Honolulu, thousands of student meetings such as this have, during the last decade, caught inspiration from the risen Clirist. Thousands of men and women have gone from them to dedicate their lives to His service anywhere. Already recording five general conventions, held in America and England, the movement gathers its Summer Schools every year on both sides of the Atlantic, linking in a single brotherhood — The World's Student Christian Federation — men and women of America, Great Bri- tain and Ireland, Germany, France, Scandinavia, India and Cey- lon, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, China and Japan- And this for no Majr-day pleasuring, but for a higlier, holier life, for the self-sacrifice and service of following Jesus Christ. To obejr Him many a Western student must forsake home, friends, all the world calls ' success in life,' and must, uprooted from his native land, go as Christ's messenger to exile, a foreign language, weary toil, and in some lands to severe ph5'"sical suffer- ing. In the East to join this brotherhood means often what is harder. A young Brahman, once Hindu and now Christian, one of the firstfruits of the Poona student work, is here to-night. Of the persecution he has had to bear Mr. Wilder writes: — 'After baptism, Govind tore off his sacred thread — laying aside his caste. After a lecture, Govind appeared and beg.i^ed the privilege of addressing the lirahniins. He spoke with wonderful courage : " Christ had saved me. I am ready to die for Him. You can do what you wish to rue." R. r. wiluilK. S.V.M.U. India and Ceylon. WORTHY TO SUFFER FOR HIS NAME' 55 ' It was like throwing a liyhtcd match into a powdei- magazine. One kicked him, and anothcr went to the length of spitting in his face. Poor Govind was weeping, and on my asking him the reason, came the reply, " I do not mind their kicking me, but it was hard to have thenr spit in my face." I told him that our Lord was thus treated, " And they spat upon Him, and took the reeds and smote Him on the head." Two Ih-ahmin students then appeaie no law has ever said so, ' the popular belief is that a woman can have no salvation unless she be formally married.' It is difficult, indeed, to imagine how people holding views like these rriust regard unmarried missionary women living alone, acting as religious and secular teachers, and managing extensive household and mission '.^ -_^>»— -i-^' matters without the smallest help from any man ! And how noteworth}- the fact is that women such as these are the product of no faitli except Christianity. Hinduism has its temple women — abandoned for life to depravity in the name of religion. Buddliism has its nuns — secluded from the world to secure their own salvation. No faith but that of Christ has ever produced women like the inmates of this zenana bungalow. They are unmarried truly, but they are not under vows of celibacy. There can arise, there often have arisen in that singular domain the mind of man, schemes of existence centering round some sweet missionary girl, theories of life sufficiently daring to contemplate arresting this whitc-robad Englishwoman in the midst of her self-possessed and self-directing ways, appropriating and transferring her sweetness otherwhere. Letters proposing revolutions such as these find their way to zenana bungalows as surely as they do to other houses, with, I believe, the happiest results. There can arise, there often have arisen, in that wide and shining dreamland, the thoughts of woman, visions of the beauty of creating another home, the sound of voices calling — dream voices, tender voices— to whose claim even missionary women feel they must respond. Bat in passing from the one home to the other, the true -'^ --^ ^^ -^^^^», 64 ,44 MILLIONS WHO -^■^■^■^ zenana worker carries the old love, I'aith purposes and mission, '*''*> -»5-«^-^-»^ and lives as much as she lived before — though her feet tread -»5-»^-»)-*, -»5-^-»)-»5 different paths — 'to do the will of Him that sent her,' and 'to .^,^,.^,.^ .-»s.-»,,»,^r, I'nish His work.' She is for ever conscious that she belongs to ^^^^,^,^ ^9^^^-»,^ God, and that He entrusts her not onlv with the duties that -^-^-^^^ --»i --»! -♦) --^ ,.»5 -^ .-* ^») -^-»^-»)-^ spring from earthly love, but with a solemn wider charge, the -^-^-•^^•^ --^ "^ --^ --9^ --^ -^ -^ -^ -»b-»5-»i-») charge that comes from knowing His great redeeming purposes, .,^,^,,^.,^ - ^ ^ ^ A\'hile to one-half the Avorld they are unknown. Beside the " ' ^ ^ '^'*^'*^'*' beloved presence that has transformed her life, she is conscious -^-^.-^-^ ■'-^ --^ '-9^ --^ --^ ^♦^ -■♦) "-^i -»)'»)'»5'*i of the presence of India's girls and women — 145 million hearts ^»)-»)-»5-») ^^ --^ -"^ -'^ ^^ --^ '-^ ^♦j -^-»^-»i-»^ just like her own, but scarcely any of them living the free life ^^^^^^.,^ she lives, because so few among them know the Christ Avho --^^^-^^^ ^^.^5 1^]^ free. Millions of these women are shut np in zenanas --^-^-■^'^ "-^ --^ --^ --^ --^ --^ '-^ "9^ -*^^9-9>-»^ because they cannot be trusted with common liberty ; because -♦^-»^-»l-»^ '■'■^n -""^n '-'^^ -""^^ ^'9^ ■"'^^ ■'"^hi -"'^i -^-♦i-^b-^ the men of India liaA^e not been taug'ht by Christ to honour ^^,,^..^„^ womanhooi unseltishly. Over 144 millions of them can neither ^-W) --^ -^^ -^^ -"^ '-^ --^ '-^ -^-^-^-^ read nor write, and are not under any instruction. Something' --^-^-^-♦j --^ --^ --^ --^ -^ --^ -^ --^ -^-^-p^-»^ has come into this woman's life that constrains her to try and -^-»^-»5-^ --^ -^j --^ -^^ •'^ -"^ -'♦'. '■^ --^ ^^ .-^ .-^ --^ -'♦^ --♦^ --^ ^-9,^^-^^9, DIAGRAM SHOWING THE NUMKER OF IXDI.X's ^9^ ^9 ^»y ^9^ ^9 ^9 ^9, ^9 ^W, ^9> -^ >9 -^ -9 -^ -^ ■^■^■^^ '■"'■'" '^''^' "''"'EX-145 MILLIONS. ^9--9^-^^^--9^^^^^^^,^^ -9^ -9-9,-9 -'^"''' ''/ai'''' IC'tf rcf'irseuls J ,;/ id ^irts luho call ^ ^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^ _^^.^»._ «.«.«. 7t-a(i^ c'^ ^i't' uniter i istynetlol. ^»b --r^ --»5 -'♦i --»5'*-'^--»!--^-»)'»i-»l-»i-»)-^.-»5^»,,-»S,»,^ -'»i-'S^^-»s'*^ -9, -9> -9^ ^-»^-»5-»>->,-'»5-^^.-»>-»,-*,-»,^^,»,^' ,,^ ,^^ ,,^ ^^ ,^ ^-^ -^. --^ -9 -9 -9, -9, -9 -9i -9i .-^ -9i -9^ -9) -9 -9: -9, -9 -9, -9, -9, -9, —9 -9i -9 -9 -9. -9 -9 -9 -9 ^0^ ^^ ,-^ ^^ ^^ -9 -9 -9i -9, -9 '♦i -9, -9^ -9 -9, -9, -9, -9, -9, -9: -9, -9) -9 -9, -9, -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9, -9, -9, -9 -9 -9 -9^. -9, -9, -9) -9 -9 -9i -9; -9 -9, -*! -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9: -9 -9 -9, -9 -9 -9, -9, -9 -9 -9, -9 -9 -9 -9 -9, -9, -9 -9 -O^ -9 -9. -9 -9, -9 -9 -9 -9, -9, -9, -9, -9, -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9 -9, -9, -9, -9 -9 -9 -9, CANNOT READ OR WRITE 65 help these long neglected millions. She must, she cannot help it, if she be true to Christ. Have not you, too, felt that great compelling power ? Have you ever thought of where it is leading you, if you faithfully follow on ? Belonging as we do to Jesus Christ, pledged by vows of con- secration to His service, are not we women profoundly concerned in the fact that there is no greater hindrance to the coming of His Kingdom in India than India's women — women whom we idone can reach ? ' Woman,' writes Dr. ("icorye Smith, ' because she is ignorant, is tlie yreatest obstacle to the progress of the Gospel in India. She has no intellect to exercise, no hopes or fears, no amusements, or variety in her monotonous life, but the legends, the ceremonies, and the great periochcal festivals of Hindu idolatry. To her, immured in the female apartments, idolatry is all in all ; destroy it, and tliere is desolation in her heart. The picture of ^licah, the man of ther, in the Book of Judges, is a vivid representation of Hnidu life — the mother's curses of her son who took the silver meant for the fashioning of idols, her blessings when it was restored — "I had wholly dedicated the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son"; the "house of gods," the ephod and Teraphim, and the consecration of Micah's son again as priest ; and finally, the bitter cry when the idols were stolen — " Ye ha\c taken away my gods which 1 made, and the priest ; and wh.it have I more?" Take away her idols, and the cry of every one of the 145,000,000 females undci" our rule in India will be — What have I more? It is yours, it is the duty and privilege of every H1\DU WOM w n 1 N lULb CALL TO ANGLO- woman with our at the head, to ■e the women of India a know- ledge of Him who was made #' of a woman, that they may lia\-e the true option of sons, a trite saying Secure the nd you have the future gene- oh I how in- ■C"" tensely and peculiarly true is it of a vast society constituted as that of the Hindus is. Often I have spoken to young Hindus such as that <0^^'>'/ .?/' *^, A|V^.is( ^ ^v"* J<=^^' whom Jesus loved— students distin \^ ^ ' ^1 fr^ " '' . ^J^ guished in their colleges, and seething witl \ ''M * M. •^'^'" \ague aspirations after the true and the gooc h d -"Why not confess Christ, since you say you are His X^i'_^y . c^" at heart? Why continue with so much moral cowardice X>' -^"^ to take part in the daily offerings and periodical festivals to *^ idols ? Why not visit England, see its power, study in its schools, and return the free man you wish to be ? " Always the answer is "It would break my old mother's heart; when she dies I will think of it." But, practically, she never dies ; her evil female influence only passes to another, with more superstitious tj'ranny, with less natural affection ; and the result is, that a whole generation of educated youths, almost Christian, is living in, and hastening to death — still outwardly, idolaters. ' This, O ladies of Scotland and England, is your work, to convert the all- powerful influence of woman from the greatest obstacle into the most efficient aid in the great march of Indian progress. Till you do so, all the education of the men becomes to some e.xtent a curse, by widening the gap bet\\'een the se.\es, and driving the enlightened youths of India from the stupid dulness of their own homes to the haunts of the professionally abandoned /w/cvra:, who, in the modern as in the ancient heathen world, are the best educated and most polished of their sex. . . . ' Many young ladies, members of your society, or friends under your private influence, every year go out to India married, or to be married. Accustomed to the active work of Christian benevolence here — to Sabbath schools, district visiting, the comforting of the bereaved, and the succour of the poor — such ladies INDIAN LADIES by IJEttindisL For'-Work? M3 Schools '336 Popils '13380" Zenanas taught ■ 14858.' ' complain that, in the sohtude of an Indian station, and the lassitude of a tropical clime, they ha\-e nothing to do, nothiny to renew old memories of holy work, no practical duty to keep the flame of per- sonal piety burning in their breast. Indian ctinui or hcimiui'li seizes them, as it seizes only the idle and despondent, and they blame a land where every human being they meet, every idol house they see, cries to them for active care. ' If e\'ery Christian English lady in India devoted only one hour a week to the establishment and superintendence of a female school in her vicinity, whether in the city zenana or in the village hut, we should be able to s;iy with more certainty than at present, the re- demption of Ind.ia drawcth nigli.' Eig-ht years ago when the last count was made, over 700 Ibreign and Eurasian Christian women were at worlv in India for Indian women. They were tlien directing more than 300 native Bible women, tetiching over seventjr thousand children, and visiting more than thirtj^-two thousand shut-in zenana pupils. Their work, divided according to the Societies they represent, is shown on these eight little flags. Among them were fiftj^ ladj? doctors, nearly all in charge of hospitals or dispensaries, a lew of them in- dependent practitioners, but none the less doing genuine missionarjf work — just such work as might be done by the medical girl-students who read these lines. American women (like Dr. Julia Bissel of Ahmadnagar, and Dr. Pauline Root of Madura, whose portraits we annex) were the hrst to step out into this field of noble service, but English Societies have since taken up the work with great enthusiasm, and now have twice as many lady doctors in India. A mighty spiritual force lies _„^-^ behind all "* this service. There is no romance Ijaajaal about ze- nana work — daily visitation of ignorant ^ffiS^ native women, shut up in close small rooms; dull, fiBBnln patient, plodding toil at opening their childish minds iffll^^ to higher Pupils Kia Zenanas Vis^ 'sm ^yVomen^ .taujht" ''2*657 68 WHICH PARISH DR. PAULINE ROOT. ihings. Nothing- but tliL- love of Christ can sustain a person in it. ', Results come ver}' slow!}'. ' If 3'ou came often, our hearts would :\ get soft. You only come once a ' year, we forget,' said a native woman. But licv/ can they go often, if se\-en or eight hundred of them are to teach one hundred and forty-live millions ? Even the poor women need women workers if they are to be adecjuately reached ; though they mix in the iiie/ns where evangelistic work is done by men, their husbands do not like them to stand in a crowd to listen. Women must go to them if they are to learn of Christ. It IS otherwise at home. Yet here at home we find special work for women essential. Scores of associations exist in Eng- land for nothing but this work. More than 200,000 women are seeking every da}' to help our women and girls in England, one worker on an average to every fifty or so — a little scrap of a parish represented b\' the tiny Englishwoman's figure on the accompanying diagram. And this for countries that have had Chris- tianity for